They
chattered and laughed, and the young woman told her father the story of
the miracle, with all the oft-repeated details. She related, too, how she
had left her box at the Basilica, and how she had slept twelve hours
without stirring. Then M. de Guersaint on his side wished to relate his
excursion, but got mixed and kept coming back to the miracle. Finally, it
appeared that the Cirque de Gavarnie was something colossal. Only, when
you looked at it from a distance it seemed small, for you lost all sense
of proportion. The gigantic snow-covered tiers of cliffs, the topmost
ridge standing out against the sky with the outlines of some cyclopean
fortress with razed keep and jagged ramparts, the great cascade, whose
ceaseless jet seemed so slow when in reality it must have rushed down
with a noise like thunder, the whole immensity, the forests on right and
left, the torrents and the landslips, looked as though they might have
been held in the palm of one's hand, when one gazed upon them from the
village market-place. And what had impressed him most, what he repeatedly
alluded to, were the strange figures described by the snow, which had
remained up there amongst the rocks. Amongst others was a huge crucifix,
a white cross, several thousand yards in length, which you might have
thought had been thrown across the amphitheatre from one end to the
other.
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