A large place, this Corsanico, straggling about the
hill-top with scattered farms and gardens; to reach the
tobacconist - near whose house, by the way, you obtain an unexpected
glimpse into the valley of Cammaiore - is something of an excursion. As a
rule we repose, after luncheon, on a certain wooded knoll. We are high
up; seven or eight hundred feet above the canal. The blue Tyrrhenian is
dotted with steamers and sailing boats, and yonder lies Viareggio in its
belt of forest; far away, to the left, you discern the tower of Pisa. A
placid lake between the two, wood-engirdled, is now famous as being the
spot selected by the great Maestro Puccini to spend a summer month in
much-advertised seclusion. I am learning the name of every locality in
the plain, of every peak among the mountains at our back.
"And that little ridge of stone," says my companion, " - do you see it,
jutting into the fields down there? It has a queer name. We call it La
Sirena."
La Sirena....
It is good to live in a land where such memories cling to old rocks.
By what a chance has the name survived to haunt this inland crag,
defying geological changes, outlasting the generations of men, their
creeds and tongues and races! How it takes one back - back into hoary
antiquity, into another landscape altogether!
