I went with a short shadow, creeping when I could on the eastern side
of the street to save the sunlight; then I came to the main square,
and immediately on my left was the Albergo di Something-or-other, a
fine great hotel, but most unfortunately right facing the blazing sky.
I had to stop outside it to count my money. I counted it wrong and
entered. There I saw the master, who talked French.
'Can you in an hour,' said I, 'give me a meal to my order, then a bed,
though it is early day?' This absurd question I made less absurd by
explaining to him my purpose. How I was walking to Rome and how, being
northern, I was unaccustomed to such heat; how, therefore, I had
missed sleep, and would find it necessary in future to walk mainly by
night. For I had now determined to fill the last few marches up in
darkness, and to sleep out the strong hours of the sun.
All this he understood; I ordered such a meal as men give to beloved
friends returned from wars. I ordered a wine I had known long ago in
the valley of the Saone in the old time of peace before ever the Greek
came to the land. While they cooked it I went to their cool and
splendid cathedral to follow a late Mass. Then I came home and ate
their admirable food and drank the wine which the Burgundians had
trodden upon the hills of gold so many years before. They showed me a
regal kind of a room where a bed with great hangings invited repose.
All my days of marching, the dirty inns, the forests, the nights
abroad, the cold, the mists, the sleeplessness, the faintness, the
dust, the dazzling sun, the Apennines - all my days came over me, and
there fell on me a peaceful weight, as his two hundred years fell upon
Charlemagne in the tower of Saragossa when the battle was done; after
he had curbed the valley of Ebro and christened Bramimonde.
So I slept deeply all day long; and, outside, the glare made a silence
upon the closed shutters, save that little insects darted in the outer
air.
When I woke it was evening. So well had they used me that I paid what
they asked, and, not knowing what money remained over, I left their
town by the southern gate, crossed the railway and took the road.
My way lay under the flank of that mountain whereby the Luccans cannot
see Pisa, or the Pisans cannot see Lucca - it is all one to me, I shall
not live in either town, God willing; and if they are so eager to
squint at one another, in Heaven's name, cannot they be at the pains
to walk round the end of the hill?
