It Was Night As We Drove
Into Geneva, And Stopped At The Messagerie.
I heard with joy a voice
demanding if this were Monsieur Besshare.
I replied, not without some
scruples of conscience, "_Oui, monsieur, c'est moi,_" though the
name did not sound exactly like the one to which I had been wont to
respond. In half an hour we were at home, in the mansion of Monsieur
Fazy.
Geneve, Monday, June 27. The day dawned clear over this palace of
enchantment. The mountains, the lake, the entire landscape on every
side revealed itself from our lofty windows with transparent
brilliancy. This house is built on high ground, at the end of the lake
near where the Rhone flows out. It is very high in the rooms, and we
are in the fourth story, and have distant views on all four sides. The
windows are very large, and open in leaves, on hinges, like doors,
leaving the entire window clear, as a frame for the distant picture.
In the afternoon we rode out across the Rhone, where it breaks from
the lake, and round upon the ascending shore. It is seldom here that
the Alps are visible. The least mist hides them completely, so that
travellers are wont to record it in their diaries as a great event, "I
saw Mont Blanc to-day." Yesterday there was nothing but clouds and
thick gloom; but now we had not ridden far before H. sprang suddenly,
as if she had lost her senses - her cheeks flushed, and her eye
flashing. I was frightened. "There," said she, pointing out of the
side of the carriage across the lake, "there he is - there's Mont
Blanc." "Pooh," said I, "no such thing." And some trees for a moment
intervened, and shut out the view. Presently the trees opened, and H.
cried, "There, that _white_; don't you see? - there - there!"
pointing with great energy, as if she were getting ready to fly. I
looked and saw, sure enough, behind the dark mass of the Mole, (a huge
blue-black mountain in the foreground,) the granite ranges rising
gradually and grim as we rode; but, further still, behind those gray
and ghastly barriers, all bathed and blazing in the sun's fresh
splendors, undimmed by a cloud, unveiled even by a filmy fleece of
vapor, and oh, so white - so intensely, blindingly white! against the
dark-blue sky, the needles, the spires, the solemn pyramid, the
transfiguration cone of Mont Blanc. Higher, and still higher, those
apocalyptic splendors seemed lifting their spectral, spiritual forms,
seeming to rise as we rose, seeming to start like giants hidden from
behind the black brow of intervening ranges, opening wider the
amphitheatre of glory, until, as we reached the highest point in our
road, the whole unearthly vision stood revealed in sublime
perspective. The language of the Revelation came rushing through my
soul. This is, as it were, a door opened in heaven. Here are some of
those everlasting mountain ranges, whose light is not of the sun, nor
of the moon, but of the Lord God and of the Lamb.
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