Then Suddenly The Sky Grew Lighter Upon Every Side.
That cheating
gloom (which I think the clouds in purgatory must reflect) lifted from
the valley as though to a slow order given by some calm and good
influence that was marshalling in the day.
Their colours came back to
things; the trees recovered their shape, life, and trembling; here and
there, on the face of the mountain opposite, the mists by their
movement took part in the new life, and I thought I heard for the
first time the tumbling water far below me in the ravine. That subtle
barrier was drawn which marks to-day from yesterday; all the night and
its despondency became the past and entered memory. The road before
me, the pass on my left (my last ridge, and the entry into Tuscany),
the mass of the great hills, had become mixed into the increasing
light, that is, into the familiar and invigorating Present which I
have always found capable of opening the doors of the future with a
gesture of victory.
My pain either left me, or I ceased to notice it, and seeing a little
way before me a bank above the road, and a fine grove of sparse and
dominant chestnuts, I climbed up thither and turned, standing to the
east.
There, without any warning of colours, or of the heraldry that we have
in the north, the sky was a great field of pure light, and without
doubt it was all woven through, as was my mind watching it, with
security and gladness.
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