Through the eddies of dust swirling about her feet, we can catch an occasional glimpse of her ankles, rather thick but flashing nimbly in the summer sun beneath her dark skirt and brightly checked apron. Her hands, though coarse and broad-palmed, are strong and self-confident, the dark calloused hands of a milkmaid, hands that curry cattle, grasp swollen teats, and shovel fodder into bins. Above the kerchief, the rich color of goldenrods, knotted about her neck, her bemused smile exposes large even teeth, white and healthy. Her nose shifts just a bit to the left, extends slightly, and above the right nostril there appears, or has appeared, a small dark spot, not unlike a wart, or a mole. Her narrow black eyes look neither left nor right, but stare vacantly into the road several paces ahead. Above her high-boned face, tanned dark by the unremittent summer sun, and nested securely in her peat-colored hair is the tall pitcher, completely undisturbed by her graceful heavy-bodied stride.
The pitcher itself is a pale gray in color, shaded darker at the neck, and etched throughout with an intricate tracery of minute rust-colored veins. Even from extreme proximity, we are struck by its resemblance, in both hue and texture, to the shells of white eggs. In fact, as we observe yet more closely, we discover that it is not a pitcher at all, though it has seemed like one, but actually real eggs, six dozen at least, maybe seven, all nestled in a great raffia basket, the kind of basket used for carrying fresh eggs to the market. Suddenly, even as we watch, a kind of internal energy seems to take possession of the eggs: they tumble about in the basket, burst open, and a hundred chicks, or more, yes! surely more! pop out, one by one, fluff their yellow down, and scurry about for the seed tossed at them by the gay excited milkmaid in her brightly flowered apron. They fluster anxiously, almost furiously, about her narrowing ankles, and the fester they run, the fester they grow — now they are fat white hens, now they are still fetter yellow sows, their bellies scraping the ground, their snouts rummaging voraciously in die superfluity of cabbage, bran, and acorns, which the slender maid is flinging into their troughs. And, as we look about now for the first time, we discover still more sows, chickens, too, even cattle with their calves, all surrounding as though glorifying in the happy milkmaid with the eggshell-white pitcher on her head.
Not more than a dozen paces away, a tall lad, dark and fine-boned with flashing brown eyes and bold mouth, curries a thick-chested coal-black bull, his sturdy tanned — but no more of that! for, in short, he looks up, they exchange charged glances, smile, she casts her eyes down. The boy seems paralyzed, he gazes at her in wonderment, at her beautiful auburn hair gleaming in the fiery summer sun, at her gently blushing fair-skinned cheeks, at her soft ripe-breasted body in its starched white blouse and brightly flowered skirt The currycomb drops to the ground. He pushes past the sows and the young calves, struggles toward her, the smile gone from his lips, his eyes wide and astonished, his nostrils distended. His hands are on her breasts, on her face, tearing at her dress, tangled in her hair — nol not — I She wrenches free, but as she does so, she feels a sudden lightening, almost a sense of growth, as the pitcher of fresh milk leans forward, topples, caroms off the boy’s lurching shoulders, and plummets into the dust at his fading feet The white liquid bubbles out of the narrow mouth, seeps futilely into the dry yellow dust of the rutted road at the foot of the small arched bridge.
The maid stoops to right the pitcher, but too late. Gone. The milk, the eggs, the chickens, the fatbellied sows, the cows and the calves, that clumsy stupid beautiful boy: all gone. Tears burst down the maid’s tanned face. Gone, gone! In her anguish, she does not at first notice the two dry cracked hands that are helping her set aright the stoneware jug, but when through her tears she sees them at last, it takes but a brief second more for her to discover the rest: the tattered black hat and uncut hair, the dark bearded face with its bulging bloodshot eye, the sweat-stained shirt open down to the belt She starts back in terror, her right hand pressed against her open mouth. She scrambles to her feet Her left hand comes up as though to ward off some blow. She steps back, seems about to run. The man sets the pitcher in the grass by the foot of the bridge, turns back to her, smiles. She smiles faintly, wipes the tears from her cheeks, takes another rearward step. He looks down at himself, at his torn yellow shirt and muddy shoes, makes an apologetic gesture, bows slightly from the waist. She nods, clutches with both hands her brightly checked apron, smiles again, shakes her head, does not step back. He shrugs his shoulders, gestures at the sun, at the pitcher standing by the bridge, at the bread beside it in the grass. She smiles openly, showing her large, white teeth, shakes her head, also gestures at the high sun and then at the road she has just traveled. He follows her gestures, gazes with real compassion down the long dusty road, then again at the empty pitcher, hesitates, finally reaches into his pocket and withdraws some coins. He shows them to the maid. She steps forward to observe them more closely: they are few, but of gold and silver. They look, to tell the truth, like nothing less than a whole private universe of midsummer suns in the man’s strong dark hand. She smiles, casts her eyes down.
The pitcher, thought at first to be stable in the grass at die foot of the bridge, is actually, as we now can see, on a small spiny ridge: it weaves, leans, then finally rolls over in a gently curving arc, bursting down its rust-colored veins into a thousand tiny fragments, fragments not unlike the broken shells of white eggs. Many of these fragments remain in the grass at the foot of the bridge, while others tumble silently down the hill into the eddying stream below.
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3
The Leper’s Helix
At first, in an instant half-real half-remembered; the leper is at rest; then he begins his approach, urgent across the — no, nol impossible! he has always been beginning, always approaching, it was the glare, just the glare caused the illusion: sun at its zenith and this leper coming on. Solitary flutter advancing like a crippled bird, the leper, staggering out of isolation, staggering toward us as though in amazement, joy, disbelief, here under the boiling desert sun, across die parched and desolate surface, jerking, twisting, his white robe— if it is a robe — stirring starched and binding, illustrating the fault of his motion, me painful shifts of fulcrum through his abdomen, die strange uncertain gait as though he lacks the hang of it, or having had it, lost it, dazzling white this shimmery figure crossing the molten red flats, his outline blurred by the savage glare.
Our own progress, on the other hand, is precise, governed, has been from the start The active principle, we might call it Might mockingly call it We are describing a great circle on the desert surface, die leper’s starting position as our compass point (thus, admittedly, forcing a further reconsideration of the realities of that first idle moment — good god! must we fall foul of such riddles forever?). Since the leper is always approaching, must always approach, we compel him with this studied tour to bend his stupid bungling lope into a spiral, so regulating our own velocity as to schedule his arrival, if only he doesn’t stumble, the fool, and fall (and he does not, will not), at our starting point.