It Is Not Safe Ever To Pass A Church In
Italy Without Exploring It Carefully.
The church may be new and
for the most part full of nothing but what is odious, but there is
no knowing what fragment of earlier work one may not find
preserved.
Signor Barelli, for this was our friend's name, now gave us some
prints of the sanctuary, one of which I reproduce on p. 240.
Behind the church there is a level piece of ground with a table and
stone seats round it. The view from here in fine weather is very
striking. As it was, however, it was perhaps hardly less fine than
in clear weather, for the clouds had now raised themselves a
little, though very little, above the sanctuary, but here and there
lay all ragged down below us, and cast beautiful reflected lights
upon the lake and town of Como.
Above, the heavens were still black and lowering. Over against us
was the Monte Generoso, very sombre, and scarred with snow-white
torrents; below, the dull, sullen slopes of the Monte Bisbino, and
the lake of Como; further on, the Mendrisiotto and the blue-black
plains of Lombardy. I have been at the top of the Monte Bisbino
several times, but never was more impressed with it. At all times,
however, it is a marvellous place.
Coming down we kept the ridge of the hill instead of taking the
path by which we ascended. Beautiful views of the monastery are
thus obtained. The flowers in spring must be very varied; and we
still found two or three large kinds of gentians and any number of
cyclamens. Presently Vela dug up a fern root of the common
Polypodium vulgare; he scraped it with his knife and gave us some
to eat. It is not at all bad, and tastes very much like liquorice.
Then we came upon the little chapel of S. Nicolao. I do not know
whether there is anything good inside or no. Then we reached Sagno
and returned to Mendrisio; as we re-crossed the stream between
Morbio Superiore and Castello we found it had become a raging
torrent, capable of any villainy.
CHAPTER XXI - A Day at the Cantine
Next day we went to breakfast with Professor Vela, the father of my
friend Spartaco, at Ligornetto. After we had admired the many fine
works which Professor Vela's studio contains, it was agreed that we
should take a walk by S. Agata, and spend the afternoon at the
cantine, or cellars where the wine is kept. Spartaco had two
painter friends staying with him whom I already knew, and a young
lady, his cousin; so we all went together across the meadows. I
think we started about one o'clock, and it was some three or four
by the time we got to the cantine, for we kept stopping continually
to drink wine. The two painter visitors had a fine comic vein, and
enlivened us continually with bits of stage business which were
sometimes uncommonly droll. We were laughing incessantly, but
carried very little away with us except that the drier one of the
two, who was also unfortunately deaf, threw himself into a
rhapsodical attitude with his middle finger against his cheek, and
his eyes upturned to heaven, but to make sure that his finger
should stick to his cheek he just wetted the end of it against his
tongue first. He did this with unruffled gravity, and as if it
were the only thing to do under the circumstances.
The young lady who was with us all the time enjoyed everything just
as much as we did; once, indeed, she thought they were going a
little too far - not as among themselves - but considering that there
were a couple of earnest-minded Englishmen with them: the pair had
begun a short performance which certainly did look as if it might
develop into something a little hazardous. "Minga far tutto," she
exclaimed rather promptly - "Don't do all." So what the rest would
have been we shall never know.
Then we came to some precipices, whereon it at once occurred to the
two comedians that they would commit suicide. The pathetic way in
which they shared the contents of their pockets among us, and came
back more than once to give little additional parting messages
which occurred to them just as they were about to take the fatal
plunge, was irresistibly comic, and was the more remarkable for the
spontaneousness of the whole thing and the admirable way in which
the pair played into one another's hands. The deaf one even played
his deafness, making it worse than it was so as to heighten the
comedy. By and by we came to a stile which they pretended to have
a delicacy in crossing, but the lady helped them over. We
concluded that if these young men were average specimens of the
Italian student - and I should say they were - the Italian character
has an enormous fund of pure love of fun - not of mischievous fun,
but of the very best kind of playful humour, such as I have never
seen elsewhere except among Englishmen.
Several times we stopped and had a bottle of wine at one place or
another, till at last we came to a beautiful shady place looking
down towards the lake of Lugano where we were to rest for half-an-
hour or so. There was a cantina here, so of course we had more
wine. In that air, and with the walk and incessant state of
laughter in which we were being kept, we might drink ad libitum,
and the lady did not refuse a second small bicchiere. On this our
deaf friend assumed an anxious, fatherly air. He said nothing, but
put his eyeglass in his eye, and looked first at the lady's glass
and then at the lady with an expression at once kind, pitying, and
pained; he looked backwards and forwards from the glass to the lady
more than once, and then made as though he were going to quit a
scene in which it was plain he could be of no further use, throwing
up his hands and eyes like the old steward in Hogarth's "Marriage a
la mode." They never seemed to tire, and every fresh incident at
once suggested its appropriate treatment.
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