Evening star., 1935-06-16
|Oe0zine Section

item Names; they were clapped on
your head like a halo or like
1T, before you were old enough to
y thank you; and yet what sound
d you hear through life more often
an any other? Sebastian" for him
Id "Hebe" for her Sebastian. Sebas-
an, Sebastian Just for a whim
his mother or his godfather, here
was doomed like the rest Of man.
nd to hear that one ridiculous ar
lngement of syllables over and over
gain until his ears were numb; carry
wherever he went; his nurse and
hen his love and then his wife mot
nat he would ever have one) would
Zoo him as Sebastian; and when he
led, the very angels would call it:
sebastian! Sebastianr'
So Hebe had thought Rouviers con-
#ession would make ''all the difference"
and that he would be coming back?
Coming baek9 My God, with this
paradise dancing through his headl
What was the beauty OF Hebe COM
pared with the feverish beauty of his
poem?. Sebastian. Sebastian" :.
They were Ginning the name from the
top of the mountains. He was no
ostrich; he was tree. he was an eagle!
Call the unicorn ''Fido" or "Jock,"
and what difference did it make to the
unicorn? The poem was what mat
tered, these sublime lines laundering
through his imagination into eternity;
torrent squeezing into a narrow
chasm. bursting out free at last.
Long ago he had reached the village
and left it behind him. He was already
a thousand feet above the town. A
blue signboard pointed: "NOTRE
DAME DIES SOMMETS 2 heures.
SOVREL 3 heures." ;"
A small grieved-looking girl in
black was chasing some chickens. He
called out, asking her his way to
Notre Dame, and she told him to take
the path; an easy path, she treasured
him, all the way through the pines.
He mounted and bore to the right
along a track that at first assembled
gradually and brought him to the
first of the pines, but then winding
sentier of rough stones mounted more
ruthlessly. He was tired in the first
quarter of an hour. At last he came
out upon wide pasture and dropped
exhausted on to the grass. The pas
ture flowed like a green sea to the
foot of high cliff where three hun
dred feet above, he saw Notre Dame,
the chapel, tiny toy ark. Now he
was enormously discouraged. The cliff
face was sheer, and he could see no
trace of path.
He rose after a while. The sun
balanced on the top of Mont Luison.
He looked at the great toothed range,
bare and ferocious rock, more terrify-
ing now that he saw it so near.
He was drawn towards it. He knew
the huge glacier that ran between
these slopes and those.
"At least" he thought, glancing to-
ward the cliff-face, there can be no
way up on that side. If bear to the
left, may find pathway"
AS the slopes increased, he found
that he made slow progress. Now he
saw for the first time the glacier
below Mont Luison widening suddenly
at the head of its ravine. With the
white peak behind it, it came so
suddenly, having been hidden. that
S he laughed. It was curious to walk
above the pasture with that great reef
of ice opening so near.
Bearing all the time to the left,
he reached the end of the pasture. A
high wall of scree rose above him on
the right, sloping upward over the
glacier. He began to climb. At first the
small slipping stones we're tiresome,
and as he worked his way up with
handholds here and there, the glacier
poured below him, an unimaginable
depth. He struck a traverse, and he