And then she rose to her feet and held it out to me. I took the cap, and put it on my head, rather on one side.
I said, looking straight into the woman’s eyes, which seemed to shine most strangely:
“I kiss your eyes, Mistress Marghioala!”
“A safe journey to you.”
I threw myself into the saddle, the old servant opened the gate for me, and out I rode. Resting my left hand on my horse’s flank, I turned my head round. Over the top of the fence could be seen the open door of the room, and in the opening was outlined the white figure of the woman with her hand above her arched eyebrows.
I rode at a slow pace whistling a gay song to myself until I turned the corner of the fence to get to the road, when the picture was hidden from my sight. I said to myself, “Here we go!” and crossed myself. At that moment I plainly heard the banging of a door and the mew of a cat. My hostess, unable to see me any longer, went hastily back into the warmth and doubtless caught the cat in the door. That damned cat! It was always getting under people’s feet.
I had gone a good part of the way. The storm increased and shook me in the saddle. Overhead, cloud after cloud hurried across the valley and above the hill, as though in fear of chastisement from on high; now massed together, now dispersed, they revealed at long intervals the pale light of the waning moon.
The damp cold pierced through me. I felt it paralysing legs and arms. As I rode with head bent to avoid the buffeting of the wind, I began to feel pains in my neck; my forehead and temples were burning, and there was a drumming in my ears.
“I have drunk too much,” I thought to myself, as I pushed my cap on to the nape of my neck, and raised my forehead towards the sky.
But the whirling clouds made me dizzy. I felt a burning sensation below my left rib. I drew in a deep breath of cold air, and a knife seemed to drive right through my chest. I tucked my chin down again. My cap seemed to squeeze my head like a vice. I took it off and placed it on the point of my saddle. I felt ill. It was foolish of me to have started. Everybody would be asleep at Pocovnicu Iordache. They would not have expected me. They would not have imagined that I should be silly enough to start in such weather. I urged on my horse which staggered as though it, too, had been drinking.