Peering ahead, Alvina thought she saw the hollow between the peaks, which was the top of the pass. And every time the omnibus took a new turn, she thought it was coming out on the top of this hollow between the heights. But no — the road coiled right away again.
A wild little village came in sight. This was the destination. Again no. Only the tall, handsome mountain youth who had sat across from her, descended grumbling because the ‘bus had brought him past his road, the driver having refused to pull up. Everybody expostulated with him, and he dropped into the shadow. The big priest squeezed into his place. The ‘bus wound on and on, and always towards that hollow sky-line between the high peaks.
At last they ran up between buildings nipped between high rock-faces, and out into a little market-place, the crown of the pass. The luggage was got out and lifted down. Alvina descended. There she was, in a wild centre of an old, unfinished little mountain town. The facade of a church rose from a small eminence. A white road ran to the right, where a great open valley showed faintly beyond and beneath. Low, squalid sort of buildings stood around — with some high buildings. And there were bare little trees. The stars were in the sky, the air was icy. People stood darkly, excitedly about, women with an odd, shell-pattern head-dress of gofered linen, something like a parlour-maid’s cap, came and stared hard. They were hard-faced mountain women.
Pancrazio was talking to Ciccio in dialect.
“I couldn’t get a cart to come down,” he said in English. “But I shall find one here. Now what will you do? Put the luggage in Grazia’s place while you wait? — ”
They went across the open place to a sort of shop called the Post Restaurant. It was a little hole with an earthen floor and a smell of cats. Three crones were sitting over a low brass brazier, in which charcoal and ashes smouldered. Men were drinking. Ciccio ordered coffee with rum — and the hard-faced Grazia, in her unfresh head-dress, dabbled the little dirty coffee-cups in dirty water, took the coffee-pot out of the ashes, poured in the old black boiling coffee three parts full, and slopped the cup over with rum. Then she dashed in a spoonful of sugar, to add to the pool in the saucer, and her customers were served.
However, Ciccio drank up, so Alvina did likewise, burning her lips smartly. Ciccio paid and ducked his way out.
“Now what will you buy?” asked Pancrazio.
“Buy?” said Ciccio.
“Food,” said Pancrazio. “Have you brought food?”
“No,” said Ciccio.
So they trailed up stony dark ways to a butcher, and got a big red slice of meat; to a baker, and got enormous flat loaves. Sugar and coffee they bought. And Pancrazio lamented in his elegant English that no butter was to be obtained. Everywhere the hard-faced women came and stared into Alvina’s face, asking questions. And both Ciccio and Pancrazio answered rather coldly, with some hauteur. There was evidently not too much intimacy between the people of Pescocalascio and these semi-townfolk of Ossona. Alvina felt as if she were in a strange, hostile country, in the darkness of the savage little mountain town.
At last they were ready. They mounted into a two-wheeled cart, Alvina and Ciccio behind, Pancrazio and the driver in front, the luggage promiscuous. The bigger things were left for the morrow. It was icy cold, with a flashing darkness. The moon would not rise till later.
And so, without any light but that of the stars, the cart went spanking and rattling downhill, down the pale road which wound down the head of the valley to the gulf of darkness below. Down in the darkness into the darkness they rattled, wildly, and without heed, the young driver making strange noises to his dim horse, cracking a whip and asking endless questions of Pancrazio.
Alvina sat close to Ciccio. He remained almost impassive. The wind was cold, the stars flashed. And they rattled down the rough, broad road under the rocks, down and down in the darkness. Ciccio sat crouching forwards, staring ahead. Alvina was aware of mountains, rocks, and stars.
“I didn’t know it was so _wild!_” she said.
“It is not much,” he said. There was a sad, plangent note in his voice. He put his hand upon her.
“You don’t like it?” he said.
“I think it’s lovely — wonderful,” she said, dazed.
He held her passionately. But she did not feel she needed protecting. It was all wonderful and amazing to her. She could not understand why he seemed upset and in a sort of despair. To her there was magnificence in the lustrous stars and the steepnesses, magic, rather terrible and grand.
They came down to the level valley bed, and went rolling along. There was a house, and a lurid red fire burning outside against the wall, and dark figures about it.
“What is that?” she said. “What are they doing?”
“I don’t know,” said Ciccio. “Cosa fanno li — eh?”
“Ka — ? Fanno it buga’ — ” said the driver.
“They are doing some washing,” said Pancrazio, explanatory. “Washing!” said Alvina.
“Boiling the clothes,” said Ciccio.
On the cart rattled and bumped, in the cold night, down the highway in the valley. Alvina could make out the darkness of the slopes. Overhead she saw the brilliance of Orion. She felt she was quite, quite lost. She had gone out of the world, over the border, into some place of mystery. She was lost to Woodhouse, to Lancaster, to England — all lost.
They passed through a darkness of woods, with a swift sound of cold water. And then suddenly the cart pulled up. Some one came out of a lighted doorway in the darkness.
“We must get down here — the cart doesn’t go any further,” said Pancrazio.
“Are we there?” said Alvina.
“No, it is about a mile. But we must leave the cart.”
Ciccio asked questions in Italian. Alvina climbed down.
“Good-evening! Are you cold?” came a loud, raucous, American-Italian female voice. It was another relation of Ciccio’s. Alvina stared and looked at the handsome, sinister, raucous-voiced young woman who stood in the light of the doorway.
“Rather cold,” she said.
“Come in, and warm yourself,” said the young woman.
“My sister’s husband lives here,” explained Pancrazio.
Alvina went through the doorway into the room. It was a sort of inn. On the earthen floor glowed a great round pan of charcoal, which looked like a flat pool of fire. Men in hats and cloaks sat at a table playing cards by the light of a small lamp, a man was pouring wine. The room seemed like a cave.
“Warm yourself,” said the young woman, pointing to the flat disc of fire on the floor. She put a chair up to it, and Alvina sat down. The men in the room stared, but went on noisily with their cards. Ciccio came in with luggage. Men got up and greeted him effusively, watching Alvina between whiles as if she were some alien creature. Words of American sounded among the Italian dialect.
There seemed to be a confab of some sort, aside. Ciccio came and said to her:
“They want to know if we will stay the night here.”
“I would rather go on home,” she said.
He averted his face at the word home.
“You see,” said Pancrazio, “I think you might be more comfortable here, than in my poor house. You see I have no woman to care for it — ”
Alvina glanced round the cave of a room, at the rough fellows in their black hats. She was thinking how she would be “more comfortable” here.
“I would rather go on,” she said.
“Then we will get the donkey,” said Pancrazio stoically. And Alvina followed him out on to the high-road.
From a shed issued a smallish, brigand-looking fellow carrying a lantern. He had his cloak over his nose and his hat over his eyes. His legs were bundled with white rag, crossed and crossed with hide straps, and he was shod in silent skin sandals.
“This is my brother Giovanni,” said Pancrazio. “He is not quite sensible.” Then he broke into a loud flood of dialect.
Giovanni touched his hat to Alvina, and gave the lantern t
o Pancrazio. Then he disappeared, returning in a few moments with the ass. Ciccio came out with the baggage, and by the light of the lantern the things were slung on either side of the ass, in a rather precarious heap. Pancrazio tested the rope again.
“There! Go on, and I shall come in a minute.”
“Ay-er-er!” cried Giovanni at the ass, striking the flank of the beast. Then he took the leading rope and led up on the dark highway, stalking with his dingy white legs under his muffled cloak, leading the ass. Alvina noticed the shuffle of his skin-sandalled feet, the quiet step of the ass.
She walked with Ciccio near the side of the road. He carried the lantern. The ass with its load plodded a few steps ahead. There were trees on the road-side, and a small channel of invisible but noisy water. Big rocks jutted sometimes. It was freezing, the mountain high-road was congealed. High stars flashed overhead.
“How strange it is!” said Alvina to Ciccio. “Are you glad you have come home?”
“It isn’t my home,” he replied, as if the word fretted him. “Yes, I like to see it again. But it isn’t the place for young people to live in. You will see how you like it.”
She wondered at his uneasiness. It was the same in Pancrazio. The latter now came running to catch them up.
“I think you will be tired,” he said. “You ought to have stayed at my relation’s house down there.”
“No, I am not tired,” said Alvina. “But I’m hungry.”
“Well, we shall eat something when we come to my house.”
They plodded in the darkness of the valley high-road. Pancrazio took the lantern and went to examine the load, hitching the ropes. A great flat loaf fell out, and rolled away, and smack came a little valise. Pancrazio broke into a flood of dialect to Giovanni, handing him the lantern. Ciccio picked up the bread and put it under his arm.
“Break me a little piece,” said Alvina.
And in the darkness they both chewed bread.
After a while, Pancrazio halted with the ass just ahead, and took the lantern from Giovanni.
“We must leave the road here,” he said.
And with the lantern he carefully, courteously showed Alvina a small track descending in the side of the bank, between bushes. Alvina ventured down the steep descent, Pancrazio following showing a light. In the rear was Giovanni, making noises at the ass. They all picked their way down into the great white-bouldered bed of a mountain river. It was a wide, strange bed of dry boulders, pallid under the stars. There was a sound of a rushing river, glacial-sounding. The place seemed wild and desolate. In the distance was a darkness of bushes, along the far shore.
Pancrazio swinging the lantern, they threaded their way through the uneven boulders till they came to the river itself — not very wide, but rushing fast. A long, slender, drooping plank crossed over. Alvina crossed rather tremulous, followed by Pancrazio with the light, and Ciccio with the bread and the valise. They could hear the click of the ass and the ejaculations of Giovanni.
Pancrazio went back over the stream with the light. Alvina saw the dim ass come up, wander uneasily to the stream, plant his fore legs, and sniff the water, his nose right down.
“Er! Err!” cried Pancrazio, striking the beast on the flank.
But it only lifted its nose and turned aside. It would not take the stream. Pancrazio seized the leading rope angrily and turned upstream.
“Why were donkeys made! They are beasts without sense,” his voice floated angrily across the chill darkness.
Ciccio laughed. He and Alvina stood in the wide, stony river-bed, in the strong starlight, watching the dim figures of the ass and the men crawl upstream with the lantern.
Again the same performance, the white muzzle of the ass stooping down to sniff the water suspiciously, his hind-quarters tilted up with the load. Again the angry yells and blows from Pancrazio. And the ass seemed to be taking the water. But no! After a long deliberation he drew back. Angry language sounded through the crystal air. The group with the lantern moved again upstream, becoming smaller.
Alvina and Ciccio stood and watched. The lantern looked small up the distance. But there — a clocking, shouting, splashing sound. “He is going over,” said Ciccio.
Pancrazio came hurrying back to the plank with the lantern. “Oh the stupid beast! I could kill him!” cried he.
“Isn’t he used to the water?” said Alvina.
“Yes, he is. But he won’t go except where he thinks he will go. You might kill him before he should go.”
They picked their way across the river bed, to the wild scrub and bushes of the farther side. There they waited for the ass, which came up clicking over the boulders, led by the patient Giovanni. And then they took a difficult, rocky track ascending between banks. Alvina felt the uneven scramble a great effort. But she got up. Again they waited for the ass. And then again they struck off to the right, under some trees.
A house appeared dimly.
“Is that it?” said Alvina.
“No. It belongs to me. But that is not my house. A few steps further. Now we are on my land.”
They were treading a rough sort of grass-land — and still climbing. It ended in a sudden little scramble between big stones, and suddenly they were on the threshold of a quite important-looking house: but it was all dark.
“Oh!” exclaimed Pancrazio, “they have done nothing that I told them.” He made queer noises of exasperation.
“What?” said Alvina.
“Neither made a fire nor anything. Wait a minute — ”
The ass came up. Ciccio, Alvina, Giovanni and the ass waited in the frosty starlight under the wild house. Pancrazio disappeared round the back. Ciccio talked to Giovanni. He seemed uneasy, as if he felt depressed.
Pancrazio returned with the lantern, and opened the big door. Alvina followed him into a stone-floored, wide passage, where stood farm implements, where a little of straw and beans lay in a corner, and whence rose bare wooden stairs. So much she saw in the glimpse of lantern-light, as Pancrazio pulled the string and entered the kitchen: a dim-walled room with a vaulted roof and a great dark, open hearth, fireless: a bare room, with a little rough dark furniture: an unswept stone floor: iron-barred windows, rather small, in the deep-thickness of the wall, one-half shut with a drab shutter. It was rather like a room on the stage, gloomy, not meant to be lived in.
“I will make a light,” said Pancrazio, taking a lamp from the mantelpiece, and proceeding to wind it up.
Ciccio stood behind Alvina, silent. He had put down the bread and valise on a wooden chest. She turned to him.
“It’s a beautiful room,” she said.
Which, with its high, vaulted roof, its dirty whitewash, its great black chimney, it really was. But Ciccio did not understand. He smiled gloomily.
The lamp was lighted. Alvina looked round in wonder.
“Now I will make a fire. You, Ciccio, will help Giovanni with the donkey,” said Pancrazio, scuttling with the lantern.
Alvina looked at the room. There was a wooden settle in front of the hearth, stretching its back to the room. There was a little table under a square, recessed window, on whose sloping ledge were newspapers, scattered letters, nails and a hammer. On the table were dried beans and two maize cobs. In a corner were shelves, with two chipped enamel plates, and a small table underneath, on which stood a bucket of water with a dipper. Then there was a wooden chest, two little chairs, and a litter of faggots, cane, wine-twigs, bare maize-hubs, oak-twigs filling the corner by the hearth.
Pancrazio came scrambling in with fresh faggots.
“They have not done what I told them, the tiresome people!” he said. “I told them to make a fire and prepare the house. You will be uncomfortable in my poor home. I have no woman, nothing, everything is wrong — ”
He broke the pieces of cane and kindled them in the hearth. Soon there was a good blaze. Ciccio came in with the bags and the food.
“I had better go upstairs and take my things off,” said Alvina. “I am so hungry.
”
“You had better keep your coat on,” said Pancrazio. “The room is cold.” Which it was, ice-cold. She shuddered a little. She took off her hat and fur.
“Shall we fry some meat?” said Pancrazio.
He took a frying-pan, found lard in the wooden chest — it was the food-chest — and proceeded to fry pieces of meat in a frying-pan over the fire. Alvina wanted to lay the table. But there was no cloth.
“We will sit here, as I do, to eat,” said Pancrazio. He produced two enamel plates and one soup-plate, three penny iron forks and two old knives, and a little grey, coarse salt in a wooden bowl. These he placed on the seat of the settle in front of the fire. Ciccio was silent.
The settle was dark and greasy. Alvina feared for her clothes. But she sat with her enamel plate and her impossible fork, a piece of meat and a chunk of bread, and ate. It was difficult — but the food was good, and the fire blazed. Only there was a film of wood-smoke in the room, rather smarting. Ciccio sat on the settle beside her, and ate in large mouthfuls.
“I think it’s fun,” said Alvina.
He looked at her with dark, haunted, gloomy eyes. She wondered what was the matter with him.
“Don’t you think it’s fun?” she said, smiling.
He smiled slowly.
“You won’t like it,” he said.
“Why not?” she cried, in panic lest he prophesied truly.
Pancrazio scuttled in and out with the lantern. He brought wrinkled pears, and green, round grapes, and walnuts, on a white cloth, and presented them.
“I think my pears are still good,” he said. “You must eat them, and excuse my uncomfortable house.”
Giovanni came in with a big bowl of soup and a bottle of milk. There was room only for three on the settle before the hearth. He pushed his chair among the litter of fire-kindling, and sat down. He had bright, bluish eyes, and a fattish face — was a man of about fifty, but had a simple, kindly, slightly imbecile face. All the men kept their hats on.
Complete Works of D.H. Lawrence Page 263