At the Foot of the Cross. Page 96.
The way still lay between and over hills of chalk, and we rode for miles through monotonous barrenness. It rained at intervals, but at times the sun almost broke through the clouds that followed it in long gray sweeps from the white masses on the snow-capped mountains bounding the horizon. To our right, Monte Amiata, bare and rugged, and with white top, was always in sight; and once above it the clouds rolled away leaving a broad stretch of greenish blue sky. There were many crosses by the wayside, and they were different from any we had yet seen. On each, over spear and sponge and crown of thorns, was a black cock, rudely carved to look as if it crowed. Just before we came to San Quirico, and towards noon, we saw at the foot of one of these crosses an old weary-looking peasant, with head bowed as if he listened for the Angelus.
We were prepossessed against San Quirico before we reached it. Olives with vines hanging from them in defiance of Virgil, brown fields, and red and yellow trees, could not reconcile us to the long climb up the mountain. It was worth our trouble, however, if only to see the cathedral. We left the tricycle at the trattoria, and at our leisure looked at the portal and its pillars, with quaintly carved capitals of animals and birds, and at those others, joined together with a Celtic-like twist and resting on leopards, and then at the two sea-monsters above. And while we wondered at the grotesque gargoyles on the walls, and the two figures for columns, and the lions on the south doorway, two carabinieri from a neighboring window examined us as if we were equal curiosities. This fine building is an incongruity in San Quirico, which—for our first impressions proved right—is at best but a poor place. We were cheated in it as we had never been before. When we went back to the trattoria four men were eating their dinner inside the fireplace in the kitchen. But we were ushered into what I suppose was the best room. It was dining-room and bed-chamber combined. On one side was a long table, on the other the bed. The dressing-table served as buffet, and the padrona brought from its drawers the cheese and apples for our dessert. In the garden below—for we were in the second story—weeds like corn grew so tall that they shaded the window. What happened in that room, and the difference that arose between the padrona and ourselves, are facts too unpleasant to recall. But I am sure the next foreigners who went to San Quirico heard woful tales of the evil doings of the two Inglesi who came on a velocipede.
After San Quirico there was the same barrenness, and only indifferent roads over rolling country. Until within half a mile of Pienza, where the hedges began again, not a tree grew by the roadside, and the only signs of vegetation were the reeds in the little dark pools dotting the gray fields. It was still bitterly cold, and my fingers tingled on the handles. Once we passed a farm-house where a solitary woman watched a herd of black swine, and once we met the diligence; that was all.
We rode into Pienza, though our way lay to one side of it. But we were curious to see the cathedrals and palaces Pius II. built there in the vain hope of turning his native village into an important town. Of all the follies of proud popes, I think this was the greatest. As well might he have hoped by his single effort to cover the creta, or chalk, with roses, as to raise a prosperous city in its midst. We saw the great brown buildings marked with the fine crescents of the Piccolomini and the papal tiara and keys, as out of place in Pienza as the cathedral seemed in San Quirico; we looked closer at the old stone well and its beautiful wrought-iron work. J. made a sketch of a fine courtyard, and then we were on the road again.
Near Montepulciano we came to a thickly wooded country, riding for several miles between chestnuts and oaks. There were open places, too, from which we saw far below the fair Val di Chiana, and in the distance Lake Thrasymene, pale and silvery, and close by olive-gardens, through whose gray branches we looked at the purple mountains and their snowy summits. Above were broad spaces of bright sky, for the dark clouds were rolling away beyond the lake, and those that floated around Monte Amiata were now glistening and white. We had left the wilderness for a garden. All the bells rang out as if in welcome when, after working up the long road, so winding that at times the city was completely hidden, we wheeled into the now dark and cold streets of Montepulciano.
WE ARE DETAINED IN MONTEPULCIANO.
"They were therefore here in evil case, and were far from friends and acquaintances."