mysterious
things happen to us in sleep; the sick man is made well, the desperate
hopeful, the dull man happy. These things happen in houses which are
barred and shuttered and bolted. The power of the Night penetrates
even into the luxurious apartments of kings, even into the cellars of the
slums. But if it is potent in these, how much more is it potent in its free
unrestricted domain, the open country. He who sleeps under the stars is
bathed in the elemental forces which in houses only creep to us through
keyholes. I may say from experience that he who has slept out of doors
every day for a month, nay even for a week, is at the end of that time a
new man. He has entered into new relationship with the world in which
he lives, and has allowed the gentle creative hands of Nature to
re-shape his soul.
The first of my nights after leaving the town was spent on a shaggy
grass patch on a cliff, under three old twisted yew trees. Underfoot was
an abundance of wild lavender and the air was laden with the scent. I
am now at New Athos monastery, ten miles from Sukhum, and am
writing this in the cell that the hospitable monks have given me. My
last night was in a deep cavern at the base of a high rock on a desert
shore.
The first night was warm and gentle, though it was followed by several
that were stormy. Wrapped in my rug I felt not a shiver of cold, even at
dawn. As I lay at my ease, I looked out over the far southern sea
sinking to sleep in the dusk. The glistening and sparkling of the water
passed away--the sea became a great bale of grey--blue silk, soft,
smooth, dreamy, like the garment of a sorceress queen.
I slipped into sleep and slipped out again as easily as one goes from one
room to another, sometimes sleeping one hour or half an hour at a time,
or more often one moment asleep, one moment awake, like the
movement of a boat on the waves.
Once when I wakened, I started at an unforeseen phenomenon. The
moon in her youth was riding over the sea as bright as it is possible to
be, and down below her she wrote upon the waves and expressed
herself in new variety, a long splash of lemon-coloured light over the
placid ocean, a dream picture, something of magic.
It was a marvellous sight, something of that which is indicated in
pictures, but which one cannot recognise as belonging to the world of
truth--something impressionistic. To waken to see something so
beautiful is to waken for the first time, it is verily to be in part born; for
therein the soul becomes aware of something it had not previously
imagined: looking into the mirror of Nature, it sees itself anew.
Where my sleeping-place would be had been a secret, and this was the
mystery in it, the further secret. I was definitely aware even on my first
night out that I had entered a new world.
To sleep, to wake and find the moon still dreaming, to see the moon's
dream in the water, to sleep again and wake, so--till the dawn. Such
was my night under the old yews, the first spent with these southern
stars on a long vagabondage.
II
How different was last night, how full of weariness after heavy
tramping through leagues of loose stones. I had been tramping from
desolate Cape Pitsoonda over miles and miles of sea holly and scrub
through a district where were no people. I had been living on
crab-apples and sugar the whole day, for I could get no provisions. It is
a comic diet. I should have liked to climb up inland to find a
resting-place and seek out houses, but I was committed to the seashore,
for the cliffs were sheer, and where the rivers made what might have
been a passage, the forest tangles were so barbed that they would tear
the clothes off one's back. In many places the sea washed the cliffs and
I had to undress in order to get past. It was with resignation that I gave
up my day's tramping and sought refuge for the night in a deep and
shapely cavern.
There was plenty of dry clean sand on the floor, and there was a natural
rock pillow. I spread out my blanket and lay at length, looking out to
the sea. I lay so near the waves that at high tide I could have touched
the foam with my staff. I watched the sun go down and felt pleased that
I had given up my quest of houses and food
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