It always remains to me that San Tommaso and its terrace hang suspended
above the village, like the lowest step of heaven, of Jacob's ladder.
Behind, the land rises in a high sweep. But the terrace of San Tommaso
is let down from heaven, and does not touch the earth.
I went into the church. It was very dark, and impregnated with centuries
of incense. It affected me like the lair of some enormous creature. My
senses were roused, they sprang awake in the hot, spiced darkness. My
skin was expectant, as if it expected some contact, some embrace, as if
it were aware of the contiguity of the physical world, the physical
contact with the darkness and the heavy, suggestive substance of the
enclosure. It was a thick, fierce darkness of the senses. But my
soul shrank.
I went out again. The pavemented threshold was clear as a jewel, the
marvellous clarity of sunshine that becomes blue in the height seemed to
distil me into itself.
Across, the heavy mountain crouched along the side of the lake, the
upper half brilliantly white, belonging to the sky, the lower half dark
and grim. So, then, that is where heaven and earth are divided.
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