GRIGIA
33
could not face the fact that something irrevocable had really hap–
pened. He leaned against the rocky wall,
his
hands in
his
pockets, and
listened to Grigia.
Later he recognized
his
destiny.
As
in a dream he felt it descend–
ing upon him once again, through days, through weeks, through
months, in the way sleep must begin when it will last a very long time.
Gently he put one arm round Grigia and drew her back. He lay down
beside her and waited for something. Previously he would perhaps
have thought that in such a prison, with no escape, love must be sharp
as teeth; but he quite forgot to think about Grigia. She had slipped
away from him, or perhaps he from her, even though he could still
feel her shoulder touching his. His whole life had slipped away from
him,
just so far that he could still tell it was there, but without being
able to lay
his
hand upon it.
For hours they did not stir. Days might have passed, and nights.
Hunger and thirst lay behind them, like one eventful stage of the
journey, and they grew steadily weaker, lighter, and more shut into
themselves. Their half-consciousness was wide seas, their waking small
islands. Once he started up, with glaring awareness, into one such
small waking: Grigia was gone. Some certainty told him that it must
have been only a moment earlier. He smiled ... telling him nothing
of the way out ... meaning to leave him behind, as proof for her
husband. . .
!
He raised himself up on
his
elbow and looked about
him. So he too discovered a faint, glimmering streak. He crawled a
little nearer, deeper into the passage-they had always been looking
in the other direction. Then he realized there was a narrow crevice
there, which problably led out, obliquely, into the open air. Grigia
had slender bones, yet even he,
if
he made an immense effort, might
perhaps be able to worm
his
way through.
It
was a way out. But at
this moment he was perhaps already too weak to return to life, or he
had no wish to, or he had lost consciousness.
At this same hour, all efforts having proved unavailing and the
futility of the undertaking having been recognized, Mozart Amadeo
Hoffingott, down in the valley, gave orders for work to cease.
(Translated
by
Eithne Wilkins and Ernst Kaiser.)
