were quickly swallowed up in the murk. Unlike her offspring, she had
never been to school. That accounted for it. A gentle woman, frail in
health and manifestly wise; the look of the house, of the children, bore
witness to her sagacity. Understanding me as little as I understood her,
our conversation finally lapsed into a series of smiles, which Attilio
interpreted as best he could. She insisted upon producing some apples
and a bottle of wine, and I was interested to notice that she poured out
to her various male offspring, down to the tiniest tot, but drank not a
drop herself, nor gave any to her big daughters.

"She is sorry they will not let you stay at Levanto."

"Carrara lies just beyond the war-zone. I want to visit the marble-mines
when the weather grows a little warmer, and perhaps write something
about them. Ask her whether you can join me there for a week or so, if I
send the money. Make her say yes."

She said yes.

With a companion like this, to reflect my moods and act as buffer
between myself and the world, I felt I could do anything. Already I saw
myself exploring those regions, interviewing directors as to methods of
work and output, poking my nose into municipal archives and libraries to
learn the history of those various quarries of marble, plain and
coloured; tracking the footsteps of Michael Angelo at Seravezza and
Pietrasanta and re-discovering that old road of his and the inscription
he left on the rock; speculating why the Romans, who ransacked the
furthermost corners of the earth for tinted stones, knew so little of
the treasures here buried; why the Florentines were long content to use
that grey bigio, when the lordly black portovenere, [2] with its golden