Up above I saw the olive trees in the sunny golden grass,
and sunlit grey rocks immensely high up. I was afraid lest the evening
would fall whilst I was groping about like an otter in the damp and the
darkness, that the day of sunshine would be over.
Soon I was up in the sunshine again, on the turf under the olive trees,
reassured. It was the upper world of glowing light, and I was
safe again.
All the olives were gathered, and the mills were going night and day,
making a great, acrid scent of olive oil in preparation, by the lake.
The little stream rattled down. A mule driver 'Hued!' to his mules on
the Strada Vecchia. High up, on the Strada Nuova, the beautiful, new,
military high-road, which winds with beautiful curves up the
mountain-side, crossing the same stream several times in clear-leaping
bridges, travelling cut out of sheer slope high above the lake, winding
beautifully and gracefully forward to the Austrian frontier, where it
ends: high up on the lovely swinging road, in the strong evening
sunshine, I saw a bullock wagon moving like a vision, though the
clanking of the wagon and the crack of the bullock whip responded close
in my ears.
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