“Oh, Perolli, can’t you tell them we’re starving? It’s almost one o’clock in the morning!” cried Frances, pathetically.
“Be patient,” said Perolli. “How many times must I say that it isn’t polite in Albania to be so greedy?”
“But it’s eleven hours since any of us had a bite!” Frances protested. “Don’t tell me Cheremi and our other men aren’t starving.”
“Albanians don’t care so much about food,” said Perolli. “I’m not hungry.” He lit another cigarette, and, seeing the circle of politely incurious but keen eyes fixed on us, I said, “Tell them that we are very much interested in the story about the ora, and that we want to hear about the man who married one.” And I surreptitiously prodded Alex, who, sitting bolt upright with her eyes open, was obviously asleep with fatigue.
The man who had spoken of that unearthly marriage rolled and licked a cigarette, offered it to Alex with his hand on his heart, rolled himself another, lighted both with a blazing twig, settled comfortably on his heels, and began.
“This man was my friend, well known to me and to all the families of Ipek. A strong man, a good fighter, and respected by all. But his life was not complete, for the girl his father had chosen for him had died, and he was not married. There were many girls he might have had, girls of Montenegro and even of Shala and Shoshi and Kossova, but he said that he did not wish to marry. He came to his thirty-seventh year and was not married.
“One night he was sitting alone in his house, making a cup of coffee in the ashes of the fire, when the door opened. He looked, and there was a woman who had come out of the darkness. She was no woman of our tribe, nor of any other tribe of man, though she was dressed like our women. My friend looked at her and said to himself that he had never known women could be so beautiful. Men could be as beautiful as that, yes, but not women. And he knew, though he did not know how he knew, that she was not of our kind.
“He said to her, ‘Long life to you!’ and she replied, ‘And to you long life!’ She came and sat by his fire, and he gave her the cup of coffee one gives a guest. She drank it and returned the cup to him, saying, ‘Good trails to your feet!’ Then they looked at each other for some time without speaking.
“Then she said to him, ‘Am I not beautiful?’ And he said, ‘Yes.’ She said to him, ‘Have you ever seen a woman more beautiful?’ And he said, ‘No.’ And after she had been silent for a long time she said to him, ‘Will you marry me?’ And he said, ‘No.’
“She said to him, ‘Do you think you will find a woman more beautiful than I?’ He looked at her between the eyes and said, ‘I know that I shall never see a woman so beautiful.’ She said, ‘Then will you marry me?’ And he said, ‘No.’