And then I perceived that this was as pitiful a ruse of self-deception as
that of the fox in the fable unable to reach the luscious grapes above him.
For as well might a starving man seek to compel by an effort of his will
the hunger to cease from gnawing at his vitals.
Thus were desire and conscience locked in conflict, and each held the
ascendancy alternately what time I pushed onward aimlessly until I came to
the broad bed of a river.
A grey waste of sun-parched boulders spread away to the stream, which was
diminished by the long drought. Beyond the narrow sheen of water,
stretched another rocky space, and then came the green of meadows and a
brown city upon the rising ground.
The city was Fornovo, and the diminished river was the Taro, the ancient
boundary between the Gaulish and Ligurian folk. I stood upon the historic
spot where Charles VIII had cut his way through the allies to win back to
France after the occupation of Naples. But the grotesque little king who
had been dust for a quarter of a century troubled my thoughts not at all
just then. The Taro brought me memories not of battle, but of home. To
reach Mondolfo I had but to follow the river up the valley towards that
long ridge of the Apennines arrayed before me, with the tall bulks of Mount
Giso and Mount Orsaro, their snow-caps sparkling in the flood of sunshine
that poured down upon them.
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