The sun
was glorious, and not yet warm: it was too early for a meal. They gave
me a little cold meat and bread and wine, and seven francs stood out
dry above the falling tide of my money.
Here at Biasca the valley took on a different aspect. It became wider
and more of a countryside; the vast hills, receding, took on an
appearance of less familiar majesty, and because the trend of the
Ticino turned southerly some miles ahead the whole place seemed
enclosed from the world. One would have said that a high mountain
before me closed it in and rendered it unique and unknown, had not a
wide cleft in the east argued another pass over the hills, and
reminded me that there were various routes over the crest of the Alps.
Indeed, this hackneyed approach to Italy which I had dreaded and
despised and accepted only after a defeat was very marvellous, and
this valley of the Ticino ought to stand apart and be a commonwealth
of its own like Andorra or the Gresivaudan: the noble garden of the
Isere within the first gates of the Dauphine.
I was fatigued, and my senses lost acuteness. Still I noticed with
delight the new character of the miles I pursued. A low hill just
before me, jutting out apparently from the high western mountains,
forbade me to see beyond it. The plain was alluvial, while copses and
wood and many cultivated fields now found room where, higher up, had
been nothing but the bed of a torrent with bare banks and strips of
grass immediately above them; it was a place worthy of a special name
and of being one lordship and a countryside. Still I went on towards
that near boundary of the mountain spur and towards the point where
the river rounded it, the great barrier hill before me still seeming
to shut in the valley.
It was noon, or thereabouts, the heat was increasing (I did not feel
it greatly, for I had eaten and drunk next to nothing), when, coming
round the point, there opened out before me the great fan of the lower
valley and the widening and fruitful plain through which the Ticino
rolls in a full river to reach Lake Major, which is its sea.
Weary as I was, the vision of this sudden expansion roused me and made
me forget everything except the sight before me. The valley turned
well southward as it broadened. The Alps spread out on either side
like great arms welcoming the southern day; the wholesome and familiar
haze that should accompany summer dimmed the more distant mountains of
the lakes and turned them amethystine, and something of repose and of
distance was added to the landscape; something I had not seen for many
days. There was room in that air and space for dreams and for many
living men, for towns perhaps on the slopes, for the boats of happy
men upon the waters, and everywhere for crowded and contented living.
History might be in all this, and I remembered it was the entry and
introduction of many armies. Singing therefore a song of Charlemagne,
I swung on in a good effort to where, right under the sun, what seemed
a wall and two towers on a sharp little hillock set in the bosom of
the valley showed me Bellinzona. Within the central street of that
city, and on its shaded side, I sank down upon a bench before the
curtained door of a drinking booth and boasted that I had covered in
that morning my twenty-five miles.
The woman of the place came out to greet me, and asked me a question.
I did not catch it (for it was in a foreign language), but guessing
her to mean that I should take something, I asked for vermouth, and
seeing before me a strange door built of red stone, I drew it as I
sipped my glass and the woman talked to me all the while in a language
I could not understand. And as I drew I became so interested that I
forgot my poverty and offered her husband a glass, and then gave
another to a lounging man that had watched me at work, and so from
less than seven francs my money fell to six exactly, and my pencil
fell from my hand, and I became afraid.
'I have done a foolish thing,' said I to myself, 'and have endangered
the success of my endeavour. Nevertheless, that cannot now be
remedied, and I must eat; and as eating is best where one has friends
I will ask a meal of this woman.'
Now had they understood French I could have bargained and chosen; as
it was I had to take what they were taking, and so I sat with them as
they all came out and ate together at the little table. They had soup
and flesh, wine and bread, and as we ate we talked, not understanding
each other, and laughing heartily at our mutual ignorance. And they
charged me a franc, which brought my six francs down to five. But I,
knowing my subtle duty to the world, put down twopence more, as I
would have done anywhere else, for a _pour boire;_ and so with four
francs and eighty centimes left, and with much less than a third of my
task accomplished I rose, now drowsy with the food and wine, and
saluting them, took the road once more.
But as I left Bellinzona there was a task before me which was to bring
my poverty to the test; for you must know that my map was a bad one,
and on a very small scale, and the road from Bellinzona to Lugano has
a crook in it, and it was essential to find a short cut.
