GRIGIA
27
A short time later he had become a peasant woman's lover.
This
change that had taken place in him much occupied his mind, for
beyond doubt it was not something he had done, but something that
had happened to him.
When he came the second time, Grigia at once sat down on the
bench beside him, and when-to see how far he could already go–
he put his hand on her lap and said: "You are the beauty of them
all," she let his hand rest on her thigh and merely laid her own upon
it. With that they were pledged to each other. And now he kissed her
to set the seal upon it, and after the kiss she smacked her lips with
a sound like that smack of satisfaction with which lips sometimes let
go of the rim of a glass after greedily drinking from it. He was indeed
slightly startled by this indecorum and was not offended when she
rejected any further advances; he did not know why, he knew nothing
at all of the customs and dangers of this place, and, though curious, let
himself be put off for another day. "In the hay," Grigia had said,
and when he was already in the doorway, saying goodbye, she said:
"Goodbye till soon," and smiled at him.
Even on his way home he realized he was already happy about
what had happened: it was like a hot drink suddenly beginning to
take effect after an interval. The notion of going to the hay bam with
her-opening a heavy wooden door, pulling it to after one, and the
darkness increasing with each degree that it closes, until one is crouch–
ing on the floor of a brown, perpendicular darkness-delighted him
as though he were a child about to playa trick. He remembered the
kisses and felt the smack of them as though a magic band had been
laid around his head. Picturing what was to be, he could not help
thinking of the way peasants eat: they chew slowly, smacking their
lips, relishing every mouthful to the full. And it is the same with the
way they dance, step after step. Probably it was the same with every–
thing else. His legs stiffened with excitement at these thoughts, as
though his shoes were already sticking in the earth. The women lower
their eyelids and keep their faces quite stiff, a defensive mask, so as not
to be disturbed by one's curiosity. They let scarcely a moan escape
them. Motionless as beetles feigning death, they concentrate all their
attention on what is going on within them.
And so too it was. With the rim of her clog Grigia scraped
together into a pile the scrap of winter hay that was still there,
