Then may the tramp cease marching, for in the height of summer
nature also must cease, must cease from going forward to turn back. He
may rest in the sun and mature his fruits. Autumn is coming and all
the year's beauties must yield to death.
I think of my autumn on the way to Jerusalem, and all that a day told
me then. The skies became grey at last, and cold searching winds stole
into the summer weather. Many things that by sunlight I should have
rejoiced in became sombre and ugly in the shade. The tobacco farms,
with their myriad tobacco leaves drying and rotting from green into
yellow, became ill-kept and untidy, the peasants harvesting them surly
and unwashed: the sky spread over them no glamour.
I was walking over the swamps of Sukhum, and I noticed all that I
disliked--the deep dust on the road, the broken-down bridges, the
streams that cattle had befouled. It was perhaps a district that
lacked charm even in fine weather.
There were some compensations. In a wilderness of wilted maize fields,
and mud or wattle-built villages, one's eyes rested with affection
upon slender trees laden with rosy pomegranates--the pomegranate on
the branch is a lovely rusty-brown fruit, and the tree is like a briar
with large berries. Then the ancient Drandsky Monastery was a fair
sight, white-walled and green-roofed against the background of black
mountains, the mountains in turn shown off against the snowy ranges
of the interior Caucasus.
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