The Hither Side Of That Bank, I Say, Had Been Denuded Of Its Trees;
The Roots Of Secular Chestnuts Stood Like Graves Above The Dry Steep,
And Had Marked My Last Arduous Climb.
Now, at the summit, the highest
part was a line of cool forest, and the late afternoon mingled with
the sanctity of trees.
A genial dampness pervaded the earth beneath;
grasses grew, and there were living creatures in the shade.
Nor was this tenanted wood all the welcome I received on my entry into
Tuscany. Already I heard the noise of falling waters upon every side,
where the Serchio sprang from twenty sources on the southern slope,
and leapt down between mosses, and quarrelled, and overcame great
smooth dark rocks in busy falls. Indeed, it was like my own country in
the north, and a man might say to himself - 'After so much journeying,
perhaps I am in the Enchanted Wood, and may find at last the fairy
Melisaunde.'
A glade opened, and, the trees no longer hiding it, I looked down the
vale, which was the gate of Tuscany. There - high, jagged, rapt into
the sky - stood such a group of mountains as men dream of in good
dreams, or see in the works of painters when old age permits them
revelations. Their height was evident from the faint mist and grey of
their hues; their outline was tumultuous, yet balanced; full of
accident and poise. It was as though these high walls of Carrara, the
western boundary of the valley, had been shaped expressly for man, in
order to exalt him with unexpected and fantastic shapes, and to expand
his dull life with a permanent surprise. For a long time I gazed at
these great hills.
Then, more silent in the mind through their influence, I went down
past the speech and companionship of the springs of the Serchio, and
the chestnut trees were redolent of evening all round. Down the bank
to where the streams met in one, down the river, across its gaping,
ruinous bridge (which some one, generations ago, had built for the
rare travellers - there were then no main roads across the Apennine,
and perhaps this rude pass was in favour); down still more gently
through the narrow upper valley I went between the chestnut trees, and
calm went with me for a companion: and the love of men and the
expectation of good seemed natural to all that had been made in this
blessed place. Of Borda, where the peasants directed me, there is no
need to speak, till crossing the Serchio once more, this time on a
trestle bridge of wood, I passed by a wider path through the groves,
and entered the dear village of Sillano, which looks right into the
pure west. And the peaks are guardians all about it: the elder
brothers of this remote and secluded valley.
An inn received me: a great kitchen full of men and women talking, a
supper preparing, a great fire, meat smoking and drying in the
ingle-nook, a vast timbered roof going up into darkness:
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