The Fastness Of Sant' Angelo, Metropolis Of European Angel-Worship, Has
Grown Up Around This "Devout And Honourable Cave"; On Sunny Days Its
Houses Are Clearly Visible From Man-Fredonia.
They who wish to pay their
devotions at the shrine cannot do better than take with them
Gregorovius, as cicerone and mystagogue.
Vainly I waited for a fine day to ascend the heights. At last I
determined to have done with the trip, be the weather what it might. A
coachman was summoned and negotiations entered upon for starting next
morning.
Sixty-five francs, he began by telling me, was the price paid by an
Englishman last year for a day's visit to the sacred mountain. It may
well be true - foreigners will do anything, in Italy. Or perhaps it was
only said to "encourage" me. But I am rather hard to encourage,
nowadays. I reminded the man that there was a diligence service there
and back for a franc and a half, and even that price seemed rather
extortionate. I had seen so many holy grottos in my life! And who, after
all, was this Saint Michael? The Eternal Father, perchance? Nothing of
the kind: just an ordinary angel! We had dozens of them, in England.
Fortunately, I added, I had already received an offer to join one of the
private parties who drive up, fourteen or fifteen persons behind
one diminutive pony - and that, as he well knew, would be a matter of
only a few pence. And even then, the threatening sky . . . Yes, on
second thoughts, it was perhaps wisest to postpone the excursion
altogether. Another day, if God wills! Would he accept this cigar as a
recompense for his trouble in coming?
In dizzy leaps and bounds his claims fell to eight francs. It was the
tobacco that worked the wonder; a gentleman who will give something for
nothing (such was his logic) - well, you never know what you may not get
out of him. Agree to his price, and chance it!
He consigned the cigar to his waistcoat pocket to smoke after dinner,
and departed - vanquished, but inwardly beaming with bright anticipation.
A wretched morning was disclosed as I drew open the shutters - gusts of
rain and sleet beating against the window-panes. No matter: the carriage
stood below, and after that customary and hateful apology for breakfast
which suffices to turn the thoughts of the sanest man towards themes of
suicide and murder - when will southerners learn to eat a proper
breakfast at proper hours? - we started on our journey. The sun came out
in visions of tantalizing briefness, only to be swallowed up again in
driving murk, and of the route we traversed I noticed only the old stony
track that cuts across the twenty-one windings of the new carriage-road
here and there. I tried to picture to myself the Norman princes, the
emperors, popes, and other ten thousand pilgrims of celebrity crawling
up these rocky slopes - barefoot - on such a day as this.
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