When I left Grand-Brassac, I so shaped my course as to return to the valley
of the Dronne, but at a point much lower than that where I had last crossed
the river. The weather was now very sultry; not a breath of wind stirred,
and thunder-clouds were gathering in the sky. As the sun glared between the
layers of vapour, the cicadas screamed from the tops of the walnut-trees,
while I upon the dazzling white road felt that there was no need of so much
rejoicing.
A great dark cloud with fiery fringe now stretches far up the sky from the
south, and there is a constant long-drawn-out groan of distant thunder.
This storm is no loiterer; it is coming on at a rapid pace, and it will be
a fierce one. Still, the haymakers keep in the meadow hard by the road,
working for dear life to fill the waggon, to which a pair of oxen are
harnessed, and to get it safely to the village on yonder hill before the
floodgates of heaven are opened. I hasten on to this village, and reach
it just before the rain begins to fall. It is almost deserted; everybody
appears to be in the fields.
On the very top of the hill is a little old church surrounded by cypresses
and acacias, and as the sun, about to vanish within the folds of the cloudy
pall that is already drawn up to its flaming edge, darts burning rays upon
the still motionless leaves, the cicadas again scratch out their note with
the blind zeal of fiddlers who have made too merry at the marriage-feast.
Pages:
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270