"On all sides a magnificent view spread out before us in the raw
light. The chain of rocks, clearly visible in their barren desolation
which stretched to the very summit, lay stretched out like some great
heap of gigantic, unformed things left by some primordial race of
Titans to stupefy human beings. Overturned towers...."
"It is shameful, downright shameful," the Professor was repeating.
"Overturned towers, crumbling citadels, cupolas fallen in, broken
pillars, mutilated colossi, prows of vessels, thighs of monsters,
bones of titans,--this mass, impassable with its ridges and gullies,
seemed the embodiment of everything huge and tragic. So clear were the
distances...."
"Downright shameful," M. Le Mesge kept on saying in exasperation,
thumping his fist on the table.
"So clear were the distances that I could see, as if I had it under my
eyes, infinitely enlarged, every contour of the rock which Violante
had shown me through the window with the gesture of a creator...."
Trembling, I closed the magazine. At my feet, now red, I saw the rock
which Antinea had pointed out to me the day of our first interview,
huge, steep, overhanging the reddish brown garden.
"That is my horizon," she had said.