Against the terrible rampart of rock the winds beat across the land of
the Tell. But they die there frustrated. And the rains journey thither
and fail, sinking into the absinthe-coloured pools of the gorge. And the
snows and even the clouds stop, exhausted in their pilgrimage. The gorge
is not their goal, but it is their grave, and the desert never sees
their burial. So Domini's first sense of casting away the known
remained, and even grew, but now strongly and quietly. It was well
founded, she thought. For she looked out of the carriage window towards
the barrier she was leaving, and saw that on this side, guarding the
desert from the world that is not desert, it was pink in the evening
light, deepening here and there to rose colour, whereas on the far side
it had a rainy hue as of rocks in England. And there was a lustre of
gold in the hills, tints of glowing bronze slashed with a red line as
the heart of a wound, but recalling the heart of a flower. The folds of
the earth glistened. There was flame down there in the river bed. The
wreckage of the land, the broken fragments, gleamed as if braided with
precious things.
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