Could we go back now to that unique spot, what a vast amount of æsthetic pleasure should we not draw from it? But it must be admitted that we were gross-minded enough at the time to allow material discomfort to overcome all other impressions.
To lodge in a genuine old Lombard Castle, with stone floors and stairs hewn in the immense thickness of the stone; to look out upon one side into the moat, and to see the peasant houses clinging to the massive foundations far below like barnacles to a rock; to look out on the other side upon the odd rise of sunburnt garden up to the vineyard and the towers; to imagine oneself back into the very heart of the Middle Ages may be very inspiring, in theory. But mediæval sensibilities were undoubtedly more blunted than ours. The smell of that moat running with the refuse of the crowded Italian village!... For additional pungency, all the water in the place came from sulphur springs! The reek of it was in one’s nostrils all day from merely washing in it.
The household was composed of peasant women out of the village. The wife of the barber, the mother of the shoemaker, and others, clattered about the stone passages in their mules—a style of foot-gear which leaves the foot free from the instep. It was perhaps as well that the heels were high, for their idea of housemaiding ‹a method which appertains in most Italian households to this day› was first to walk about with a pail and to slop water out of it over the flags of the floor; then to sweep the resulting wet mess into a puddle where the stone was worn most hollow or under the carpet!
Some attempts at a housemaid’s sink had been excavated in the stone at the head of the stairs outside our set of rooms; but there was generally a small cataract of soapy water dripping down the steps, for the simple practice of the donna that attended on our apartment was to stand on the landing outside our doors and to shy the contents of her bucket upwards.
The delightful friend with whom we stayed, though not born of the country, had fallen quite resignedly into its ways. And, indeed, the castle was chiefly ruled by the Princesse Mère, a châtelaine of the old school, who used to arise in the grey dawn and pull the iron chain of the great bell that hung outside her windows, to call the vassals to their daily work.
“Come, come!” she was frequently heard addressing some dependent or other whose movements were more indolent than she approved of. “Are you here for your comfort or for mine?”
The table was served, copiously, with singular Italian dishes. There was a favourite soup with stewed quails in it: the whole animal, bones and beak and all! It is an unspeakable dish to have set before you on a hot day. Patties filled with cocks’ combs might follow. Even the Risotto was intermingled with such strange mincings of liver and cutlet trimmings that one hesitated before venturing. The Fritura, needless to say, was in full force. A lucky dip, that! You may come across yesterday’s cauliflower, a bit of forgotten sweetbread, a slice of sausage, a frizzled artichoke, and half the quail you couldn’t eat the night before—all in one spoonful!