The brush of Canaletto has often glorified this picture, but always in a better light. As if nature wished to relieve the gloom, a gleam of light suddenly fell on the turrets of the castle.
Now when I recall the scene, it appears to me as if a finger from Heaven had pointed out the building in order to attract my attention and to fix in my heart a foreboding of the feelings with which I should afterwards regard it, and with which I, at this moment, see it with my spiritual eye until my bodily eye grows dim with tears, and I am forced to lay down my pen. At that time nothing suggested itself to me but the glad sign of clearing weather. Gradually the light increased and spread, as walls and turrets began apparently to move and slowly glide to the right; I even faintly saw a patch of blue sky, and before the roof of the church down in the town entirely disappeared, I could see a dull, leaden hue on its steep slope. But again the rain washed down the window.
As we gradually came into the sandstone region, the rain abated. The smoking-saloon's puffing inhabitants disappeared, one by one, and were heard tramping overhead.
I went up also. It was raining rather heavily, the drops glittering like pearls in the hazy light, but as the clouds overhead were beginning to disappear, it was difficult to understand why the rain continued.
The stone walls of the old lower quarries, which here are a reddish-brown, seemed to be varnished, and, from the undulating bank on the right, the tree-tops of a pale green forest shone through the rainy mist. The rain, that for a moment had stopped, grew heavier again, though blue sky could be seen through the clouds.
I went down the cabin stairs and found my little party
