. . . I Remember A Night In September Of 1908, A Sunday Night, Fragrant With The Odours Of Withered Rosemary And Cistus And Fennel That Streamed In Aromatic Showers From The Scorched Heights Overhead - A Starlit Night, Tranquil And Calm.

Never had Messina appeared so attractive to me. Arriving there generally in the daytime and from larger and sprightlier centres of civilization, one is prone to notice only its defects.

But night, especially a southern night, has a wizard touch. It transforms into objects of mysterious beauty all unsightly things, or hides them clean away; while the nobler works of man, those facades and cornices and full-bellied balconies of cunningly wrought iron rise up, under its enchantment, ethereal as the palace of fairies. And coming, as I then did, from the sun-baked river-beds of Calabria, this place, with its broad and well-paved streets, its glittering cafes and demure throng of evening idlers, seemed a veritable metropolis, a world-city.

With deliberate slowness, ritardando con molto sentimento, I worked my way to the familiar restaurant.

At last! At last, after an interminable diet of hard bread, onions and goat's cheese, I was to enjoy the complicated menu mapped out weeks beforehand, after elaborate consideration and balancing of merits; so complicated, that its details have long ago lapsed from my memory. I recollect only the sword-fish, a local speciality, and (as crowning glory) the cassata alla siciliana, a glacial symphony, a multicoloured ice of commingling flavours, which requires far more time to describe than to devour.

Enter page number Go  Previous Next
Page 343 of 488
Words from 92152 to 92408 of 131203