midday
This `` Precipice Stone '' was the highest point of the beech mountain-district . Viewed from Tordona , it was like a projecting mountain-spar , but one could get to the top of it by making a long circuit . This rock was generally the goal of my wanderings . It took half a day to get there and half a day to get back , and at midday I used to kindle a fire of twigs and make a princely banquet of toasted bread and bacon ; and then , sitting down on the dizzy edge of the rock , I would tackle the impossible artistic problem -- at least it was impossible to me . Beneath my feet , in the foreground , was a dark spot formed by a crown of beech-trees , and where this ended there was a smiling little nook , and in the midst of it tiny , smoky , stony Tordona , with its scattered cottages , surrounded by their yellow dice-like vineyards , and their hills striped with green corn , above which the still darker green beech hills show their heads . Above these crowds the group of the Gömöri Hills , whose shadows are now deepening into lilac ; but these again are dominated by the chain of the Trencséni and Turoczi Hills . These hills are of a clouded blue , and above them rises , like a _ fata Morgana _ , the princely range of the fair Carpathians , as blue as heaven itself , and only to be distinguished from it by the dividing line of their diamond-like snowy peaks .