The Professor: Avignon 



poses. Raise this heap suddenly to a height of a 

 mile and a quarter, increase its base in proportion, 

 cover the white of the limestone with the black stain 

 of the forests, and you have a clear idea of the 

 general aspect of the mountain. This accumula- 

 tion of rubbish — sometimes small chips, sometimes 

 huge blocks — rises from the plain without prelim- 

 inary slopes or successive terraces that w y ould ren- 

 der the ascent less arduous by dividing it into stages. 

 The climb begins at once by rocky paths, the best 

 of which is worse than the surface of a road newly 

 strewn with stones, and continues, becoming ever 

 rougher and rougher, right to the summit, the 

 height of which is 6270 feet. Green swards, bab- 

 bling brooks, the spacious shade of venerable trees, 

 all the things, in short, that lend such charm to 

 other mountains, are here unknown and are re- 

 placed by an interminable bed of limestone broken 

 into scales, which slip under our feet with a sharp, 

 almost metallic "click." By way of cascades the 

 Ventoux has rills of stones; the rattle of falling 

 rocks takes the place of the whispering waters. 1 



But the unsatisfied eagerness that draws 

 the exile from our cool green hills to repeat, 

 again and again, the ascent of the rocky Pro- 

 vencal height, is based on something more 

 than sensitiveness to impressions and a pre- 

 established harmony; he is also strongly at- 



1 Souvenirs, I., pp. 182-3. The Hunting Wasps, chap, 

 xi., " An Ascent of Mont Ventoux." 



r 45 



