Twilight in Italy

Twilight in Italy

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Title: Twilight in Italy
Author: D.H. Lawrence
Release Date: December, 2005 [EBook #9497] [Yes, we are more than
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TWILIGHT IN ITALY
By D. H. Lawrence
1916

CONTENTS
THE CRUCIFIX ACROSS THE MOUNTAINS
ON THE LAGO DI GARDA 1 The Spinner and the Monks 2 The
Lemon Gardens 3 The Theatre 4 San Gaudenzio 5 The Dance 6 Il Duro
7 John
ITALIANS IN EXILE
THE RETURN JOURNEY

The Crucifix Across the Mountains

The imperial road to Italy goes from Munich across the Tyrol, through
Innsbruck and Bozen to Verona, over the mountains. Here the great
processions passed as the emperors went South, or came home again
from rosy Italy to their own Germany.
And how much has that old imperial vanity clung to the German soul?
Did not the German kings inherit the empire of bygone Rome? It was
not a very real empire, perhaps, but the sound was high and splendid.
Maybe a certain Grössenwahn is inherent in the German nature. If only
nations would realize that they have certain natural characteristics, if
only they could understand and agree to each other's particular nature,
how much simpler it would all be.
The imperial procession no longer crosses the mountains, going South.
That is almost forgotten, the road has almost passed out of mind. But
still it is there, and its signs are standing.
The crucifixes are there, not mere attributes of the road, yet still having
something to do with it. The imperial processions, blessed by the Pope
and accompanied by the great bishops, must have planted the holy idol
like a new plant among the mountains, there where it multiplied and
grew according to the soil, and the race that received it.
As one goes among the Bavarian uplands and foothills, soon one
realizes here is another land, a strange religion. It is a strange country,
remote, out of contact. Perhaps it belongs to the forgotten, imperial
processions.
Coming along the clear, open roads that lead to the mountains, one
scarcely notices the crucifixes and the shrines. Perhaps one's interest is
dead. The crucifix itself is nothing, a factory-made piece of
sentimentalism. The soul ignores it.
But gradually, one after another looming shadowily under their hoods,
the crucifixes seem to create a new atmosphere over the whole of the
countryside, a darkness, a weight in the air that is so unnaturally bright
and rare with the reflection from the snows above, a darkness hovering

just over the earth. So rare and unearthly the light is, from the
mountains, full of strange radiance. Then every now and again recurs
the crucifix, at the turning of an open, grassy road, holding a shadow
and a mystery under its pointed hood.
I was startled into consciousness one evening, going alone over a
marshy place at the foot of the mountains, when the sky was pale and
unearthly, invisible, and the hills were nearly black. At a meeting of the
tracks was a crucifix, and between the feet of the Christ a handful of
withered poppies. It was the poppies I saw, then the Christ.
It was an old shrine, the wood-sculpture of a Bavarian peasant. The
Christ was a peasant of the foot of the Alps. He had broad cheekbones
and sturdy limbs. His plain, rudimentary face stared fixedly at the hills,
his neck was stiffened, as if in resistance to the fact of the nails and the
cross, which he could not escape. It was a man nailed down in spirit,
but set stubbornly against the bondage and the disgrace. He