through a long line of suburb, lying on the flat seashore, to
Genoa, then, the changing glimpses of that noble city and its
harbour, awaken a new source of interest; freshened by every huge,
unwieldy, half-inhabited old house in its outskirts: and coming to
its climax when the city gate is reached, and all Genoa with its
beautiful harbour, and neighbouring hills, bursts proudly on the
view.
CHAPTER V – TO PARMA, MODENA, AND BOLOGNA
I STROLLED away from Genoa on the 6th of November, bound for a good
many places (England among them), but first for Piacenza; for which
town I started in the COUPE of a machine something like a
travelling caravan, in company with the brave Courier, and a lady
with a large dog, who howled dolefully, at intervals, all night.
It was very wet, and very cold; very dark, and very dismal; we
travelled at the rate of barely four miles an hour, and stopped
nowhere for refreshment. At ten o’clock next morning, we changed
coaches at Alessandria, where we were packed up in another coach
(the body whereof would have been small for a fly), in company with
Page 39
Dickens, Charles – Pictures From Italy
a very old priest; a young Jesuit, his companion – who carried
their breviaries and other books, and who, in the exertion of
getting into the coach, had made a gash of pink leg between his
black stocking and his black knee-shorts, that reminded one of
Hamlet in Ophelia’s closet, only it was visible on both legs – a
provincial Avvocato; and a gentleman with a red nose that had an
uncommon and singular sheen upon it, which I never observed in the
human subject before. In this way we travelled on, until four
o’clock in the afternoon; the roads being still very heavy, and the
coach very slow. To mend the matter, the old priest was troubled
with cramps in his legs, so that he had to give a terrible yell
every ten minutes or so, and be hoisted out by the united efforts
of the company; the coach always stopping for him, with great
gravity. This disorder, and the roads, formed the main subject of
conversation. Finding, in the afternoon, that the COUPE had
discharged two people, and had only one passenger inside – a
monstrous ugly Tuscan, with a great purple moustache, of which no
man could see the ends when he had his hat on – I took advantage of
its better accommodation, and in company with this gentleman (who
was very conversational and good-humoured) travelled on, until
nearly eleven o’clock at night, when the driver reported that he
couldn’t think of going any farther, and we accordingly made a halt
at a place called Stradella.
The inn was a series of strange galleries surrounding a yard where
our coach, and a waggon or two, and a lot of fowls, and firewood,
were all heaped up together, higgledy-piggledy; so that you didn’t
know, and couldn’t have taken your oath, which was a fowl and which
was a cart. We followed a sleepy man with a flaring torch, into a
great, cold room, where there were two immensely broad beds, on
what looked like two immensely broad deal dining-tables; another
deal table of similar dimensions in the middle of the bare floor;
four windows; and two chairs. Somebody said it was my room; and I
walked up and down it, for half an hour or so, staring at the
Tuscan, the old priest, the young priest, and the Avvocato (Red-
Nose lived in the town, and had gone home), who sat upon their
beds, and stared at me in return.
The rather dreary whimsicality of this stage of the proceedings, is
interrupted by an announcement from the Brave (he had been cooking)
that supper is ready; and to the priest’s chamber (the next room
and the counterpart of mine) we all adjourn. The first dish is a
cabbage, boiled with a great quantity of rice in a tureen full of
water, and flavoured with cheese. It is so hot, and we are so
cold, that it appears almost jolly. The second dish is some little
bits of pork, fried with pigs’ kidneys. The third, two red fowls.