TASSA
Clementina had enticed me to her cottage with the promise of country beans cooked in country fashion, to be followed by a story under the chestnut woods. So at about four in the afternoon, when the heat of the day was over in the breezy mountain village, I sauntered through the street, past the swarming black-eyed children, and the cheerful, smiling washerwomen busy at the tank under the pump, out on the white road beyond; and, gazing now at the landscape on the left, now at the ever-varying forms of the Apennines before me—
“Ever some new head or breast of them,
Thrusts into view,”
says Browning—now climbing the bank on the right for flowers or mountain-strawberries, I arrived, after half an hour’s stroll, at the little hamlet of Ciecafumo.
There stood the cluster of smoke-blackened cottages, with the large patch of rye, beans, etc. (apparently common property), before them, against a background of magnificent chestnut trees. Passing under a picturesque archway, and crossing a cobbled space which did duty as a street, I pushed open the wooden door of Clementina’s house. Before me was a flight of stairs which might have been washed towards the end of the last century: on the right the kitchen; and, dim in the blue, arching wood-smoke, Clementina, with eyes as bright as ever under her kerchief; and sprightly little Nella, barefooted, and, still more extraordinary, bareheaded.
It was a large, low room, with stone walls and a gaping plank ceiling, which formed also the floor of the room above, all encrusted with the black lichen-like deposit, harder than the stone itself, produced by the smoke of wood-fires. In one corner was a tiny window, and on the same side with it the hearth, with a wooden roof over it in lieu of chimney. The wood-fire, the cat, the red pipkin with the old woman bending over it, formed a pretty interior against the dark shadows of the great stack of brushwood which, with a flight of very rickety stairs, occupied the further end of the room.
“Where do the stairs lead, Nonna?” I asked.
“Oh, those lead into the cat’s rooms. You can go up if you like, but I advise you not to. It’s years since I have been there, and I expect they’re rather dirty.”
It need hardly be said that I did not go up. The beans being now ready, a space was cleared on one of the two tables, which, loaded with most heterogeneous material, were propped up against the wall opposite the fire. Above the tables was the one patch of colour on the black walls—a coloured print or so of saints, a couple of rosaries, and a tiny hanging tin lamp. The old woman spread a coarse, newly-washed table-napkin on the space she had cleared, and placed on it a hunch of bread (brought that morning from the village), one glass, a little bottle of oil, and some salt in a piece of paper. The wicker-covered water-flask was put on the ground beside us; three chairs were produced, and three soup-plates, with brass spoons. Then the beans were divided and dressed with oil and salt, the bread was carved into three parts with a great clasp-knife from the old woman’s pocket, and we made a very excellent and nourishing meal. The one glass did duty for all three of us, being rinsed out with a peculiar jerk on to the stone floor after each had drunk.
“Now the story, Nonna,” said I.