flowers. Then I notice a citron. He hangs heavy and bloated upon so
small a tree, that he seems a dark green enormity. There is a great host
of lemons overhead, half-visible, a swarm of ruddy oranges by the paths,
and here and there a fat citron. It is almost like being under the sea.
At the corners of the path were round little patches of ash and stumps
of charred wood, where fires had been kindled inside the house on cold
nights. For during the second and third weeks in January the snow came
down so low on the mountains that, after climbing for an hour, I found
myself in a snow lane, and saw olive orchards on lawns of snow.
The padrone says that all lemons and sweet oranges are grafted on a
bitter-orange stock. The plants raised from seed, lemon and sweet
orange, fell prey to disease, so the cultivators found it safe only to
raise the native bitter orange, and then graft upon it.
And the maestra--she is the schoolmistress, who wears black gloves while
she teaches us Italian--says that the lemon was brought by St Francis of
Assisi, who came to the Garda here and founded a church and a monastery.
Certainly the church of San Francesco is very old and dilapidated, and
its cloisters have some beautiful and original carvings of leaves and
fruit upon the pillars, which seem to connect San Francesco with the
lemon. I imagine him wandering here with a lemon in his pocket. Perhaps
he made lemonade in the hot summer. But Bacchus had been before him in
the drink trade.
Looking at his lemons, the Signore sighed. I think he hates them. They
are leaving him in the lurch. They are sold retail at a halfpenny each
all the year round. 'But that is as dear, or dearer, than in England,' I
say. 'Ah, but,' says the maestra, 'that is because your lemons are
outdoor fruit from Sicily. _Però_--one of our lemons is as good as _two_
from elsewhere.'
It is true these lemons have an exquisite fragrance and perfume, but
whether their force as lemons is double that of an ordinary fruit is a
question. Oranges are sold at fourpence halfpenny the kilo--it comes
about five for twopence, small ones. The citrons are sold also by weight
in Salò for the making of that liqueur known as 'Cedro'. One citron
fetches sometimes a shilling or more, but then the demand is necessarily
small. So that it is evident, from these figures, the Lago di Garda
cannot afford to grow its lemons much longer. The gardens are already
many of them in ruins, and still more 'Da Vendere'.
We went out of the shadow of the lemon-house on to the roof of the
section below us. When we came to the brink of the roof I sat down. The
padrone stood behind me, a shabby, shaky little figure on his roof in
the sky, a little figure of dilapidation, dilapidated as the
lemon-houses themselves.
We were always level with the mountain-snow opposite. A film of pure
blue was on the hills to the right and the left. There had been a wind,
but it was still now. The water breathed an iridescent dust on the far
shore, where the villages were groups of specks.
On the low level of the world, on the lake, an orange-sailed boat leaned
slim to the dark-blue water, which had flecks of foam. A woman went
down-hill quickly, with two goats and a sheep. Among the olives a man
was whistling.
'_Voyez_,' said the padrone, with distant, perfect melancholy. 'There
was once a lemon garden also there--you see the short pillars, cut off
to make a pergola for the vine. Once there were twice as many lemons as
now. Now we must have vine instead. From that piece of land I had two
hundred lire a year, in lemons. From the vine I have only eighty.'
'But wine is a valuable crop,' I said.
'Ah--_così-così_! For a man who grows much. For me--_poco, poco--peu_.'
Suddenly his face broke into a smile of profound melancholy, almost a
grin, like a gargoyle. It was the real Italian melancholy, very
deep, static.
'_Vous voyez, monsieur_--the lemon, it is all the year, all the year.
But the vine--one crop--?'
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