Page:The further side of silence (IA furthersideofsil00clifiala).pdf/386

 voured by impatience and by desire, so that the days were like a heavy burden strapped upon my back; but when evening fell, I used to creep softly under her parents' house, and peep at the maiden through the interstices of the floor or of the walls of wattled bamboo, feasting upon her loveliness, until the lights were extinguished, and I went away through the darkness sadly to my sleeping-mat. I was filled with a madness of desire, but also I was happy, since I knew that in a little space the girl would be mine.

"Now it was upon a day, about a Friday-span from that which had been fixed for the Becoming One, that calamity came upon me, utterly destroy- ing me, as the blight withers the ripening crop, making the ears empty things and vain. It was in this wise. Listen, Tuan, and then say was ever trouble like unto mine, shame comparable to the disgrace that was put upon me, or sorrow akin to that whereby I was afflicted.

"Hodoh was her name. Yes, as you say, she was ill-named, for in truth she was beautiful, not ugly, as the word implies but it was thus that her folk had called her when she was little, and in my ears it hath lost its meaning and is ever the dearest of all names.

"It chanced that Hodoh was alone in the house, all her people having gone forth to work in the crops. leaving her because the hour of her wedding was so near at hand. Thus no one was near when a Sâkai inan, one Pa Ah-Gap, the Rhinoceros, came to the