Vuk took another mouthful of wine.
“Well, you listen one night and you’ll hear. Especially when the moon is just rising—red and swollen on the horizon. Of course, she is angry then, and at those times I always think she is like some raging, drunken queen rising from her couch in the middle of the night.”
His companion stared at Vuk for a moment and then laughed. But by now Vuk was too exalted and excited to notice that his host was uncomfortable and perhaps a little contemptuous, and, putting his arms on the table and leaning forward, he began to talk volubly.
“I wish I had money to buy jewels,” he said, “especially certain jewels like opals. I would like to hold many opals in the hollow of my hand: I would like to crush them together between my hands. You know that all fire is the sun. Did you know that? Yes. I’m telling you. Take coal. Coal is buried wood. And what is wood? Wood is trees. And it is the sun that makes trees grow. It pulls at the ground and draws them out; it warms them and feeds them. When you burn wood and coal, it is the sun that leaps out at you—a little bit of the sun that has been silently hiding for many years. A good deal of the sun is stored under the ground and a good deal of it is alive and burning there. Well, it is the same with the moon. Some precious stones absorb the moon. Opals do. That is why I want to hold many opals in my hand and crush them together. And I am sure that the moon gives herself to water, especially to large sheets of water like Lake Langaza.” He paused a few moments, his thoughts far away. “You can feel the moon, soft and sliding, on your limbs, if you bathe at night when the moon is high in the sky: but when the dawn comes, the light of the sun destroys all the moon that is in the water.”
He noticed, for the first time, that his companion’s eyes were shut and that his heavy breathing was developing into a snore.
“I am explaining this to you!” exclaimed Vuk, peremptorily.
But his host sank deeper into slumber, and for a little while Vuk talked quietly to himself until he, too, slept.
That evening at dusk Vuk, dazed with wine, made his way to the orchards above Kirekoj. For a long time he sat brooding among the trees, until the moon, full and splendid, went redly up the sky. He watched her so closely that he could see her moving. To-night she did not seem to glide: she moved with just perceptible jerks—“Like the hands of a very large clock,” said Vuk to himself, for he had wandered far and had lived in many big cities.
He watched the trees appearing out of the blackness: they seemed to be marching upon him, closing in upon him. So he arose and began to walk, and presently came to the edge of the orchard and looked up at the mountain at whose feet he stood. He began to climb, and soon, after leaving the vineyards behind him, he came upon large, bare rocks in the clefts of which grass and flowers grew. It was while he was climbing both with hands and feet that his dog-friend, excited but silent, joined him.
“Tchut! tchut!” said Vuk, beneath his breath.