On Our Return To It, From The Subterranean Darkness, Everything In Its
Dead Immensity Has Begun To Take On The Blue Tint Of The Night.
On the
top of the sandhills, of which the yellow colour has greatly paled
since we went below, the wind amuses itself by raising little vortices
of sand that imitate the spray of an angry sea.
On all sides dark
clouds stretch themselves as at the moment of our descent. The horizon
detaches itself more and more clearly from them, and, farther towards
the east, it actually seems to be tilted up; one of the highest of the
waves of this waterless sea, a mountain of sand whose soft contours
are deceptive in the distance, makes it look as if it sloped towards
us, so as almost to produce a sensation of vertigo. The sun itself has
deigned to remain on the scene a few seconds longer, held beyond its
time by the effect of mirage; but it is so changed behind its thick
veils that we would prefer that it should not be there. Of the colour
of dying embers, it seems too near and too large; it has ceased to
give any light, and is become a mere rose-coloured globe, that is
losing its shape and becoming oval. No longer in the free heavens, but
stranded there on the extreme edge of the desert, it watches the scene
like a large dull eye, about to close itself in death. And the
mysterious superhuman triangles, they too, of course, are there,
waiting for us on our return from underground, some near, some far,
posted in their eternal places; but surely they have grown gradually
more blue.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 60 of 206
Words from 16077 to 16359
of 55391
