Caves have always had the most extraordinary, magical fascination for
me. When I was a child, I believed that if I could only go into one I
should be allowed to find fairyland; and even in an ordinary, every-day
cellar I was never quite without hope. The smell of a cellar suggested
the most cool, delightful, shadowy mysteries to me, at that time, and
does still.
It was as if the ghostly hand that had been pulling me back, begging me
not to leave Les Baux, led me gently but insistently through the doorway
of the rock house.
It was not yet dark inside. I tiptoed my way through some rough bits of
debris, to the back of the big room, crudely cut out of stone. There
were shelves where the dwellers had set lights or stored provisions, and
there was nothing else to see except a square hole in the floor, below
which a staircase had been hewn. A glimmer of light came up to me, gray
as a bat's wing, and I knew that there must be some opening for
ventilation below.
I felt that I would give anything to go down those rough stone stairs,
only half way down, perhaps; just far enough to see what lay underneath.
Pages:
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211