In the hurrying clouds a great space clears,
and along the south-west runs a great rosy fleece of sunset. It is
rapidly darkening. The sea in the western corner is crimson, but all
the vast south is silver and sombre. The horizon is like that seen
from a balloon--pushed out to its furthermost, and there, where clouds
and sky mingle, one sees fantastically as it were the sides of giant,
shadowy fish.
The motor-coach, with its passengers from Sebastopol to Yalta, comes
rushing and grumbling up behind me and stops five minutes, this being
its half-way point. The passengers adjourn into the inn to drink
vodka: "Remember, gentlemen, five minutes only," says the chauffeur.
"God help any one who gets left behind at Baidari...." Four minutes
later there is a stamping of fat men in heavy overcoats round the
brightly varnished 'bus. "Are we going?" says a little man to the
refreshed but purple-faced chauffeur. "Yes!" "That's good. I've had
enough of this." The guard winds his horn, and after a preliminary
squirm of the plump tyres on the soft road, the vehicle and its
company goes tumbling down the road as if it were descending into a
pit.
And the sunset! It develops with every instant. The lines on the sea
seem to move more quickly, and the spaces between them to be larger.
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