The next morning going on deck, as he always did at an early hour, the patron found Dantès leaning against the bulwarks gazing with intense earnestness at a pile of granite rocks, which the rising sun tinged with rosy light. It was the Island of Monte Cristo.

La Jeune Amélie left it three-quarters of a league to the larboard and kept on for Corsica. Dantès thought, as they passed so closely to the island whose name was so interesting to him, that he had only to leap into the sea and in half an hour be at the promised land. But then what could he do without instruments to discover his treasure, without arms to defend himself? Besides, what would the sailors say? What would the patron think? He must wait.

…Evening came, and Edmond saw the island tinged with the shades of twilight, and then disappear in the darkness from all eyes but his own…

…in the long days on board ship… the vessel, gliding on with security over the azure sea, required no care but the hand of the helmsman, thanks to the favorable winds that swelled her sails…

Two months and a half elapsed in these trips… He had passed and re-passed his Island of Monte Cristo twenty times, but not once had he found an opportunity of landing there.

…

The patron of La Jeune Amélie proposed as a place of landing the Island of Monte Cristo…

At the mention of Monte Cristo Dantès started with joy…

…orders were given to get under weigh next night, and, wind and weather permitting, to make the neutral island by the following day.

Thus, at length, by one of the unexpected strokes of fortune which sometimes befall those who have for a long time been the victims of an evil destiny, Dantès was about to secure the opportunity he wished for, by simple and natural means, and land on the island without incurring any suspicion. One night more and he would be on his way.

The night was one of feverish distraction, and in its progress visions, good and evil, passed through Dantès’ mind. If he closed his eyes… if he slept for a moment the wildest dreams haunted his brain. He ascended into grottos paved with emeralds, with panels of rubies, and the roof glowing with diamond stalactites. Pearls fell drop by drop, as subterranean waters filter in their caves. Edmond, amazed, wonderstruck, filled his pockets with the radiant gems and then returned to daylight, when he discovered that his prizes had all changed into common pebbles. He then endeavored to re-enter the marvellous grottos, but they had suddenly receded, and now the path became a labyrinth, and then the entrance vanished… All was useless, the treasure disappeared…

The day came at length, and was almost as feverish as the night had been, but it brought reason to the aid of imagination, and Dantès was then enabled to arrange a plan which had hitherto been vague and unsettled in his brain… 

…At seven o’clock in the evening all was ready, and at ten minutes past seven they doubled the lighthouse just as the beacon was kindled. The sea was calm, and, with a fresh breeze from the south-east, they sailed beneath a bright blue sky, in which God also lighted up in turn his beacon lights, each of which is a world. Dantès told them that all hands might turn in, and he would take the helm… 

…Dantès, cast from solitude into the world, frequently experienced an imperious desire for solitude; and what solitude is more complete, or more poetical, than that of a ship floating in isolation on the sea during the obscurity of the night, in the silence of immensity, and under the eye of Heaven?

Now this solitude was peopled with his thoughts, the night lighted up by his illusions, and the silence animated by his anticipations. …the vessel was hurrying on with every sail set, and every sail full with the breeze. They were making nearly ten knots an hour. The Island of Monte Cristo loomed large in the horizon. Edmond resigned the lugger to the master’s care, and went and lay down in his hammock; but, in spite of a sleepless night, he could not close his eyes for a moment.

…The peak of Monte Cristo reddened by the burning sun, was seen against the azure sky. …About five o’clock in the evening the island was distinct, and everything on it was plainly perceptible, owing to that clearness of the atmosphere peculiar to the light which the rays of the sun cast at its setting.

Edmond gazed very earnestly at the mass of rocks which gave out all the variety of twilight colors, from the brightest pink to the deepest blue; and from time to time his cheeks flushed, his brow darkened, and a mist passed over his eyes. Never did a gamester, whose whole fortune is staked on one cast of the die, experience the anguish which Edmond felt in his paroxysms of hope.

Night came, and at ten o’clock they anchored… In spite of his usual command over himself, Dantès could not restrain his impetuosity. He was the first to jump on shore; and had he dared, he would, like Lucius Brutus, have “kissed his mother earth.” It was dark, but at eleven o’clock the moon rose in the midst of the ocean, whose every wave she silvered, and then, “ascending high,” played in floods of pale light on the rocky hills…

…It was useless to search at night, and Dantès therefore delayed all investigation until the morning. 

…next day… Dantès declared his intention to go… 

Dantès went on, looking from time to time behind and around about him. Having reached the summit of a rock, he saw, a thousand feet beneath him, his companions…

Meanwhile, by a cleft between two walls of rock, following a path worn by a torrent, and which, in all human probability, human foot had never before trod, Dantès approached the spot where he supposed the grottos must have existed. Keeping along the shore, and examining the smallest object with serious attention, he thought he could trace, on certain rocks, marks made by the hand of man.

Time, which encrusts all physical substances with its mossy mantle, as it invests all things of the mind with forgetfulness, seemed to have respected these signs, which apparently had been made with some degree of regularity, and probably with a definite purpose. Occasionally the marks were hidden under tufts of myrtle, which spread into large bushes laden with blossoms, or beneath parasitical lichen. So Edmond had to separate the branches or brush away the moss to know where the guide-marks were. The sight of marks renewed Edmond’s fondest hopes… This solitary place was precisely suited to the requirements of a man desirous of burying treasure. 

…

…Then Dantès rose more agile and light than the kid among the myrtles and shrubs of these wild rocks, took his gun in one hand, his pickaxe in the other, and hastened towards the rock on which the marks he had noted terminated.

…

The sun had nearly reached the meridian, and his scorching rays fell full on the rocks, which seemed themselves sensible of the heat. Thousands of grasshoppers, hidden in the bushes, chirped with a monotonous and dull note; the leaves of the… olive trees waved and rustled in the wind. At every step that Edmond took he disturbed the lizards glittering with the hues of the emerald; afar off he saw the wild goats bounding from crag to crag. In a word, the island was inhabited, yet Edmond felt himself alone, guided by the hand of God.

He… mounted to the summit of the highest rock, and from thence gazed round in every direction…

This sight reassured him. He then looked at the objects near him. He saw that he was on the highest point of the island,—a statue on this vast pedestal of granite, nothing human appearing in sight, while the blue ocean beat against the base of the island, and covered it with a fringe of foam. Then he descended with cautious and slow step…

…

Dantès approached the upper rock, which now, without any support, leaned towards the sea. The intrepid treasure-seeker walked round it, and, selecting the spot from whence it appeared most susceptible to attack, placed his lever in one of the crevices, and strained every nerve to move the mass.

The rock… tottered on its base. Dantès redoubled his efforts; he seemed like one of the ancient Titans, who uprooted the mountains to hurl against the father of the gods. The rock yielded, rolled over, bounded from point to point, and finally disappeared in the ocean.

…Dantès uttered a cry of joy and surprise… He would fain have continued, but his knees trembled, and his heart beat so violently, and his sight became so dim, that he was forced to pause.

This feeling lasted but for a moment. Edmond inserted his lever… and exerted all his strength; the flag-stone yielded, and disclosed steps that descended until they were lost in the obscurity of a subterraneous grotto.

Anyone else would have rushed on with a cry of joy. Dantès turned pale, hesitated, and reflected.

“Come,” said he to himself, “be a man. I am accustomed to adversity. I must not be cast down… (if*) I have been deceived. What, then, would be the use of all I have suffered? The heart breaks when, after having been elated by flattering hopes, it sees all its illusions destroyed…”

He remained motionless and pensive, his eyes fixed on the gloomy aperture that was open at his feet…

…But instead of… darkness… Dantès saw a dim and bluish light…

After having stood a few minutes in the cavern, the atmosphere of which was rather warm than damp, Dantès’ eye, habituated as it was to darkness, could pierce even to the remotest angles of the cavern, which was of granite that sparkled like diamonds…

…At last, after renewed hesitation, Dantès entered the second grotto.

…The treasure, if it existed, was buried in this corner. The time had at length arrived; two feet of earth removed, and Dantès’ fate would be decided…

…He approached the hole he had dug, and now, with the aid of the torch, saw that his pickaxe had in reality struck against iron and wood. He planted his torch in the ground and resumed his labor.

In an instant a space three feet long by two feet broad was cleared, and Dantès could see an oaken coffer, bound with cut steel…

…In an instant he had cleared every obstacle away, and he saw successively the lock, placed between two padlocks, and the two handles at each end…

Dantès seized the handles, and strove to lift the coffer; it was impossible. He sought to open it; lock and padlock were fastened; these faithful guardians seemed unwilling to surrender their trust. Dantès inserted the sharp end of the pickaxe between the coffer and the lid, and pressing with all his force on the handle, burst open the fastenings. The hinges yielded in their turn and fell, still holding in their grasp fragments of the wood, and the chest was open.

Edmond was seized with vertigo… He then closed his eyes as children do in order that they may see in the resplendent night of their own imagination more stars than are visible in the firmament; then he re-opened them, and stood motionless with amazement.

Three compartments divided the coffer. In the first, blazed piles of golden coin; in the second, were ranged bars of unpolished gold… in the third, Edmond grasped handfuls of diamonds, pearls, and rubies, which, as they fell on one another, sounded like hail against glass.

After having touched, felt, examined these treasures, Edmond rushed through the caverns like a man seized with frenzy; he leaped on a rock, from whence he could behold the sea… Was he awake, or was it but a dream? Was it a transient vision, or was he face to face with reality?

He would fain have gazed upon his gold, and yet he had not strength enough; for an instant he leaned his head in his hands as if to prevent his senses from leaving him, and then rushed madly about the rocks of Monte Cristo, terrifying the wild goats and scaring the sea-fowls with his wild cries and gestures; then he returned, and, still unable to believe the evidence of his senses, rushed into the grotto, and found himself before this mine of gold and jewels.

This time he fell on his knees, and, clasping his hands convulsively, uttered a prayer intelligible to God alone…

* added for clarity

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If you turn towards the Palace of Frederick IV. you have before you the two high, triangular pediments of this dark and bristling façade, the greatly projecting entablatures, where, between four rows of windows, are sculptured with the most spirited chisel, nine Palatines, two Kings, and five Emperors.

On the right you have the beautiful Italian front of Otho-Heinrich with its divinities, its chimeræ, and its nymphs who live and breathe velveted by the soft shadows, with its Roman Cæsars, its Grecian demi-gods, its Hebraic heroes, and its porch which was sculptured by Ariosto. On the left you catch a glimpse of the Gothic front of Louis the Bearded, as savagely dug out and creviced as if gored by the horns of a gigantic bull. Behind you, under the arches of a porch, which shelters a half-filled well, you see four columns of grey granite, presented by the Pope to the great Emperor of Aix-la-Chapelle, which in the Eighth Century went to Ravenna on the border of the Rhine, in the Fifteenth, from the borders of the Rhine to the borders of the Neckar, and which, after having witnessed the fall of Charlemagne’s Palace at Ingelheim, have watched the crumbling of the Palatines’ Castle at Heidelberg. All the pavement of the court is covered with ruins of flights of steps, dried-up fountains, and broken basins. Everywhere the stones are cracked and nettles have broken through.

The two façades of the Renaissance which give such an air of splendour to this court are of red sandstone and the statues which decorate them are of white sandstone, an admirable combination which proves that the great sculptors were also great colourists. Time has rusted the red sandstone and given a golden tinge to the white. Of these two façades one, that of Frederick IV., is very severe; the other, that of Otho Heinrich, is entirely charming. The first is historical, the second is fabulous. Charlemagne dominates the one, Jupiter dominates the other.

The more you regard these two Palaces in juxtaposition and the more you study their marvellous details, the more sadness gains upon you. Strange destiny for masterpieces of marble and stone! An ignorant visitor mutilates them, an absurd cannon-ball annihilates them, and they were not mere artists but kings who made them. Nobody knows to-day the names of those divine men who built and sculptured the walls of Heidelberg. There is renown there for ten great artists who hover nameless above this illustrious ruin. An unknown Boccador planned this Palace of Frederick IV.; an ignored Primaticcio composed the façade of Otho-Heinrich; a Cæsar Cæsarino, lost in the shadows, designed the pure arches to the equilateral triangle of Louis V.’s mansion. Here are arabesques of Raphael, and here are figurines of Benvenuto. Darkness shrouds everything. Soon these marble poems will perish,—their poets have already died.

For what did these wonderful men work? Alas! for the sighing wind, for the thrusting grass, for the ivy which has come to compare its foliage with theirs, for the transient swallow, for the falling rain, and for the enshrouding night.

One singular thing here is that the three or four bombardments to which these two façades have been subjected have not treated them in the same way. Only the cornice and the architraves of Otho-Heinrich’s Palace have been damaged. The immortal Olympians who dwell there have not suffered. Neither Hercules, nor Minerva, nor Hebe has been touched. The cannon-balls and shells crossed each other here without harming these invulnerable statues. On the other hand, the sixteen crowned knights, who have heads of lions on the grenouillières of their armour and who have such valiant countenances, on the Palace of Frederick IV. have been treated by the bombs as if they had been living warriors. Nearly every one of them has been wounded. The face of the Emperor Otho has been covered with scars; Otho, King of Hungary, has had his left leg fractured; Otho-Heinrich, the Palatine, has lost his hand; a ball has disfigured Frederick the Pious; an explosion has cut Frederick II. in half and broken Jean Casimir’s loins. In the assaults which were levelled at the highest row, Charlemagne has lost his globe and in the lower one Frederick IV. has lost his sceptre.

However, nothing could be more superb than this legion of princes all mutilated and all standing. The anger of Leopold II. and of Louis XIV., the thunder—the anger of the sky, and the anger of the French Revolution—the anger of the people, have vainly assailed them; they all stand there defending their façade with their fists on their hips, with their legs outstretched, with firmly planted heel and defiant head. The Lion of Bavaria is proudly scowling under their feet. On the second row beneath a green bough, which has pierced through architrave and which is gracefully playing with the stone feathers of his casque, Frederick the Victorious is half drawing his sword…

To-day the Tower of Frederick the Victorious is called the Blown-up Tower.

Half of this colossal cylinder of masonry lies in the moat. Other cracked blocks detached from the top of the tower would have fallen long ago if the monster-trees had not seized them in their powerful claws and held them suspended above the abyss.

A few steps from this terrible ruin chance has made a ruin of ravishing beauty; this is the interior of Otho-Heinrich’s Palace, of which until now I have only described the façade. There it stands open to everybody under the sunshine and the rain, the snow and the wind, without a ceiling, without a canopy, and without a roof, whose dismantled walls are pierced as if by hazard with twelve Renaissance doors,—twelve jewels of orfèvrerie, twelve chefs d’œuvre, twelve idyls in stone—entwined as if they issued from the same roots, a wonderful and charming forest of wild flowers, worthy of the Palatines, consule dignæ. I can only tell you that this mixture of art and reality is indescribable; it is at once a contest and a harmony. Nature, who has a rival in Beethoven, finds also a rival in Jean Goujon. The arabesques form tendrils and the tendrils form arabesques. One does not know which to admire most, the living or the sculptured leaf.

This ruin appears to be filled with a divine order.

It seems to me that this Palace, built by the fairies of the Renaissance, is now in its natural state. All these marvellous fantasies of free and savage art would be out of harmony in these halls when treaties of peace or war were signed here, when grave princes dreamed here, and when queens were married… it is now the home of the bind-weed, and the wild mint is its perfume. It is well. It is better thus. This adorable sculpture was made to be kissed by the flowers and looked upon by the stars….

The night had fallen, the clouds were spread over the sky, and the moon had mounted nearly to the zenith, while I was still sitting on the same stone, gazing into the darkness which had gathered around me and into the shadows which I had within me. Suddenly the town-clock far below me sounded the hour; it was midnight: I rose and descended. The road leading to Heidelberg passes the ruins. At the moment when I arrived before them, the moon, veiled by the diffused clouds and surrounded by an immense halo, threw a weird light upon this magnificent mass of mouldering ruins….

The ruin, always open, is deserted at this hour. The idea of entering it possessed me. The two stone giants, who guard the stone court, allowed me to pass. I crossed the dark porch, upon which the iron portcullis still hangs, and entered the court. The moon had almost disappeared beneath the clouds. There was only a pallid light in the sky.

Nothing is grander than that which has fallen. This ruin, illuminated in such a way, at such an hour, was indescribably sad, gentle, and majestic. I fancied that in the scarcely perceptible rustling of the trees and foliage there was something grave and respectful. I heard no footstep, no voice, no breath. In the court there was neither light, nor shadow; a sort of dreamful twilight outlined everything and veiled everything. The confused gaps and rifts allowed the feeble rays of moonlight to penetrate the most remote corners; and in the black depths of the inaccessible arches and corridors, I saw white figures, slowly gliding.

It was the hour when the façades of old abandoned buildings are no longer façades, but faces. I walked over the uneven pavement without daring to make any noise, and I experienced between the four walls of this enclosure that strange disquietude, that undefined sentiment which the ancients called “the horror of the sacred woods.” There is a kind of insurmountable terror in the sinister mingled with the superb.

However, I climbed up the green and damp steps of the old stairway without rails and entered the old roofless dwelling of Otho-Heinrich. Perhaps you will laugh; but I assure you that to walk at night through chambers which have been inhabited by people, whose doors are dismantled, whose apartments each have their peculiar signification, saying to yourself: “Here is the dining-room, here is the bedroom, here is the alcove, here is the mantel-piece,”—and to feel the grass under your feet and to see the sky above your head, is terrifying. A room which has still the form of a room and whose ceiling has been lifted off, as it were like the lid of a box, becomes a mournful and nameless thing. It is not a house, it is not a tomb. In a tomb you feel the soul of a man; in this place you feel his shadow.

…However, nothing, nobody, not a living person is here. This hall, like the rest of the Palace, is deserted. …I saw nothing but a large frightened bat, which the blow of my cane on the stones had scared from one of the sculptured corbels of the wall, and which circled around my head in that funereal flight which seems to have been made for the interior of ruined towers….

At the moment I descended the flight of stairs the moon shone forth, large and brilliant, from a rift in the clouds; the Palace of Frederick IV., with its double pediment, suddenly appeared, magnificent and clear as daylight with its sixteen pale and formidable giants; while, at my right, Otho’s façade, a black silhouette against the luminous sky, allowed a few dazzling rays of moonlight to escape through its twenty-four windows.

I said clear as daylight—I am wrong. The moon upon ruins is more than a light,—it is a harmony. It hides no detail, it exaggerates no wounds, it throws a veil on broken objects and adds an indescribable, misty aureole of majesty to ancient buildings. It is better to see a palace, or an old cloister, at night than in the day. The hard brilliancy of the sunlight is severe upon the ruins and intensifies the sadness of the statues….

I went out of the Palace through the garden, and, descending, I stopped once more for a moment on one of the lower terraces. Behind me the ruin, hiding the moon, made, half down the slope, a large mass of shadow, where in all directions were thrown out long, dark lines, and long, luminous lines, which striped the vague and misty background of the landscape. Below me lay drowsy Heidelberg, stretched out at the bottom of the valley, the length of the mountain; all the lights were out; all the doors were shut; below Heidelberg I heard the murmur of the Neckar, which seemed to be whispering to the hill and valley; and the thoughts which filled me all the evening,—the nothingness of man in the Past, the infirmity of man in the Present, the grandeur of Nature, and the eternity of God,—came to me altogether, in a triple figure, whilst I descended with slow steps into the darkness between this river awake and living, this sleeping town, and this dead Palace.

The post Victor Hugo appeared first on Destinationality.

I am well lodged… not far from the Piazza San Marco… My windows look upon a narrow canal between lofty houses, a bridge of one arch is immediately below me, and directly opposite is a narrow, bustling alley.

New dwellings arose close against dwellings… houses sought the sky, being forced like trees inclosed in a narrow space, to seek in height what was denied them in breadth. …Moreover, water supplied the place of street, square, and promenade. The Venetian was forced to become a new creature; and thus Venice can only be compared with itself. The Canal Grande, winding like a serpent, yields to no street in the world, and nothing can compare with the space in front of Piazza San Marco… that great mirror of water, which is encompassed by Venice Proper, in the form of a crescent. Across the watery surface… to the left the island of San Giorgio Maggiore, to the right a little further off the Guidecca and its canal, and still more distant the Dogana and the entrance into the Canal Grande, where right before us two immense marble temples are glittering in the sunshine.
…
After dinner I hastened to fix my first impression of the whole, and without a guide, and merely observing the cardinal points, threw myself into the labyrinth of the city, which though everywhere intersected by larger or smaller canals, is again connected by bridges.
…
I easily found the Canal Grande, and the principal bridge—the Ponte Rialto, which consists of a single arch of white marble. Looking down from this, one has a fine prospect,—the canal full of ships, which bring every necessary from the continent, and put in chiefly at this place to unload, while between them is a swarm of gondolas. To-day, especially, being the Feast of St. Michael, the view was wonderfully animated…

To-day a very pretty effect was produced, by the number of well-dressed ladies, who, their features concealed beneath large black veils, were being ferried over in large parties at a time, in order to go to the Church of the Archangel, whose festival was being solemnised.

After I had become tired… I seated myself in a gondola, and, quitting the narrow streets with the intention of witnessing a spectacle from the opposite side, went along the northern part of the Canal Grande, into the lagunes, and then entered the canal della Guidecca, going as far as the Piazza San Marco. Now was I also one of the birds of the Adriatic sea, as every Venetian feels himself to be, whilst reclining in his gondola. I then thought with due honour of my good father, who knew of nothing better than to talk about the things I now witnessed. And will it not be so with me likewise?

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“My dear, will you be so kind as to show me the house of king Alcinous? I am an unfortunate foreigner in distress, and do not know one in your town and country.”

Then Minerva said, “Yes, father stranger… I will go before you and show the way, but say not a word as you go, and do not look at any man, nor ask him questions; for the people here cannot abide strangers, and do not like men who come from some other place. They are a sea-faring folk, and sail the seas by the grace of Neptune in ships that glide along like thought, or as a bird in the air.”

On this she led the way, and Ulysses followed in her steps; but not one of the Phaeacians could see him… He admired their harbours, ships, places of assembly, and the lofty walls of the city, which, with the palisade on top of them, were very striking, and when they reached the king’s house Minerva said:

“This is the house, father stranger, which you would have me show you. You will find a number of great people sitting at table, but do not be afraid; go straight in, for the bolder a man is the more likely he is to carry his point, even though he is a stranger. First find the queen. Her name is Arete, and she comes of the same family as her husband Alcinous. They both descend originally from Neptune…

“…she both was, and still is, respected beyond measure by her children, by Alcinous himself, and by the whole people, who look upon her as a goddess, and greet her whenever she goes about the city, for she is a thoroughly good woman both in head and heart… If you can gain her good will, you may have every hope of seeing your friends again, and getting safely back to your home and country.” 

Then Minerva left Scheria and went away over the sea. …Ulysses went on to the house of Alcinous, and he pondered much as he paused a while before reaching the threshold of bronze, for the splendour of the palace was like that of the sun or moon. The walls on either side were of bronze from end to end, and the cornice was of blue enamel. The doors were gold, and hung on pillars of silver that rose from a floor of bronze, while the lintel was silver and the hook of the door was of gold.

On either side there stood gold and silver mastiffs which Vulcan, with his consummate skill, had fashioned expressly to keep watch over the palace of king Alcinous; so they were immortal and could never grow old. Seats were ranged all along the wall, here and there from one end to the other, with coverings of fine woven work which the women of the house had made. Here the chief persons of the Phaeacians used to sit and eat and drink, for there was abundance at all seasons; and there were golden figures of young men with lighted torches in their hands, raised on pedestals, to give light by night to those who were at table. There are fifty maid servants in the house, some of whom are always grinding rich yellow grain at the mill, while others work at the loom, or sit and spin, and their shuttles go backwards and forwards like the fluttering of aspen leaves, while the linen is so closely woven that it will turn oil. As the Phaeacians are the best sailors in the world, so their women excel all others in weaving, for Minerva has taught them all manner of useful arts…

Outside the gate of the outer court there is a large garden of about four acres with a wall all round it. It is full of beautiful trees—pears, pomegranates, and the most delicious apples. There are luscious figs also, and olives in full growth. The fruits never rot nor fail all the year round, neither winter nor summer, for the air is so soft that a new crop ripens before the old has dropped. Pear grows on pear, apple on apple, and fig on fig, and so also with the grapes, for there is an excellent vineyard… In the furthest part of the ground there are beautifully arranged beds of flowers that are in bloom all the year round. Two streams go through it, the one turned in ducts throughout the whole garden, while the other is carried under the ground of the outer court to the house itself, and the town’s people draw water from it. Such, then, were the splendours with which the gods had endowed the house of king Alcinous.

So here Ulysses stood for a while and looked about him, but when he had looked long enough he crossed the threshold and went within the precincts of the house. …He went straight through the court, still hidden by the cloak of darkness in which Minerva had enveloped him, till he reached Arete and King Alcinous; then he laid his hands upon the knees of the queen, and at that moment the miraculous darkness fell away from him and he became visible. Every one was speechless with surprise at seeing a man there, but Ulysses began at once with his petition.

“Queen Arete,” he exclaimed, “…in my distress I humbly pray you, as also your husband and these your guests… to help me home to my own country as soon as possible; for I have been long in trouble and away from my friends.”

Then he sat down on the hearth among the ashes…

When Alcinous heard this he took Ulysses by the hand, raised him from the hearth, and bade him take the seat of Laodamas, who had been sitting beside him, and was his favourite son. A maid servant then brought him water in a beautiful golden ewer and poured it into a silver basin for him to wash his hands, and she drew a clean table beside him; an upper servant brought him bread and offered him many good things of what there was in the house, and Ulysses ate and drank. Then Alcinous said to one of the servants, “Pontonous, mix a cup of wine and hand it round that we may make drink-offerings to Jove the lord of thunder, who is the protector of all well-disposed suppliants.”

Pontonous then mixed wine and water, and handed it round after giving every man his drink-offering. When they had made their offerings, and had drunk each as much as he was minded, Alcinous said:

“Aldermen and town councillors of the Phaeacians, hear my words. You have had your supper, so now go home to bed. To-morrow morning I shall invite a still larger number of aldermen, and will give a sacrificial banquet in honour of our guest; we can then discuss the question of his escort, and consider how we may at once send him back rejoicing to his own country without trouble or inconvenience to himself, no matter how distant it may be. We must see that he comes to no harm while on his homeward journey…”

Then Ulysses said: “Pray, Alcinous… do as you propose, and at break of day set about helping me to get home. I shall be content to die if I may first once more behold my property… and all the greatness of my house.”

…Arete was the first to speak… “Stranger, before we go any further, there is a question I should like to ask you. Who, and whence are you…? Did you not say you had come here from beyond the sea?”

And Ulysses answered, “It would be a long story Madam, were I to relate in full the tale of my misfortunes, for the hand of heaven has been laid heavy upon me…

“…Days seven and ten did I sail over the sea, and on the eighteenth I caught sight of the first outlines of the mountains upon your coast—and glad indeed was I to set eyes upon them. …wind and current brought me to your shores.

“Now… I have told you the whole truth.”

“Stranger,” replied Alcinous, “…by Father Jove, Minerva, and Apollo… I wish you would stay here, marry my daughter, and become my son-in-law. If you will stay I will give you a house and an estate, but no one (heaven forbid) shall keep you here against your own wish, and that you may be sure of this I will attend tomorrow to the matter of your escort. You can sleep during the whole voyage if you like, and the men shall sail you over smooth waters either to your own home, or wherever you please…”

Then was Ulysses glad and prayed aloud saying, “Father Jove, grant that Alcinous may do all as he has said, for so he will win an imperishable name among mankind, and at the same time I shall return to my country.

…

“…I live in Ithaca, where there is a high mountain called Neritum, covered with forests… It is a rugged island, but it breeds brave men, and my eyes know none that they better love to look upon. The goddess Calypso kept me with her in her cave, and wanted me to marry her, as did also the cunning Aeaean goddess Circe; but they could neither of them persuade me, for there is nothing dearer to a man than his own country… however splendid a home he may have in a foreign country…”

_{While this passage takes place on the mythical island of “Scheria”, scholars identify it as the Greek island of Corfu.}

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I know the houses too. As I walk along they seem to run forward in the streets to look out at me from every window, and almost to say: “Good-morning! How do you do? I am quite well, thank God, and I am to have a new storey in May,” or, “How are you? I am being redecorated to-morrow;” or, “I was almost “burnt down and had such a fright,” and so on. I have my favourites among them, some are dear friends; one of them intends to be treated by the architect this summer. I shall go every day on purpose to see that the operation is not a failure. God forbid! But I shall never forget an incident with a very pretty little house of a light pink colour. It was such a charming little brick house, it looked so hospitably at me, and so proudly at its ungainly neighbours, that my heart rejoiced whenever I happened to pass it. Suddenly last week I walked along the street, and when I looked at my friend I heard a plaintive, “They are painting me yellow!” The villains! The barbarians! They had spared nothing, neither columns, nor cornices, and my poor little friend was as yellow as a canary. It almost made me bilious. And to this day I have not had the courage to visit my poor disfigured friend, painted the colour of the Celestial Empire.

So now you understand… in what sense I am acquainted with all Petersburg.

I have mentioned already that I had felt worried for three whole days before I guessed the cause of my uneasiness. And I felt ill at ease in the street—this one had gone and that one had gone, and what had become of the other? … I only at last this morning realized what was wrong. Aie! Why, they are giving me the slip and making off to their summer villas! Forgive the triviality of the expression, but I am in no mood for fine language … for everything that had been in Petersburg had gone or was going away for the holidays; for every respectable gentleman of dignified appearance who took a cab was at once transformed, in my eyes, into a respectable head of a household who after his daily duties were over, was making his way to the bosom of his family, to the summer villa; for all the passers-by had now quite a peculiar air which seemed to say to every one they met: “We are only here for the moment, gentlemen, and in another two hours we shall be going off to the summer villa.” If a window opened after delicate fingers, white as snow, had tapped upon the pane, and the head of a pretty girl was thrust out, calling to a street-seller with pots of flowers—at once on the spot I fancied that those flowers were being bought not simply in order to enjoy the flowers and the spring in stuffy town lodgings, but because they would all be very soon moving into the country and could take the flowers with them. What is more, I made such progress in my new peculiar sort of investigation that I could distinguish correctly from the mere air of each in what summer villa he was living. The inhabitants of Kamenny and Aptekarsky Islands or of the Peterhof Road were marked by the studied elegance of their manner, their fashionable summer suits, and the fine carriages in which they drove to town. Visitors to Pargolovo and places further away impressed one at first sight by their reasonable and dignified air; the tripper to Krestovsky Island could be recognized by his look of irrepressible gaiety. If I chanced to meet a long procession of waggoners walking lazily with the reins in their hands beside waggons loaded with regular mountains of furniture, tables, chairs, ottomans and sofas and domestic utensils of all sorts, frequently with a decrepit cook sitting on the top of it all, guarding her master’s property as though it were the apple of her eye; or if I saw boats heavily loaded with household goods crawling along the Neva or Fontanka to the Black River or the Islands—the waggons and the boats were multiplied tenfold, a hundredfold, in my eyes. I fancied that everything was astir and moving, everything was going in regular caravans to the summer villas. It seemed as though Petersburg threatened to become a wilderness, so that at last I felt ashamed, mortified and sad that I had nowhere to go for the holidays and no reason to go away. I was ready to go away with every waggon, to drive off with every gentleman of respectable appearance who took a cab; but no one—absolutely no one—invited me; it seemed they had forgotten me, as though really I were a stranger to them!

I took long walks, succeeding, as I usually did, in quite forgetting where I was, when I suddenly found myself at the city gates. Instantly I felt lighthearted, and I passed the barrier and walked between cultivated fields and meadows, unconscious of fatigue, and feeling only all over as though a burden were falling off my soul. All the passers-by gave me such friendly looks that they seemed almost greeting me, they all seemed so pleased at something. They were all smoking cigars, every one of them. And I felt pleased as I never had before. It was as though I had suddenly found myself in Italy—so strong was the effect of nature upon a half-sick townsman like me, almost stifling between city walls.

There is something inexpressibly touching in nature round Petersburg, when at the approach of spring she puts forth all her might, all the powers bestowed on her by Heaven, when she breaks into leaf, decks herself out and spangles herself with flowers…. Somehow I cannot help being reminded of a frail, consumptive girl, at whom one sometimes looks with compassion, sometimes with sympathetic love, whom sometimes one simply does not notice; though suddenly in one instant she becomes, as though by chance, inexplicably lovely and exquisite, and, impressed and intoxicated, one cannot help asking oneself what power made those sad, pensive eyes flash with such fire? What summoned the blood to those pale, wan cheeks? What bathed with passion those soft features? What set that bosom heaving? What so suddenly called strength, life and beauty into the poor girl’s face, making it gleam with such a smile, kindle with such bright, sparkling laughter? You look round, you seek for some one, you conjecture…. But the moment passes, and next day you meet, maybe, the same pensive and preoccupied look as before, the same pale face, the same meek and timid movements, and even signs of remorse, traces of a mortal anguish and regret for the fleeting distraction…. And you grieve that the momentary beauty has faded so soon never to return, that it flashed upon you so treacherously, so vainly, grieve because you had not even time to love her….

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This art of adaptation, of gentle and musical transitions, was evident even in the outward appearance of the city. Growing slowly over the centuries, developing organically from its centre, with its two million inhabitants Vienna had a large enough population to offer all the luxury and diversity of a metropolis, and yet it was not so vast that it was cut off from nature, like London or New York. The buildings on the edge of the city were reflected in the mighty waters of the Danube and looked out over the wide plain, merged with gardens and fields or climbed the last gently undulating green and wooded foothills of the Alps. You hardly noticed where nature ended and the city began, they made way for one another without resistance or contradiction. At the centre, in turn, you felt that the city had grown like a tree, forming ring after ring, and instead of the old ramparts of the fortifications, the Ringstrasse enclosed the innermost, precious core with its grand houses. In that core, the old palaces of the court and the nobility spoke the language of history in stone; here Beethoven had played for the Lichnowskys; there Haydn had stayed with the Esterházys; the premiere of his Creation was given in the old university; the Hofburg saw generations of emperors, Napoleon took up residence at Schönbrunn Palace; the united rulers of Christendom met in St Stephen’s Cathedral… the university saw countless luminaries of scholarship and science in its walls. Among these buildings the new architecture rose, proud and magnificent, with shining avenues and glittering emporiums. But old Vienna had as little to do with the new city as dressed stone has to do with nature. It was wonderful to live in this city, which hospitably welcomed strangers and gave of itself freely; it was natural to enjoy life in its light atmosphere, full of elation and merriment like the air of Paris. Vienna, as everyone knew, was an epicurean city—however, what does culture mean but taking the raw material of life and enticing from it its finest, most delicate and subtle aspects by means of art and love?

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The hour should be the evening and the season winter, for in winter the champagne brightness of the air and the sociability of the streets are grateful. We are not then taunted as in the summer by the longing for shade and solitude and sweet airs from the hayfields. The evening hour, too, gives us the irresponsibility which darkness and lamplight bestow. We are no longer quite ourselves. As we step out of the house on a fine evening between four and six, we shed the self our friends know us by and become part of that vast republican army of anonymous trampers, whose society is so agreeable after the solitude of one’s own room.
…
How beautiful a London street is then, with its islands of light, and its long groves of darkness, and on one side of it perhaps some tree–sprinkled, grass–grown space where night is folding herself to sleep naturally and, as one passes the iron railing, one hears those little cracklings and stirrings of leaf and twig which seem to suppose the silence of fields all round them, an owl hooting, and far away the rattle of a train in the valley. But this is London, we are reminded; high among the bare trees are hung oblong frames of reddish yellow light—windows; there are points of brilliance burning steadily like low stars—lamps; this empty ground, which holds the country
in it and its peace, is only a London square, set about by offices and houses where at this hour fierce lights burn over maps, over documents, over desks where clerks sit turning with wetted forefinger the files of endless correspondences; or more suffusedly the firelight wavers and the lamplight falls upon the privacy of some drawing–room, its easy chairs, its papers, its china, its inlaid table, and the figure of a woman, accurately measuring out the precise number of spoons of tea which——She looks at the door as if she heard a ring downstairs and somebody asking, is
she in?
…
Let us dally a little longer, be content still with surfaces only—the glossy brilliance of the motor omnibuses; …the blue and red bunches of flowers burning so bravely through the plate glass of the florists’ windows.
…
Passing, glimpsing, everything seems accidentally but miraculously sprinkled with beauty, as if the tide of trade which deposits its burden so punctually and prosaically upon the shores of Oxford Street had this night cast up nothing but treasure. …let us indulge ourselves at the antique jewelers, among the trays of rings and the hanging necklaces. Let us choose those pearls, for example, and then imagine how, if we put them on, life would be changed. It becomes instantly between two and three in the morning; the lamps are burning very white in the deserted streets of Mayfair. Only motor–cars are abroad at this hour, and one has a sense of emptiness, of airiness, of secluded gaiety. Wearing pearls, wearing silk, one steps out on to a balcony which overlooks the gardens of sleeping Mayfair. There are a few lights in the bedrooms of great peers returned from Court, of silk–stockinged footmen, of dowagers who have pressed the hands of statesmen. A cat creeps along the garden wall. Love–making is going on sibilantly, seductively in the darker places of the room behind thick green curtains. Strolling sedately as if he were promenading a terrace beneath which the shires and counties of England lie sun–bathed, the aged Prime Minister recounts to Lady So–and–So with the curls and the emeralds the true history of some great crisis in the affairs of the land. We seem to be riding on the top of the highest mast of the tallest ship; …as we stand on the balcony watching the moonlit cat creep along Princess Mary’s garden wall.
…
…in the street outside, one catches a word in passing and from a chance phrase fabricates a lifetime. It is about a woman called Kate that they are talking, how “I said to her quite straight last night . . . if you don’t think I’m worth a penny stamp, I said . . .” But who Kate is, and to what crisis in their friendship that penny stamp refers, we shall never know; for Kate sinks under the warmth of their volubility; and here, at the street corner, another page of the volume of life is laid open by the sight of two men consulting under the lamp–post. They are spelling out the latest wire from Newmarket in the stop press news. Do they think, then, that fortune will ever convert their rags into fur and broadcloth, sling them with watch–chains, and plant diamond pins where there is now a ragged open shirt? But the main stream of walkers at this hour sweeps too fast to let us ask such questions. They are wrapt, in this short passage from work to home, in some narcotic dream, now that they are free from the desk, and have the fresh air on their cheeks.
…
As it is, we must turn, we must cross the Strand again, we must find a shop where, even at this hour, they will be ready to sell us a pencil.
…
In these minutes in which a ghost has been sought for, a quarrel composed, and a pencil bought, the streets had become completely empty. Life had withdrawn to the top floor, and lamps were lit. The pavement was dry and hard; the road was of hammered silver. Walking home through the desolation one could tell oneself the story of the dwarf, of the blind men, of the party in the Mayfair mansion, of the quarrel in the stationer’s shop. Into each of these lives one could penetrate a little way, far enough to give oneself the illusion that one is not tethered to a single mind, but can put on briefly for a few minutes the bodies and minds of others. One could become a washerwoman, a publican, a street singer. And what greater delight and wonder can there be than to leave the straight lines of personality and deviate into those footpaths that lead beneath brambles and thick tree trunks into the heart of the forest where live those wild beasts, our fellow men?

That is true: to escape is the greatest of pleasures; street haunting in winter the greatest of adventures. Still as we approach our own doorstep again, it is comforting to feel the old possessions, the old prejudices, fold us round; and the self, which has been blown about at so many street corners, which has battered like a moth at the flame of so many inaccessible lanterns, sheltered and enclosed. Here again is the usual door; here the chair turned as we left it and the china bowl and the brown ring on the carpet. And here—let us examine it tenderly, let us touch it with reverence—is the only spoil we have retrieved from all the treasures of the city, a lead pencil.

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He listened without sympathy to his father’s evocation of Cork and of scenes of his youth—a tale broken by sighs or draughts from his pocket flask whenever the image of some dead friend appeared in it or whenever the evoker remembered suddenly the purpose of his actual visit. Stephen heard but could feel no pity. The images of the dead were all strangers to him… He knew, however, that his father’s property was going to be sold by auction, and in the manner of his own dispossession he felt the world give the lie rudely to his phantasy.

At Maryborough he fell asleep. When he awoke the train had passed out of Mallow and his father was stretched asleep on the other seat. The cold light of the dawn lay over the country, over the unpeopled fields and the closed cottages. The terror of sleep fascinated his mind as he watched the silent country or heard from time to time his father’s deep breath or sudden sleepy movement. The neighbourhood of unseen sleepers filled him with strange dread, as though they could harm him, and he prayed that the day might come quickly. His prayer, addressed neither to God nor saint, began with a shiver, as the chilly morning breeze crept through the chink of the carriage door to his feet, and ended in a trail of foolish words which he made to fit the insistent rhythm of the train; and silently, at intervals of four seconds, the telegraphpoles held the galloping notes of the music between punctual bars. This furious music allayed his dread and, leaning against the window ledge, he let his eyelids close again.

The post James Joyce appeared first on Destinationality.

My father was called away before he had finished his sentence, and he left my mind resting on the word Prague, with a strange sense that a new and wondrous scene was breaking upon me: a city under the broad sunshine, that seemed to me as if it were the summer sunshine of a long-past century… The city looked so thirsty that the broad river seemed to me a sheet of metal; and the blackened statues, as I passed under their blank gaze, along the unending bridge, with their ancient garments and their saintly crowns, seemed to me the real inhabitants and owners of this place, while the busy… men and women, hurrying to and fro, were a swarm of ephemeral visitants infesting it for a day.
…
As soon as I was alone again, I began to ask myself whether I had been sleeping. Was this a dream—this wonderfully distinct vision—minute in its distinctness down to a patch of rainbow light on the pavement, transmitted through a coloured lamp in the shape of a star—of a strange city, quite unfamiliar to my imagination? I had seen no picture of Prague: it lay in my mind as a mere name, with vaguely-remembered historical associations—ill-defined memories of imperial grandeur and religious wars.

Nothing of this sort had ever occurred in my dreaming experience before, for I had often been humiliated because my dreams were only saved from being utterly disjointed and commonplace by the frequent terrors of nightmare. But I could not believe that I had been asleep, for I remembered distinctly the gradual breaking-in of the vision upon me, like the new images in a dissolving view, or the growing distinctness of the landscape as the sun lifts up the veil of the morning mist. …No, it was not a dream; was it—the thought was full of tremulous exultation—was it the poet’s nature in me, hitherto only a troubled yearning sensibility, now manifesting itself suddenly as spontaneous creation? Surely it was in this way that Homer saw the plain of Troy, that Dante saw the abodes of the departed, that Milton saw the earthward flight of the Tempter…

When my mind had dwelt for some time on this blissful idea, it seemed to me that I might perhaps test it by an exertion of my will. The vision had begun when my father was speaking of our going to Prague. I did not for a moment believe it was really a representation of that city; I believed—I hoped it was a picture that my newly liberated genius had painted in fiery haste, with the colours snatched from lazy memory. Suppose I were to fix my mind on some other place—Venice, for example, which was far more familiar to my imagination than Prague: perhaps the same sort of result would follow. I concentrated my thoughts on Venice; I stimulated my imagination with poetic memories, and strove to feel myself present in Venice, as I had felt myself present in Prague. But in vain. I was only colouring the Canaletto engravings that hung in my old bedroom at home; the picture was a shifting one, my mind wandering uncertainly in search of more vivid images; I could see no accident of form or shadow without conscious labour after the necessary conditions. It was all prosaic effort, not rapt passivity, such as I had experienced half an hour before. I was discouraged; but I remembered that inspiration was fitful.

For several days I was in a state of excited expectation, watching for a recurrence of my new gift. I sent my thoughts ranging over my world of knowledge, in the hope that they would find some object which would send a reawakening vibration through my slumbering genius. But no; my world remained as dim as ever, and that flash of strange light refused to come again, though I watched for it with palpitating eagerness.

…

Our arrival in Prague happened at night, and I was glad of this, for it seemed like a deferring of a terribly decisive moment, to be in the city for hours without seeing it. As we were not to remain long in Prague, but to go on speedily to Dresden, it was proposed that we should drive out… and take a general view of the place, as well as visit some of its specially interesting spots…
…
…I felt a sudden overpowering impulse to go on at once to the bridge, and put an end to the suspense I had been wishing to protract. I declared, with unusual decision, that I would get out of the carriage and walk on alone… My father, thinking this merely a sample of my usual “poetic nonsense,” objected… but when I persisted, he said angrily that I might follow my own absurd devices, but that Schmidt (our courier) must go with me. I assented to this, and set off with Schmidt towards the bridge. I had no sooner passed from under the archway of the grand old gate leading on to the bridge, than a trembling seized me, and I turned cold… yet I went on; I was in search of something—a small detail which I remembered with special intensity as part of my vision. There it was—the patch of rainbow light on the pavement transmitted through a lamp in the shape of a star.

…

…The more I lived… the more frequent and vivid became such visions as that I had had of Prague—of strange cities, of sandy plains, of gigantic ruins, of midnight skies with strange bright constellations, of mountain-passes, of grassy nooks flecked with the afternoon sunshine through the boughs: I was in the midst of such scenes, and in all of them one presence seemed to weigh on me in all these mighty shapes—the presence of something unknown…
…
…revealed and yet hidden by the moving curtain of the earth and sky.

The post George Eliot appeared first on Destinationality.

It was only with difficulty that the young girl could have perceived him in the distance and noted his fine appearance in his new clothes. Nevertheless, he held himself very erect, in case any one should be looking at him from behind.

…
He heard the soft and measured sound of… approaching footsteps. …He dropped his head; when he raised it again, they were very near him. The young girl passed, and as she passed, she glanced at him. She gazed steadily at him, with a pensive sweetness which thrilled Marius from head to foot. It seemed to him that she was reproaching him for having allowed so long a time to elapse without coming as far as her, and that she was saying to him: “I am coming myself.” Marius was dazzled by those eyes fraught with rays and abysses.

He felt his brain on fire. She had come to him, what joy! And then, how she had looked at him! She appeared to him more beautiful than he had ever seen her yet. Beautiful with a beauty which was wholly feminine and angelic, with a complete beauty which would have made Petrarch sing and Dante kneel. It seemed to him that he was floating free in the azure heavens.
…
…It was serious; in fact, Marius had reached that first violent and charming hour with which grand passions begin.

A glance had wrought all this.
…
It was all over with him. Marius loved a woman. His fate was entering the unknown.

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