Now Crossing The Stony Bed Of A Mountain Stream:
Now Low Down On The Beach:
Now winding among riven rocks of many
forms and colours:
Now chequered by a solitary ruined tower, one
of a chain of towers built, in old time, to protect the coast from
the invasions of the Barbary Corsairs--presents new beauties every
moment. When its own striking scenery is passed, and it trails on
through a long line of suburb, lying on the flat sea-shore, to
Genoa, then, the changing glimpses of that noble city and its
harbour, awaken a new source of interest; freshened by every huge,
unwieldy, half-inhabited old house in its outskirts: and coming to
its climax when the city gate is reached, and all Genoa with its
beautiful harbour, and neighbouring hills, bursts proudly on the
view.
CHAPTER V--TO PARMA, MODENA, AND BOLOGNA
I strolled away from Genoa on the 6th of November, bound for a good
many places (England among them), but first for Piacenza; for which
town I started in the coupe of a machine something like a
travelling caravan, in company with the brave Courier, and a lady
with a large dog, who howled dolefully, at intervals, all night.
It was very wet, and very cold; very dark, and very dismal; we
travelled at the rate of barely four miles an hour, and stopped
nowhere for refreshment. At ten o'clock next morning, we changed
coaches at Alessandria, where we were packed up in another coach
(the body whereof would have been small for a fly), in company with
a very old priest; a young Jesuit, his companion--who carried their
breviaries and other books, and who, in the exertion of getting
into the coach, had made a gash of pink leg between his black
stocking and his black knee-shorts, that reminded one of Hamlet in
Ophelia's closet, only it was visible on both legs--a provincial
Avvocato; and a gentleman with a red nose that had an uncommon and
singular sheen upon it, which I never observed in the human subject
before. In this way we travelled on, until four o'clock in the
afternoon; the roads being still very heavy, and the coach very
slow. To mend the matter, the old priest was troubled with cramps
in his legs, so that he had to give a terrible yell every ten
minutes or so, and be hoisted out by the united efforts of the
company; the coach always stopping for him, with great gravity.
This disorder, and the roads, formed the main subject of
conversation. Finding, in the afternoon, that the coupe had
discharged two people, and had only one passenger inside--a
monstrous ugly Tuscan, with a great purple moustache, of which no
man could see the ends when he had his hat on--I took advantage of
its better accommodation, and in company with this gentleman (who
was very conversational and good-humoured) travelled on, until
nearly eleven o'clock at night, when the driver reported that he
couldn't think of going any farther, and we accordingly made a halt
at a place called Stradella.
The inn was a series of strange galleries surrounding a yard where
our coach, and a waggon or two, and a lot of fowls, and firewood,
were all heaped up together, higgledy-piggledy; so that you didn't
know, and couldn't have taken your oath, which was a fowl and which
was a cart. We followed a sleepy man with a flaring torch, into a
great, cold room, where there were two immensely broad beds, on
what looked like two immensely broad deal dining-tables; another
deal table of similar dimensions in the middle of the bare floor;
four windows; and two chairs. Somebody said it was my room; and I
walked up and down it, for half an hour or so, staring at the
Tuscan, the old priest, the young priest, and the Avvocato (Red-
Nose lived in the town, and had gone home), who sat upon their
beds, and stared at me in return.
The rather dreary whimsicality of this stage of the proceedings, is
interrupted by an announcement from the Brave (he had been cooking)
that supper is ready; and to the priest's chamber (the next room
and the counterpart of mine) we all adjourn. The first dish is a
cabbage, boiled with a great quantity of rice in a tureen full of
water, and flavoured with cheese. It is so hot, and we are so
cold, that it appears almost jolly. The second dish is some little
bits of pork, fried with pigs' kidneys. The third, two red fowls.
The fourth, two little red turkeys. The fifth, a huge stew of
garlic and truffles, and I don't know what else; and this concludes
the entertainment.
Before I can sit down in my own chamber, and think it of the
dampest, the door opens, and the Brave comes moving in, in the
middle of such a quantity of fuel that he looks like Birnam Wood
taking a winter walk. He kindles this heap in a twinkling, and
produces a jorum of hot brandy and water; for that bottle of his
keeps company with the seasons, and now holds nothing but the
purest eau de vie. When he has accomplished this feat, he retires
for the night; and I hear him, for an hour afterwards, and indeed
until I fall asleep, making jokes in some outhouse (apparently
under the pillow), where he is smoking cigars with a party of
confidential friends. He never was in the house in his life
before; but he knows everybody everywhere, before he has been
anywhere five minutes; and is certain to have attracted to himself,
in the meantime, the enthusiastic devotion of the whole
establishment.
This is at twelve o'clock at night. At four o'clock next morning,
he is up again, fresher than a full-blown rose; making blazing
fires without the least authority from the landlord; producing mugs
of scalding coffee when nobody else can get anything but cold
water; and going out into the dark streets, and roaring for fresh
milk, on the chance of somebody with a cow getting up to supply it.
While the horses are 'coming,' I stumble out into the town too.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 23 of 72
Words from 22470 to 23516
of 73541
