Blue and White
Slowly, slowly, over the heavy blue water, transparently, liquidly, blue, my boat, my dear little boat, all white with a blue border, was gliding through the blue light.
The villas, the pretty white villas, gazed out through their open windows upon the Mediterranean, that lapped the walls of their gardens, their beautiful gardens, filled with palm-trees and aloes, trees forever green, and eternally blooming plants.
I told the sailor who was rowing me lazily to stop at the little door of my friend Pol. And I shouted at the top of my lungs: “Pol, Pol, Pol!”
He appeared on his balcony, a little bewildered, like a man roused from sleep.
The blazing noonday sun was blinding and he raised his hand to his eyes.
I shouted: “Do you care to take a row?”
He replied: “I will be down in a moment.”
And a few minutes later he entered my little skiff.
I instructed the sailor to pull out to the open sea.
Pol had brought his newspaper, which he had not read that morning, and lying at the bottom of the boat, he began to peruse it.
I was looking at the coast. As we pulled away from the shore, the entire town rose before us, the pretty white town, that lay in a circle at the edge of the water. Above it rose the first mountain, the first ledge, covered by a great pine forest, dotted with villas, with white villas, that looked like the scattered eggs of some gigantic bird. The villas became scarcer toward the summit of the mountain and at the very top was one large, square one, a hotel no doubt, so white that it appeared to have been freshly painted.
My sailor was rowing leisurely, like the calm Southerner that he was; and as the sun, the great blazing sun in the middle of the blue sky, hurt my eyes, I gazed at the water, the deep, blue water, churned by the oars.
And I saw, behind the green mountain, away in the distance, the huge white mountain appear. It could not be seen a moment ago. Now, it began to show its great wall of snow, its high shining wall, enclosing with a circle of icy summits, of white summits, sharp as pyramids or round as shields, the coast, the warm, perfumed coast, with its palms and its anemones.
I said to Pol: “There is the snow; look.” And I showed him the Alps.
The great white chain unrolled itself endlessly and grew in size with every stroke of the oar. The snow seemed so close, so thick, so threatening, that I was afraid and felt chilled.
Then, farther down, we discovered a straight black line, which cut the mountain in two, there where the fiery sun had said to the icy snow: “Thou shalt not go farther.”
Pol, who was holding his newspaper, said: “The news from Pie’mont is terrible. The avalanches have destroyed eighteen villages. Listen to this”; and he read aloud:
“The news from the valley of Aosta is appalling. The crazed population knows no rest. Village upon village is being buried beneath the snow. In the valley of Lucerne, the casualties are as numerous. At Locane, seven deaths; at Sparone, fifteen; at Romborgogno, eight; at Ronco, Valprato, Campiglia, which is buried in snow, lie thirty-two corpses. At Pirrone, at Saint-Damien, at Musternale, at Demonte, at Masselo, at Chiabrano, many deaths have also been reported. The village of Balziglia has completely disappeared under the avalanche. In the memory of man there has not been such a terrible calamity.
“Horrible details are reported on every side: Here is one in a thousand.
“A man of Groscavallo lived with his wife and two children.
“The wife had been sick for a long time. On Sunday, the day of the disaster, the father was taking care of his wife, aided by the daughter, while the son was visiting a neighbor.
“Suddenly, an enormous avalanche covered the hut and crushed it. A big log cut the man almost in two, and he died instantly.
“The mother was spared by the same log, but one of her arms was pinned under it and crushed.
“With her free hand she was able to reach her daughter, also pinned under the mass of debris. The poor child screamed for help nearly a day and a half. Now and then she would say: ‘Mother, put a pillow under my head, it hurts so.’
“Only the mother survived.”
We contemplated the mountain, the enormous white mountain that grew and grew, while the other one, the green one, seemed now only a dwarf at its feet.
The town had vanished in the distance.
Nothing surrounding us but the blue sea, which extended under us, and before us, while behind us rose the white Alps, the colossal Alps, in their heavy mantles of snow.
Above our heads, a light blue sky suffused by golden sunlight! What a beautiful day!
Pol resumed: “It must be a terrible death, to be buried alive under that crushing mass!”
Gently rocked by the waves, lulled by the rhythm of the oars, far from the land whose white crest was no longer visible, I thought of the poor little human beings swarming over this grain of sand lost in the magnitude of the universe; of the miserable flock of beings mowed down by disease, crushed by avalanches, shaken and terrified by earthquakes; of those poor little creatures that cannot be distinguished a mile away, and that are so vain, so quarrelsome, so foolish, and have but a few days of life. I compared the gnats that subsist a few hours, to the beasts that live a season, to the men who live a few years, to the worlds that endure a few centuries. What is it all?
Paul remarked: “I know a good snow story.”
And I asked him to tell it.
He began: “Do you remember big Radier, Jules Radier, the handsome Jules?”
“Yes, perfectly.”
“Well, you know how proud he was of his hair, his face, his physique, his strength, his mustache. All his attractions were greater than other men’s, in his eyes. And he was a heartbreaker, one of these handsome dummies that are very successful, one does not know exactly why. They are neither intelligent, nor clever, nor refined, but they possess the attributes of gallant ruffians. That is sufficient.
“Last winter, Paris was buried in snow and I went to a ball given by a demimondaine you know, the beautiful Sylvia Raymond.”
“Why, yes, of course.”
“Jules Radier was there, having been brought by a friend, and I could see that our hostess liked him very well. So I thought: ‘Here is a chap who will not be greatly bothered by the snow tonight.’
“Then I turned my attention to finding a subject of attraction in the crowd of pretty girls.
“But I did not succeed. Not every man is a Jules Radier, and so I left all alone, about one o’clock in the morning.
“As I lived quite near, I thought I would walk home. Suddenly, at the corner of the street, I saw a strange sight:
“A tall black shadow, a man, was walking up and down in the snow, stamping his feet. Was he a lunatic? I approached him with caution. It was Jules. He was holding his pumps in one hand, and his socks in the other. His trousers were pulled above his knees, and he was running around in a circle, like in a riding-ring, soaking his bare feet in the icy mire, seeking the spots where the snow was clean, and white, and deep. And he was jumping around like a crazy man and executing a series of steps like a floor-polisher.
“I was bewildered.
“I muttered: ‘Gracious! Have you lost your mind?’
“Without pausing in his evolutions, he replied: ‘Not at all, I am washing my feet. Do you know that I have captured Sylvia? What luck! And I believe that I am to be favored this very night. One must strike the iron while it is hot. Of course, I had not looked forward to this, otherwise I should have taken a bath.’ ”
Pol concluded: “So you see that snow has some use after all.”
My sailor, tired out, had stopped rowing. Our boat was motionless on the smooth water.
I said to the man: “Turn back.” And he took up his oars.
As we neared the coast, the tall white mountain shrank, disappearing behind the other mountain, the green one.
The town reappeared, similar to foam, white foam edging blue water. The villas showed again between the trees. A white line of snow, composed of the mountain-tops that lost themselves to the right, toward Nice, was alone visible.
Then, a lone crest remained, a tall mountain crest fast disappearing behind the neighboring coast.
And soon nothing could be seen but the shores and the town, the white town, and the blue sea, over which my little boat, my dear little boat, glided to the rhythmic splashing of the oars.