It is
at this point very narrow indeed, and shallow too; a mole, pierced at
either end with low arches, has here been thrown across it, and by
this mole the railway and the road pass over to the eastern shore. I
turned in this long causeway and noticed the northern view. On the
farther shore was an old village and some pleasure-houses of rich men
on the shore; the boats also were beginning to go about the water.
These boats were strange, unlike other boats; they were covered with
hoods, and looked like floating waggons. This was to shield the rowers
from the sun. Far off a man was sailing with a little brown
sprit-sail. It was morning, and all the world was alive.
Coffee in the village left me two francs and two pennies. I still
thought the thing could be done, so invigorating and deceiving are the
early hours, and coming farther down the road to an old and beautiful
courtyard on the left, I drew it, and hearing a bell at hand I saw a
tumble-down church with trees before it, and went in to Mass; and
though it was a little low village Mass, yet the priest had three
acolytes to serve it, and (true and gracious mark of a Catholic
country!) these boys were restless and distracted at their office.
You may think it trivial, but it was certainly a portent. One of the
acolytes had half his head clean shaved! A most extraordinary sight! I
could not take my eyes from it, and I heartily wished I had an
Omen-book with me to tell me what it might mean.
When there were oracles on earth, before Pan died, this sight would
have been of the utmost use. For I should have consulted the oracle
woman for a Lira - at Biasca for instance, or in the lonely woods of
the Cinder Mountain; and, after a lot of incense and hesitation, and
wrestling with the god, the oracle would have accepted Apollo and,
staring like one entranced, she would have chanted verses which,
though ambiguous, would at least have been a guide. Thus:
_Matutinus adest ubi Vesper, et accipiens te
Saepe recusatum voces intelligit hospes
Rusticus ignotas notas, ac flumina tellus
Occupat - In sancto tum, tum, stans
Aede caveto Tonsuram Hirsuti
Capitis, via namque pedestrem
Ferrea praeveniens cursum, peregrine, laborem_
Pro pietate tua inceptum frustratur, amore
Antiqui Ritus alto sub Numine Romae._
LECTOR. What Hoggish great Participles!
AUCTOR. Well, well, you see it was but a rustic oracle at 9 3/4 d. the
revelation, and even that is supposing silver at par. Let us translate
it for the vulgar:
When early morning seems but eve And they that still refuse receive:
When speech unknown men understand; And floods are crossed upon dry
land.
