They are not walls. They are
precipices. And our water is colder than the Acqua Marcia."
"Walls and water say little to me. But if the town produces other
citizens like yourself - - "
"It does indeed! I am the least of the sons of Alatri."
"Then it must be worthy of a visit...."
In the hottest hour of the afternoon they deposited me outside the city
gate at some new hotel - I forget its name - to which I promptly took an
unreasoning dislike. There was a fine view upon the mountains from the
window of the room assigned to me, but nothing could atone for that lack
of individuality which seemed to exhale from the establishment and its
proprietors. It looked as though I were to be a cypher here. Half an
hour was as much as I could endure. Issuing forth despite the heat, I
captured a young fellow and bade him carry my bags whithersoever he
pleased. He took me to the Albergo della - -
The Albergo della - - is a shy and retiring hostelry, invisible as such
to the naked eye, since it bears no sign of being a place of public
entertainment at all. Here was individuality, and to spare. Mine host is
an improvement even upon him of the Pergola at Valmontone; a man after
my own heart, with merry eyes, drooping white moustache and a lordly
nose - a nose of the right kind, a flame-tinted structure which must have
cost years of patient labour to bring to its present state of
blossoming. That nose! I felt as though I could dwell for ever beneath
its shadow. The fare, however, is not up to the standard of the
"Garibaldi" inn at Frosinone which I have just left.
Now Frosinone is no tourist resort. It is rather a dull little place; I
am never likely to go there again, and have therefore no reason for
keeping to myself its "Garibaldi" hotel which leaves little to be
desired, even under these distressful war-conditions. It set me
thinking - thinking that there are not many townlets of this size in
rural England which can boast of inns comparable to the "Garibaldi" in
point of cleanliness, polite attention, varied and good food, reasonable
prices. Not many; perhaps very few. One remembers a fair number of the
other kind, however; that kind where the fare is monotonous and badly
cooked, the attendance supercilious or inefficient, and where you have
to walk across a cold room at night - refinement of torture - in order to
turn out the electric light ere going to bed. That infamy is alone
enough to condemn these establishments, one and all.
Yes! And the beds; those frowsy, creaky, prehistoric wooden concerns,
always six or eight inches too short, whose mattresses have not been
turned round since they were made. What happens? You clamber into such a
receptacle and straightway roll downhill, down into its centre, into a
kind of river-bed where you remain fixed fast, while that monstrous
feather-abomination called a pillow, yielding to pressure, rises up on
either side of your head and engulfs eyes and nose and everything else
into its folds.
