as plainly, Porter. Nothing could be more expressive than his
reception of the peasants who are entering the gate with baskets
and burdens. There is a roll in his eye, and a chuckle in his
throat, which should qualify him to be chosen Superior of an Order
of Ravens. He knows all about it. ‘It’s all right,’ he says. ‘We
know what we know. Come along, good people. Glad to see you!’
How was this extraordinary structure ever built in such a
situation, where the labour of conveying the stone, and iron, and
marble, so great a height, must have been prodigious? ‘Caw!’ says
the raven, welcoming the peasants. How, being despoiled by
plunder, fire and earthquake, has it risen from its ruins, and been
again made what we now see it, with its church so sumptuous and
magnificent? ‘Caw!’ says the raven, welcoming the peasants. These
people have a miserable appearance, and (as usual) are densely
ignorant, and all beg, while the monks are chaunting in the chapel.
‘Caw!’ says the raven, ‘Cuckoo!’
So we leave him, chuckling and rolling his eye at the convent gate,
and wind slowly down again through the cloud. At last emerging
from it, we come in sight of the village far below, and the flat
green country intersected by rivulets; which is pleasant and fresh
to see after the obscurity and haze of the convent – no disrespect
to the raven, or the holy friars.
Away we go again, by muddy roads, and through the most shattered
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Dickens, Charles – Pictures From Italy
and tattered of villages, where there is not a whole window among
all the houses, or a whole garment among all the peasants, or the
least appearance of anything to eat, in any of the wretched
hucksters’ shops. The women wear a bright red bodice laced before
and behind, a white skirt, and the Neapolitan head-dress of square
folds of linen, primitively meant to carry loads on. The men and
children wear anything they can get. The soldiers are as dirty and
rapacious as the dogs. The inns are such hobgoblin places, that
they are infinitely more attractive and amusing than the best
hotels in Paris. Here is one near Valmontone (that is Valmontone
the round, walled town on the mount opposite), which is approached
by a quagmire almost knee-deep. There is a wild colonnade below,
and a dark yard full of empty stables and lofts, and a great long
kitchen with a great long bench and a great long form, where a
party of travellers, with two priests among them, are crowding
round the fire while their supper is cooking. Above stairs, is a
rough brick gallery to sit in, with very little windows with very
small patches of knotty glass in them, and all the doors that open
from it (a dozen or two) off their hinges, and a bare board on
tressels for a table, at which thirty people might dine easily, and
a fireplace large enough in itself for a breakfast-parlour, where,
as the faggots blaze and crackle, they illuminate the ugliest and
grimmest of faces, drawn in charcoal on the whitewashed chimneysides
by previous travellers. There is a flaring country lamp on
the table; and, hovering about it, scratching her thick black hair
continually, a yellow dwarf of a woman, who stands on tiptoe to
arrange the hatchet knives, and takes a flying leap to look into
the water-jug. The beds in the adjoining rooms are of the
liveliest kind. There is not a solitary scrap of looking-glass in
the house, and the washing apparatus is identical with the cooking
utensils. But the yellow dwarf sets on the table a good flask of
excellent wine, holding a quart at least; and produces, among halfa-
dozen other dishes, two-thirds of a roasted kid, smoking hot.
She is as good-humoured, too, as dirty, which is saying a great
deal. So here’s long life to her, in the flask of wine, and
prosperity to the establishment.
Rome gained and left behind, and with it the Pilgrims who are now
repairing to their own homes again – each with his scallop shell
and staff, and soliciting alms for the love of God – we come, by a