Some one has lighted a Roman candle at the far end of the pier, as
a signal to a steamer whose white and red lanterns have just been
descried upon the dark horizon. It is night: the day is over.




VIII

SUNSET FROM THE GATE OF BAIDARI


It was at the Gate of Baidari in the Crimea on the shortest day of
the year that I saw the most wonderful sunset I have ever known, and
entered most completely into the spirit of the dark, quiet night.

It was another vision of the sea, a presentment of the sea's question
in a new light.

A mild December afternoon. I had been some days wandering across
pleasant tree-brown valleys and immense hollows mountain-walled. In
the winter silence there was no murmur of the ocean, not even was
there saltness in the air. I was out of the sight of the sea and had
been so for several days. But this afternoon I climbed by a long road
where were many berberry bushes vermilion with their berries, up to
the pass over the hills, and there all at once by surprise, without
the least expecting it, at a turn of the road I had a revelation of
the whole sea.