These, he explains mysteriously, are special strawberries, brought down from near the snow-line by a special goat-boy. They are not for the guests, but "only for myself." Strawberries are always worth paying for; they are mildly purging, they go well with the wine. And what a wonderful scent they have! "You remind me of a certain Lucullo," I said, "who was also nice about strawberries. In fact, he made a fine art of eating and drinking."
"Your Lucullo, we may take it, was a Roman?"
"Romano di Roma."
Thus conversing with this rare old ruffian, I forget my intention of leaving a card on Saint Scolastica. She has waited for me so long. She can wait a little longer....
August 9: Villa Lante.
August 12: Ferento. What happened at Ferento?
Now what happened at Ferento? Let me try to reconstruct that morning's visit.
I have clear memories of the walk from Viterbo--it would be eighteen chilometres there and back, they told me. I had slept well in my quaint little room with the water rushing under the window, and breakfasted in receptive and responsive mood. I recall that trudge along the highway and how I stepped across patches of sunlight from the shade of one regularly planted tree into that of another. The twelfth of August.... It set me thinking of heathery moorlands and grouse, and of those legions of flies that settle on one's nose just as one pulls the trigger. It all seemed dim and distant here, on this parching road, among southern fields. I was beginning to be lost in a muse as to what these boreal flies might do with themselves during the long winter months while all the old women of the place are knitting Shetland underwear when, suddenly, a little tune came into my ears--a wistful intermezzo of Brahms. It seemed to spring out of the hot earth. Such a natural song, elvishly coaxing! Would I ever play it again? Neither that, nor any other.
It turned my thoughts, as I went along, to Brahms and led me to understand why no man, who cares only for his fellow-creatures, will ever relish that music. It is an alien tongue, full of deeps and rippling shallows uncomprehended of those who know nothing of lonely places; full of thrills and silences such as are not encountered among the habitations of men. It echoes the multitudinous voice of nature, and distils the smiles and tears of things non-human. This man listened, all alone; he overheard things to which other ears are deaf--things terrible and sweet; the sigh of some wet Naiad by a reedy lake, the pleadings and furies of the genii--of those that whisper in woodlands and caverns by the sea, and ride wailing on thunder-laden clouds, and rock with ripe laughter in sunny wildernesses. Brahms is the test. Whoso dreads solitude will likewise dread his elemental humour.
It kept me company, this melodious and endearing fairy, till where a path, diverging to the right, led up to the ruins already visible. There the ethereal comrade took flight, scared, maybe, because my senses took on a grossly mundane complexion--it is a way they have, thank God--became absorbed, that is, in the contemplation of certain blackberries wherewith the hedge was loaded. I thought: the tons of blackberries that fall to earth in Italy, unheeded! And not even a Scotsman knows what blackberries are, until he has tasted these. I am no gourmet of such wild things; I rather agree with Goethe when he says: "How berries taste, you must ask children." But I can sympathise with the predilections of others, having certain predilections of my own.