We were now in Italy, and had been since we descended the Stretta. Our dinner, therefore, on the banks of the Spöl had been eaten in Italy, and this had somewhat heightened the flavour of the enjoyment so many other pleasant adjuncts had contributed to impart to it. Neither there, however, nor here, nor elsewhere on the way, had we seen anything of a custom-house, or of a custom-house official. We might, to the prejudice of the holders of the bonds of the Italian tobacco loan, have brought with us to Livigno, without let or hindrance of any kind, any amount of cigars that we could have carried. I take it, therefore, that the dwellers in these valleys on this part of the frontier, do not burn so many cents when consuming the fragrant leaf as other Italians, and so do not contribute much to the payment of the interest of that loan.
August 13.—At 6.30 A.M. I came down to see how things were going on. Snow was still falling. The hillsides down to the valley bottom were white, but the valley bottom was still green. It was a fête day, the greatest, I believe, of the year in these valleys. There was a stream of people passing the door on their way to the church, about half-a-mile off, just below the north end of the village. Men and women were all in their holiday attire. The get-up of the men was very like what was common some years ago, and may still be, in Ireland. Those who were in the fashion, perhaps who retained the old fashion, wore the swallow-tailed coat, of a frieze-like material, but of a dark colour, adorned with brass buttons, and the knee-breeches with dark gray stockings, I have already mentioned. Those who were of a less conservative turn of mind, wore a kind of shooting coat, and long trousers, but of the same dark material as the others; probably it was homespun. I saw no overcoats, which appear to be quite unknown in this part of the world, where people dress the same in fine weather and in foul, in summer and in winter. They give a reason for this practice; they say that what in this climate they have most to dread is checked transpiration; and that they dress the same at all times in order that they may not increase transpiration by additional clothing, or run the risk of having it checked by the removal of an overcoat: that to dress the same at all times is safest in their climate.
Several of the passers by at this early hour, and throughout the day, walked up to the table in the hall, on which stood the black bottles and small glasses. It would fortify them against the raw wet day. The shooting jackets which, perhaps, represented young Livigno and modern ideas, were more open to conviction on this point, than the swallow-tails. One brought with him a sturdy little fellow of about eleven years of age who took his schnapps with the same gravity and silence as his broad-shouldered parent. They walked together up to the table, did not ask for the glasses to be filled, emptied them when filled, and retired without a word, and without moving a muscle of the face any more than of the vocal mechanism.
At 7 o’clock a young man came into the kitchen to make a mess of polenta. When the milk had been raised to the full boiling-point, he added about an equal quantity of meal, perhaps a little more than as much, and stirred it continuously for about a quarter of an hour, with a strong crooked stick, to mix it equally and to prevent its burning. When the meal had absorbed all the milk, and had become very stiff, it was prepared. It required much strength to stir it. He and two companions now sat down at the kitchen table with the mess before them. One ate it with cheese; one with milk, and the other with butter. The old gentleman at the same time descended from his high stool in the chimney-corner, which he had in vain attempted to persuade me to occupy, and sat down at the same table for his breakfast, which his daughter-in-law had prepared for him. It was a large basin of soup, or more correctly, of a kind of vegetable broth. This he ate with black rye-bread. The maker of the polenta offered me some on a plate. As long as it is warm it is not a bad kind of food, though far from as good as the hot maize cakes you get in the United States, or as the same polenta would have been if in West Indian fashion it had been allowed to get cold, and then been cut into slices, and fried, or toasted. Its merit is that it is quickly prepared, and requires no apparatus but a pot and stick.
At 8.30 our turn came. Fish again, and everything we had had at supper last night. The anxious ministering of the good man was very impressive, though of course not in quite so high a degree as on the previous evening. It was too early in the day for that, though he was already on the road that would bring him to the same point. At 9.30 he announced that he must go to church, and that he should be absent for an hour and a half. I told him that I would accompany him. A gleam of satisfaction, felt in his heart, irradiated his face. ‘Well! well!’ was his reply. He disappeared for a few minutes, and returned in his festa dress; his face brightened with soap and with satisfaction. His attire was that of the innovating party. The function, at which we were to assist, was to commence at 10. All the world was on the road, and every face was towards the church. He conducted me into a detached chapel, a few yards from the church; it was already full. There were about sixty men in it—all men. No priest was present. All were employed in chanting a Latin Litany to the Holy Virgin. The harshness of their voices was great, and so was the dissonance, for hardly any attempt was made to keep together. When the Litany was concluded, we all left the chapel, and entered the church. Here mass was to be celebrated. We, that is to say the men, occupied the right side of the building; the women, who far outnumbered us, occupying the left side, and the whole of what might have been the west end. The service commenced by seven or eight women walking up the main aisle to the priest, and, as it appeared, making an offering, and then returning again down the aisle to their seats. The large proportion of men in the congregation, and the demeanour of all indicated that the controversies of the day had not reached Livigno. Here the sense of the Unseen, which, under whatever form it may show itself, is Religion, was quick and strong, and prepotent in shaping the thought and lives of all. In them debates about forms had not weakened the effect of the substance.
As we returned from the church the snow had at last begun to lie in the valley bottom. The grass was now buried, and everything on which the eye rested was white, with the exception of the roofs of the châlets, and the paved roadway, which, however, was slushy with half-melted snow. The contrast with the bright sun of yesterday at the same hour was complete. Twenty-four hours had transported us from Italy to Lapland. Probably in Lapland the aspect of things was at the moment more summer-like. There was no prospect now of doing anything to-day, for even if it were to clear speedily, it would be too late to cross the mountains. Dinner, therefore, began to assume in one’s thoughts a disproportionate importance; and we were not long in broaching the subject to the good man. What could he give us? We should be glad of the best he had. Had he any meat? He had. What was it? Was it dried beef? Well! it was a day for dried beef. That would be one thing. ‘No,’ he replied with sorrowful firmness. ‘That I cannot let you have.’ Why not? We can eat it; we have already become acquainted with it, and you see it has done us no harm. ‘No,’ again, but with the sorrowfulness and firmness more accentuated. ‘I can let you have eggs, and fat cheese, and butter, and soup, and fish, but not the dried beef.’
‘My good man, we shall be glad to have it. Why not let us have it?’
‘Because your souls are due to heaven as well as my own.’
It was, then, because it was the festa. ‘But,’ quoth the visitor, ‘that is just the reason why we should have it. To-day is not a fast, but a festa.’