THE WOMAN FROM MEXICO
39
ing reflection of a neon sign.
This
reflection cast stripes of red
and purple on the wall opposite the window and on the ceiling.
The Mexican woman moved hither and thither about the room,
talking ceaselessly now, in a harsh, sensible tone, giving him,
it seemed, a kind of motherly lecture. With her warm, rapid,
sententious way of speaking, she appeared to be saying to him:
"Really you are a silly, heedless boy. Didn't you realize that
Albina was not thinking of anyone but Luciano the whole
time? But now you're here with me, and I'll do all I can to
console you." He felt comforted by her voice although he did
not understand a word she said, and he remembered how she
had
sung and had a great wish to hear her sing again. In the
meantime the Mexican had disappeared behind a screen which
evidently concealed the wash-stand.
With infinite relief he began to undress. He took off
his
overcoat and then he took off his shoes and socks. From his
feet, which were red and swollen, there rose a coolness right
up
to
his
brain, and for a moment he sat looking at them with
pleasure and moving
his
toes. Then he took off
his
suit, his shirt
and
his
underclothes, and felt that
his
body, like
his
feet, was
able' to breathe again. When he was naked, he crossed his legs,
lit a cigarette and, for the first time during the whole course of
the evening, felt comfortable.
But he had no desire to make love. He wished he knew
Spanish and could tell the Mexican woman that he wanted to
hear her sing. He looked at the comer of the wash-stand and
saw that her clothes were piled up, all anyhow, on top of the
screen. Then she came out.
Now that she was quite naked, her squat, exotic
appear~'
ance was even more clearly revealed. Watching her coming
towards
him
across the red and black lozenges of the floor, he
felt he was being approached by a statue of an Aztec divinity
which
he had happened to see some time before in a museum.
