On procession days the whole village would turn out, perhaps six priests holding a canopy over the Blessed Sacrament, the villagers with banners, flambeaux, and bells, and every one a lighted candle and a bunch of flowers; they would walk through the village and fields and lanes. There were three altars erected out of doors, before which they would stop and recite the Gospels, and then to the church for High Mass and solemn benediction; fine voices rose in hymns, taking first, second, third, and fourths, nature taught, far better than many an oratorio. On one occasion I remember a little ragged urchin, two feet high, with bare feet, one little white garment, a straw hat with a hundred holes and rents in it, and his little bit of flower, kneeling near the altar. Educated visitors from Trieste would come in, but not even salute or kneel, to show their superiority; and this is the way that Faith gets stamped out of the world. The peasants, when the fête is over, steal the flowers to dry, and they burn them in a storm for protection, which is rather a pretty, though superstitious, idea.
Here we took rooms, and put in them all in which they were deficient; and our delight was to come up alone, without servants, from Saturday to Monday, and get away from everything, wait upon ourselves more or less, and keep some literary work here. We sometimes stayed a fortnight or six weeks if we had a great work on hand.
DANEU'S INN, OPÇINA, IN THE KARSO.
The Trieste life was, of course, varied by many journeys and excursions; but we lived absolutely the jolly life of two bachelors, as it might be an elder and a younger brother. When we wanted to go, we just turned the key and left. We began our house with six rooms, and were intensely happy; but after some years I became ambitious, and I stupidly went on spreading our domain until I ran round the large block of building, and had got twenty-seven rooms. The joke in Trieste was that I should eventually build a bridge across to the next house, and run round that; but as soon as I had just got everything to perfection, in 1883, Richard took a dislike to it, and we went off to the most beautiful house in Trieste, where he eventually died, 1890.
Our first thought as soon as we were settled in Trieste was to scour every part of the country on foot, and we often used to lose our way, and on the 1st of January, 1873, we were out from 10 a.m. till 7.50 p.m. in this manner. The thing that astonished us most at first was the Bora, the north-easterly wind, which sweeps down the mountains, at a moment's notice. There are only two places in the world that have it—Trieste and the Caucasus. Its force is so great, that it blows people into the sea; it occasionally blows over a train; or a cab and horse into the sea. When there is a bad Bora, ropes are put up; if any house is exposed to the full fury of it, a new-comer would suppose that the house would also be carried away. It makes all new buildings tremble and rock; in fact, I have been told that if one tried to describe it in England, one would not be understood.
A blizzard is the nearest thing to it, but that is short and sharp, whereas the Bora always lasts three days, and I have known it, in 1890, to last forty days, more or less severe. The Borino is the little Bora; the white Bora is still bearable, but the black Bora is frightening, especially when it has "ciappá," as the dialect goes, i.e. "gripped," or "taken hold." At first Richard got thrown down by it, and was badly cut. In my strongest days, I could never breast a hill with the Bora facing me. I used to have to turn round, sit down, and be blown back again. Shocks of earthquake were very common affairs. They made one feel sick and uncomfortable; but they did not shake the houses down, only made the pictures dangle towards the middle of the room, and the cupboards nod and move. They were always the tag-end of the great earthquakes at Agram, in Croatia, which is a hundred miles away on a direct line.