A new type is being formed, cold and
loveless, with all the divinity drained out of them.
Having a long walk before me and being due home for luncheon, I rose to
depart, and in so doing bestowed a vigorous kick upon Barone, in order
to test the truth of his master's theory. It worked. The glowering and
snarling ceased. He was a good dog - almost human. I think, with a few
more kicks, he might have grown quite friendly.
Along that hot road the spectre of Zurich pursued me, in all its
starkness. A land without atmosphere, and deficient in every element of
the picturesque, whether of man or nature. Four harsh, dominant tones,
which never overlap or intermingle: blue sky, white snow, black
fir-woods, green fields, and, if you insist upon having a fifth, then
take - yes, take and keep - that theatrical pink Alpengluehen which is
turned on at fixed hours for the delectation of gaping tourists, like a
tap of strontium light or the display of electric fluid at Schaffhausen
Falls.
"Did you observe the illumination of the Falls, sir, last night?"
"How can one avoid seeing the beastly thing?"
"Ah! Then we must add two francs to the bill."
Many are the schools of art that have grown up in England and elsewhere
and flourished side by side, vying with one another to express the
protean graces of man, of architecture and domestic interior, of earth
and sky and sea. Where is the Swiss school? Where, in any public
gallery, will you find a masterpiece which triumphantly vindicates the
charm of Swiss scenery? You will, find it vindicated only on condensed
milk tins. These folks can write. My taste in lyrics may be peculiar,
but I used to love my Leuthold - I wish I had him here at this moment;
the bold strokes of Keller, the miniature work, the cameo-like touches,
of C. F. Meyer - they can write! They would doubtless paint, were there
anything to paint. Holbein: did the landscape of Switzerland seduce him?
And Boecklin? He fled out of its welter of raw materialism. Even his
Swiss landscapes are mediterraneanized. Boecklin - -
And here, as the name formulated itself, that little sprite of Brahms,
that intermezzo, once more leapt to my side out of the parched fields. I
imagine it came less for my sake than for the companionship of Boecklin.
They were comrades in the spirit; they understood. What one had heard,
the other beheld - shapes of mystery, that peer out of forest gloom and
the blue hush of midday and out of glassy waters - shapes that shudder
and laugh. No doubt you may detect a difference between Boecklin's
creations and those of classic days; it is as if the light of his
dreamings had filtered through some medium, some stained-glass window in
a Gothic church which distorted their outlines and rendered them
somewhat more grotesque. It is the hand of time. The world has aged. Yet
the shapes are young; they do but change their clothes and follow the
fashion in externals. They laugh as of old. How they laugh! No mortal
can laugh so heartily. No mortal has such good cause. Theirs is not the
serene mirth of Olympian spheres; it sounds demoniac, from the midway
region. What are they laughing at, these cheerful monsters? At the
greatest jest in the universe. At us....
That lake of Conterano - the accent is on the ante-penultima - it looked
appetising on the map, all alone out there. It attracted me strongly. I
pictured a placid expanse, an eye of blue, sleepily embowered among
wooded glens and throwing upward the gleam of its calm waters. Lakes are
so rare in Italy. During the whole of this summer I saw only one other,
fringed with the common English reed - two, rather, lying side by side,
one turbid and the other clear, and filling up two of those curious
circular depressions in the limestone. I rode past them on the watershed
behind Cineto Romano. These were sweet water. Of sulphur lakelets I also
saw two.
Sitting on a stone into which the coldness of midnight had entered
(Alatri lies at a good elevation) I awaited my companion in the dusk of
dawn. Soon enough, I knew, we should both be roasted. This half-hour's
shivering before sunrise in the square of Alatri, and listening to the
plash of the fountain, is one of those memories of the town which are
graven most clearly in my mind. I could point out, to-day, the very spot
whereon I sat.
We wandered along the Ferentino road to begin with, profiting by some
short cuts through chestnut woods; turned to the right, ever ascending,
behind that strange village of Fumone, aloft on its symmetrical hill;
thence by a mule-track onward. Many were the halts by the way. A decayed
roadside chapel with faded frescoes - a shepherd who played us some
melodies on his pipe - those wondrous red lilies, now in their prime,
glowing like lamps among the dark green undergrowth - the gateway of a
farmhouse being repaired - a reservoir of water full of newts - a
fascinating old woman who told us something about something - the distant
view upon the singular peak of Mount Cacume, they all gave us occasion
for lingering. Why not loaf and loiter in June? The days are so endless!
At last, through a gap in the landscape, we saw the lake at our feet,
simmering in the noonday beams - an everyday sheet of water, brown in
colour, with muddy banks and seemingly not a scrap of shade within
miles; one of those lakes which, by their periodical rising and sinking,
give so much trouble that there is talk, equally periodical, of draining
them off altogether.
