“You come at a good time, sir,” he cried, on seeing me enter.  “The magazines have just arrived.”

He dashed about in feverish haste.  Presently a stream of pamphlets and magazines, blue, green, yellow and salmon, was bursting from an opening in the bale.

“Splendid, splendid!” he cried, dancing with joy.  “Not too late, either; here are the numbers for October fifteenth.  We must give a vote of thanks to good Ameur.”

His good spirits were contagious.

“There is a good Turkish merchant who subscribes to all the interesting magazines of the two continents.  He sends them on by Rhadames to a destination which he little suspects.  Ah, here are the French ones.”

M. Le Mesge ran feverishly over, the tables of contents.

“Internal politics:  articles by Francis Charmes, Anatole Leroy-Beaulieu, d’Haussonville on the Czar’s trip to Paris.  Look, a study by Avenel of wages in the Middle Ages.  And verse, verses of the young poets, Fernand Gregh, Edmond Haraucourt.  Ah, the resume of a book by Henry de Castries on Islam.  That may be interesting....  Take what you please.”

Joy makes people amiable and M. Le Mesge was really delirious with it.

A puff of breeze came from the window.  I went to the balustrade and, resting my elbows on it, began to run through a number of the Revue des Deux Mondes.

I did not read, but flipped over the pages, my eyes now on the lines of swarming little black characters, now on the rocky basin which lay shivering, pale pink, under the declining sun.

Suddenly my attention became fixed.  There was a strange coincidence between the text and the landscape.

“In the sky overhead were only light shreds of cloud, like bits of white ash floating up from burnt-out logs.  The sun fell over a circle of rocky peaks, silhouetting their severe lines against the azure sky.  From on high, a great sadness and gentleness poured down into the lonely enclosure, like a magic drink into a deep cup...."[17]

[Footnote 17:  Gabrielle d’Annunzio:  Les Vierges aux Rochers.  Cf.  The Revue des Deux Mondes of October 15, 1896; page 867.]

I turned the pages feverishly.  My mind seemed to be clearing.

Behind me, M. Le Mesge, deep in an article, voiced his opinions in indignant growls.

I continued reading: 

“On all sides a magnificent view spread out before us in the raw light.  The chain of rocks, clearly visible in their barren desolation which stretched to the very summit, lay stretched out like some great heap of gigantic, unformed things left by some primordial race of Titans to stupefy human beings.  Overturned towers....”

“It is shameful, downright shameful,” the Professor was repeating.

“Overturned towers, crumbling citadels, cupolas fallen in, broken pillars, mutilated colossi, prows of vessels, thighs of monsters, bones of titans,—­this mass, impassable with its ridges and gullies, seemed the embodiment of everything huge and tragic.  So clear were the distances....”