lake there stretches a vein of fire, then a whole, orange, flashing
track over the whiteness. There is the exquisite silent passage of the
day, and then at evening the afterglow, a huge incandescence of rose,
hanging above and gleaming, as if it were the presence of a host of
angels in rapture. It gleams like a rapturous chorus, then passes away,
and the stars appear, large and flashing.
Meanwhile, the primroses are dawning on the ground, their light is
growing stronger, spreading over the banks and under the bushes. Between
the olive roots the violets are out, large, white, grave violets, and
less serious blue ones. And looking down the bill, among the grey smoke
of olive leaves, pink puffs of smoke are rising up. It is the almond and
the apricot trees, it is the Spring.
Soon the primroses are strong on the ground. There is a bank of small,
frail crocuses shooting the lavender into this spring. And then the
tussocks and tussocks of primroses are fully out, there is full morning
everywhere on the banks and roadsides and stream-sides, and around the
olive roots, a morning of primroses underfoot, with an invisible
threading of many violets, and then the lovely blue clusters of
hepatica, really like pieces of blue sky showing through a clarity of
primrose. The few birds are piping thinly and shyly, the streams sing
again, there is a strange flowering shrub full of incense, overturned
flowers of crimson and gold, like Bohemian glass. Between the olive
roots new grass is coming, day is leaping all clear and coloured from
the earth, it is full Spring, full first rapture.
Does it pass away, or does it only lose its pristine quality? It deepens
and intensifies, like experience. The days seem to be darker and richer,
there is a sense of power in the strong air. On the banks by the lake
the orchids are out, many, many pale bee-orchids standing clear from the
short grass over the lake. And in the hollows are the grape hyacinths,
purple as noon, with the heavy, sensual fragrance of noon. They are
many-breasted, and full of milk, and ripe, and sun-darkened, like
many-breasted Diana.
We could not bear to live down in the village any more, now that the
days opened large and spacious and the evenings drew out in sunshine. We
could not bear the indoors, when above us the mountains shone in clear
air. It was time to go up, to climb with the sun.
So after Easter we went to San Gaudenzio. It was three miles away, up
the winding mule-track that climbed higher and higher along the lake.
Leaving the last house of the village, the path wound on the steep,
cliff-like side of the lake, curving into the hollow where the landslip
had tumbled the rocks in chaos, then out again on to the bluff of a
headland that hung over the lake.
Thus we came to the tall barred gate of San Gaudenzio, on which was the
usual little fire-insurance tablet, and then the advertisements for
beer, 'Birra, Verona', which is becoming a more and more popular drink.
Through the gate, inside the high wall, is the little Garden of Eden, a
property of three or four acres fairly level upon a headland over the
lake. The high wall girds it on the land side, and makes it perfectly
secluded. On the lake-side it is bounded by the sudden drops of the
land, in sharp banks and terraces, overgrown with ilex and with laurel
bushes, down to the brink of the cliff, so that the thicket of the first
declivities seems to safeguard the property.
The pink farm-house stands almost in the centre of the little territory,
among the olive trees. It is a solid, six-roomed place, about fifty
years old, having been rebuilt by Paolo's uncle. Here we came to live
for a time with the Fiori, Maria and Paolo, and their three children,
Giovanni and Marco and Felicina.
Paolo had inherited, or partly inherited, San Gaudenzio, which had been
in his family for generations. He was a peasant of fifty-three, very
grey and wrinkled and worn-looking, but at the same time robust, with
full strong limbs and a powerful chest. His face was old, but his body
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