534
PARTISAN REVIEW
"Go away now!" Marcovaldo huffed, from beneath his sarco–
phagus of sand. "No, first put a paper hat over my forehead and
eyes. And then jump ashore and go playa bit farther off; otherwise
the men will wake up and drive me away."
"We can tow you down the river, pulling the barge rope from
the shore," Filippetto suggested, when he had already half untied
the mooring.
Marcovaldo, immobilized, twisted his mouth and eyes to
scold them.
"If
you don't go away right now, if you make me get
up from here, I'll beat you with the shovell" The kids ran of£.
The sun blazed, the sand burned, and Marcovaldo, dripping
sweat under his paper hat, felt, as he lay there motionless, endur–
ing the baking, the sense of satisfaction produced by painful treat–
ments or nasty medicines, when' you think: "The worse it is, the
more it's doing me good."
He dozed off, rocked by the slight current that first tautened
the mooring a little, then loosened it. In this pulling to and fro,
the knot, which Filippetto had already half undone, became un–
done altogether. And the barge laden with sand moved down the
river, free.
It
was the hottest hour of the afternoon. Everything slept; the
man buried in the sand, the arbors over the little jetties, the de–
serted bridges, the houses rising, windows shuttered, above the
embankments. The river was low, but the barge, driven by the cur–
rent, skirted the muddy shoals which rose now and then; otherwise,
a light bump on the bottom was enough to send it back into the
flow of water, gradually becoming deeper.
One of these bumps made Marcovaldo open his eyes. He saw
the sky charged with sunlight, the low summer clouds passing.
"How they run," he thought of the clouds, "and there isn't a
breath of wind!" Then he saw some electric wires: they too were
running, like the clouds. He looked to one side, as much as he
could, with the hundredweight of sand on top of him. The right
bank was far away, green, and it was running; the left was gray, far
off, also in £light. He realized he was in the midst of the river,
voyaging. Nobody answered: he was alone, buriedon a sand barge,
adrift, without oars or rudder. He knew he should get up, try to
land, call for help; but at the same time the thought that sand–
packs require absolute immobility held him, made him feel
committed to stay there as long as he could, so as not to lose pre–
cious instants of cure.
