A Tour Through the Pyrenees by Hippolyte Taine

Author:Hippolyte Taine [Taine, Hippolyte]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 1990000916120
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Bronson Tweed Publishing
Published: 2014-01-14T00:00:00+00:00

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269s

FULL-SIZE -- Medium-Size

The two small towers of the fort outline their slender forms against the sky. A single enormous, blackish rock lifts its back, corroded by mosses, above the enclosure of a slight wall that winds to shut it in, and suggests an elephant in a boarded shed. The neighborhood of the mountains dwarfs all human constructions.

Heavy clouds rose in the sky, and the dull horizon became encased between two rows of mountains, gaunt, patched with scant brushwood, cleft in ravines; a pale light fell on the mutilated summits and into the gray crevices. Bands of beggars, in relays, hooked themselves on to the carriage with hoarse inarticulate noises, with idiotic air, wry necks, and deformed bodies; the projecting sinews swelled the wrinkled skin, and, peeping through the rags and tatters, was seen the flesh, in color like a burned brick.

We entered the gorge of Pierrefitte. The clouds had spread, and darkened the whole heaven; the wind swept along in sudden gusts and whipped the dust into whirlwinds. The carriage rolled on between two immense walls of dark rocks, slashed and notched as if by the axe of an infuriate giant; rugged furrows, seamed with yawning gashes, reddish wounds, torn and crossed by pallid wounds, scar upon scar; the perpendicular flank still bleeds from multiplied blows. Half-detached, bluish masses hung in sharp points over our heads; a thousand feet higher up, layers of blocks leaned forward, overhanging the way. At a prodigious height, the black, battlemented summits pierced the vapors, while, with every step forward, it seemed as if the narrow passage were coming to an end. The darkness was growing, and, under that livid light with its threatening reflexes, it seemed that those beetling monsters were shaking and would soon engulf everything. The trees, beaten against the rock, were bending and twisting. The wind complained with a long-drawn piercing moan, and beneath its mournful sound, the hoarse rumbling of the Gave was heard as it dashed madly against the rocks it could not subdue, and moaned sadly like a stricken soul that rebels against the torments it is powerless to escape.

The rain came and covered all objects with its blinding veil. An hour later, the drained clouds were creeping along half way up the height; the dripping rocks shone through a dark varnish, like blocks of polished mahogany. Turbid water went boiling down the swollen cascades; the depths of the gorge were still darkened by the storm; but a tender light played over the wet summits, like a smile bathed in tears. The gorge opened up; the arches of the marble bridges sprang lightly into the limpid air, and, sheeted in light, Luz was seen seated among sparkling meadows and fields of millet in full bloom.

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