I went up unwillingly, because the Italians
used this old staircase as a privy, as they will any deep side-passage.
But I ran up the broken stairway, and came out suddenly, as by a
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.
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