tip to toe: the liveliness of her russet curls (recently trimmed); the radiance of her large, slightly vacuous eyes, somehow suggesting translucent gooseberries; her merry, warm complexion; her pink mouth, slightly open so that two large front teeth barely rested on the protuberance of the lower lip; the summery tint of her bare arms with the sleek little foxlike hairs running along the forearms; the indistinct tenderness of her still narrow but already not quite flat chest; the way the folds of her skirt moved; their succinctness and soft concavities; the slenderness and glow of her uncaring legs; the coarse straps of the skates.
She stopped in front of his garrulous neighbor, who turned away to rummage in something lying to her right, then produced a slice of bread with a piece of chocolate on it and handed it to the girl. The latter, chewing rapidly, used her free hand to undo the straps and with them the entire weighty mass of the steel soles and solid wheels. Then, returning to earth among the rest of us, she stood up with an instantaneous sensation of heavenly barefootedness, not immediately recognizable as the feel of skateless shoes, and went off, now hesitantly, now with easy strides, until finally (probably because she had done withthe bread) she took off at full tilt, swinging her liberated arms, flashing in and out of sight, mingling with a kindred play of light beneath the violet-and-green trees.
“Your daughter,” he remarked senselessly, “is a big girl already.”
“Oh, no—we’re not related,” said the knitter. “I don’t have any of my own, and don’t regret it.”
The old woman in mourning broke into sobs and left. The knitter looked after her and continued working quickly, now and then, with a lightning motion, adjusting the trailing tail of her woolen fetus. Was it worth continuing the conversation?
The heel plates of the skates glistened by the foot of the bench, and the tan straps stared him in the face. That stare was the stare of life. His despair was now compounded. Superimposed on all his still-vivid past despairs, there was now a new and special monster.… No, he must not stay. He tipped his hat (“So long,” replied the knitter in a friendly tone) and walked away across the square. Despite his sense of self-preservation a secret wind kept blowing him to one side, and his course, originally conceived as a straight traverse, deviated to the right, toward the trees. Even though he knew from experience that one more look would simply exacerbate his hopeless longing, he completed his turn into the iridescent shade, his eyes furtively seeking the violet speck among the other colors.
On the asphalt lane there was a deafening clatter ofroller skates. A private game of hopscotch was in progress at its curb. And there, waiting her turn, with one foot extended to the side, her blazing arms crossed on her chest, her misty head inclined, emanating a fierce, chestnut heat, losing, losing the layer of violet that disintegrated into ashes under his terrible, unnoticed gaze … Never before, though, had the subordinate clause of his fearsome life been complemented by the principal one, and he walked past with clenched teeth, stifling his exclamations and his moans, then gave a passing smile to a toddler who had run between his scissorlike legs.
“Absentminded smile,” he thought pathetically. “Then again, only humans are capable of absentmindedness.”
1. Thought by some to have been the true identity of the Biblical apple—D.N.
A T DAYBREAK HE DROWSILY laid down his book like a dead fish folding its fin, and suddenly began berating himself: why, he demanded, did you succumb to the doldrums of despair, why didn’t you try to get a proper conversation going, and then make friends with that knitter, chocolate-woman, governess or whatever; and he pictured a jovial gentleman (whose internal organs only, for the moment, resembled his own) who could thus gain the opportunity—thanks to
She stopped in front of his garrulous neighbor, who turned away to rummage in something lying to her right, then produced a slice of bread with a piece of chocolate on it and handed it to the girl. The latter, chewing rapidly, used her free hand to undo the straps and with them the entire weighty mass of the steel soles and solid wheels. Then, returning to earth among the rest of us, she stood up with an instantaneous sensation of heavenly barefootedness, not immediately recognizable as the feel of skateless shoes, and went off, now hesitantly, now with easy strides, until finally (probably because she had done withthe bread) she took off at full tilt, swinging her liberated arms, flashing in and out of sight, mingling with a kindred play of light beneath the violet-and-green trees.
“Your daughter,” he remarked senselessly, “is a big girl already.”
“Oh, no—we’re not related,” said the knitter. “I don’t have any of my own, and don’t regret it.”
The old woman in mourning broke into sobs and left. The knitter looked after her and continued working quickly, now and then, with a lightning motion, adjusting the trailing tail of her woolen fetus. Was it worth continuing the conversation?
The heel plates of the skates glistened by the foot of the bench, and the tan straps stared him in the face. That stare was the stare of life. His despair was now compounded. Superimposed on all his still-vivid past despairs, there was now a new and special monster.… No, he must not stay. He tipped his hat (“So long,” replied the knitter in a friendly tone) and walked away across the square. Despite his sense of self-preservation a secret wind kept blowing him to one side, and his course, originally conceived as a straight traverse, deviated to the right, toward the trees. Even though he knew from experience that one more look would simply exacerbate his hopeless longing, he completed his turn into the iridescent shade, his eyes furtively seeking the violet speck among the other colors.
On the asphalt lane there was a deafening clatter ofroller skates. A private game of hopscotch was in progress at its curb. And there, waiting her turn, with one foot extended to the side, her blazing arms crossed on her chest, her misty head inclined, emanating a fierce, chestnut heat, losing, losing the layer of violet that disintegrated into ashes under his terrible, unnoticed gaze … Never before, though, had the subordinate clause of his fearsome life been complemented by the principal one, and he walked past with clenched teeth, stifling his exclamations and his moans, then gave a passing smile to a toddler who had run between his scissorlike legs.
“Absentminded smile,” he thought pathetically. “Then again, only humans are capable of absentmindedness.”
1. Thought by some to have been the true identity of the Biblical apple—D.N.
A T DAYBREAK HE DROWSILY laid down his book like a dead fish folding its fin, and suddenly began berating himself: why, he demanded, did you succumb to the doldrums of despair, why didn’t you try to get a proper conversation going, and then make friends with that knitter, chocolate-woman, governess or whatever; and he pictured a jovial gentleman (whose internal organs only, for the moment, resembled his own) who could thus gain the opportunity—thanks to
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