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The valley had narrowed to what was scarcely more than a defile between two dark and rugged hillsides, pine-covered hillsides that shut out the sun, smiting the air with chill and shadow, and turning the Rampio, whose brawl seemed somehow to increase the chill, turning the sparkling, sportive Rampio to the colour of slate. "It puts one in mind of brigands," she said, with another little shudder.
"How ever did it come to your knowledge?" Annunziata shrugged. "Oh," she answered, "everybody knows that. I have known it for years. My grandmother who lived in Milan told it to me. Doesn't the water look cool and pleasant?" was her abrupt digression, as she returned her gaze to the Rampio. "When it is hot like this, I should like to lie down in the water, and go to sleep. Wouldn't you?"
She even threatened to drown herself in the Rampio." Besides, if Annunziata were to turn into a monkey, she couldn't have the sugared chestnuts that somebody or other has brought her from Roccadoro. On the chest of drawers in my room there has mysteriously appeared a box of sugared chestnuts. I thought they were for her, but they're not, unless she will promise never to turn into a monkey."
Near at hand the garden was as if a thin web of silver had been cast over it, pale and dim, where wet surfaces reflected the diffused daylight. And just across the Rampio, on the olive-clad hillside that rose abruptly from its brink, rather an interesting process was taking place, the fabrication of clouds, no less.
Sometimes the valley narrows to a ravine, and signs of cultivation disappear, and the voice of the Rampio swells to a roar, and you become aware, between the hills that rise gloomy and almost sheer beside you, of a great solitude: a solitude that is intensified rather than diminished by the sight of some lonely infinitely lonely grange, perched far aloft, at a height that seems out of reach of the world.
He had his castle, his pictures, his garden, he had the hills and valley, the birds, the flowers, the clouds, the sun, he had the Rampio, he had Annunziata, he even had Annunziata's uncle; and with all this he had a sense of having stepped out of a world that he knew by heart, that he knew to satiety, a world that was stale and stuffy and threadbare, with its gilt rubbed off and its colours tarnished, into a world where everything was fresh and undiscovered and full of savour, a great cool blue and green world that from minute to minute opened up new perspectives, made new promises, brought to pass new surprises.
The drive to Roccadoro from Sant' Alessina is a pleasant drive. The road follows for the most part the windings of the Rampio, so that you are seldom out of sight of its gleaming waters, and the brawl of it, now louder, now less loud, is perpetually in your ears.
The air was sweetened by many incense-breathing things besides the violets, by moss and bark, the dew-laden grass, the moist brown earth; and it was quick with music: bees droned, leaves whispered, birds called, sang, gossiped, disputed, and the Rampio played a crystal accompaniment.
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