Araishiō

Alassio enters the memoir through a brief pause in a journey from near-fatal illness toward recovery. When the train stopped there, the narrator saw the sea for the first time; the sight became an immediate, lasting experience of arrival and belonging.

Setting and the Journey

After a severe kidney illness, the narrator was carried by stretcher in a special train compartment toward Bordighera, where the Mediterranean sun was expected to aid his recovery. At Alassio, his mother lowered the compartment window while he slept. The stop was not described as a planned visit or an extended stay: its significance lies in the unexpected encounter with the landscape outside the train.

The First Sight of the Sea

Propped on his elbows, the narrator looked out at a blue sea, a pebble beach, fishing boats drawn up on their sides, and a few palms. He could not explain what happened in that instant, but remembered a flash of happiness and a feeling of infinite peace. With absolute certainty, he felt that he had arrived and come home. The scene makes Alassio the setting of his first direct encounter with the sea, experienced not as scenery to be observed at a distance but as a place of immediate emotional recognition.

Lasting Significance

The memoir connects this first sight at Alassio to the narrator’s later understanding of the sea as a source of release from burdens. He describes the shore as a place where he can find peace and feel, in the words used elsewhere in the account, as though no one had ever died. He also suggests that the sea’s restorative pull may recall his mother. The lasting significance belongs to the encounter rather than to a documented return to Alassio: the stop gives a particular place to an attachment to the sea that continues beyond the journey.