“I went into the church. It was very dark, and impregnated with centuries of incense. It affected me like the lair of some enormous creature. My senses were roused, they sprang awake in the hot, spiced darkness. My skin was expectant, as it expected some contact, some embrace, as if it were aware of the contiguity of the physical wor;ld, the physical contact with the darkness and the heavy, suggestive substance of the enclosure. It was a think fierce darkness of the senses. But my soul shrank.
“I went out again. The pavemented threshold was clear as a jewel, the marvellous clarity of sunshine that becomes blue in the height seemed to distil me into itself.”
D.H. Lawrence, Twilight in Italy
Very strange metaphysical exploration by Lawrence, set in the Lago Garda region of Northern Italy in the Dolomites. Stumbled on the book and found this passage that seemed appropriate after venturing into the darkness of Venice’s St. Mark’s Basillica.
