"What are you saying? Christ save you. How can you think up such things?"
It was disgusting and enough to drive one insane.
[CHAPTER XIV]
At noon I crossed the lake, sat down on the bank and gazed at the monastery where I had slaved for over two years.
The wood spread out before me with its green wings and disclosed the monastery on its breast. The scalloped white walls, the blue head of the old church, the golden cupola of the new cathedral and the striped red roofs stood out clearly from the splendid green. The crosses glowed, shining and inviting, and above them the blue bell of heaven sounded the joyful peace of spring, while the sun rejoiced in its victory.
In this beauty which inflated the soul with its keen splendor, black men in long garments hid themselves and rotted away, living empty days without love, without joy in senseless labor and in mire.
I pitied them and myself, too, so that I almost wept. I arose and went on.
Perfume was over all, the earth and all that lived sang, the sun drew forth the flowers in the field and they lifted themselves up toward the sky and made their obeisance to the sun. The young trees whispered and swayed, the birds twittered and love burned everywhere on the fruitful earth which was drunk with its own strength.
I met a peasant and greeted him, but he hardly nodded. I met a woman and she evaded me. And all the time I had a great desire to speak with people, and I would have spoken to them with a friendly heart.