When I Awoke It Was Full Eight O'clock, And The Sun Had Gained Great
Power.
I saw him shining at me through the branches of my trees like
a patient enemy outside a city that one watches through the loopholes
of a tower, and I began to be afraid of taking the road.
I looked
below me down the steep bank between the trunks and saw the canal
looking like black marble, and I heard the buzzing of the flies above
it, and I noted that all the mist had gone. A very long way off, the
noise of its ripples coming clearly along the floor of the water, was
a lazy barge and a horse drawing it. From time to time the tow-rope
slackened into the still surface, and I heard it dripping as it rose.
The rest of the valley was silent except for that under-humming of
insects which marks the strength of the sun.
Now I saw clearly how difficult it was to turn night into day, for I
found myself condemned either to waste many hours that ought to be
consumed on my pilgrimage, or else to march on under the extreme heat;
and when I had drunk what was left of my Brule wine (which then seemed
delicious), and had eaten a piece of bread, I stiffly jolted down the
bank and regained the highway.
In the first village I came to I found that Mass was over, and this
justly annoyed me; for what is a pilgrimage in which a man cannot hear
Mass every morning?
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