DOI Artikel:
Scott, Samuel Mathewson: La Goya: a passion of the Peruvian desert
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.26393#0147
By Samuel Mathewson Scott 143
a different race ; for ages may have elapsed before the sands could
cover the graves so deeply that they were forgotten and new ones
made above them.
You can have no idea how absorbedly interested I became in
my excavations among these poor old bones ; only it saddened me
to find in their trinket-filled graves another confirmation of that
awful truth—futility ! If their cast into the darkness flew so wide
the mark, what hope have we ? Their faith was as strong as ours.
Was its betrayal any greater than ours will be ? And even to a
sceptic there is something crushing in being brought face to face
with the ghastly inevitability of the future. No matter how
hateful life may be, it is beautiful compared with the crumbling
darkness of that chill, lonely cell, where even the sunlight is dead.
The thought came to me like an agony once, as I rested on a
mound, watching my men dig: “Some day I must lie thus for
ever. No more of love and life and longing ! Only that ! ” and
I kicked aside a skull and nearly drained my whisky-flask. But
in that moment I almost felt the worms crawl through my brain !
And the sunlight—how I loved it ! If we could ever for a second
realise the truth, we would never know another hour of sanity.
July.
Not long ago, I passed through a terrible illness, which, but for
the luck that has always smiled from my natal star, might easily
have ended fatally. Fortunately, I was not informed of the deadly
nature of the attack until the danger was over, or I might pardon-
ably have died of fright.
I had been riding all day in the hot sun, and was both heated
and tired when I reached the Goya. I found her as usual playing
with the little blackbird, which has been her dearest friend ever
since the day she came to her new home. I carelessly threw off
my
a different race ; for ages may have elapsed before the sands could
cover the graves so deeply that they were forgotten and new ones
made above them.
You can have no idea how absorbedly interested I became in
my excavations among these poor old bones ; only it saddened me
to find in their trinket-filled graves another confirmation of that
awful truth—futility ! If their cast into the darkness flew so wide
the mark, what hope have we ? Their faith was as strong as ours.
Was its betrayal any greater than ours will be ? And even to a
sceptic there is something crushing in being brought face to face
with the ghastly inevitability of the future. No matter how
hateful life may be, it is beautiful compared with the crumbling
darkness of that chill, lonely cell, where even the sunlight is dead.
The thought came to me like an agony once, as I rested on a
mound, watching my men dig: “Some day I must lie thus for
ever. No more of love and life and longing ! Only that ! ” and
I kicked aside a skull and nearly drained my whisky-flask. But
in that moment I almost felt the worms crawl through my brain !
And the sunlight—how I loved it ! If we could ever for a second
realise the truth, we would never know another hour of sanity.
July.
Not long ago, I passed through a terrible illness, which, but for
the luck that has always smiled from my natal star, might easily
have ended fatally. Fortunately, I was not informed of the deadly
nature of the attack until the danger was over, or I might pardon-
ably have died of fright.
I had been riding all day in the hot sun, and was both heated
and tired when I reached the Goya. I found her as usual playing
with the little blackbird, which has been her dearest friend ever
since the day she came to her new home. I carelessly threw off
my