Nor
was that calculation all. The satisfaction of the last lap, of the
home run, went with the word Tuscany in my mind; these cities were the
approaches and introduction of the end.
When I had slept out the heat, I followed the woods upward through the
afternoon. They stood tangled and huge, and the mosses under them were
thick and silent, because in this last belt of the mountains height
and coolness reproduced the north. A charcoal burner was making his
furnace; after that for the last miles there was no sound. Even the
floor of the vale was a depth of grass, and no torrent ran in it but
only a little hidden stream, leafy like our streams at home.
At last the steep bank, a wall at the end of the valley, rose
immediately above me. It was very steep and bare, desolate with the
many stumps of trees that had been cut down; but all its edge and
fringe against the sky was the line of a deep forest.
After its laborious hundreds of feet, when the forest that crowned it
evenly was reached, the Apennines were conquered, the last great range
was passed, and there stood no barrier between this high crest and
Rome.
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: there I was
courteously received, but no one understood my language. Seeing there
a young priest, I said to him -
_'Pater, habeo linguam latinam, sed non habeo linguam Italicam. Visne
mi dare traductionem in istam linguam Toscanam non nullorum
verborum?'_
To this he replied, _'Libenter,'_ and the people revered us both. Thus
he told me the name for a knife was _cultello;_ for a room, _camera
par domire;_ for 'what is it called?' _'come si chiama?';_ for 'what
is the road to?' _'quella e la via a ...?'_ and other phrases wherein,
no doubt, I am wrong; but I only learnt by ear.
Then he said to me something I did not understand, and I answered,
_'Pol-Hercle!'_ at which he seemed pleased enough.
Then, to make conversation, I said, _'Diaconus es?'_
And he answered me, mildly and gravely, _'Presbyter sum.'_
And a little while after he left for his house, but I went out on to
the balcony, where men and women were talking in subdued tones. There,
alone, I sat and watched the night coming up into these Tuscan hills.
The first moon since that waning in Lorraine - (how many nights ago,
how many marches!) - hung in the sky, a full crescent, growing into
brightness and glory as she assumed her reign.
