The Return From Labour, The Bleating Folds, And The
Lighting Of Lamps Under The Eaves.
In such a spirit I passed along the
upper valley to the spring of the hills.
In St Pierre it was just that passing of daylight when a man thinks he
can still read; when the buildings and the bridges are great masses of
purple that deceive one, recalling the details of daylight, but when
the night birds, surer than men and less troubled by this illusion of
memory, have discovered that their darkness has conquered.
The peasants sat outside their houses in the twilight accepting the
cool air; every one spoke to me as I marched through, and I answered
them all, nor was there in any of their salutations the omission of
good fellowship or of the name of God. Saving with one man, who was a
sergeant of artillery on leave, and who cried out to me in an accent
that was very familiar and asked me to drink; but I told him I had to
go up into the forest to take advantage of the night, since the days
were so warm for walking. As I left the last house of the village I
was not secure from loneliness, and when the road began to climb up
the hill into the wild and the trees I was wondering how the night
would pass.
With every step upward a greater mystery surrounded me. A few stars
were out, and the brown night mist was creeping along the water below,
but there was still light enough to see the road, and even to
distinguish the bracken in the deserted hollows. The highway became
little better than a lane; at the top of the hill it plunged under
tall pines, and was vaulted over with darkness. The kingdoms that have
no walls, and are built up of shadows, began to oppress me as the
night hardened. Had I had companions, still we would only have spoken
in a whisper, and in that dungeon of trees even my own self would not
raise its voice within me.
It was full night when I had reached a vague clearing in the woods,
right up on the height of that flat hill. This clearing was called
'The Fountain of Magdalen'. I was so far relieved by the broader sky
of the open field that I could wait and rest a little, and there, at
last, separate from men, I thought of a thousand things. The air was
full of midsummer, and its mixture of exaltation and fear cut me off
from ordinary living. I now understood why our religion has made
sacred this season of the year; why we have, a little later, the night
of St John, the fires in the villages, and the old perception of
fairies dancing in the rings of the summer grass. A general communion
of all things conspires at this crisis of summer against us reasoning
men that should live in the daylight, and something fantastic
possesses those who are foolish enough to watch upon such nights.
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