The wet rocks shone like black coals, or metal mirrors. Now and then a ray of light from the west slipped across the barren waste.
It was cold. What difference did it make if it was? In the cell of a cloister I knew there was a hearth kept warm for me; I was hastening toward the warmth, toward people—even if they were silent people—toward the smoke of homes and the cheerful light.
Beside me holding the reins sat the owner of the cart; huge, raw-boned, grey, crabbed. Behind his brow colossal thoughts were crowding. We were driving at top speed. Silence had reigned between us for some time.
He had offered me a seat beside him with a gesture of the hand which said: “Perhaps it will give you pleasure to drive through a couple of villages with me. You know, of course—” They all have the manners of dethroned princes. He had used his whip with the grandezza of a capitalist upon the Corso in Buda.
Still it rains. It is cold.
I wrap myself closer in my sheepskin. For hours we have not exchanged a word. Why should we?
Then the highway makes a sharp curve—and—suddenly, the horse jumps to one side, curves back and neck, stiffens his front legs, while myriads of stars shoot from his iron shoes—and stops. We are all but thrown out. What is the trouble? Now imagine—I lift my head and try to see—what a strange thing is life—I see—a long road black with hogs. Fifty, a hundred, a thousand, ten thousand—even this gives you no conception of the number. Thousands of hogs crowding around a swine herd.
And the swine herd sits upon a milestone. He holds a one-string violin upon his knee, from which from time to time he draws two notes, one high and one low, as accompaniment to a song. With the dignity of a royal bard, with the calmness of a ruling prince, he addressed his people—his herd of hogs. Thus Homer spake; thus Ossian sang.
Ah!—