“I cannot tell how long you had lain when I found you, but there was nothing left of you save skin and bone: that is more than three months ago.—Your hair was beautiful, nothing else! I have done for it what I could.”
“My poor hair!” she said, and brought a great armful of it round from behind her; “—it will be more than a three-months’ care to bring YOU to life again!—I suppose I must thank you, although I cannot say I am grateful!”
“There is no need, madam: I would have done the same for any woman—yes, or for any man either!”
“How is it my hair is not tangled?” she said, fondling it.
“It always drifted in the current.”
“How?—What do you mean?”
“I could not have brought you to life but by bathing you in the hot river every morning.”
She gave a shudder of disgust, and stood for a while with her gaze fixed on the hurrying water. Then she turned to me:
“We must understand each other!” she said. “—You have done me the two worst of wrongs—compelled me to live, and put me to shame: neither of them can I pardon!”
She raised her left hand, and flung it out as if repelling me. Something ice-cold struck me on the forehead. When I came to myself, I was on the ground, wet and shivering.