Her Royal Lover: A Novel — page 285: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

HER ROYAL I.OVER. 277 cell which she occupied ; her poor eyes, weakened by the abundani tears which she had shed, were wan- dering almost without perceiving it over this mag- nificent but sinister panorama which was spread out before her, Similar to those that Dante portrays in his “Purgatory,” this landscape presented a truly sublime spectacle. An immense solitude extended on all sides; the frightful roar of the cascades, fall- ing trom steep summits to madly precipitate them- selves like whirlwinds of humid dust through the labyrinth of valleys and the chaos of the mountains, alone disturbed the silence. Not a hut, not a roof, nothing but the sky. Gigantic blocks of granite, their enormous crevasses filled with heather and thorns rankly and wildly growing, were hanging over the narrow gorges, bristling with jagged mount- ains; in the distance, the horizon, bounded by eter- nal snows, was entirely covered with clouds that the wind, increased by the sonorousness of the atmos- phere, was amassing at first in order to disperse them afterward. All was melancholy in this place, darkened by the heavy flight of ravens and that of great birds of prey, who hover silently in space. The sublimity of the spectacle, the gravity of the sky, the severity of this savage and wild nature grasped the soul, oppressed, overpowered it, in spite of the pure air which surrounded it. The great bell of the convent has suddenly rung; itis two o’clock, the dinner-hour. Najeska Ivanowna, drawn from her sad and profound meditations, thinks at last of dressing herself; she will have to do without assist- ance, for no bell is here to admit of her summoning her maid. How far is the luxury to which the aris- tocratic princess is habituated? Here, nothing but _absolute necessities ; all comfort, even all ease is ex- eomichbooks.com