Twilight in Italy Chapter 2 - The Spinner and the Monks

In which the narrator discovers the contrasting spirits embodied by two village churches—one shy and hidden, the other high and commanding—and encounters an ancient woman spinning calmly in the sunlit terrace above the town, embodying timelessness and unconscious unity with her world. As twilight descends, he observes monks pacing methodically in their garden beneath a glowing snowy mountain, pondering the elusive human capacity to unite the ecstasies of light and darkness into a single transcendent experience.