Page:Selected Czech tales - 1925.djvu/188

 the woman who was before God his sole companion.

Whenever he returned to the hut of a night, he found his supper prepared, his couch ready, and the gentle embrace of the brown woman. Although he counted her as hardly a human being, but more akin to the animals, yet he would talk to her in his own language, and was content when she listened. So he told her all the thoughts that were continually passing through his mind: of his house in Lisbon and the details of his travels. At first it annoyed him that the woman understood neither his words nor the purport of all he was telling her, but gradually he got used to this also, and told her the same things over and over again, always in the same words and manner of speech; after that he would take her into his arms as his wife.

But in course of time his descriptions became shorter and less coherent; many events escaped his memory as though they had never happened; for whole days together he would lie on his couch without speaking, and think about himself. He got so accustomed to his surroundings that he would sit on the rock for hours, but never think of looking for ships.

Some years passed, and Luiz forgot his