"Les plus belles choses
Ont le pire destin,"
so lovely Morning soon fades. The sun bursts up from behind the main, a
fierce enemy, a foe that will force every one to crouch before him. He
dyes the sky orange, and the sea "incarnadine," where its violet
surface is stained by his rays, and he mercilessly puts to flight the
mists and haze and the little agate-coloured masses of cloud that were
before floating in the firmament. The atmosphere is so clear that now
and then a planet is visible. For the two
[p.208] hours following sunrise the rays are endurable; after that they
become a fiery ordeal. The morning beams oppress you with a feeling of
sickness; their steady glow, reflected by the glaring waters, blinds
your eyes, blisters your skin, and parches your mouth: you now become a
monomaniac; you do nothing but count the slow hours that must "minute
by" before you can be relieved.[FN#1]
Midday.-The wind, reverberated by the glowing hills is like the blast
of a lime-kiln. All colour melts away with the canescence from above.
The sky is a dead milk-white, and the mirror-like sea so reflects the
tint that you can scarcely distinguish the line of the horizon. After
noon the wind sleeps upon the reeking shore; there is a deep stillness;
the only sound heard is the melancholy flapping of the sail. Men are
not so much sleeping as half-senseless; they feel as if a few more
degrees of heat would be death.
