r 144 



THE BROTHERS OF GOSCHENEN. 



" Die endolo i! Turpin lo dico auche io." 



Oil. Fur. passim. 



ONE cold evening, late in the autumn of 1831, 1 happened lo be the 

 sole occupier of the long Sala, as they in compliment called it, appro- 

 priated to travellers in the inn of Tortona. I had left my luggage at 

 Milan lo be forwarded to Florence by the diligence, that I might 

 thereby avoid the hourly annoyance of frontier custom-houses on the 

 route from Genoa to Leghorn. I myself, fulVof the delightful remi- 

 niscences of pedestrianism in Switzerland, marched one fine morning 

 out of the gates of Milan with blouse and knapsack on my pilgrimage 

 to Genoa the proud. By the way, I was soon weary of walking 

 through Lombardy, and found the long causeway, the flat rice-field, 

 and the straight line of mulberries, a very different matter from the 

 winding mountain path and its ever-varying panorama of rock and 

 waterfall, and glacier and snow-peak. However, there I was at 

 Tortona, basking before a huge heap of glowing embers and blazing 

 billets on the hearth, that expanded their length and breadth under the 

 huge projecting chimney. Of the room, as I said before, I was the 

 sole occupier ; my chair resting on its hinder legs against the long 

 vacant table, while the blaze of the wood fire overcoming the flicker- 

 ing light of the tall earthen lamp, cast a huge shapeless spectral 

 shadow of myself over the whitewashed wall and cieling. I was tired, 



weary, disappointed with rny pedestrian experiences. The wind 

 whistled chilly without, and every now and then came down with a 

 sudden angry gust, and the rain pattered angrily against the win- 

 dow. Little Flaminia, the dark-eyed, laughing, gossiping daughter 

 of my landlady, had vanished with the remains of my supper, and I 

 was left alone. No, not quite alone ; for stretched at his length on 

 the square tiles before the fire lay my rough black-and-tan terrier, 

 Weazle, turning occasionally first one side and then another to the 

 genial glow. 



I felt melancholy. 



" Egad I'll have a bit of Tasso," said I to myself, ' I left off at 

 Canto 8." 



Lifting my knapsack, and tossing aside shirts and stockings, pistols 

 and shoes, I clutched in the corner my " Bibliotheca Portabile del 

 Viaggiatore." 



I got through four lines; and as I lingered syllable by syllable 

 over 



" E 1'alba uscia della raagion celeste 



Con la fronte di rose e co'pie d'oro," 



the book dropped on my knee, and, fixing my eyes on the out- 

 line of a burly toper with a flaming red nose that glowed among the 

 embers, I thought of the Aurora of Guido on the cieling of the 

 Palazzo Raspigliari ; and then I thought of the little cell I had lately 

 seen at Ferrara, dark, and damp, and cold where, as the storytells, 



