The Lee Shore by Rose Macaulay
page 70 of 329 (21%)
page 70 of 329 (21%)
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the morning, and over it the marvel of the dawn opened and blossomed like
a flower. From the basin of the shining river the hills stood back, and up their steep sides the vine-hung mulberries and close-trimmed olives climbed (olives south of the Serchio are diligently pruned, and lack the generous luxuriance of the north), and against the silver background the sentinel cypresses stood black, like sharp music notes striking abruptly into a vague symphony; and among the mulberry gardens and the olives and the cypresses white roads climbed and spiralled up to little cresting cities that took the rosy dawn. Tuscany emerging out of the dim mystery of night had a splendid clarity, an unblurred cleanness of line, an austere fineness, as of a land hewn sharply out of rock. Peter would not have that fine bareness used as illustration; it was too good a thing in itself. Rodney the symbolist saw the vision of life in it, Peter the joy of self-sufficient beauty. The quiet road bore them through the hushed translucence of the dawn-clear land. Everything was silent in this limpid hour; the little wind that had whitened the olives and set the sea-waves whispering there had dropped now and lay very still. The road ran level through the river basin. Far ahead they could see it now, a white ribbon laid beside a long golden gleam that wound and wound. Peter sighed, seeing so much of it all at once, and stopped to rest on the low white wall, but instead of sitting on it he swayed suddenly forward, and the hill cities circled close about him, and darkened and shut out the dawn. The smell of the dust, when one was close to it, was bitter and odd. |
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