The Other Side of the Mountain by Michel Bernanos

Author:Michel Bernanos
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: French Literature, Fantasy, Horror, Sea Stories
ISBN: 9780877971801
Publisher: Cherokee Pub
Published: 1967-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 8

I WOKE UP suffering from terrible stomach cramps. The day had scarcely dawned and the sun was still hidden behind the tall, mysterious mountains which were gradually becoming tinged with red. Toine moved beside me.

“Well, lad, did you sleep well?”

“Yes, but Tm hungry!” I answered, pressing my hands to my aching stomach.

Toine made a gesture of helplessness.

“Oh, better try not to think about it for the time being.” He sat down and took hold of an amphora and handed it to me.

“Here, drink a little water. It’ll help.”

I drank a few mouthfuls without much conviction. Almost instantly my cramps seemed less painful. Toine had turned his old, wrinkled face toward the mountains.

“Lad,” he said in a voice that was almost solemn, “I didn’t close my eyes last night. I’ve had plenty of time to think. Well, what Fm wondering is whether we’re still on our own planet, on earth. You see, a place like this, with that light, those stars, different from any others — really. I’ve never heard of anything like it in all my bitch of a life.” He stared at me with his httle black eyes. “Tell me, what do you make of it?”

I gestured in such a way as to indicate my ignorance. He shrugged.

“Of course, how could you know? This is your first trip. You don’t know anything about the world. Come on, boy,” he added, standing up, “it’s time to get going again.”

The dark area at the foot of the mountains began to stand out more clearly. Although still very far away, we were now convinced by its green color that it was a forest. As we moved closer, the forest became plainer. The sun was ablaze, making our unceasing struggle against exhaustion even harder. To cap it all, when we stopped to rest a little and to drink a few swallows of water, we had an unpleasant surprise. The precious liquid had lost its limpid transparency and had turned bright red. We had no choice. We had to drink it. It was tepid, and this was enough to intensify the feehng that we were drinking blood.

We resumed our march toward hope. With the approach of evening we finally perceived the first signs of vegetable life: the ground was more solid, the dust rarer. A thin, sparse grass sprouted. So great was our hunger that we flung ourselves upon it, devouring it right on the ground without even taking time to pull it up. Were we imagining it, or did this grass truly have nutritive powers? In any case our hunger pains definitely subsided. That night we even slept better.

Early the following morning, after drinking a little of our putrid water, we left. A few hours later we reached the forest’s edge at last.

Immense trees held their heads high, mingling the green of their foliage with the purple of the sky. Their enormous trunks were laden with creepers curiously shaped into ringlets the thickness of an arm. Toine walked up to a tree trunk and tried to pull a ringlet off.

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