I sang easily with an open
throat everything that I could remember in praise of joy; and I did
not spare the choruses of my songs, being even at pains to imitate
(when they were double) the various voices of either part.
Now, so much of the Englishman was in me that, coming round a corner
of rock from which one first sees Beduzzo hanging on its ledge (as you
know), and finding round this corner a peasant sitting at his ease, I
was ashamed. For I did not like to be overheard singing fantastic
songs. But he, used to singing as a solitary pastime, greeted me, and
we walked along together, pointing out to each other the glories of
the world before us and exulting in the morning. It was his business
to show me things and their names: the great Mountain of the
Pilgrimage to the South, the strange rock of Castel-Nuovo; in the far
haze the plain of Parma; and Tizzano on its high hill, the ridge
straight before me. He also would tell me the name in Italian of the
things to hand - my boots, my staff, my hat; and I told him their names
in French, all of which he was eager to learn.
We talked of the way people here tilled and owned ground, of the
dangers in the hills, and of the happiness of lonely men. But if you
ask how we understood each other, I will explain the matter to you.
In Italy, in the Apennines of the north, there seem to be three strata
of language. In the valleys the Italian was pure, resonant, and
foreign to me. There dwell the townsmen, and they deal down river
with the plains. Half-way up (as at Frangi, at Beduzzo, at Tizzano) I
began to understand them. They have the nasal 'n'; they clip their
words. On the summits, at last, they speak like northerners, and I was
easily understood, for they said not _'vino' _but _'vin';_ not _'duo'_
but _'du'_, and so forth. They are the Gauls of the hills. I told them
so, and they were very pleased.
Then I and my peasant parted, but as one should never leave a man
without giving him something to show by way of token on the Day of
Judgement, I gave this man a little picture of Milan, and bade him
keep it for my sake.
So he went his way, and I mine, and the last thing he said to me was
about a _'molinar'_, but I did not know what that meant.
When I had taken a cut down the mountain, and discovered a highroad at
the bottom, I saw that the river before me needed fording, like all
the rest; and as my map showed me there was no bridge for many miles
down, I cast about to cross directly, if possible on some man's
shoulders.
I met an old woman with a heap of grass on her back; I pointed to the
river, and said (in Lingua Franca) that I wished to cross. She again
used that word _'molinar',_ and I had an inkling that it meant
'miller'. I said to myself -
'Where there is a miller there is a mill. For _Ubi Petrus ibi
Ecclesia._ Where there is a mill there is water; a mill must have
motive power: .'. (a) I must get near the stream; (b) I must look out
for the noise and aspect of a mill.
I therefore (thanking the grass-bearing woman) went right over the
fields till I saw a great, slow mill-wheel against a house, and a sad
man standing looking at it as though it were the Procession of God's
Providence. He was thinking of many things. I tapped him on the
shoulder (whereat he started) and spoke the great word of that valley,
_'molinar'_. It opened all the gates of his soul. He smiled at me like
a man grown young again, and, beckoning me to follow, led radiantly up
the sluice to where it drew from the river.
Here three men were at work digging a better entry for the water. One
was an old, happy man in spectacles, the second a young man with
stilts in his hands, the third was very tall and narrow; his face was
sad, and he was of the kind that endure all things and conquer. I said
'_Molinar_?'' I had found him.
To the man who had brought me I gave 50 c., and so innocent and good
are these people that he said _'Pourquoi?'_ or words like it, and I
said it was necessary. Then I said to the molinar, _'Quanta?'_ and he,
holding up a tall finger, said '_Una Lira'._ The young man leapt on to
his stilts, the molinar stooped down and I got upon his shoulders, and
we all attempted the many streams of the river Parma, in which I think
I should by myself have drowned.
I say advisedly - 'I should have been drowned.' These upper rivers of
the hills run high and low according to storms and to the melting of
the snows. The river of Parma (for this torrent at last fed Parma)
was higher than the rest.
Even the molinar, the god of that valley, had to pick his way
carefully, and the young man on stilts had to go before, much higher
than mortal men, and up above the water. I could see him as he went,
and I could see that, to tell the truth, there was a ford - a rare
thing in upper waters, because in the torrent-sources of rivers either
the upper waters run over changeless rocks or else over gravel and
sand. Now if they run over rocks they have their isolated shallow
places, which any man may find, and their deep - evident by the still
and mysterious surface, where fish go round and round in the hollows;
but no true ford continuous from side to side.
