They Were Divided - Miklos Banffy [124]
A strip of light appeared under the canvas door of the tent. It was dawn. Balint woke first and then Adrienne. One of them murmured, ‘It’s the dawn,’ and then the other repeated, ‘the dawn’, and together, as if by a mutual impulse, they started to get up.
The pale light called them outside and there the air was cold, with the steely cold of the high mountains that stimulated and invigorated like a draft of cool champagne. They stood together, arms entwined, breathing in deeply.
Just above the far horizon a narrow strip of yellow light outlined long lilac-coloured clouds. The sky was violet and hanging in it was the sickle moon. As they watched the sky lightened to mauve and then to grey, and from grey to palest green, except high above them where it seemed to have no colour at all. The outlines of the mountains were etched strongly against the light sky but seemed paper-thin, those closest to them, those which were covered by the pine forest, jagged like the teeth of a saw, but the furthest away rounded, as if cut from metal discs. These were the great curves of the Magura of Gyalu, or the pyramids of the Triple Mountains and the flattened summit of the Dobrin. But no matter how different these ranges were in reality they now all seemed the same, ridge after ridge of them, as harmonious as the rhythms of a great symphony, cutting into the sky like giant knife-blades projecting from earth.
Nearby, in the slight dawn breeze, the ink-black branches of young pines moved slightly to and fro; but everything was still in shadow, showing no sign of colour except in the sky, shadows, darker or paler, but still shadows as in a faded drawing in pen and wash.
The light increased, not steadily but seemingly in rhythmic steps that could almost be counted. A siskin started calling from a thicket of dwarf pines. Then from far away another responded, to be followed by the morning song of the blackbirds. A tiny titmouse was to be seen flitting from branch to branch, and then another, and another …
Silently watching, Balint and Adrienne stood at the edge of the cliffs waiting for the sun to rise. It was like being in a new world of which they were the first inhabitants, watching for the first dawn of Creation.
The long horizon blazed into red and gold, and long shafts of sunlight rose from the hilltops, racing across the sky until vapoury shreds of cloud, hitherto unseen, shone blood-red. Higher still other clouds appeared, in long strips like celestial ribbons, the highest and nearest edged with silver and those furthest away glowing orange, saffron and an incandescent green. It was as if behind the horizon some giant furnace was being stoked into flame and was pouring out streams of liquid metal.
Now the light seemed to rush upon them for, as if touched by a magic wand, the shadowy outlines of the mountains took on the colours of day, light blue in the far distance and nearer at hand a rich spectrum of different greens. A rosy enamel illumined the bluffs of rock, but still there were no shadows, only nature’s own colours, and it seemed to the watchers that the whole world was waiting with a throbbing heart for the eternal mystery of sunrise.
Then the veil of clouds was shattered, torn apart and annihilated, and in its place the sun rose, triumphant, so bright that it could not be looked at. As they turned away the couple saw that at long last the growing sunlight cast its shadows on the earth, shadows that lay prostrate on the ground, at the foot of cliffs, trees and shrubs, as if in homage and gratitude for the renewal of life.
Homage and gratitude were what Balint and Adrienne