He brought
out a great jar of spirit distilled from plums, and insisted upon my
drinking some with him. He also invited me to 'break a crust,' but this
offer I declined. Before I took leave of the good-natured man, he seemed to
have fairly shaken off the bad impression I had made upon him by watching a
thunderstorm with interest and pleasure.
The sky having cleared, I continued my journey towards Riberac, and reached
the Dronne when the stormy day was ending without a cloud. There was hardly
a breath of wind to shake the drops from the still dripping leaves, and the
last groan of distant thunder having died away, there would have been deep
silence but for the warbling of blackbirds and nightingales.
THE DESERT OF THE DOUBLE
I am now at Riberac--the Ribeyrac of Dante's commentators, who generally
prefer to abide by the old spelling. One might expect this ancient little
town to offer much interest to the archaeologist, but it does not. Its
interest lies almost wholly in its literary associations of Arnaud Daniel,
and of him mainly because Dante chanced to meet him in purgatory. Here
was the castle--there is nothing of it now--where the thirteenth-century
troubadour was born whom Petrarch described as '_Il grande maestro
d'amore,_' and whom Dante made Guido speak of as a poet in these words of
unqualified praise:
'Questi ch' io ti scerno
Fu miglior fabbro del parlar materno:
Versi d'amore e prose di romanzi
Soverchio tutti.
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