Low
mountains edged up about the horizon, thrusting out pointed scarps like
capes protruding into slumbrous, gray-green seas. These capes were
objects upon which they could fix their eyes, goals to reach and pass.
In the blank monotony they offered an interest, something to strive
for, something that marked an advance. The mountains never seemed to
retreat or come nearer. They encircled the plain in a crumpled wall,
the same day after day, a low girdle of volcanic shapes, cleft with
moving shadows.
The sun was the sun of August. It reeled across a sky paled by its
ardor, at midday seeming to pause and hang vindictive over the little
caravan. Under its fury all color left the blanched earth, all shadows
shrunk away to nothing. The train alone, as if in desperate defiance,
showed a black blot beneath the wagon, an inky snake sliding over the
ground under each horse's sweating belly. The air was like a stretched
tissue, strained to the limit of its elasticity, in places parting in
delicate, glassy tremblings. Sometimes in the distance the mirage hung
brilliant, a blue lake with waves crisping on a yellow shore.
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