The inner court of the castle is as beautiful as the outer one. Through the open door one catches glimpses of the terrace, and of the lake beyond it. I know Ightham, Hever, and Stokesay, both inside and out, and I know the outside of Leeds; these are all of them exquisitely beautiful, but neither they nor any other such place that I have ever seen please me as much as the castle of Angera.
We stayed talking to my old friend Signor Signorelli, the custode of the castle, and his family, and sketching upon the terrace until Tonio came to tell us that his boat was at the quay waiting for us. Tonio is now about fourteen years old, but was only four when I first had the pleasure of making his acquaintance. He is son to Giovanni, or as he is more commonly called, Giovannino, a boatman of Arona. The boy is deservedly a great favourite, and is now a padrone with a boat of his own, from which he can get a good living.
He pulled us across the warm and sleepy lake, so far the most beautiful of all even the Italian lakes; as we neared Arona, and the wall that runs along the lake became more plain, I could not help thinking of what Giovanni had told me about it some years before, when Tonio was lying curled up, a little mite of an object, in the bottom of the boat. He was extolling a certain family of peasants who live near the castle of Angera, as being models of everything a family ought to be. “There,” he said, “the children do not speak at meal-times, the polenta is put upon the table, and each takes exactly what is given him, even though one of the children thinks another has got a larger helping than he has, he will eat his piece in silence. My children are not like that; if Marietta thinks Irene has a bigger piece than she has, she will leave the room and go to the wall.”
“What,” I asked, “does she go to the wall for?”
“Oh! to cry; all the children go to the wall to cry.”
I thought of Hezekiah. The wall is the crying place, playing, lounging place, and a great deal more, of all the houses in its vicinity. It is the common drawing-room during the summer months; if the weather is too sultry, a boatman will leave his bed and finish the night on his back upon its broad coping; we who live in a colder climate can hardly understand how great a blank in the existence of these people the destruction of the wall would be.
We soon reached Arona, and in a few minutes were in that kind and hospitable house the Hotel d’Italia, than which no better hotel is to be found in Italy.
Arona is cooler than Angera. The proverb says, “He who would know the pains of the infernal regions, could go to Angera in the summer and to Arona in the winter.” The neighbourhood is exquisite. Unless during the extreme heat of summer, it is the best place to stay at on the Lago Maggiore. The Monte Motterone is within the compass of a single day’s excursion; there is Orta, also, and Varallo easily accessible, and any number of drives and nearer excursions whether by boat or carriage.
One day we made Tonio take us to Castelletto near Sesto Calende, to hear the bells. They ring the bells very beautifully at Vogogna, but, unless my recollection of a good many years ago fails me, at Castelletto they ring them better still.