THE LIGHTHOUSE ON THE SANGUINAIRES
It was one of those nights when I just couldn't sleep. The mistral was raging and kept me awake till morning. Everything creaked on the windmill, the whistling sails swayed heavily like ship's tackle in the wind, tiles flew wildly off the roof. The closely packed pines covering the hillside swayed and rustled far away in the darkness. You could imagine yourself out at sea….
All this reminded me of the bad spell of insomnia I had three years ago, when I lived in the Sanguinaires lighthouse overlooking the entrance to the gulf of Ajaccio on the Corsican coast.
I had found a pleasant place there where I could muse in solitude.
Picture an island with a reddish cast and a wild appearance. There was a lighthouse on one headland and an old Genoese tower on the other, which housed an eagle while I was there. Down by the sea-shore there was a ruined lazaretto, overgrown with grass. Then there were ravines, low scrub, huge rocks, wild goats, and Corsican ponies trotting about, their manes flowing in the breeze. At the highest point, surrounded by a flurry of sea-birds, was the lighthouse, with its platform of white masonry, where the keepers paced to and fro. There was a green arched door, and a small cast-iron tower on top of which a great multifaceted lamp reflected the sun and gave light even in the daytime. Well, that's what I recalled of the Isle of the Sanguinaires, on that sleepless night as I listened to the roaring pines. It was on this enchanted island that I used to fulfil my need for the open air and solitude before I found my windmill.
What did I do with myself?
Very much what I do here, or perhaps even less. When the mistral or tramontana didn't blow too hard, I used to settle down between two rocks, down by the sea amongst the gulls, blackbirds, and swallows, and stayed there nearly all day in that state between stupor and despondency which comes from contemplating the sea. Have you ever experienced that sweet intoxication of the soul? You don't think; you don't even dream; your whole being escapes, flies away, expands outwards. You are one with the diving seagull, the light spray across the wave tops, the white smoke of the ship disappearing over the horizon, the tiny red sailed boat, here and there a pearl of water, a patch of mist, anything not yourself…. Oh, what delightful hours, half awake and day-dreaming, I have spent on my island….
On days when the wind was really up, and it was too rough to be on the sea shore, I shut myself in the yard of the lazaretto. It was a small melancholy place, fragrant with rosemary and wild absinth, nestling against part of the old wall, where I let myself be gently overcome by that trace of relaxation and melancholy, which drifts in with the sun into the little stone lodges, open all round like old tombs. Occasionally, a gate would swing open or something would move in the grass. Once, it was a goat which had come to graze and shelter from the wind. When it saw me, it stopped, dumfounded, and froze, all agog, horns skyward, looking at me with innocent eyes.
At about five o'clock, the lighthouse keepers' megaphone summoned me to dinner. I returned only slowly towards the lighthouse, taking a small pathway through the scrub which ran up a hilltop overlooking the sea. At every step I glanced backwards onto the immense expanse of water and light that seemed to increase as I went higher.
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