It was evident that on the slope below me was a town and, at the foot of the town, a harbour. The town was a mere dark mass, so confused that it might have been a jumble of black rocks, save that, here and there, were tiny lights—lights evidently in upper windows. From one hidden casement near by, that must have been open and uncurtained, a gleam fell upon the side of a villa revealing every detail of shutter and balcony as well as a strip of bright ornament painted on the wall. The harbour was made manifest by two black piers with a light at the end of each—one green, one red—by a sheen, like that of quicksilver, on the water in the basin and by a row of lamps upon the three sides of the quay. Beyond the harbour was a towering dull mass that I knew to be Monaco. It was picked out by a few dots of light which came, no doubt, from scattered rooms and by vague towers scarcely visible before the sullen curtain of the sky. To the east there stood out, very cleanly cut against the delicate light of the coming day, certain black pinnacles and domes. They looked like the peaks of some fantastic oriental temple but I recognised them as belonging to the Casino and the great hotel. Clear in the heaven, above these pinnacles and domes, blazed one large, brilliant star. It was, I imagine, the very Star in the East that two thousand years ago shone over the stable at Bethlehem. XXVI MONTE CARLO MONTE CARLO[40] lies on the very edge of the sea at the foot of a broken range of grey hills as if it were a patch of flowers at the foot of an ancient wall. As a town it takes the form of a sloping pile of houses and terraces which, when the sun falls on them, are a brilliant maize-yellow with splashes of white, of russet-red for the roofs and of green for the palms and the gardens. Viewed at sundown, from a long way off, it would seem as if the foot of the cliff, where it touches the sea, had been gilded with dull gold. Compared with the old towns around it Monte Carlo is so new, so fresh, so bright that it may be the city of youth, an embodiment of youth itself, of careless, reckless, sensuous youth. It is so young that there is not a wrinkle on its face, although the cheek may be a trifle tinted and the lips unduly red. Its streets recall the gaiety of youth, its lavish gardens proclaim the indulgence and the luxury of youth, its crags and ravines the spirit of adventure, its clear sky the far vision of youth and its blazing sun the fierce passion of youth. The gorgeous white Casino would seem to realise, in such a city, the fantasy of youth. It is so immense, so impossible, so unlike any conception of sober middle age, so unreal, so daring. It conforms to the type of no ordinary building. Its architecture is not of this world of common things, although it may possibly approach that of the exuberant temple in white on the top of a wedding cake.