Little Poems in Prose

shore, and as we approached, behold it was a land magnificent and dazzling; it seemed that all the harmonious sounds of life came from it in a vague murmur, and that from this coast, wealthy in every sort of greenery, there ex- haled to a distance of many leagues a delicious odour of flowers and fruits. Immediately everyone was joyful, and ill- humour departed; all quarrels were forgotten, all wrongs pardoned. The duels which had been arranged were erased from memory, and ill-will fled away like clouds of smoke. I alone was sad, inconceivably sad. Like a priest from whom one should ravish his Divin- ity, I could not without heart-breaking bitter- ness tear myself from this sea, so monstrously seductive, from this sea so infinitely varied in its terrifying simplicity; this sea which seems to contain in itself and to represent by its play, its enticements, its rages and its smiles, the dispositions, the agonies and the ecstasies of every soul that hath ever lived, that lives, that ever shall live. As I bade farewell to this incomparable beauty I felt myself smitten down even to death, and therefore whenever one of my companions cried “At last!” I was only able to cry “Already!”