"Barone" is
the brute's name. I had intended to clamber down and see whether the
rock-surface bears any traces of human workmanship; the rock-surface, I
now decide, may take care of itself. It has waited for me so long. It
can wait a little longer.
"Does that beast of yours eat Christians?"
"He? He is a perfect capo di c - - . That is his trick, to prevent people
from kicking him. They think he can bite."
I produce half a cigar which he crushes up into his black clay pipe.
"Yours is not a bad life."
"One lives. But I had better times in Zurich."
He had stayed there awhile, working in some factory. He praised its
food, its beer, its conveniences.
Zurich: incongruous image! Straightway I was transported from this
harmonious desolation of Ferento; I lost sight of yonder clump of
withering thistles - thistles of recent growth; you could sit, you could
stand, in their shade - and found myself glancing over a leaden lake and
wandering about streets full of ill-dressed and ungracious folk;
escaping thence further afield, into featureless hills encrusted with
smug, tawdry villas and drinking-booths smothered under noisome
horse-chestnuts and Virginia creepers.
