The temptation was to go into the wood and walk on
firmer soil--but the thickets were many, and not a furlong did it
profit me. Then there were thorns, you must know, and abundant
long-clawed creepers that grasped the legs and kept them fixed
till they were tenderly extricated by the hand. When I came to the
pine-wood it was night, and the many stars shone over the sea. I
walked easily and gratefully over the soft pine needles, and I
constantly sought with my eyes for the monastery domes. The moonlight
through the pines looked like mist, and the forest climbed gradually
over rising cliffs. Far away on the dark cape I saw the flash of the
lighthouse....
No houses, no people, only a faint cart-track. That track bade me
hope. I would follow it in any case. At last, suddenly, I thought
I saw the cloud of white smoke of a bonfire. It was the far-away
monastery wall, high and white, with a little lamp in one window. I
bore up with the distance, forms grew distinct in the night; I entered
the monastery by a five-hundred-yard avenue of cedars.
I met a novice in a long smock. He took me to the guest-rooms of the
monastery, and there, to my joy, I was accommodated with a bed--the
first for many weeks. I was introduced to a very fat and ancient monk
who carried at his belt a bunch of keys.
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