CHAPTER II
THE SUMMONS TO ARMS
On the morning of the twenty-fifth of February, the day fixed for their journey, Uncle Piero rose at half-past seven, and went to the window. A heavy, white fog hung over the lake, hiding the mountains so that they appeared only as short black streaks, one on the right, the other on the left, between the lake and the fog. "Alas!" the uncle sighed. He had not finished dressing when Luisa came in, and using the unpleasant weather as a pretext, once more begged him to remain at home, and let her go alone. Cia was greatly distressed, and had entreated her to urge him not to go, for she knew he had had an attack of giddiness on the twentieth, and that on the twenty-second he had gone to confession without mentioning it to any one. Seeing that he was growing impatient, Luisa decided it would be wiser to desist, and let him have his own way. Poor Uncle Piero, he had always enjoyed the best of health, and now he was extremely apprehensive, and the slightest disturbance alarmed him. But he did not feel that Luisa should be allowed to set out alone in her present state of mind, and so he was going to sacrifice himself for her. He finished dressing and returning to the window called out triumphantly to Luisa, who was in the little garden below.
"Look up!" said he. "Look up at the Boglia!"
High up above Oria through the smoking fog, the pale gold of the sun shining on the mountain could be seen, and still higher up all was clear and transparent.
"Fair weather!"
Luisa did not reply, and the old man came down to the loggia in a cheerful frame of mind, and went out to the terrace to enjoy the magnificent struggle between fog and sun.
The stretch of water towards the east between the Ca Rotta, the last house of S. Mamette on the left, and the gulf of the Doi on the right, was one immense white sea. The Ca Rotta could just be distinguished, coming out of the fog like some spectre. At the gulf of the Doi, the narrow black streak of the mountains began, making a gap between the leaden lake and the fog, which, little by little, was assuming a bluish hue. Vague lights broke in the sky towards Osteno; at the end of the eastern sea a new brightness trembled, streaks and spots, dark with the breeze, were forming; the eye of the sun appeared and disappeared among the whirling clouds above Osteno, until at last, growing rapidly larger, it shone forth triumphant. The fog fled in all directions in sheets and puffs, of which many sped past Oria, large and swift, while others cast themselves upon the shore; but the largest rolled away into the far east, where, behind and above a heavy white curtain, the mountains of the lake of Como rose, glorious in the blue.
Uncle Piero called Luisa to witness the spectacle, the last splendid scene of the drama, the triumph of the sun, the flight of the mists, the glory of the hills. He admired nature in a simple manner, without the refinement of the artistic sense, but with youthful ardour, and with the ring of sincerity in his voice; his admiration was that of an old man who has lived a life of purity, who has not exhausted the freshness of his spirit, who still retains a certain simplicity of imagination. "Look, Luisa!" he exclaimed, "we must indeed cry out, 'Glory be to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost!'" Luisa did not answer, but went quickly indoors, that she might not see that white enclosure beyond the kitchen-garden that was drawing her so strongly, with its tacit cry of reproach and grief. She had gone there that morning at six o'clock, and had remained an hour, seated on the wet grass.
The uncle remained on the terrace lost in contemplation until the moment of departure arrived. Had he been a vain poet he might have imagined that Valsolda was offering him this farewell spectacle to speed him on his way; that she wished to show herself more beautiful than he had, perhaps, ever seen her before. However, these poetic fancies did not come to him, and, besides, his journey was to be so short. But the image of Maria came to him instead; he saw her running round him, he took her upon his knee, and repeated the old rhyme to her:
Proud shade of the river
Of Missipipì——