Page:Selected Czech tales - 1925.djvu/187

 remembered the magnificence and preciousness of Lisbon, his love affairs, his travels, and everything in the world that he had seen, and he closed his eyes, so as to find inwardly all those beautiful pictures. But when he opencd them, he saw the woman sitting on her heels opposite him and staring obliquely and dully in front of her; he noticed that she was comely with small breasts and slender limbs, brown as reddle and very straight.

He would often sit on this rock to look for ships. He saw the sun rise from the sea and set therein, and he got used to this and to everything else. He began to taste the sweetness of this island, and it seemed to him an isle of love. Sometimes the savages would seek him; they held him in high esteem. When they crouched round him they looked like fattened geese; they were tattooed, and some of them were very old; they brought him food and cared for him. When the time of the rains came, Dom Luiz went to live in the woman’s hut. Thus he lived among the savages and was naked like them; but he despised them and would not learn a word of their language. He did not know what they called the island on which he lived, nor the roof which sheltered him, nor