7. Northern Cross and Priosin Coast
"I wonder if Mother will forgive me?"
Suddenly, Campanella said with a slight stammer, as if he had taken the plunge, said hurriedly.
Giovanni thought to himself and was dazed silently.
(Oh, yeah, my mother was around that distant orange triangle signal looked like dust, she was thinking about me now.)
"I would do anything to make Mother really happy. But what is the best thing that could make her happiest?"
Campanella seemed to be struggling to hold back the tears.
"There is nothing awful about your mother." Giovanni was startled and shouted.
"I don't know. But everyone is happiest when they do something really good. So I think Mother will forgive me."
Campanella seemed to have really made up his mind about something.
Instantly, the inside of the train became white and bright.
Water flowed voicelessly and formlessly over the riverbed of a glittering galaxy, as if it was really a collection of diamond, grass dew and all kinds of splendor.
In the middle of the stream, a vaguely pale island with a halo of light could be seen.
On the flat top of the island stood a magnificent, dazzling, white cross.
It was standing quietly and permanently having a golden halo of light on head, as if minted from frozen Arctic clouds.
"Harleya, Harleya." A voice from the front and back of the room was heard.
In retrospect, the travelers inside the room were all praying towards that, with their kimono folds hanging straight down, a black bible on their chests, crystal beads on their hands, and their fingers laced together modestly.
Without thinking, they too stood up straight.
Campanella's cheeks looked scintillatingly glistening like a ripe apple.
The island and the cross gradually receded behind them.
The other side of the shore was also smoldering, glowing pale.
Sometimes the pampas grass seemed to flutter in the wind, so the silvery color of the grass looked to be blown by someone's breath.
Also, many autumn bellflowers hiding in and out of the grass looked like a gentle foxfire.
It was only for a short time. The space between the river and the train was blocked by pampas grass. Swan Island, which on two occasions appeared to be in the background, soon became much smaller and more picturesque in the distance.
The pampas grass rustled again, and at last that was completely out of sight.
Behind Giovanni, there was a tall, black cloth-clad Catholic-style nun who had been riding since when.
She dropped her round green eyes still and straight, and still seemed to be modestly listening to some voice coming from that direction.
The travelers quietly returned to their seats, and both of them spoke softly to each other in a little different words about the new feelings similar to sad filled in their hearts.
"It's almost time for Swan Station."
"Yes, we'll be there at eleven o'clock sharp."
Early on, the green light of the signal and the vague white pillar passed out of the window.
Then the light in front of a point-switch dark and hazy like a sulfur flame, passed under the window.
The train became slower and slower, and soon a row of electric lights on the platform appeared beautifully in a regularity.
It grew bigger and wider, and they came and stop just in front of the big clock, at Swan Station.
On the dial of the crisp autumnal clock, two hands of blue-burned steel pointed clearly at eleven o'clock.
Everyone went down at once and the room was empty.
[20 minutes stop] There was a sign under the clock.
"Let's get out and have a look." Giovanni said.
"Let's get out."
They sprang up at once, ran out the door, and made their way to the turnstiles.
However, there was only one bright purplish electric light on, and no one was there.
There was not a shadow of the stationmaster or a red-capped person.
They went out to a small square in front of the station, surrounded by ginkgo trees that looked like crystal work.
From there a wide path led straight into the blue light of the galaxy.
None of the people who had gone down earlier could be seen anymore.
As they walked along the white road, shoulder to shoulder, their shadows went out in all directions, just like the shadows of two pillars in a room with windows on all sides, or like the spokes of two wheels.
Soon, they came to a beautiful riverbed that they saw from the train.
Campanella picked up a handful of the clean sand, held it in his palm, squeezed his finger, and said, as if in a dream.
"This sand is all crystal. There's a little fire burning in it."
"That's right." Giovanni answered vaguely, wondering where he had learned this.
The pebbles on the riverbed were all transparent, certainly crystal, topaz, the one like crumpled wrinkles, and steel balls that emitted a misty pale light from its corners.
Giovanni ran to its shores and doused his hands in the water.
But the water in that suspicious galaxy was more transparent than hydrogen.
That it was still flowing was evident from the fact that their wrists, where they had been into the water, seemed to float a little mercury color, and the waves that had formed on their wrists seemed to flicker and burn with a beautiful phosphorescence.
Looking upstream, they saw that beneath a cliff face full of pampas grass, white rocks rose up along the river, as flat as a playground.
There were five or six small figures, who seemed to be digging or burying something, standing or bending down, and occasionally a tool would flash.
"Let's go." They shouted at once and ran toward it.
At the entrance of the white rocky place.
[Priosin Coast] The slippery crockery-signboard stood.
On the beach opposite, there was a slender iron railing here and there and a beautiful wooden bench.
"Oh, there's something strange here." Campanella curiously stopped and picked up what looked like a long, black, pointed walnut from a rock.
"Walnuts. See, there are a lot of them. they didn't come in the stream. They're in the rocks."
"This is big. Two times bigger. This doesn't hurt a bit."
"Let's go over there and look. They're digging something."
The two of them walked toward the spot, holding the jagged black walnuts.
To their left, the waves blazed like gentle lightning on the shore.
To their right, on the cliff, spearheads of pampas grass swayed, as if scraped with silver and shells.
As they got closer, they saw a tall scholarly person wearing a pair of nearsighted thick glasses, and a pair of boots, scribbling something on a notebook, was absorbed to give various instructions to three assistant figures.
The three assistant people were busy raising a pickaxe and using a scoop.
"Don't break that protrusion there. Use the scoop. Scoop. Oops, dig a little farther. Don't, don't. Why are you so violent?"
They looked and saw that out of that white soft rock, a great big pale beast bone had been dug out more than halfway.
The bone looked to have fallen over and crushed to the side.
And when they looked carefully, they saw that there were ten square rocks with two hoofprints, neatly cut out and numbered.
"Are you guys visiting?" A man who looked like a bachelor looked at them with glittering glasses and said.
"There are a lot of walnuts, aren't there? They're about 1.2 million years old. It's a very new one.
This was the coast 1.2 million years ago, after Tertiary period, and underneath it the shells also comes out.
The salt water used to flow in and out of the place where the river is flowing now.
This beast? This is called 'boss' and. Hey, hey, Don't use a pickaxe there. Gently use a chisel.
The boss is an ancestor of today's cattle, and there were many of them in the past."
"Are you going to make a specimen of them?"
"No, we need them to proof. There is a lot of evidence that this is a fine, thick geological formation from our point of view, and that it was formed about 1.2 million years ago.
But the problem is whether it still looks like this formation from others' point of view. Whether it looks like wind or water or empty sky.
Do you understand? However. Hey, hey, you can't use the scoop there, either. There's got to be a rib buried just below it." The bachelor rushed off.
"It's time. Let's go." Campanella said, looking the map and his wristwatch alternatingly.
"Oh, we'll leave you, then." Giovanni bowed to the bachelor politely.
"Oh, I see. Well, goodbye." The bachelor began to walk around again, busily supervising.
They ran over the white rocks hard to avoid being late for the train.
And indeed, they ran like the wind.
They didn't run out of breath and their knees didn't get hot.
Giovanni thought that if he could run in this way, he could run even the whole world.
Then they passed by the riverbank in front of them, and the lights at the turnstiles grew bigger and bigger.
Soon they were seated in their original compartment, looking out the window at the train they had just come from.
- To return to table of contents of Night on the Galactic Railroad
Suddenly, Campanella said with a slight stammer, as if he had taken the plunge, said hurriedly.
Giovanni thought to himself and was dazed silently.
(Oh, yeah, my mother was around that distant orange triangle signal looked like dust, she was thinking about me now.)
"I would do anything to make Mother really happy. But what is the best thing that could make her happiest?"
Campanella seemed to be struggling to hold back the tears.
"There is nothing awful about your mother." Giovanni was startled and shouted.
"I don't know. But everyone is happiest when they do something really good. So I think Mother will forgive me."
Campanella seemed to have really made up his mind about something.
Instantly, the inside of the train became white and bright.
Water flowed voicelessly and formlessly over the riverbed of a glittering galaxy, as if it was really a collection of diamond, grass dew and all kinds of splendor.
In the middle of the stream, a vaguely pale island with a halo of light could be seen.
On the flat top of the island stood a magnificent, dazzling, white cross.
It was standing quietly and permanently having a golden halo of light on head, as if minted from frozen Arctic clouds.
"Harleya, Harleya." A voice from the front and back of the room was heard.
In retrospect, the travelers inside the room were all praying towards that, with their kimono folds hanging straight down, a black bible on their chests, crystal beads on their hands, and their fingers laced together modestly.
Without thinking, they too stood up straight.
Campanella's cheeks looked scintillatingly glistening like a ripe apple.
The island and the cross gradually receded behind them.
The other side of the shore was also smoldering, glowing pale.
Sometimes the pampas grass seemed to flutter in the wind, so the silvery color of the grass looked to be blown by someone's breath.
Also, many autumn bellflowers hiding in and out of the grass looked like a gentle foxfire.
It was only for a short time. The space between the river and the train was blocked by pampas grass. Swan Island, which on two occasions appeared to be in the background, soon became much smaller and more picturesque in the distance.
The pampas grass rustled again, and at last that was completely out of sight.
Behind Giovanni, there was a tall, black cloth-clad Catholic-style nun who had been riding since when.
She dropped her round green eyes still and straight, and still seemed to be modestly listening to some voice coming from that direction.
The travelers quietly returned to their seats, and both of them spoke softly to each other in a little different words about the new feelings similar to sad filled in their hearts.
"It's almost time for Swan Station."
"Yes, we'll be there at eleven o'clock sharp."
Early on, the green light of the signal and the vague white pillar passed out of the window.
Then the light in front of a point-switch dark and hazy like a sulfur flame, passed under the window.
The train became slower and slower, and soon a row of electric lights on the platform appeared beautifully in a regularity.
It grew bigger and wider, and they came and stop just in front of the big clock, at Swan Station.
On the dial of the crisp autumnal clock, two hands of blue-burned steel pointed clearly at eleven o'clock.
Everyone went down at once and the room was empty.
[20 minutes stop] There was a sign under the clock.
"Let's get out and have a look." Giovanni said.
"Let's get out."
They sprang up at once, ran out the door, and made their way to the turnstiles.
However, there was only one bright purplish electric light on, and no one was there.
There was not a shadow of the stationmaster or a red-capped person.
They went out to a small square in front of the station, surrounded by ginkgo trees that looked like crystal work.
From there a wide path led straight into the blue light of the galaxy.
None of the people who had gone down earlier could be seen anymore.
As they walked along the white road, shoulder to shoulder, their shadows went out in all directions, just like the shadows of two pillars in a room with windows on all sides, or like the spokes of two wheels.
Soon, they came to a beautiful riverbed that they saw from the train.
Campanella picked up a handful of the clean sand, held it in his palm, squeezed his finger, and said, as if in a dream.
"This sand is all crystal. There's a little fire burning in it."
"That's right." Giovanni answered vaguely, wondering where he had learned this.
The pebbles on the riverbed were all transparent, certainly crystal, topaz, the one like crumpled wrinkles, and steel balls that emitted a misty pale light from its corners.
Giovanni ran to its shores and doused his hands in the water.
But the water in that suspicious galaxy was more transparent than hydrogen.
That it was still flowing was evident from the fact that their wrists, where they had been into the water, seemed to float a little mercury color, and the waves that had formed on their wrists seemed to flicker and burn with a beautiful phosphorescence.
Looking upstream, they saw that beneath a cliff face full of pampas grass, white rocks rose up along the river, as flat as a playground.
There were five or six small figures, who seemed to be digging or burying something, standing or bending down, and occasionally a tool would flash.
"Let's go." They shouted at once and ran toward it.
At the entrance of the white rocky place.
[Priosin Coast] The slippery crockery-signboard stood.
On the beach opposite, there was a slender iron railing here and there and a beautiful wooden bench.
"Oh, there's something strange here." Campanella curiously stopped and picked up what looked like a long, black, pointed walnut from a rock.
"Walnuts. See, there are a lot of them. they didn't come in the stream. They're in the rocks."
"This is big. Two times bigger. This doesn't hurt a bit."
"Let's go over there and look. They're digging something."
The two of them walked toward the spot, holding the jagged black walnuts.
To their left, the waves blazed like gentle lightning on the shore.
To their right, on the cliff, spearheads of pampas grass swayed, as if scraped with silver and shells.
As they got closer, they saw a tall scholarly person wearing a pair of nearsighted thick glasses, and a pair of boots, scribbling something on a notebook, was absorbed to give various instructions to three assistant figures.
The three assistant people were busy raising a pickaxe and using a scoop.
"Don't break that protrusion there. Use the scoop. Scoop. Oops, dig a little farther. Don't, don't. Why are you so violent?"
They looked and saw that out of that white soft rock, a great big pale beast bone had been dug out more than halfway.
The bone looked to have fallen over and crushed to the side.
And when they looked carefully, they saw that there were ten square rocks with two hoofprints, neatly cut out and numbered.
"Are you guys visiting?" A man who looked like a bachelor looked at them with glittering glasses and said.
"There are a lot of walnuts, aren't there? They're about 1.2 million years old. It's a very new one.
This was the coast 1.2 million years ago, after Tertiary period, and underneath it the shells also comes out.
The salt water used to flow in and out of the place where the river is flowing now.
This beast? This is called 'boss' and. Hey, hey, Don't use a pickaxe there. Gently use a chisel.
The boss is an ancestor of today's cattle, and there were many of them in the past."
"Are you going to make a specimen of them?"
"No, we need them to proof. There is a lot of evidence that this is a fine, thick geological formation from our point of view, and that it was formed about 1.2 million years ago.
But the problem is whether it still looks like this formation from others' point of view. Whether it looks like wind or water or empty sky.
Do you understand? However. Hey, hey, you can't use the scoop there, either. There's got to be a rib buried just below it." The bachelor rushed off.
"It's time. Let's go." Campanella said, looking the map and his wristwatch alternatingly.
"Oh, we'll leave you, then." Giovanni bowed to the bachelor politely.
"Oh, I see. Well, goodbye." The bachelor began to walk around again, busily supervising.
They ran over the white rocks hard to avoid being late for the train.
And indeed, they ran like the wind.
They didn't run out of breath and their knees didn't get hot.
Giovanni thought that if he could run in this way, he could run even the whole world.
Then they passed by the riverbank in front of them, and the lights at the turnstiles grew bigger and bigger.
Soon they were seated in their original compartment, looking out the window at the train they had just come from.
- To return to table of contents of Night on the Galactic Railroad