The First Night I Was Ever In Piora There Was A Brilliant Moon, And
The Unruffled Surface Of The Lake Took The Reflection Of The
Mountains.
I could see the cattle a mile off, and hear the
tinkling of their bells which danced multitudinously before the ear
as fireflies come and go before the eyes; for all through a fine
summer's night the cattle will feed as though it were day.
A
little above the lake I came upon a man in a cave before a furnace,
burning lime, and he sat looking into the fire with his back to the
moonlight. He was a quiet moody man, and I am afraid I bored him,
for I could get hardly anything out of him but "Oh altro" - polite
but not communicative. So after a while I left him with his face
burnished as with gold from the fire, and his back silver with the
moonbeams; behind him were the pastures and the reflections in the
lake and the mountains; and the distant cowbells were ringing.
Then I wandered on till I came to the chapel of S. Carlo; and in a
few minutes found myself on the Lago di Cadagno. Here I heard that
there were people, and the people were not so much asleep as the
simple peasantry of these upland valleys are expected to be by nine
o'clock in the evening. For now was the time when they had moved
up from Ronco, Altanca, and other villages in some numbers to cut
the hay, and were living for a fortnight or three weeks in the
chalets upon the Lago di Cadagno.
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