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"We drove to Sondrio, and before we reached it I dare say I was as pale as she. A horrible thought had flashed upon me. At Sondrio I took her papa aside, and, without telling him what had happened, questioned him about his impressions of Franzenshohe. 'You remember the little bridge, he said, 'that we were all afraid to cross; by Jove!
It was their Montepulciano which drew the Gauls to Rome, if Livy can be trusted. Perhaps they first planted the vine in Valtelline. Perhaps its superior culture in that district may be due to ancient use surviving in a secluded Alpine valley. One thing is certain, that the peasants of Sondrio and Tirano understand viticulture better than the Italians of Lombardy.
Long experience only confirms the first impression, that, of all cold, the cold of an Italian winter is most penetrating. As we lumbered out of Sondrio in a heavy diligence, I could have fancied myself back once again at Radicofani or among the Ciminian hills. The frost was penetrating.
'Just try my powers, and see what will happen! 'Very well, said the saint, 'produce me twenty barrels of better wine than can be grown in Sondrio. So old Barbariccia stamped his hoof, and lo! there were the twenty barrels, while the mere scent of them nearly made the saint break a vow that he would never again taste fermented wine.
The hotel at Sondrio, La Maddalena, was in carnival uproar of masquers, topers, and musicians all night through. It was as much as we could do to rouse the sleepy servants and get a cup of coffee ere we started in the frozen dawn. 'Verfluchte Maddalena! grumbled Christian as he shouldered our portmanteaus and bore them in hot haste to the post.
I have twice been out of doors, and am convinced that I am equal to the journey; indeed, it is hardly possible for me to endure remaining here any longer. She read no more, but folded it up, saying, 'I had rather no one saw the rest. He makes himself so unhappy about that unfortunate going to Sondrio, that he says what is only painful to hear.
The prettiest spot, perhaps, is at Tresenda or S. Giacomo, where a pass from Edolo and Brescia descends from the southern hills. But the Valtelline has no great claim to beauty of scenery. Its chief town, Sondrio, where we supped and drank some special wine called il vino de' Signori Grigioni, has been modernised in dull Italian fashion.
Much of the same wine enters Switzerland by another route, travelling from Sondrio to Chiavenna and across the Splügen. But until quite recently, the wine itself could scarcely be found outside the Canton. It was indeed quoted upon Lombard wine-lists. Yet no one drank it; and when I tasted it at Milan, I found it quite unrecognisable.
And now, while she was finishing her meal in the dim light of dawn, and the second guide was packing their few belongings, Pietro regaled her with a legend of the Monte del Diavolo, which overlooks Sondrio and the lovely valley of the Adda.
By going up the Roseg Valley, and carrying the barest necessaries for a few days' travel, she could cross the Bernina range into Italy, reach the rail at Sondrio, and go round by Como to Lucerne and thence to Basle, whither the excellent Swiss system of delivering passengers' luggage would convey her bulky packages long before she was ready to claim them.
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