And the bustle of the shops and the bustle of cafes, until Shane was
forced to go out to the olive-lined roads to the rocky summit of La
Garde, and once there, as if drawn by a magnet, Shane would enter the
chapel in the fort, where the most renowned Notre Dame of the
Mediterranean smiles mawkishly in white olive-wood. After the blinding
sun of the Midi, the cool dark chapel was like a dungeon to him, so
little could he see anything; but in a while the strange furniture of
the place would take form before his eyes: the white statue of the
Virgin, the silver tunny-fish, the daubs of sea hazards whence the
Virgin had rescued grateful mariners, the rope-ends, the crutches....
And though none might be in the chapel, yet it was full of life, so much
did the pathetic ex-votos tell.... And he would come out of the chapel,
and again the Midi sun would flash in a shower of gold, and he could see
the blue Mediterranean, pricked with minute lateen-sails, and the
grayish town beneath him, so old and yet so vital, and the calm harbor,
with the forest of spars, and Monte Cristo, white as an egg....
A queer town that, as familiar as a channel marking, teeming as an
ant-hill, and when darkness came over it, and he viewed it from the
after deck, mystery came, too.... For a while there was a hush, and
around the hills gigantic ghosts walked.... One thought of the Phocaeans
who had founded it, and to whom the Cannebiere was a rope-walk, where
they made the sheets for their ships.... And one thought of Lazarus, who
had been raised from among the silent dead and who had come there, so
legend read, a gray figure in ceramic garments, standing in the prow of
a boat....
One thing Robin More had told him remained in his mind and captured his
fancy, and that was that Pontius Pilate had been governor of Marseilles
after his office in Judea. And of him Shane would think when the
mysterious dusk came on the Midi hills ... Pilate, who had smiled, "What
is truth?" and who had turned Christ over to the mob.... A big man, he
imagined the Roman to have been, with clever eyes, and a great black
beard covering a weak chin.... A man who knew all the subtleties of
mind, and had no backbone.... And he could see the Roman, sitting on his
villa porch in the dusk with tortured eyes, and fingering his beard with
fingers that shook.... Paul was going through Greece and Rome like a
flame, and the Pilate wondered.... Could it have been possible?...
Ridiculous! a Jewish carpenter! A crazy man!.... And yet.... Could it
have been possible.... No! no! no! And yet.... People had seen Him walk
on the waves.... But people never knew what they saw, exactly.... No!
How foolish!... He raised a man from the dead they said.... And that
centurion--what was his name?--his daughter!... No, a stupid Jewish
legend.... And yet.... Could it be possible? Could it? Could it?
"Lights! Lights! Do you hear me! Bring lights! Lights!" Pilate would all
but scream, panic-stricken in the Midi dusk....
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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