He saw their infinite beauty, and his imagination soared over them to the things beyond he was now to resign for ever.
He thought of that great free world he was parted from, the world that was his own, and he had a vision of those further slopes, distance beyond distance, with Bogota, a place of multitudinous stirring beauty, a glory by day, a luminous mystery by night, a place of palaces and fountains and statues and white houses, lying beautifully in the middle distance. He thought how for a day or so one might come down through passes, drawing ever nearer and nearer to its busy streets and ways. He thought of the river journey, day by day, from great Bogota to the still vaster world beyond, through towns and villages, forest and desert places, the rushing river day by day, until its banks receded and the big steamers came splashing by, and one had reached the sea—the limitless sea, with its thousand islands, its thousands of islands, and its ships seen dimly far away in their incessant journeyings round and about that greater world. And there, unpent by mountains, one saw the sky—the sky, not such a disc as one saw it here, but an arch of immeasurable blue, a deep of deeps in which the circling stars were floating ….
His eyes scrutinised the great curtain of the mountains with a keener inquiry.
For example, if one went so, up that gully and to that chimney there, then one might come out high among those stunted pines that ran round in a sort of shelf and rose still higher and higher as it passed above the gorge. And then? That talus might be managed. Thence perhaps a climb might be found to take him up to the precipice that came below the snow; and if that chimney failed, then another farther to the east might serve his purpose better. And then? Then one would be out upon the amber-lit snow there, and half-way up to the crest of those beautiful desolations.
HE GLANCED BACK at the village, then turned right round and regarded it steadfastly.
He thought of Medina-saroté, and she had become small and remote.
He turned again towards the mountain wall, down which the day had come to him.
Then very circumspectly he began to climb.
WHEN SUNSET CAME he was no longer climbing, but he was far and high. He had been higher, but he was still very high. His clothes were torn, his limbs were blood-stained, he was bruised in many places, but he lay as if he were at his ease, and there was a smile on his face.
From where he rested the valley seemed as if it were in a pit and nearly a mile below. Already it was dim with haze and shadow, though the mountain summits around him were things of light and fire. The mountain summits around him were things of light and fire, and the little details of the rocks near at hand were drenched with subtle beauty—a vein of green mineral piercing the grey, the flash of crystal faces here and there, a minute, minutely-beautiful orange lichen close beside his face. There were deep mysterious shadows in the gorge, blue deepening into purple, and purple into a luminous darkness, and overhead was the illimitable vastness of the sky. But he heeded these things no longer, but lay quite inactive there, smiling as if he were satisfied merely to have escaped from the valley of the Blind in which he had thought to be King.
The glow of the sunset passed, and the night came, and still he lay peacefully contented under the cold clear stars.
Permissions Acknowledgments
Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following for permission to reprint previously published material:
Angel Books: “A Shameless Rascal” from Five Tales by Nikolai Leskov, translated by Michael Shotton (Angel Books, London, 1986). Reprinted by permission of Angel Books.
Australian Literary Management: “The Dream” from The Mysterious Tales of Ivan Turgenev, translated by Robert Dessaix (The Australian National University, 1979). Reprinted by permission of Australian Literary Management.
John Calder (Publishers) Ltd.: “Wandering Willies Tale” from The Supernatural Short Stories of Sir Walter Scott, edited by Michael Hayes [John Calder (Publishers) Ltd., London]. Reprinted by permission of The Calder Educational Trust, London.
Dedalus Limited: “The Story of the Demoniac Pacheco” from Tales from the Saragossa Manuscript by Jan Potocki, translated by Christine Donougher (Dedalus/Hippocrene, 1990). Translation copyright © 1990 by Christine Donougher. Reprinted by permission of Dedalus Limited.
Dover Publications, Inc.: “The Sand-Man” translated by J. T. Bealby from The Best Tales of Hoffmann, by E.T.A. Hoffmann, edited by E. F. Bleiler. Copyright © 1967 by Dover Publications, Inc. Reprinted by permission of Dover Publications, Inc.
Dutton Signet: “The Nose” from Diary of a Madman and Other Stories by Nikolai Gogol, translated by Andrew MacAndrew. Translation copyright © 1960, renewed 1988 by Andrew R. MacAndrew. Reprinted by permission of Dutton Signet, a division of Penguin Books USA Inc.
Faber and Faber Limited: “The Shadow” from Hans Andersen: Forty-two Stories, translated by M. R. James (Faber and Faber Limited, London, 1930). Reprinted by permission of Faber and Faber Limited.
Oxford University Press: “The Venus of Ille” from The Venus of Ille and Other Stories by Prosper Mérimée, translated by Jean Kimber. Copyright © 1966 by Oxford University Press. “The Very Image” from Cruel Tales by Villiers de l’Isle-Adam, translated by Robert Baldick. Copyright © 1963 by Robert Baldick. Reprinted by permission of Oxford University Press, Oxford, England.
A. P. Watt Ltd: “The Country of the Blind” from The Country of the Blind and Other Stories by H. G. Wells, (Oxford University Press, New York, 1996). Reprinted by permission of A. P. Watt Ltd., on behalf of The Literary Executors of the Estate of H. G. Wells.
Fantastic Tales
ITALO CALVINO
Italo Calvino’s works include The Road to San Giovanni, Numbers in the Dark, Six Memos for the Next Millennium, The Baron in the Trees, If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler, Invisible Cities, and Mr. Palomar. Calvino died in 1985.
ALSO BY ITALO CALVINO
Baron in the Trees
Cosmicomics
Difficult Loves
If On a Winter’s Night a Traveler
Invisible Cities
Italian Folktales
Marcovaldo
Mr. Palomar
The Nonexistent Knight
Numbers in the Dark
The Road to San Giovanni
Six Memos for the Next Millennium
Under the Jaguar Sun
The Uses of Literature
FIRST VINTAGE INTERNATIONAL EDITION, NOVEMBER 1998
Compilation and translation copyright © 1997 by Random House, Inc.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. Originally published in Italy as two separate volumes as Racconti Fantastici Dell’Ottocento: Volume Primo, Il Fantastico Visionario and Volume Secondo, Il Fantastico Quotidiano, by Arnoldo Mondadori Editore, Milan, in 1983. Copyright © 1983 by Arnoldo Mondadori Editore S.p.A., Milano.
Italo Calvino’s introduction and headnotes were translated by Alfred Mac Adam, as were the following stories: “Autumn Sorcery” by Joseph von Eichendorff, “The Eye with No Lid” by Philarète Chasles, “The Enchanted Hand” by Gerard de Nerval, and “The Holes in the Mask” by Jean Lorrain.
Permissions acknowledgments are on pp. 587–588.
Racconti fantastici dell’Ottocento. English Fantastic tales: visionary and everyday / edited and with an introduction by Italo Calvino.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-307-52350-1
1. Fantastic fiction—Translations into English.
2. Fiction—19th century—Translations into English. I. Calvino, Italo.
PN6120.95.F25R3313 1997 93-12824
www.randomhouse.com
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