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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III THE ITALIAN COAST HE sky is veiled by clouds. The budding day has a grayish tint, through the mists of night, which spread like a wall, thicker in some places, between dawn and us. A vague fear takes hold of us, which makes us sad, that until evening these clouds will keep nature mourning, as it were, and we are continually throwing impatient glances at the sky, with a silent prayer upon our lips. But we can guess, by certain lightened spots which now and then divide the more opaque masses, that the sun is shining above these clouds and is illuminating the blue sky and their snowy surface. We wait and hope. Little by little they become paler, thinner, and seem to melt. One feels that the sun is burning them, gnawing them, and even crushing them withall its ardor; that the immense ceiling of clouds is too weak to resist, and that it must break and part under the great weight of glaring light. A small spot lightens up in the mist, and a faint glimmer is seen. A breach is made, through which glistens the sunshine, spreading as it falls. It looks as if this little hole were on fire. It is like a huge mouth opening wider and wider, all ablaze, with fired lips, pouring on the waves a cascade of golden light. Then, simultaneously in a thousand places, the shadowy arch breaks and goes to pieces, allowing a hundred arrows to rain down on the water through its wounds, thus scattering over the horizon the full joyousness of the radiant sun. The air has freshened through the night; a quiver of wind caresses the sea, hardly causing a ripple, with so slight a tickling of its blue, silky surface. In front of us, on a high, rocky peak, which seems to rise out of the sea and lean upon the hills, nestles a little town, painted rose color by the hand of man, as th…
