O Time, what eternities of joy thou buriest in one such
minute, or rather, how powerless art thou against memory; how impotent
to give forgetfulness!
XXI.
The evening was as warm and peaceful as the preceding day had been cold
and stormy. The mountains were bathed in a soft purple light which made
them appear larger and more distant than usual, and they seemed like
huge floating shadows through whose transparency one could perceive the
warm sky of Italy which lay beyond. The sky was mottled with small
crimson clouds, like the ensanguined plumes which fall from the wing of
the wounded swan, struggling in the grasp of an eagle.
The wind had subsided as evening came on; the silvery rippling waves
threw a slight fringe of spray around the rocks, from which the
dripping branches of the fig-trees depended. The smoke from the
cottages, which lay scattered on the Mont du Chat, rose here and there,
and crept upward along the mountain sides, while the cascades fell into
the ravines below, like a smoke of waters.
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