And very
soon the long winter comes; chill tempests shake the trees and leaves
are scattered to earth; towards Yuletide some woodman of Viggianello
adventuring into these solitudes, and mindful of their green summer
revels, discovers his familiar sanctuary entombed up to the door-lintle
under a glittering sheet of snow. . . .
There was a little episode in the late afternoon. We had reached the
foot of the Gaudolino valley and begun the crossing of the plain, when
there met us a woman with dishevelled hair, weeping bitterly and showing
other signs of distress; one would have thought she had been robbed or
badly hurt. Not at all! Like the rest of us, she had attended the feast
and, arriving home with the first party, had been stopped at the
entrance of the town, where they had insisted upon fumigating her
clothes as a precaution against cholera, and those of her companions.
That was all. But the indignity choked her - she had run back to warn the
rest of us, all of whom were to be treated to the same outrage. Every
approach to Morano, she declared, was watched by doctors, to prevent
wary pilgrims from entering by unsuspected paths.
During her recital my muleteer had grown thoughtful.
"What's to be done?" he asked.
"I don't much mind fumigation," I replied.
