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Barges filled with Brenta water or Mirano wine take up their station at the neighbouring steps, and then ensues a mighty splashing and hurrying to and fro of men with tubs upon their heads. The brawny fellows in the winebarge are red from brows to breast with drippings of the vat. And now there is a bustle in the quarter. A barca has arrived from S. Erasmo, the island of the market-gardens.
We went down the Po and the Brenta in a boat; and, the days proving intolerably hot, we rested in the bordering palaces during the day, travelling through the night, when darkness made the bordering banks indistinct, and our solitude less remarkable; when the wandering moon lit the waves that divided before our prow, and the night-wind filled our sails, and the murmuring stream, waving trees, and swelling canvass, accorded in harmonious strain.
On the Trentino front the activity of the artillery increased again on February 12, 1917, especially in the Tonale Pass, on the western slopes of Monte Zugna, in the Lagarina Valley, in the upper Travignola, and in the Cordevole Valley. In the Arsa Valley and on the upper Coalba Torrent, on the right bank of the Brenta, Austrian raids were repulsed.
The landscape no longer gleamed; all its glowing colours were revealed, except that its remoter features were still softened and united in the mist of distance, whose sweet effect was heightened to Emily by the dark verdure of the pines and cypresses, that over-arched the foreground of the river. The market people, passing with their boats to Venice, now formed a moving picture on the Brenta.
But if the Piave was to be held, the German threat to turn it by a descent from the Alps down either side of the Brenta valley must be defeated; and it was here that the Caporetto campaign was fought to a standstill in November and December.
Fortunately enough, I had scarcely proceeded as far as Ponte di Brenta when I fell in with an officer of Cialdini's staff, who was bound to the same destination, namely, Dolo.
Between the Adige and the Brenta the retreating Austro-Hungarian forces had now reached strongly fortified and commanding positions which considerably increased their power of resistance. The Italians, however, continued, even if at reduced speed, to make progress. On June 27, 1916, they shelled Austrian positions on Monte Trappola and Monte Testo and took trenches near Malga Zugna.
The Aulic Council at Vienna prepared for the Archduke Charles a modification of the same old plan, only this time the approach was down the Piave and the Tagliamento, rivers which rise among the grotesque Dolomites and in the Carnic Alps. They flow south like the Adige and the Brenta, but their valleys are wider where they open into the lowlands, and easier of access.
A black vapour, tinging their entrance, completed the terror of the prospect, which I shall never forget. For two or three leagues it continued much in the same style; cliffs, nearly perpendicular, on both sides, and the Brenta foaming and thundering below. Beyond, the rocks began to be mantled with vines and gardens.
Theirs was at an end, as they recognized, and agreed to part "for a time, perhaps, or perhaps for ever," she wrote, with their attachment broken but not destroyed. It was early in April that De Musset started on his homeward journey. George Sand saw him on his way as far as Vicenza, and ere returning to Venice, made a little excursion in the Alps, along the course of the Brenta.
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