And how full Alan had been of Perugia beforehand! He loved every stone of the town, every shadow of the hillsides, he told Herminia at Florence; and Herminia started on her way accordingly well prepared to fall quite as madly in love with the Umbrian capital as Alan himself had done.
The railway journey, indeed, seemed extremely pretty. What a march of sweet pictures! They mounted with creaking wheels the slow ascent1 up the picturesque2 glen where the Arno runs deep, to the white towers of Arezzo; then Cortona throned in state on its lonely hill-top, and girt by its gigantic Etruscan walls; next the low bank, the lucid3 green water, the olive-clad slopes of reedy Thrasymene; last of all, the sere4 hills and city-capped heights of their goal, Perugia.
For its name's sake alone, Herminia was prepared to admire the antique Umbrian capital. And Alan loved it so much, and was so determined5 she ought to love it too, that she was ready to be pleased with everything in it. Until she arrived there—and then, oh, poor heart, what a grievous disappointment! It was late April weather when they reached the station at the foot of that high hill where Augusta Perusia sits lording it on her throne over the wedded6 valleys of the Tiber and the Clitumnus. Tramontana was blowing. No rain had fallen for weeks; the slopes of the lower Apennines, ever dry and dusty, shone still drier and dustier than Alan had yet beheld7 them. Herminia glanced up at the long white road, thick in deep gray powder, that led by endless zigzags8 along the dreary9 slope to the long white town on the shadeless hill-top. At first sight alone, Perugia was a startling disillusion10 to Herminia. She didn't yet know how bitterly she was doomed11 hereafter to hate every dreary dirty street in it. But she knew at the first blush that the Perugia she had imagined and pictured to herself didn't really exist and had never existed.
She had figured in her own mind a beautiful breezy town, high set on a peaked hill, in fresh and mossy country. She had envisaged13 the mountains to her soul as clad with shady woods, and strewn with huge boulders14 under whose umbrageous15 shelter bloomed waving masses of the pretty pale blue Apennine anemones16 she saw sold in big bunches at the street corners in Florence. She had imagined, in short, that Umbria was a wilder Italian Wales, as fresh, as green, as sweet-scented, as fountain-fed. And she knew pretty well whence she had derived17 that strange and utterly18 false conception. She had fancied Perugia as one of those mountain villages described by Macaulay, the sort of hilltop stronghold
"That, hid by beech19 and pine,
Like an eagle's nest hangs on the crest20
Of purple Apennine."
Instead of that, what manner of land did she see actually before her? Dry and shadeless hill-sides, tilled with obtrusive21 tilth to their topmost summit; ploughed fields and hoary22 olive-groves silvering to the wind, in interminable terraces; long suburbs, unlovely in their gaunt, bare squalor, stretching like huge arms of some colossal23 cuttlefish24 over the spurs and shoulders of that desecrated25 mountain. No woods, no moss12, no coolness, no greenery; all nature toned down to one monotonous26 grayness. And this dreary desert was indeed the place where her baby must be born, the baby predestined to regenerate27 humanity!
Oh, why did they ever leave that enchanted28 Florence!
Meanwhile Alan had got together the luggage, and engaged a ramshackle Perugian cab; for the public vehicles of Perugia are perhaps, as a class, the most precarious29 and incoherent known to science. However, the luggage was bundled on to the top by Our Lady's grace, without dissolution of continuity; the lean-limbed horses were induced by explosive volleys of sound Tuscan oaths to make a feeble and spasmodic effort; and bit by bit the sad little cavalcade30 began slowly to ascend31 the interminable hill that rises by long loops to the platform of the Prefettura.
That drive was the gloomiest Herminia had ever yet taken. Was it the natural fastidiousness of her condition, she wondered, or was it really the dirt and foul32 smells of the place that made her sicken at first sight of the wind-swept purlieus? Perhaps a little of both; for in dusty weather Perugia is the most endless town to get out of in Italy; and its capacity for the production of unpleasant odors is unequalled no doubt from the Alps to Calabria. As they reached the bare white platform at the entry to the upper town, where Pope Paul's grim fortress33 once frowned to overawe the audacious souls of the liberty-loving Umbrians, she turned mute eyes to Alan for sympathy. And then for the first time the terrible truth broke over her that Alan wasn't in the least disappointed or disgusted; he knew it all before; he was accustomed to it and liked it! As for Alan, he misinterpreted her glance, indeed, and answered with that sort of proprietary35 pride we all of us assume towards a place we love, and are showing off to a newcomer: "Yes, I thought you'd like this view, dearest; isn't it wonderful, wonderful? That's Assisi over yonder, that strange white town that clings by its eyelashes to the sloping hill-side: and those are the snowclad heights of the Gran Sasso beyond; and that's Montefalco to the extreme right, where the sunset gleam just catches the hill-top."
His words struck dumb horror into Herminia's soul. Poor child, how she shrank at it! It was clear, then, instead of being shocked and disgusted, Alan positively36 admired this human Sahara. With an effort she gulped37 down her tears and her sighs, and pretended to look with interest in the directions he pointed34. SHE could see nothing in it all but dry hill-sides, crowned with still drier towns; unimagined stretches of sultry suburb; devouring38 wastes of rubbish and foul immemorial kitchen-middens. And the very fact that for Alan's sake she couldn't bear to say so—seeing how pleased and proud he was of Perugia, as if it had been built from his own design—made the bitterness of her disappointment more difficult to endure. She would have given anything at that moment for an ounce of human sympathy.
She had to learn in time to do without it.
They spent that night at the comfortable hotel, perhaps the best in Italy. Next morning, they were to go hunting for apartments in the town, where Alan knew of a suite39 that would exactly suit them. After dinner, in the twilight40, filled with his artistic41 joy at being back in Perugia, his beloved Perugia, he took Herminia out for a stroll, with a light wrap round her head, on the terrace of the Prefettura. The air blew fresh and cool now with a certain mountain sharpness; for, as Alan assured her with pride, they stood seventeen hundred feet above the level of the Mediterranean42. The moon had risen; the sunset glow had not yet died off the slopes of the Assisi hill-sides. It streamed through the perforated belfry of San Domenico; it steeped in rose-color the slender and turreted43 shaft44 of San Pietro, "Perugia's Pennon," the Arrowhead of Umbria. It gilded45 the gaunt houses that jut46 out upon the spine47 of the Borgo hill into the valley of the Tiber. Beyond, rose shadowy Apennines, on whose aerial flanks towns and villages shone out clear in the mellow48 moonlight. Far away on their peaks faint specks49 of twinkling fire marked indistinguishable sites of high hill-top castles.
Alan turned to her proudly. "Well, what do you think of that?" he asked with truly personal interest.
Herminia could only gasp50 out in a half reluctant way, "It's a beautiful view, Alan. Beautiful; beautiful; beautiful!"
But she felt conscious to herself it owed its beauty in the main to the fact that the twilight obscured so much of it. To-morrow morning, the bare hills would stand out once more in all their pristine51 bareness; the white roads would shine forth52 as white and dusty as ever; the obtrusive rubbish heaps would press themselves at every turn upon eye and nostril53. She hated the place, to say the truth; it was a terror to her to think she had to stop so long in it.
Most famous towns, in fact, need to be twice seen: the first time briefly54 to face the inevitable55 disappointment to our expectations; the second time, at leisure, to reconstruct and appraise56 the surviving reality. Imagination so easily beggars performance. Rome, Cairo, the Nile, are obvious examples; the grand exceptions are Venice and Florence,—in a lesser57 degree, Bruges, Munich, Pisa. As for Umbria, 'tis a poor thing; our own Devon snaps her fingers at it.
Moreover, to say the truth, Herminia was too fresh to Italy to appreciate the smaller or second-rate towns at their real value. Even northerners love Florence and Venice at first sight; those take their hearts by storm; but Perugia, Siena, Orvieto, are an acquired taste, like olives and caviare, and it takes time to acquire it. Alan had not made due allowance for this psychological truth of the northern natures. A Celt in essence, thoroughly58 Italianate himself, and with a deep love for the picturesque, which often makes men insensible to dirt and discomfort59, he expected to Italianize Herminia too rapidly. Herminia, on the other hand, belonged more strictly60 to the intellectual and somewhat inartistic English type. The picturesque alone did not suffice for her. Cleanliness and fresh air were far dearer to her soul than the quaintest61 street corners, the oddest old archways; she pined in Perugia for a green English hillside.
The time, too, was unfortunate, after no rain for weeks; for rainlessness, besides doubling the native stock of dust, brings out to the full the ancestral Etruscan odors of Perugia. So, when next morning Herminia found herself installed in a dingy62 flat, in a morose63 palazzo, in the main street of the city, she was glad that Alan insisted on going out alone to make needful purchases of groceries and provisions, because it gave her a chance of flinging herself on her bed in a perfect agony of distress64 and disappointment, and having a good cry, all alone, at the aspect of the home where she was to pass so many eventful weeks of her existence.
Dusty, gusty65 Perugia! O baby, to be born for the freeing of woman, was it here, was it here you must draw your first breath, in an air polluted by the vices66 of centuries!
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1
ascent
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| n.(声望或地位)提高；上升，升高；登高 | |
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picturesque
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| adj.美丽如画的，（语言）生动的，绘声绘色的 | |
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lucid
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| adj.明白易懂的，清晰的，头脑清楚的 | |
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sere
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| adj.干枯的；n.演替系列 | |
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determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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wedded
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| adj.正式结婚的；渴望…的，执著于…的v.嫁，娶，（与…）结婚( wed的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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7
beheld
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| v.看，注视( behold的过去式和过去分词 )；瞧；看呀；（叙述中用于引出某人意外的出现）哎哟 | |
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8
zigzags
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| n.锯齿形的线条、小径等( zigzag的名词复数 )v.弯弯曲曲地走路，曲折地前进( zigzag的第三人称单数 ) | |
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dreary
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| adj.令人沮丧的，沉闷的，单调乏味的 | |
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disillusion
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| vt.使不再抱幻想，使理想破灭 | |
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doomed
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| 命定的 | |
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moss
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| n.苔，藓，地衣 | |
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envisaged
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| 想像，设想( envisage的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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boulders
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| n.卵石( boulder的名词复数 )；巨砾；（受水或天气侵蚀而成的）巨石；漂砾 | |
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15
umbrageous
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| adj.多荫的 | |
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anemones
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| n.银莲花( anemone的名词复数 )；海葵 | |
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17
derived
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| vi.起源；由来；衍生；导出v.得到( derive的过去式和过去分词 )；（从…中）得到获得；源于；（从…中）提取 | |
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18
utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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beech
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| n.山毛榉；adj.山毛榉的 | |
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crest
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| n.顶点；饰章；羽冠；vt.达到顶点；vi.形成浪尖 | |
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obtrusive
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| adj.显眼的；冒失的 | |
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22
hoary
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| adj.古老的；鬓发斑白的 | |
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colossal
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| adj.异常的，庞大的 | |
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24
cuttlefish
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| n.乌贼，墨鱼 | |
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25
desecrated
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| 毁坏或亵渎( desecrate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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26
monotonous
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| adj.单调的，一成不变的，使人厌倦的 | |
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27
regenerate
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| vt.使恢复，使新生；vi.恢复，再生；adj.恢复的 | |
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28
enchanted
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| adj. 被施魔法的，陶醉的，入迷的 动词enchant的过去式和过去分词 | |
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29
precarious
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| adj.不安定的，靠不住的；根据不足的 | |
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30
cavalcade
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| n.车队等的行列 | |
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31
ascend
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| vi.渐渐上升，升高；vt.攀登，登上 | |
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32
foul
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| adj.污秽的；邪恶的；v.弄脏；妨害；犯规；n.犯规 | |
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33
fortress
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| n.堡垒，防御工事 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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35
proprietary
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| n.所有权，所有的；独占的；业主 | |
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36
positively
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| adv.明确地，断然，坚决地；实在，确实 | |
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37
gulped
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| v.狼吞虎咽地吃，吞咽( gulp的过去式和过去分词 )；大口地吸（气）；哽住 | |
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38
devouring
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| 吞没( devour的现在分词 )； 耗尽； 津津有味地看； 狼吞虎咽地吃光 | |
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39
suite
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| n.一套(家具)；套房；随从人员 | |
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40
twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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41
artistic
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| adj.艺术(家)的，美术(家)的；善于艺术创作的 | |
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42
Mediterranean
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| adj.地中海的；地中海沿岸的 | |
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43
turreted
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| a.(像炮塔般)旋转式的 | |
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44
shaft
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| n.(工具的)柄，杆状物 | |
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45
gilded
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| a.镀金的，富有的 | |
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46
jut
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| v.突出；n.突出，突出物 | |
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47
spine
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| n.脊柱，脊椎；(动植物的)刺；书脊 | |
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48
mellow
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| adj.柔和的；熟透的；v.变柔和；(使)成熟 | |
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49
specks
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| n.眼镜；斑点，微粒，污点( speck的名词复数 ) | |
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50
gasp
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| n.喘息，气喘；v.喘息；气吁吁他说 | |
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51
pristine
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| adj.原来的，古时的，原始的，纯净的，无垢的 | |
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52
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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53
nostril
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| n.鼻孔 | |
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54
briefly
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| adv.简单地，简短地 | |
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55
inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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56
appraise
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| v.估价，评价，鉴定 | |
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57
lesser
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| adj.次要的，较小的；adv.较小地，较少地 | |
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58
thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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59
discomfort
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| n.不舒服，不安，难过，困难，不方便 | |
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strictly
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| adv.严厉地，严格地；严密地 | |
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61
quaintest
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| adj.古色古香的( quaint的最高级 )；少见的，古怪的 | |
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62
dingy
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| adj.昏暗的，肮脏的 | |
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morose
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| adj.脾气坏的，不高兴的 | |
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64
distress
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| n.苦恼，痛苦，不舒适；不幸；vt.使悲痛 | |
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65
gusty
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| adj.起大风的 | |
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66
vices
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| 缺陷( vice的名词复数 )； 恶习； 不道德行为； 台钳 | |
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