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
