My sensation must, I think, have closely resembled the
feelings of a diver who, for the first time, descends below the water.
I had never felt anything like this before and there was quite
definitely about my eyes, my nose, my mouth, a feeling of suffocation.
I can only say that it was exactly as though I were breathing in an
atmosphere that was strange to me. This may have been partly the
effect of the sun that was beating down very strongly upon us, but it
was also, curiously enough, the result of some dimness that obscured
the direct path of one's vision. On every side of our rough forest
road there were black cavernous spaces set here and there like caves
between sheets of burning sunlight. Into these caves one's gaze simply
could not penetrate, and the light and darkness shifted about one with
exactly the effect of stirring, swaying water. Although the way was
quite clear and the road broad I felt as though at any moment our
advance would be stopped by an impenetrable barrier, a barrier of
bristled thickets, of an iron wall, of a sudden, fathomless precipice.
Pages:
375
376
377
378
379
380
381
382
383
384
385
386
387
388
389
390
391
392
393
394
395
396
397
398
399