Just Before We
Stopped At San Sostene, He Presented Me With His Card - Why Had He
A Card?
- Which bore the name, De Luca Fedele.
A bright and
spirited lad, who seemed to have the best qualities of his nation; I
wish I might live to hear him spoken of as a man doing honour to
Italy.
At this station another travelling companion took the school-boy's
place; a priest, who soon addressed me in courteous talk. He
journeyed only for a short way, and, when alighting, pointed skyward
through the dark (night had fallen) to indicate his mountain parish
miles inland. He, too, offered me his card, adding a genial
invitation; I found he was Parroco (parish priest) of San Nicola at
Badolato. I would ask nothing better than to visit him, some
autumn-tide, when grapes are ripening above the Ionian Sea.
It was a wild night. When the rain at length ceased, lightning
flashed ceaselessly about the dark heights of Aspromonte; later, the
moon rose, and, sailing amid grandly illumined clouds, showed white
waves rolling in upon the beach. Wherever the train stopped, that
sea-music was in my ears - now seeming to echo a verse of Homer,
now the softer rhythm of Theocritus. Think of what one may in
day-time on this far southern shore, its nights are sacred to the
poets of Hellas. In rounding Cape Spartivento, I strained my eyes
through the moonlight - unhappily a waning moon, which had shone
with full orb the evening I ascended to Catanzaro - to see the
Sicilian mountains; at length they stood up darkly against the paler
night.
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