miracle, clean on the platform of my San Tommaso, in the
tremendous sunshine.

It was another world, the world of the eagle, the world of fierce
abstraction. It was all clear, overwhelming sunshine, a platform hung in
the light. Just below were the confused, tiled roofs of the village, and
beyond them the pale blue water, down below; and opposite, opposite my
face and breast, the clear, luminous snow of the mountain across the
lake, level with me apparently, though really much above.

I was in the skies now, looking down from my square terrace of cobbled
pavement, that was worn like the threshold of the ancient church. Round
the terrace ran a low, broad wall, the coping of the upper heaven where
I had climbed.

There was a blood-red sail like a butterfly breathing down on the blue
water, whilst the earth on the near side gave off a green-silver smoke
of olive trees, coming up and around the earth-coloured roofs.

It always remains to me that San Tommaso and its terrace hang suspended
above the village, like the lowest step of heaven, of Jacob's ladder.
Behind, the land rises in a high sweep. But the terrace of San Tommaso
is let down from heaven, and does not touch the earth.

I went into the church. It was very dark, and impregnated with centuries
of incense. It affected me like the lair of some enormous creature. My
senses were roused, they sprang awake in the hot, spiced darkness. My
skin was expectant, as if it expected some contact, some embrace, as if
it were aware of the contiguity of the physical world, the physical
contact with the darkness and the heavy, suggestive substance of the