Page:Selected Czech tales - 1925.djvu/108

 round for a convenient place and sat down at a few steps’ distance from us, opened his sketch-book and began to draw.

‘I believe he is sitting with his back to the rock so that we should not see his drawing,’ I said.

‘We don’t want to,’ said the young Pole, ‘we have plenty of other things to look at.’

After a while he added: ‘I believe he is using us as a foreground I don’t mind.’

Indeed, we had enough to look at. I do not think there can be a lovelier or happier place in the world than Prinkipo. Irene, the political martyr, a contemporary of Charlemagne, lived in exile here for a month. If I could have spent a month in this place, I should have felt enriched in memories for the rest of my life. Even the one day is unforgettable. The air was so pure and soft and clear that the eye soared as on downy wings from distance to distance. On the right the brown rocks of Asia rose from the sea, on the left, in the distance, were the blue, steep shores of Europe; near us Chalki, one of the nine islands of the Princes Archipelago, lay mute and eerie, with sombre cypress groves; it looked like a haunting dream. A huge building crowns the summit of the isle it is a lunatic asylum.