Viareggio is full of memories of Shelley; we saw the place where his body was washed ashore, where Trelawney found and burned it in the old classic fashion. We heard the question discussed whether the yacht Don Juan was lost by accident (she was a crank boat) or had been run down by a felucca, whose piratical sailors believed Lord Byron to be on board with a chest of treasure. I suppose we shall never know the truth, so as I am loath to think ill of any sailor, I shall go on believing it was an accident.
It is strange to find ourselves again on the high road of travel, after the loneliness of the Abruzzi. Since the days of the Phoenicians, invading armies of Huns, Goths, Longbeards, palmers, pilgrims, and their descendants, tourists and tramps have patrolled every step of the road we are now travelling.
We drove from Viareggio to Lucca, two and a half hours, through the beautiful Tuscan country in its glowing harvest colors,—every farm a glory, with heaped barrels of grapes waiting to be trodden into wine, strings of yellow, yellow Indian corn and scarlet peppers hanging over the fronts of the houses. The way led through an olive grove: all about us were twisty witch trees, a misty gray wood in which one looked right and left for Merlin and Vivian. Then came a chestnut forest, the great bursting burs filled with big shiny Italian chestnuts. We stopped at the house of a vine grower known to our driver, and asked leave to visit the vineyard. The proprietor, a tall lean man, with a touch of the faun about him (J. wants to paint him as the god Pan) welcomed us cordially. The large Tuscan speech strikes sweetly on our ears after the clipped Italian of the Abruzzi. Even the working people in Tuscany have a certain elegance in turning a phrase which southern Italians of far greater culture lack. Nothing could be more up to date than this Tuscan vineyard, almost as tidy and progressive as the German vineyards. That, after all, is the great thing about travelling; you visit not only different countries, but different ages. A thousand years lie between my friend “Pittsbourgo’s” Etruscan method of ploughing, at Pietro Anzieri, and the system on which this neat thrifty Tuscan vineyard is run.
“Those look like American Isabella grapes!” we exclaimed.
“They are what they appear to be,” said the vignajuòlo; “behold an experiment! Many of my best vines were destroyed by the phylloxera, an obnoxious insect which girdles the roots so that the vines die! Do you think I would allow myself to be vanquished by a mere insect? I send to North America for these hardy vines which have so bitter a root that the vile insect touches them not. I graft the native Italian grape upon the American vine and wait. Meanwhile, until I am sure of my grafting, not to lose all profit, I allow the American vines to bear grapes from which I make wine of some sort. I tell you in confidence, it is only fit for contadini to drink, I would not offend you by offering it to you. Ma, pazienza! by and by, I shall cut back the vine to the grafting, and the native vine will flourish upon the American root! Then I shall have a wine worthy to offer vostra signoria!”
Here is progress for you; here is a man not satisfied to do as his fathers did; here is a country of to-day, a people with a future!
Having made the giro of the vineyard, we came back to the large stuccoed farmhouse which had originally been painted a violent pink; now the color, softened by sun, rain, and time, is a rich variegated yellow. With a gracious gesture, our host threw open the door, and stood smiling in the sun, the matchless human sunshine of Italy in his dark shy face. When he talked about his vines he had been all animation; the ceremony of inviting a lady into his dwelling was rather irksome to him.
“The signori will do me the honor of entering my poor abode?” He showed us into an apartment only a shade less austere than the waiting-room of a convent. It was clean, cold, and of a frightful bareness. Let us hope there was an enchanting kitchen—like our never-to-be-forgotten kitchen at Roccaraso—somewhere in the offing, where our handsome Pan might take his ease.
“The signori will do me the honor to try a glass of my wine?”
J. asked if he had any wine of Chianti. He laughed.