All the good specimens are gone!
That Pergola tavern deserves its name, the courtyard being overhung with
green vines and swelling clusters of grapes. The host is a canny old
boy, up to any joke and any devilry, I should say. He had already taken
a fancy to me on my first visit, for I cured his daughter Vanda of a
raging toothache by the application of glycerine and carbolic acid. We
went into his cellar, a dim tunnel excavated out of the soft tufa, from
whose darkest and chilliest recesses he drew forth a bottle of excellent
wine - it might have lain on a glacier, so cold it was. How thoughtful of
Providence to deposit this volcanic stuff within a stone's-throw of your
dining-table! Nobody need ice his wine at the Pergola.
After a capital repast I sallied forth late at night and walked,
striving to resemble a rich English tourist who has lost his way, along
the lonely road to Artena, in order to be assassinated by the deserters
or, failing that, to hear at least what these fellows have got to say
for themselves. My usual luck! Not a deserter was in sight.
Of my sleeping accommodation with certain old ladies, of what happened
to their little dog and of other matters trivial to the verge of
inanity, I may discourse upon the occasion of some later visit to
Valmontone.
