On her arrival at Assisi, Irene immediately felt a little calmer than she had done in Rome. She had often noticed that when staying in mountainous districts her nerves grew quieter, and she felt, for the time being, less depressed. She loved the scent of the fresh mountain air, and it seemed to her, under its influence, as though, after all, life might still have in store for her many happy hours. An old doctor who had once treated her in Paris had called her in fun “la femme des montagnes”—perhaps, indeed, she should have lived always at high altitudes.
Assisi, in addition, was a delightful place. From the hills among which the little town with its famous monastery nestled, there was a glorious view over an immense plain, dotted with houses, churches, gardens, and villages.[130] In the distance rose the peaks of the Apennines.
The impression of this view was rendered all the more enchanting by that wonderful colouring, so well known to all who have visited Umbria or Tuscany in the spring. The mountains were nearly always wreathed in an azure mist; the shadows were deep blue, little white cloudlets floated in the turquoise sky; the valley was green under its carpet of velvet grass, powdered already with daisies; the fruit-trees in the orchards were covered with a wealth of pink and white blossom. Such landscapes can be seen only in the pictures of the Italian old masters, for they alone, of all painters, have possessed the gift of reproducing all the softness and harmony of their native colouring.
Assisi has, to this day, preserved its character of a medi?val Borgo, and has probably changed but little since the days of St. Francis. An old ruined fortress crowns the higher of a group of hills, and from this point run in all directions narrow, ill-paved little streets, illuminated at night, as in old times, by feeble[131] lanterns hanging on wires stretched across the roadway. Nobody seems to live in the monotonous, grey stone houses with eternally closed shutters; nobody ever seems to walk in the deserted streets and dark alleys. Only an occasional donkey tied to a wall stands meditatively in the middle of the road, and from time to time moves his long ears as a sign of life. Now and then there float across the air from some cellar the beat of a carpenter’s hammer, and the subdued tones of his voice, singing about the “faithless Fiametta.” Life seems to have stopped at the twelfth century, since when everything has lain still in an enchanted sleep. Even the numerous tourists do not succeed in awakening the slumbering town. The inhabitants are mostly monks and nuns, with a scattering of Polish Catholics, and English old maids, who come to kneel at the shrine of St. Francis.
Irene set herself zealously to visit all the holy places. First, she descended into the valley, to the Church of Santa Maria dei Angeli. It had once stood in the heart of[132] a dreaming forest, where, in the fourth century, some monks had built a tiny chapel, round which, partly in cells, partly in caves, the brotherhood had settled. In this primitive little settlement, St. Francis lived and prayed and died. Later on his remains were removed and buried in the new and magnificent fortress-like Franciscan Monastery, whose white walls and towers now shine dazzlingly in the sun. The old forest has long since disappeared, and the touching little chapel is almost lost in the centre of the magnificent temple built around it. Monks show visitors round the monastery, pointing out the cell in which St. Francis died, the grotto in which he slept, and the little garden where grew the roses without thorns, that God had sent him as a special grace.
Irene went also to do homage to the body of St. Clara, who, influenced by the teaching of St. Francis, left the world, her family and friends, retired into a convent, and founded the Order of the Clarissians. St. Clara, too, passed her life in the modest little convent of St. Damian, and it was only after her death[133] that her body was transferred to the gorgeous Church of the New Convent, where, in a niche, enclosed in a glass coffin, it rests in nun’s attire, and with a capuchin drawn over the blackened features.
Most of all, however, Irene enjoyed her excursion to Carceri, the distant hermitage in a mountain cave, where St. Francis had often prayed and fasted. She ordered a carriage a day in advance, and, at the appointed hour, Giuseppe, a handsome young Umbrian, drove up to the door of the hotel, raised his hat, and smiled caressingly to the waiting Irene. They traversed the entire town at a walking pace, on account of the steep, narrow streets, and this slow drive was a sort of triumphal progress for young Giuseppe. He seemed to be on a friendly footing with the whole place; every man they met on their way turned and walked for a while beside the carriage, his hand on the shaft, and conversing animatedly with Giuseppe. They all emphatically persuaded him to come, at some particular time and for some particular reason, to the Piazza[134] Nuova, and he repeatedly swore by all the saints to keep the appointment.
At last they passed through the old fortress gates, and Giuseppe drove up to a small house, from the window of which peeped a pretty, sunburnt, smiling little face. Giuseppe jumped from his box, and leaving Irene at the mercy of the scorching Italian sun, disappeared into the house. Time passed; the young horse, peacefully regaling itself on fresh grass, was certainly in no hurry to proceed, and Giuseppe stayed away so long that Irene grew seriously angry. At last he appeared wreathed in smiles, and announced that the bullocks would be brought round in a moment.
“The bullocks!” exclaimed Irene; “but why do we want bullocks?”
“How should we do without them?” he retorted. “We are going into the mountains. A horse cannot make that journey alone. We must have two bullocks.”
Irene waited with some curiosity. In about ten minutes a middle-aged woman, probably the mother of the pretty sunburnt[135] girl, appeared, leading by a rope two enormous, splendid, grey bullocks, with immense horns. They were evidently perfectly tame, and the woman, placing them in front of the horse, tied them to the carriage. Giuseppe helped solely with advice, exchanging playful glances the while with the pretty daughter, who was hopping about near him on one foot, the other foot, evidently wounded, being tied up with a white rag.
After much delay the procession started. The road was indeed appalling! A narrow, steep, stony mountain path, over which no man in his senses would ever dream of driving a carriage. But what will not an Italian do when there is a chance of earning a few lire?
In front, leading the bullocks, walked the woman with a shawl pushed well down over her forehead. She looked sufficiently modest and respectful, and was also sufficiently careless and untidy, to remind one of a Russian peasant woman. The thin useless little ropes she had brought broke every minute, the ends falling and getting entangled in the animals’ feet. Giuseppe was furious,[136] constantly jumped off the box, and bitterly reproached the poor woman.
At last the bullocks were unharnessed, the relieved horse trotted gaily along a wider and much smoother road, and Irene thought that her troubles were over. Alas, however! At a turn of the way appeared a peasant waiting with two other bullocks (white ones this time), and the same story began all over again. The road grew always worse and more dangerous, and Irene hardly knew whether to be more frightened or delighted with the wonderful view that greeted her gaze. Assisi, with its stone walls and towers, lay spread out before her like a fairy-fortress, with a background of blue hills, and surrounded by a frame of grey-green olive-trees and dark cypresses. In the foreground, like carpets flung down at random, gleamed brilliant patches of emerald grass—the whole picture, indeed, was so fresh, so lovely, so poetical, that it might have been torn from a masterpiece by Botticelli.
At last the bullocks turned into a cavern-like opening among the rocks, from which[137] issued a whiff of cold air. They had reached the entrance to the monastery, and Irene alighted and followed the path between two stone walls. A deathlike silence surrounded her. The sun caressed the as yet leafless old trees, birds sang, the path grew always narrower, and at last the old gates barred the way. Irene rang the bell. A decrepit old door-keeper, walking with difficulty, led her into a tiny courtyard with a stone well in its centre, and passed her on to a young Franciscan, just on the point of acting as guide to an Englishwoman who had come from Assisi on foot.
The tiny retreat was arranged partly in natural grottos and partly in little cave-cells, hewn out of the rocks. The little staircases and doors were so narrow and low that one could nowhere stand upright. Here, in the twelfth century, lived, at times, St. Francis, and la sua compagnia; then, later on, St. Bernard of Siena, and many other saints. The poetic stillness of the place, and its sacred associations, had attracted them, and they had jealously guarded the few small[138] relics of St. Francis that had been left there—a tiny narrow pillow, a little box for the Holy Sacrament, and a cross.
The young Fran............