TREES, the half-fossilised exuberances of a passionate life, petrified
fountains of intemperance—with their abolition begins the realm of
reason.
Geometry, lines and planes, smooth edges, the ordered horror of
perspectives. In this country there are pavements bright and sleek as
water. The walls are precipices to which giants have nailed a perpetual
cataract of marble. The fringes of the sky are scalloped with a pattern
of domes and minarets. At night, too, the down-struck lamps are pyramids
of phantom green and the perfect circle they make upon the pavement is
magical.
Look over the parapet of the Acropolis. The bridges go dizzily down on
their swaying catenaries, the gull’s flight chained fast. The walls drop
clear into the valley, all the millions of basalt blocks calcined into a
single red monolith, fluted with thirstily shining organ pipes, which
seem for ever wet. There are no crevices for moss and toadflax, and even
the claws of the yellow lichen slip on its polished flanks.
The valley is all paved and inlaid with rivers of steel. No trees, for
they have been abolished.
“Glorious unnature,” cries the watcher at the parapet. His voice
launches into the abyss, following the curve of the bridges. “Glorious
unnature. We have triumphed.”
But his laughter as it descends is like a flight of broken steps.