Should I try to escape through the woods by cutting across the railroad track? Should I?...
"How do you do?"
"How do you do?"
The man is handsome, decidedly handsome, even in the full light, and I smile at his coming as I smiled a few moments ago when the sun climbed over the slope.
I had always seen him in the dusk when he returned to his smart white house held fast in a coil of green. He would stop a moment at the rusty gate and give me a lingering glance out of his long-lashed eyes. Yesterday evening when we passed each other on the road, his eyes were like black enamel, but now in the bare light of the morning they are of a more crystalline gray than the sea.
A tragic duel of looks ... a thousand questions asked and answered ... wonderful understanding ... dizziness ... unbearable dizziness.
He stands balancing himself on his feet searching the ground for the nascent lie. Then he puts a direct, confident question—is this magnificent weather going to last? I in my turn dissemble and scrutinize the silent, motionless horizon.
Safe! Hypocrisy between us. He has found a suitable topic and exploits it cleverly in jerky little phrases, rather sensual, like the kisses you give a child. He points his three-cornered head at me and tosses back his thick black mane.
He shuffles his feet. "Answer me," beg the glittering eyes. "Answer me.... I am asking you a question...."
No, I don't want to answer. A word thrown out now and then with the fervent assurance one always has under a desirous gaze; also the defensive attitude men force upon you. I lean over and begin to pluck the rich grass methodically, producing a fine, fresh scent and the dry, peaceful sound of a browsing beast. Two bare spots in the velvety slope and several light blades zigzagging in the wind....