Page:Balkan Short Stories.djvu/248

236 Beside me holding the reins sat the owner of the cart; huge, raw-boned, grey, crabbed. Behind his brow colossal thoughts were crowding. We were driving at top speed. Silence had reigned between us for some time.

He had offered me a seat beside him with a gesture of the hand which said: “Perhaps it will give you pleasure to drive through a couple of villages with me. You know, of course—” They all have the manners of dethroned princes. He had used his whip with the grandezza of a capitalist upon the Corso in Buda.

Still it rains. It is cold.

I wrap myself closer in my sheepskin. For hours we have not exchanged a word. Why should we?

Then the highway makes a sharp curve—and—suddenly, the horse jumps to one side, curves back and neck, stiffens his front legs, while myriads of stars shoot from his iron shoes—and stops. We are all but thrown out. What is the trouble? Now imagine—I lift my head and try to see—what a strange thing is life—I see—a long road black with hogs. Fifty, a hundred, a thousand,