登陆注册
19873900000071

第71章

I find that I declared one evening,in a little journal I was keeping at that time,that I was weary of writing (I was probably very sleepy),but that it was essential I should make some note of my visit to Les Baux.I must have gone to sleep as soon as Ihad recorded this necessity,for I search my small diary in vain for any account of that enchanting spot.Ihave nothing but my memory to consult,a memory which is fairly good in regard to a general impression,but is terribly infirm in the matter of details and items.We knew in advance,my companion and Ithat Les Baus was a pearl of picturesqueness;for had we not read as much in the handbook of Murray,who has the testimony of an English nobleman as to its attractions?We also knew that it lay some miles from Aries,on the crest of the Alpilles,the craggy little mountains which,as I stood on the breezy platform of Beaucaire,formed to my eye a charming,if somewhat remote,background to Tarascon;this assurance having been given us by the landlady of the inn at Arles,of whom we hired a rather lumbering conveyance.The weather was not promising,but it proved a good day for the mediaeval Pompeii;a gray,melancholy,moist,but rainless,or almost rainless day,with nothing in the sky to flout,as the poet says,the dejected and pulverized past.The drive itself was charming;for there is an inexhaustible sweetness in the graygreen landscape of Provence.

It is never absolutely flat,and yet is never really ambitious,and is full both of entertainment and repose.It is in constant undulation,and the bareness of the soil lends itself easily to outline and profile.

When I say the bareness,I mean the absence of woods and hedges.It blooms with heath and scented shrubs and stunted olive;and the white rock shining through the scattered herbage has a brightness which answers to the brightness of the sky.Of course it needs the sunshine,for all southern countries look a little false under the ground glass of incipient bad weather.This was the case on the day of my pilgrimage to Les Baux.Nevertheless,I was as glad to keep going as I was to arrive;and as I went it seemed to me that true happiness would consist in wandering through such a land on foot,on September afternoons,when one might stretch one's self on the warm ground in some shady hollow,and listen to the hum of bees and the whistle of melancholy shepherds;for in Provence the shepherds whistle to their flocks.

I saw two or three of them,in the course of this drive to Les Baux,meandering about,looking behind,and calling upon the sheep in this way to follow,which the sheep always did,very promptly,with ovine unanimity.Nothing is more picturesque than to see a slow shepherd threading his way down one of the winding paths on a hillside,with his flock close behind him,necessarily expanded,yet keeping just at his heels,bending and twisting as it goes,and looking rather like the tail of a dingy comet.

About four miles from Arles,as you drive northward toward the Alpilles,of which Alphonse Daudet has spoken so often,and,as he might say,so intimately,stand on a hill that overlooks the road the very considerable ruins of the abbey of Montmajour,one of the innumerable remnants of a feudal and ecclesiastical (as well as an architectural)past that one encounters in the South of France;remnants which,it must be confessed,tend to introduce a certain confusion and satiety into the passive mind of the tourist.Montmajour,however,is very impressive and interesting;the only trouble with it is that,unless you have stopped and retumed to Arles,you see it in memory over the head of Les Baux,which is a much more absorbing picture.A part of the mass of buildings (the monastery)dates only from the last century;and the stiff architecture of that period does not lend itself very gracefully to desolation:it looks too much as if it had been burnt down the year before.The monastery was demolished during the Revolution,and it injures a little the effect of the very much more ancient fragments that are connected with it.The whole place is on a great scale;it was a rich and splendid abbey.The church,a vast basilica of the eleventh century,and of the noblest proportions,is virtually intact;I mean as regards its essentials,for the details have completely vanished.

The huge solid shell is full of expression;it looks as if it had been hollowed out by the sincerity of early faith,and it opens into a cloister as impressive as itself.Wherever one goes,in France,one meets,looking backward a little,the spectre of the great Revolution;and one meets it always in the shape of the destruction of something beautiful and precious.

To make us forgive it at all,how much it must also have destroyed that was more hateful than itself!

Beneath the church of Montmajour is a most extraordinary crypt,almost as big as the edifice above it,and making a complete subterranean temple,surrounded with a circular gallery,or deambulatory,which expands it intervals into five square chapels.

同类推荐
  • 脉诀刊误

    脉诀刊误

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • The Black Robe

    The Black Robe

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • Polyuecte

    Polyuecte

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 词综偶评

    词综偶评

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 游黄山日记(后)

    游黄山日记(后)

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
热门推荐
  • 本为尘埃

    本为尘埃

    我本是这世间卑微的一粒尘埃,只因渡了佛祖的一滴泪,得以留存,修为人身,不会湮灭,只为飘飘荡荡。我心向佛,不忍将佛的泪与我这微小卑鄙的尘埃混为一体,便奋力飘荡到西天极乐。天极边炫目耀眼的云彩没有让我沉醉,也没有让我留恋,我本是这世间卑微的一粒尘埃,现在也是。尘埃,不过是尘埃。
  • 暗夜之吻

    暗夜之吻

    洛丽塔,妈妈是血精灵(以前精灵,转变成了血精灵),爸爸是人狼(初代血族和狼人的混血),而她则是血狼。她来到人类世界的达特茅斯大学!按她的说法就是来人类学校体验生活。但没想到是她救了一个男孩,那个男孩后来被转变成血族。但事情还没完,学校遭到奇怪的攻击事件,凶手是别的血族和巫师,但矛头却指向那个男孩!一波未平一波又起,又有更多无辜人受到攻击。洛丽塔该怎么办?男孩该何去何从?!
  • 请不要干涉我的婚姻

    请不要干涉我的婚姻

    当今社会,包办婚姻好像又死灰复燃了,特别是农村,这种现象尤为普遍。植生在东北农村里的刘家姐妹四人,一直在父母的婚姻干涉下,艰难的寻找着自己的爱情幸福,情感多灾多难,难以顺利的向爱情出发,并且纠葛时间持续难解难终,令人肝肠寸断。
  • 教你学组词造句(下)(学生语言文字写作学习手册)

    教你学组词造句(下)(学生语言文字写作学习手册)

    语言文字的简称就是语文。语文是人文社会科学的一门重要学科,是人们相互交流思想的工具。它既是语言文字规范的实用工具,又是文化艺术,同时也是用来积累和开拓精神财富的一门学问。
  • 因为是男人

    因为是男人

    月薪两千,省吃俭用供弟弟上学。没曾想毕业后弟弟成了自己的上司,还抢走了自己心爱的女人。赚的少、买不起房子、感情又倍受打击,人近中年的高员着急了,为了上位开始了不择手段的算计,栽赃陷害,一个个挡路的人被他除掉,而自己宠爱的弟弟和曾经深爱的女人,也在他的黑名单上……
  • 我的妹妹爱吃醋

    我的妹妹爱吃醋

    林晓一直在努力做一个好哥哥,为了可爱的妹妹,他横扫一切敢于接近的牛鬼蛇神。可是,当班里转来一位新同学之后,两兄妹平静的生活被打破,这个面无表情,少言寡语的冰山美人唯独对他有着强大的怨念。陌生的照片,奇怪的态度,搅乱了林晓尘封多年的记忆。萌萌的妹妹,傲娇的腹黑女,哪一个才是小时候陪在自己身旁的那个女孩?这是王子和一群公主们的后宫修罗场。
  • 还来得及去爱你

    还来得及去爱你

    一名普通的高中女生在一夜之间发生了特殊的变异,化身为帅气男子。从此,她的生活出现了不可逆转的变化。她开始以另外一种身份进入了原本的学校,但是却遭受了黑暗势力的觊觎和迫害。在一次蓄谋已久的枪击事件中,他心仪的女生不幸死亡。由此,这位少年展开了一系列的复仇计划。因其自身身体的特异性,她不得不服用一种新研发的药物来掩人耳目,以便实施他的复仇计划。利欲熏心的科研家们为了解开这个少年身上的秘密,与黑暗势力相互勾结对她的生命造成了一次次的威胁。在这样的情况下,她还是遇到了一个可以为了她不惜一切代价的巨企少爷,只是。女主角爱的另有其人。
  • 召唤英雄

    召唤英雄

    一纸契约,带来无尽杀戮。欺我者,死!叛我者,死!挡我者,死!仅仅只为活下去。
  • 阴阳判官祭

    阴阳判官祭

    灵异视野扩展至千年前的不为人知的历史,延伸到人类所不孰知的星穹。穹顶之下的人类在夜里仰望的星空之中隐藏着什么,点点繁星,是真是假,浩瀚星河,是梦幻还是真实?人类追求的永生到底是什么,永生的背后又有什么样的隐秘?潜藏在基因深处的记忆,那些因为繁衍而模糊的往事,会不会在某一天苏醒,告诉我们这个世界的一切?
  • 越野赛跑

    越野赛跑

    这是一部有着孩子式的想像和放纵的小说,它跨越了30年时间,讲述了政治年代和经济年代人们的生存境况。小说中有一个现实的村庄,一个和村庄相对应的想像世界——天柱,一匹军队留下的白马。其中,天柱我们内心深处的景观,那是一切奇迹的源头,更是灵魂的自由栖息之所;现实的村庄演绎着1965年以来我们的生活变迁;白马则联系着现实世界和想像世界。