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The Duchess, alarmed for the health of Prince Ferrante, fled with him to the dower-house by the Piana; and the strange nature of his Highness's distemper caused many to follow her example.
He raised his eyes and saw de Crucis at his side. Then he began to remember. There had been preceding intervals of consciousness, and in one of them, in answer perhaps to some vaguely-uttered wish for light and air, he had been carried out of the palace and the city to the Benedictine monastery on its wooded knoll beyond the Piana.
And so it has been possible to show in the case of the late Sicilian rebellion, in spite of all the lies of those interested in hiding the truth, that in those districts where socialism was most advanced and best understood there were no deeds of personal violence, no revolts, as, for example, among the peasants of Piana dei Greci, of whom Nicola Barbato had made intelligent socialists; while those convulsive movements occurred outside of the field of the socialist propaganda as a rebellion against the exactions of the local governments and of the camorre, or in those districts where the socialist propaganda was less intelligent and was stifled by the fierce passions caused by hunger and misery.
From Ponte di Po to Pianura the most convenient way is by water; but the river Piana being greatly swollen by the late rains, my friend, who seems well-acquainted with the country, proposed driving thither: a suggestion I readily accepted, as it gave me a good opportunity to study the roads and farms of the duchy.
'Eh, thank ye, mem! answered Robert, rising. 'Whan I'm able to play upo' the fiddle as weel 's ye play upo' the piana, I'll come and play at yer window ilka nicht, as lang 's ye like to hearken. She smiled, and he was satisfied. He did not dare again ask her to play to him. But she said of herself, 'Now I will play something to you, if you like, and he resumed his seat devoutly.
In the chambers around the courtyard his lordship drove a thriving trade in wines from his vineyards, while his clients awaited his pleasure in the armoury, where the panoplies of his fighting predecessors still rusted on the walls. Behind this facade a later prelate had built a vast wing overlooking a garden which descended by easy terraces to the Piana.
It was the Duchess's habit to escape the August heats by retiring to the dower-house on the Piana, a league beyond the gates; but the little prince being still under the care of the German physician, who would not consent to his removal, her Highness reluctantly lingered in Pianura.
Thus in the dark cavern of Barnoukova, on the Piana, in a rock of gypsum, while the thermometer in the shade stood at 75°.2, the temperatures at various points in the cave were, at the entrance 59°.36, 25 feet from the entrance 46°.4, and in the coldest part 42°.8. This cold he describes as insupportable.
'I wish yer mother had been alive, the farmer went on. 'She wad hae been rael prood to hear ye play like that. Eh! she likit the fiddle weel. And she culd play bonny upo' the piana hersel'. It was something to hear the twa o' them playing thegither, him on the fiddle that verra fiddle o' 's father's 'at ye hae i' yer han' and her on the piana.
This should have enabled her to pay her debts and put some dignity and order into her establishment; but the first year's income had gone in the building of a villa on the Piana, in imitation of the country-seats along the Brenta; the second was spent in establishing a menagerie of wild animals like that of the French Queen at Versailles; and rumour had it that the Duchess carried her imitation of her royal cousin so far as to be involved in an ugly quarrel with her jewellers about a necklace for which she owed a thousand ducats.
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