"Well, God himself is a good poet!" said the drunken Kermani.
And the woman smiled, and all the kings and princes and warriors smiled too, like children, as they looked at her—the Woman-Mother.
All this is true. What is said here is the truth, all mothers know it, ask them and they will say:
"Yes, all this is everlasting truth. We are more powerful than Death, we who ceaselessly present sages, poets and heroes to the world, we who sow in it everything that is glorious!"
[A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA]
It is as if thousands of metallic wires were strung in the thick foliage of the olive-trees. The wind moves the stiff, hard leaves, they touch the strings, and these light, continuous contacts fill the air with a hot, intoxicating sound. It is not yet music, but a sound as if unseen hands were tuning hundreds of invisible harps, and one awaits impatiently the moment of silence before a powerful hymn bursts forth, a hymn to the sun, the sky and the sea, played on numberless stringed instruments.
The wind sways the tops of the trees, which seem to be moving down the mountain slope towards the sea. The waves beat in a measured, muffled way against the stones on the shore. The sea is covered with moving white spots, as if numberless flocks of birds had settled on its blue expanse; they all swim in the same direction, disappear, diving into the depths, and reappear, giving forth a faint sound. On the horizon, looking like grey birds, move two ships under full sail, dragging the other birds in their train. All this reminds one of a half-forgotten dream seen long ago; it is so unlike reality.
"The wind will freshen towards evening," says an old fisherman, sitting on a little mound of jingling pebbles in the shade of the rocks.
The breakers have washed up on to the stones a tangle of smelling seaweed—brown and golden and green; the wrack withers in the sun and on the hot stones, the salt air is saturated with the penetrating odour of iodine. One after another the curling breakers beat upon the heap of shingle.