Twilight in Italy | Page 6

arches. And inside is the most startling sensational
Christus I have ever seen. He is a big, powerful man, seated after the
crucifixion, perhaps after the resurrection, sitting by the grave. He sits
sideways, as if the extremity were over, finished, the agitation done
with, only the result of the experience remaining. There is some blood
on his powerful, naked, defeated body, that sits rather hulked. But it is
the face which is so terrifying. It is slightly turned over the hulked,
crucified shoulder, to look. And the look of this face, of which the body
has been killed, is beyond all expectation horrible. The eyes look at one,
yet have no seeing in them, they seem to see only their own blood. For
they are bloodshot till the whites are scarlet, the iris is purpled. These
red, bloody eyes with their stained pupils, glancing awfully at all who
enter the shrine, looking as if to see through the blood of the late brutal
death, are terrible. The naked, strong body has known death, and sits in
utter dejection, finished, hulked, a weight of shame. And what remains
of life is in the face, whose expression is sinister and gruesome, like
that of an unrelenting criminal violated by torture. The criminal look of

misery and hatred on the fixed, violated face and in the bloodshot eyes
is almost impossible. He is conquered, beaten, broken, his body is a
mass of torture, an unthinkable shame. Yet his will remains obstinate
and ugly, integral with utter hatred.
It is a great shock to find this figure sitting in a handsome, baroque,
pink-washed shrine in one of those Alpine valleys which to our
thinking are all flowers and romance, like the picture in the Tate
Gallery. 'Spring in the Austrian Tyrol' is to our minds a vision of
pristine loveliness. It contains also this Christ of the heavy body defiled
by torture and death, the strong, virile life overcome by physical
violence, the eyes still looking back bloodshot in consummate hate and
misery.
The shrine was well kept and evidently much used. It was hung with
ex-voto limbs and with many gifts. It was a centre of worship, of a sort
of almost obscene worship. Afterwards the black pine-trees and the
river of that valley seemed unclean, as if an unclean spirit lived there.
The very flowers seemed unnatural, and the white gleam on the
mountain-tops was a glisten of supreme, cynical horror.
After this, in the populous valleys, all the crucifixes were more or less
tainted and vulgar. Only high up, where the crucifix becomes smaller
and smaller, is there left any of the old beauty and religion. Higher and
higher, the monument becomes smaller and smaller, till in the snows it
stands out like a post, or a thick arrow stuck barb upwards. The crucifix
itself is a small thing under the pointed hood, the barb of the arrow. The
snow blows under the tiny shed, upon the little, exposed Christ. All
round is the solid whiteness of snow, the awful curves and concaves of
pure whiteness of the mountain top, the hollow whiteness between the
peaks, where the path crosses the high, extreme ridge of the pass. And
here stands the last crucifix, half buried, small and tufted with snow.
The guides tramp slowly, heavily past, not observing the presence of
the symbol, making no salute. Further down, every mountain peasant
lifted his hat. But the guide tramps by without concern. His is a
professional importance now.
On a small mountain track on the Jaufen, not far from Meran, was a

fallen Christus. I was hurrying downhill to escape from an icy wind
which almost took away my consciousness, and I was looking up at the
gleaming, unchanging snow-peaks all round. They seemed like blades
immortal in the sky. So I almost ran into a very old Martertafel. It
leaned on the cold, stony hillside surrounded by the white peaks in the
upper air.
The wooden hood was silver-grey with age, and covered, on the top,
with a thicket of lichen, which stuck up in hoary tufts. But on the rock
at the foot of the post was the fallen Christ, armless, who had tumbled
down and lay in an unnatural posture, the naked, ancient wooden
sculpture of the body on the naked, living rock. It was one of the old
uncouth Christs hewn out of bare wood, having the long, wedge-shaped
limbs and thin flat legs that are significant of the true spirit, the desire
to convey a religious truth, not a sensational experience.
The arms of the fallen Christ had broken off at the shoulders, and they
hung on their nails, as ex-voto limbs hang in the shrines. But these
arms dangled from the palms, one at each end of