Throughout the great valley, orange groves, extending like shimmeringwaves of velvet; hedges and enclosures of lighter green, cutting thecrimson earth into geometric figures; clumps of palms spurting like jetsof verdure upward toward the sky, and falling off again in languorousswoons; villas blue and rose-colored, nestling in flowering gardens;white farmhouses half concealed behind green swirls of forest; spindlingsmokestacks of irrigation engines, with yellow sooty tops; Alcira, itshouses clustered on the island and overflowing to the opposite bank, allof whitish, bony hue, pock-marked with tiny windows; beyond, Carcagente,the rival city, girdled in its belt of leafy orchards; off toward thesea, sharp, angular mountains, with outlines that from afar suggestedthe fantastic castles imagined by Doré; and inland, the towns of theupper ribera floating in an emerald lake of orchard, the distantmountains taking on a violet hue from the setting sun that was creepinglike a bristly porcupine of gold into the hot vapors of the horizon.
As Rafael looked down upon the towers of the crumbling convent of LaMurta, almost hidden in its pine-groves, he thought of all the tragedyof the Reconquest; and almost mourned the fate of those farmer-warriorswhose white cloaks he could imagine as still floating among the grovesof those magic trees of Asia's paradise. It was the influence of theMoor in his Spanish ancestry. Christian, clerical even, though he was,he had inherited a melancholy, dreamy turn of mind from the very Arabswho had created all that Eden.
The Floating Castle Torrent
It rained day and night; and yet the city, from its animation, seemed tobe having a holiday. The young ones, sent home from school because ofthe bad weather, were all on the bridges throwing branches into thewater to see how swift the current was, or playing along the lanes closeto the river, planting sticks in the banks and waiting for theever-broadening torrent to reach them.
In the narrow gorge between the Old City and the New, the swollentorrent swept them along like lightning. The barber used his oars justto keep the boat away from the shore. Submerged rocks sent greatwhirlpools to the surface and pulled the boat this way and that. Thelight of the torch cast a dull reddish glow out over the muddy eddies.Tree trunks, refuse, dead animals, went floating by, shapeless masseswith only a few dark points visible above the surface, as though somedead man covered with mud were swimming under water. Out on thatswirling current, with the slimy vapors of the river rising to hisnostrils and the eddies sucking and boiling all around, Rafael thoughthimself the victim of a weird nightmare and began even to repent of hisrashness. Cries kept coming from houses close to the river; windows weresuddenly lighted up; and from them great shadowy arms like the wings ofa windmill waved in greeting to that red flame which people saw glidingpast along the river, bringing the outlines of the boat and the two meninto distinct view. The news of their expedition had spread throughoutthe city and people were on the watch for them as they sped by: "Vivadon Rafael! Viva Brull!"
The barber bent to the oars, and the boat, slowly, on account of thecurrent, came around and headed for a line of tree-tops that peeredabove the surface of the flood like seaweed floating on the ocean.Shortly the bottom began to scrape on invisible obstacles. Entanglementsbelow were clutching at the keel, and it took some effort occasionallyto get free. The lake was still dark and apparently shoreless, but thecurrent was not so strong and the surface had stopped rolling. The twomen knew they had reached dead water. What looked like dark, giganticmushrooms, huge umbrellas, or lustrous domes, caught the reflection ofthe torch, at times. Those were orange-trees. The rescuers were in theorchards. But in which? How find the way in the darkness? Here and therethe branches were too thick to break through and the boat would tip asif it were going over. They would back water, make a detour, or tryanother route.
The torch from the boat brought out the lines of a broad house with alow roof that seemed to be floating on the water. It was the upper storyof a building that had been swamped by the inundation. The lower storywas under water. The flood, indeed, was getting closer to the upperrooms. The balconies and windows looked like landings of a pier in animmense lake.
Through its dense clouds the sky was beginning to shed a gray, wanlight, under which the vast, watery plain took on the whitish color ofabsinthe. Down the stream the debris of the inundation was floating,sweepings of wretched poverty, uprooted trees, clumps of reeds, thatchedroofs from huts, all dirty, slimy, nauseating. Bits of flotsam andjetsam became entangled between the orange-trees and formed dams thatlittle by little grew with the new spoils brought along by the current.
He would kneel submissively at her feet, like Hercules in the presenceof Adriadne, resting his chin on her knees, looking up into her facewith his gray, kindly, caressing eyes. Timidly, doubtfully, he wouldapproach her every day as if he were meeting her for the first time andfeared a repulse. He would kiss her softly, delicately, with hushedreserve, as if she were a fragile jewel that might break beneath histenderest caress. Poor Selivestroff! Leonora had wept at the thought ofhim. In Russia and with princely Russian sumptuousness, they had livedfor a year in his castle, in the country, among a population of soddenmoujiks who worshipped that beautiful woman in the white and blue fursas devotedly as if she had been a Virgin stepping forth from the gildedbackground of an ikon.
Once more she became the reigning belle. All the young Russianaristocrats who held commissions in the Imperial Guard, or high posts inthe Government, spoke enthusiastically of the great Spanish beauty; andthey envied Selivestroff. The count yearned moodily for the solitude ofhis castle, which held so many loving memories for him. In the bustling,competitive life of the capital, he grew jealous, sad, melancholy,irritable at the necessity of defending his love. He could sense theunderground warfare that was being waged against him by Leonora'scountless admirers.
And, Leonora was thrilled as she heard in her memory the murmur of theorchestra accompanying the song of tenderness inspired by Spring; therustle of the forest branches benumbed by the winter, now swaying withthe new sap that had flowed into them like a torrent of vitality; andout on the brightly lighted plazoleta she could almost see Sigmund andSiglinda clasping in an eternal unseverable embrace, as she had seenthem from the wings of the opera, where she would be waiting as aValkyrie to step out and set an audience wild with her mighty"Hojotoho!"
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Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are facing a torrent of criticism after a new government report was released Monday showing that British taxpayers so far have paid about $3 million to upgrade Frogmore Cottage, their new home on the grounds of Windsor Castle.
I am now seriously trapped by this book, but I still intend to try stem its torrent. Now, we have the engaging penned view of Jan Torrentius by a historical third party, and the language and hints continue to accrete as to his nature, as a salon painting competition impends (still to be resolved), a competition or artistic duel stemming from a most intriguing demonstration of a street view by camera obscura, all imbued with a sense of magick, tricksy silences, comings and goings, amid a tangible 17th century historical ambiance plus a real poem by one of my favourite poets, Donne. And wordplays upon stream and torrent, brook and flood.
An epic adventure awaits you in Castle Story, a strategy game where you command friendly creatures called Bricktrons. Have them explore, carve, dig and gather resources from vast, spectacular floating islands, reshaping the voxel-based world to your desire! Design and build any structure you can imagine! From mighty and legendary castles to sprawling Bricktron villages.
As a torrent of publishing news already starts to hit the web just days into 2014, CBR News takes one last look back at the year that was with our traditional Top 10 News Stories of the Year countdown!
But I soon found that the less exciting, gentler moments of simply floating down the lazy stretches of this river meant more to me. I had time to contemplate the questions that traveling through canyons inspired.
The sandstone gradually sloped away from the river and upward, sometimes in stair-step fashion, with sedimentary bands of vanilla, peach, and rust announcing each step, and sometimes in steep cliffs, like castle walls, varnished with purple and amber mineral streaks. On top the rims flattened into high plateaus or else they pinnacled into knobby buttes, arches, balancing rocks, or clusters of spires that jutted up into the sky.
Astounding things happen in places like Desolation Canyon and man is rarely there to witness them. Once we passed driftwood scattered on a boulder that towered eight feet above us. The wood had been deposited by a river much higher than the one we paddled on. Below we splashed through a rapid that had formed the year before when a flash flood in a side canyon carried great boulders into the main torrent.
As we were paddling lazily downstream on our final day, we felt a slight rumble beneath our kayaks and glimpsed a heavy cloud of dust floating downward from a high wall in a side canyon. In the few seconds that it took us to round a bend so that we could see clearly into the canyon, the rock that had caused the rumble and dust was down.
There was the body of a murdered women, found floating in the Jersey City docks about a fortnight since. Her head, preserved in spirits, after days of mystery, is at least identified by men, to whom, more than to the passing crowd, it must seem a dreadful sight. For those features, now foul and ghastly enough, to be sure, not long ago were a portion of their several daily lives; not long ago those eyes, now "staring through muddy impurity," looked with the semblance of love into their own. For she was the lawful wife of one, whom she deserted to lead the dashing life of an American fast woman. Becoming accomplished in this life, she seized the other in her toils; took charge of his body character and purse; debauched the first, beclouded the second, scattered recklessly the contents of the third. She shifted her abode, we are told, from place to place.--She lived at her victim's expense, successively, at the Brandreth House, at the St. Denis Hotel, at a doctor's in Astor place, at the St. Jullien Hotel, at the Lafarge House, at more than one private boarding-house. All this within two years. And when her provider saw through the flimsy veil of her affection for him, she still maintained her extravagance, applying upon his terror of exposure as skillfully as she had before played upon his yielding folly. She spent $20,000 of this one man's money in two years. During this time she had other visitors, doubtless other victims. How many she has ruined He only knows who has at last called her to account. Such was the life, and such the end, of one modern "fast woman." Well might the man we speak of, when asked to identify those shapeless features, do so at his first glance and shudderingly turn away! 2ff7e9595c
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