ything  stirred,
everything smiled within him. Naturally,  he  did not know her or her  name,
or, moreover,  why  she  had fallen asleep on the  shore;  but he  was  very
pleased  by  this.  He  liked pictures that  were accompanied neither  by an
explanatory text nor  by a caption.  The impression such a  picture makes is
far  more powerful;  its content, unencumbered by words,  becomes boundless,
affirming all conjectures and thoughts.
     The shadow cast by the  leaves  was approaching  the trunks,  but  Gray
still  squatted there in that uncomfortable position.  Everything  about the
girl was asleep: her dark hair slept, her dress slept,  as did the pleats of
her skirt; even  the grass near  her  body, it seemed,  was  dozing  out  of
sympathy.  When the  impression  became  complete,  Gray  entered its  warm,
engulfing  waves  and sailed off on it. Letika had been  shouting  for  some
time: "Captain! Where are you?", but the captain heard him not.
     When  he  finally  rose,  a predilection  for  the  unusual caught  him
unawares with the determination and inspiration of an  angered woman. Giving
way  to it pensively, he  removed the treasured  old ring from  his  finger,
thinking,  and  not  without  reason,  that perhaps,  in  this way,  he  was
suggesting something essential to life, similar to orthography.  He  slipped
the ring gently onto the pinky that showed white under the back of her head.
The pinky twitched in annoyance and curled up. Glancing once again  at  this
resting  face, Gray turned to  see the sailor's sharply-raised brows. Letika
was  gaping  as  he  watched  the  captain's  movements  with  the  kind  of
astonishment Jonah must have felt as he gazed  down the maw of his furnished
whale.
     "Ah,  it's you, Letika! Look at her. Isn't she  beautiful?" "A wondrous
painting!"  the  sailor  shouted  in  a   whisper,  for  he  liked   bookish
expressions. "There's  something prepossessing in the  presentation  of  the
circumstances. I caught four morays and another one, as round as a bladder."
     "Shh,  Letika. Let's get out of here."  They retreated into the bushes.
They should  have  turned back to the rowboat now, but Gray  procrastinated,
looking off into the distance at the low bank,  where the morning smoke from
the  chimneys  of Kaperna  streamed over the  greenery and  the sand. In the
smoke he once again saw the girl-Then  he turned determinedly and went  down
the slope; the  sailor  did not question him  about what had  happened,  but
walked on  behind;  he sensed that once again  a compulsory  silence ensued.
When they reached the first houses Gray suddenly said,
     "Can your practised eye tell us where the tavern is, Letika?"
     "It must be that black roof," Letika mused, "but then,  again, maybe it
isn't."
     "What's so special about that roof?"
     "I  really  don't  know,  Captain.  Nothing more than the  voice of  my
heart."
     They approached the  house; it was indeed Menners'  tavern. Through the
open window they could see a bottle on the table; beside it someone's  dirty
hand was milking a steel-grey moustache.
     Although  it was  still  early in the day there  were three men  in the
common room.  The coalman, the owner of the  drunken  grey moustache already
noted,  was  sitting  by  the  window; two fishermen were lodged around some
scrambled eggs and beer  at a  table set  between the bar and an inner door.
Menners,  a  tall  young man with a dull, freckled  face  and  that peculiar
expression  of bold  cunning in his  near-sighted eyes that is a distinctive
feature of tradesmen in general, was wiping plates behind the counter. The
     window frame was imprinted in the sunshine on the dirty floor.
     No sooner had Gray stepped into the strip of smoky  light than Menners,
bowing respectfully, came out from behind his enclosure. He had  immediately
sensed  a real captain  in Gray--a type  of client  rarely to be seen there.
Gray  ordered  rum. Covering  the table with a cloth become  yellowed in the
bustle  of daily life, Menners brought over  a bottle, but first  licked the
corner of the label  that had come  unstuck.  Then he  went back  behind the
counter to  look intently now at Gray,  now at the plate from  which  he was
picking off a dry particle of food.
     While Letika, having raised his glass between his hands, was whispering
to it  softly and glancing out  the window, Gray  summoned Hin Menners.  Hin
perched  on the  edge of a  chair with a  self-satisfied  air,  flattered at
having been addressed, and  especially flattered because this had  been done
by a simple crook of Gray's finger.
     "I assume you  know all  the local  inhabitants," Gray said in  an even
voice. "I would like to know  the name of a girl in a  kerchief, in a  dress
with  pink flowers, auburn-haired, of  medium height, between  seventeen and
twenty years of age. I came upon her not far from here. What is her name?"
     He spoke with a  firm simplicity of strength that made it impossible to
evade his tone. Hin Menners squirmed inwardly and even smirked slightly, but
outwardly he obeyed the nature of  the address. However, he hesitated before
replying--but only from a futile desire to guess what was up
     "Hm!"  he  said,  raising  his  eyes  to  the  ceiling.  "It  must   be
Sailing-ship Assol. She's a halfwit."
     "Indeed?" Gray  said indifferently, taking a big sip. "Why  is she like
that?"
     "If you really want to know, I'll tell you."
     And Hin told  Gray  of  the  time,  seven  years  before,  when, on the
seashore, the girl had spoken to a man who collected folk songs.  Naturally,
this story, in the  years since  the beggar had first affirmed its existence
in  the  tavern,  had taken  the shape  of a crude and  ugly rumour, but the
essence remained unchanged.
     "And  that's what she's been  called ever since,"  Menners said. "She's
called Sailing-ship Assol."
     Gray glanced  automatically  at Letika, who was still  behaving quietly
and modestly, then his eyes turned to the dusty road outside the tavern, and
he  felt as if  he had  been struck--a double  blow to  his heart and  head.
Coming  down the road towards him was the very same  Sailing-ship Assol whom
Menners  had just  described from  a  clinical point of  view. Her  striking
features, which resembled the mystery of unforgettable, stirring, yet simple
words, appeared  to him now in the light of her gaze. The sailor and Menners
both  had  their  backs  to  the  window  and, in order  that they not  turn
accidentally, Gray found the courage to shift his gaze to Hin's ginger eyes.
After he  had  seen Assol's eyes,  all  the prejudice of Menners' story  was
dispelled. Meanwhile, Hin continued unsuspectingly:
     "I can also add that her father  is a real bastard. He drowned my pater
like he was a cat or something, God forgive me. He...."
     He was interrupted  by an unexpected, wild howl coming from behind. The
coalman, rolling his eyes  fiercely and having  cast off his drunken stupor,
suddenly began bawling a song, but  with  such  force  that it made everyone
jump:
     Basket-maker, basket-maker, Skin us for your baskets!
     "You're roaring drunk again, you damn whaleboat!" Menners shouted. "Get
out!"
     But take care that you don't fall Right into our caskets!
     the coalman bawled and then, as if nothing were amiss, he | dunked  his
moustache into a slopping glass.
     Hin Menners shrugged indignantly.
     "He's the scum  of  the  earth," he said with the sinister | dignity of
the miser. "It happens every time!"
     "Is there anything else you can tell me?" Gray asked.
     "Me? I just told you her father's a bastard. On account of
     him, sir,  I was orphaned, and while still a boy was forced to earn  my
bread by the sweat-of my brow."
     "You're lying!" the  coalman said unexpectedly. "You're lying so foully
and unnaturally that it's sobered me
     up."
     Before Hin had a chance to open his mouth, the coalman addressed Gray:
     "He's lying. His father was a liar, too; as was his  mother. It runs in
the family.  Rest assured, she's as sane  as you and me. I've spoken to her.
She rode in my cart eighty-four times  or a  bit less.  If  a girl's walking
home from town and I've sold all my  coal, I'll  always give her a lift. She
might  as  well  ride. I'm saying that she has a sane head on her shoulders.
You can see  that now. Naturally, she'd never talk  to you, Hin Menners. But
me, sir, in my free coal trade, I despise gossip and rumours. She talks like
a  grown-up, but  her way of talking is  strange. If you  listen closely--it
seems like  just the same as you  and me would say, and it is, but  yet,  it
isn't.  For instance,  we  got  to talking  about  her trade. 'I'll tell you
something,' she said, and  her holding  onto my  shoulder like  a  fly to  a
bell-tower,  'my work isn't dull, but  I keep wanting to think  up something
special. I want to find a way  to make a boat that'll  sail by  itself, with
oarsmen that'll really row; then, they'll  dock at the shore, tie up and sit
down on  the beach  to have a bite, just exactly as if  they were  alive.' I
started  laughing, see, 'cause  I found it  funny. So I  said, 'Well, Assol,
it's all because of the kind of work you do, that's why you think like this,
but look around; the way other people work, you'd think they were fighting.'
'No,'  she says, 'I know what  I  know. When  a fisherman's fishing he keeps
thinking he'll  catch a big fish,  bigger  than anyone  ever  caught.' 'What
about me?' 'You?' She  laughed.  Til bet that when you fill your basket with
coal you think it'll burst into bloom.' That's the words she used! That very
moment, I confess, I  don't know what made me do it, I looked into the empty
basket, and I really  thought  I was  seeing buds  coming out of the  basket
twigs; the buds burst and leaves splashed all over the basket and were gone.
I even sobered UP a bit! But Hin Menners will lie in his teeth and never bat
an eye--I know him!"
     Finding the  conversation to  have taken an  obviously insulting  turn,
Menners looked at the coalman scathingly and disappeared behind the counter,
from where he asked bitterly: "Do you want to order anything else?"
     "No," said Gray, pulling out his purse. "We're  getting up and leaving.
Letika, you stay here. Come back this evening  and don't say  a word. Having
discovered all you can, report to me. Understand?"
     "My  dear Captain," Letika said with  a familiarity brought  on  by the
rum, "only a deaf-mute would not have understood this."
     "Fine. And don't forget  that not in a single instance of the many that
may occur can you speak of me, or even mention my name. Goodbye!"
     Gray  left.  From  then  on  he  was  possessed  by  a consciousness of
astonishing  discoveries,  like a spark in Berthold's powder mortar,--one of
those  spiritual avalanches from under which fire  escapes,  blazing. He was
possessed by a desire for immediate  action.  He came to his  senses and was
able to think clearly only when he got into the rowboat. Laughing,  he  held
out his hand, palm up, to the scorching sun, as he had done once as a boy in
the wine cellar;  then he shoved off and  began  rowing swiftly  towards the
harbour.
        IV. ON THE EVE
     On  the eve of that  day and seven  years after Egle, the  collector of
folk songs, had told the little girl on  the beach a fairy-tale about a ship
with  crimson sails, Assol returned home  from  her weekly visit to  the toy
shop feeling distressed and looking sad. She had brought back the toys  that
she had taken to be sold. She was so upset she could not speak at first, but
after looking  at Longren's  anxious face  and seeing that he expected  news
that was much worse  than  what  had actually happened, she  began to speak,
running her finger over the windowpane by which she stood, gazing out at the
sea absently.
     The owner of the toy shop had begun this time by opening his ledger and
showing her  how  much  they  owed him. She felt  faint  at the sight of the
impressive, three-digit figure.
     "This is how much you've received since December," the shopkeeper said,
"and  now we'll see how much has been  sold." And he  set his finger against
another figure, but this one was a two-digit one.
     "It's a pity and a shame to look."
     "I could see  by  looking at  his face  that he was rude and angry. I'd
have gladly run away, but, honestly, I was so ashamed  I had no strength to.
And he went on to say: 'There's no  profit  in  it for me any more, my  dear
girl. Imported goods are in demand now. All the shops are full of them,  and
nobody  buys these kind.' That's what he said. He went  on talking, but I've
mixed up and  forgotten what he said. He probably felt sorry for me, because
he suggested I try the Children's Bazaar and Alladin's Lamp."
     Having  unburdened herself of that which was most important,  the  girl
turned her head and looked at the old man timidly. Longren sat hunched over,
his fingers locked between his knees on which his elbows rested. Sensing her
eyes on  him, he raised his head and  sighed. Overcoming her depression, she
ran up to him, settled  down beside him and, slipping her  small  hand under
the leather sleeve of his jacket, laughing and looking up into her  father's
face from below, she continued with feigned liveliness:
     "Never mind, it's not important. You listen, now. Anyway, I left. Well,
I  came  to  the  big, awfully frightening store;  it  was terribly crowded.
People  shoved me, but I made my way through and went over to a black-haired
man  in spectacles. I don't remember a word of what I  said to him; finally,
he snickered, poked about in my basket,  looked at some  of  the  toys, then
wrapped them up in the kerchief again and handed them back."
     Longren listened to her angrily. He seemed  to  be seeing  his overawed
daughter  in the richly-dressed  crowd at  the counter piled high  with fine
goods. The neat man in the spectacles was explaining condescendingly that he
would go bankrupt if he decided to offer Longren's  simple toys for sale. He
had  casually and expertly set up folding houses and railroad bridges on the
counter  before  her;  tiny,  perfectly-made   automobiles,  electric  sets,
airplanes and  motors. All of this smelled of paint and school. According to
him, children nowadays only played games that imitated the occupations
     of their elders.
     Then Assol had gone to Alladin's Lamp and to two other
     shops, but all in vain.
     As she finished  her tale she laid out  their supper;  having eaten and
downed a mug of strong coffee, Longren said: "Since we're out of luck, we'll
have  to start  looking  for  something  else.  Perhaps  I'll sign on a ship
again--the  Fitzroy or the Palermo. Of course,  they're right," he continued
thoughtfully, thinking  of  the toys.  "Children don't  play  nowadays, they
study.  They keep on studying and studying,  and will  never begin  to live.
This  is so, but it's a shame, it really  is a  shame.  Will you be  able to
manage without me for one  voyage? I can't imagine  leaving  you  alone." "I
could sign up with you, too. Say, as  a  barmaid." "No!" Longren  sealed the
word with a smack of his palm on the shuddering table. "You won't sign up as
long as I'm alive. However, there's time to think of something."
     He settled into a sullen silence. Assol sat down beside him on the edge
of the stool; out of the corner  of  his eye,  without turning  his head, he
could see that  she was doing her best to console him and nearly smiled. No,
if  he smiled  it would frighten  her off  and  embarrass  her. Mumbling  to
herself,  she  smoothed his  tumbled grey hair, kissed  his  moustache  and,
covering her father's bristly ears with her small, tapering fingers, said,
     "There, now  you  can't  hear  me say that I love you." Longren had sat
still while she had been making  him pretty,  as tense as a person afraid to
inhale smoke, but hearing what she said, he laughed uproariously.
     "You dear," he said simply and, after patting her cheek, went  down  to
the beach to have a look at his rowboat.
     For a while Assol stood pensively in the middle of the room, hesitating
between a desire to give  herself up to wistful melancholy and the necessity
of seeing to  the  chores; then, having washed the dishes, she took store of
the
     remains of their provisions. She neither weighed nor  measured, but saw
that they would not have enough flour to last out the week,  that the bottom
of the sugar tin was now visible; the packets of coffee and  tea were nearly
empty  and  there  was no butter; the  only thing on which  her  eye  rested
ruefully,  as it was the sole  exception,  was a sack of potatoes. Then  she
scrubbed the floor and sat down to stitch a ruffle on a skirt made over from
something  else, but recalling  instantly that the scraps  of material  were
tucked behind  the  mirror,  she  went  over to it and  took  out the little
bundle; then she glanced at her reflection.
     Beyond the walnut frame in the clear  void of the reflected room was  a
small, slim girl dressed in cheap, white, pink-flowered muslin. A grey  silk
kerchief covered  her shoulders. The still childish, lightly-tanned face was
lively  and expressive; her  beautiful  eyes, somewhat serious for  her age,
looked out  with  the timid  intentness peculiar  to  sensitive  souls.  Her
irregular  face was  endearing in its  delicate purity of line;  each curve,
each elevation might have  been found in many  a woman's face, but taken all
together the style was extremely original -- originally sweet; we shall stop
here.  The  rest  cannot   be   expressed  in  words,  save  for  one  word:
"enchantment".
     The reflected girl smiled as impulsively as Assol. The smile turned out
rather sad; noticing this, she became disturbed, as if she were looking at a
stranger.  She pressed her cheek  against the  glass, closed  her  eyes  and
stroked the mirror softly  over  her  reflection.  A swarm of  hazy,  tender
thoughts flashed through her; she straightened  up, laughed  and sat down to
sew.
     While she is sewing, let us have a closer look at her--a look into her.
She  was  made  of too  girls,  two  Assols  mixed  up  in  happy, wonderful
confusion.  One was the daughter of  a sailor, a craftsman, a toy-maker, the
other was a living poem,  with all the marvels of its  harmonies and images,
with  a  mysterious  alignment  of words, in the interaction  of  light  and
shadow,  cast by one upon the other. She knew life within the limits  of her
own experience, but besides the generalities, she  saw the reflected meaning
of a different order. Thus, looking into objects, we observe them not with a
linear perception, but through impression--which is definitely  human and --
as is all that is human -- distinct. Something similar to that  which (if we
have succeeded) we have portrayed by this example, she saw  above and beyond
the   visible.  Without  these   modest  victories   all  that   was  simplv
understandable was alien to  her. She loved to  read,  but  in each book she
read  mostly  between  the  lines,  as  she  lived.  Unconsciously,  through
inspiration,  she  mack-  countless ethereally-subtle  discoveries at  every
step,  inexpressible,  but  as   important   as   cleanliness  and   warmth.
Sometimes--and this  continued  for  a  number  of days  -- she  even became
transformed; the physical opposition  of life fell away, like  the stillness
in the sweep of a  bow across the  strings; and all that she  saw,  that was
vital to her, that surrounded her, became  a lace of mystery in the image of
the  mundane. Many a time, apprehensive and afraid,  did she go to the beach
at night where, waiting  for  dawn to  break, she looked off  most intently,
searching  for the ship with the Crimson Sails. These minutes were pure  joy
to her; it is difficult for us to give ourselves up thus to a fairy-tale; it
would be no less difficult for her to escape from its power and enchantment.
     On  some  other  occasion,  thinking back  over  all  this,  she  would
sincerely  wonder at  herself,  not  being  able  to  believe  that  she had
believed, forgiving the sea with a smile and sadly  coming  back to reality;
as  she now  gathered  the ruffle she thought about her past life. There had
been much that was dull  and simple. The  two  of them being lonely together
had at times weighed heavily on her, but there had formed within her by then
that  fold  of inner shyness, that suffering wrinkle which prevents one from
bringing  or  receiving cheer. Others mocked her, saying:  "She's touched in
the head", "out of her mind" -- she had become accustomed to this pain, too.
The  girl had even suffered insults, after  which  her breast  would ache as
from a  blow. She was not a popular girl in Kaperna, although many suspected
that there was more to  her than to  others--but in a different tongue.  The
men  of Kaperna adored stout, heavy-limbed  women  with  oily skin  on their
large calves arid powerful  arms; they courted them here by slapping them on
the back
     and jostling them as they would in a crowded market place. The style of
such emotion resembled the unsophisticated  simplicity of a  roar. Assol was
as well suited to this determined milieu as the society of a ghost would  be
to extremely high-strung  people, had  it  even  possessed all the charm  of
Assunta or Aspasia; anything resembling love  here was out of  the question.
Thus, meeting the  steady blast of a soldier's bugle, the sweet sadness of a
violin is powerless to bring the stern regiment out from under the influence
of its straight planes.  The girl  stood with her back to all that has  been
said in these lines.
     While  she was humming  a song of  life,  her small hands  were working
swiftly and adroitly; biting off a thread,  she looked off, but this did not
stop her from turning the hem evenly or stitching it  with the accuracy of a
sewing machine. Although Longren did  not return,  she was not worried about
her father. Of late, he had often set out  fishing  in his boat  at night or
simply for  some air. Fear did not gnaw at her: she knew  that no ill  would
befall him. In this respect Assol  was still the little girl that had prayed
in her own way, lisping  fondly, "Good morning, God!"  in the  morning  and:
"Goodbye, God!" in the evening.
     In  her opinion such  a  first-hand  acquaintance  with  God was  quite
sufficient for Him  to  ward off  any disaster. She  imagined herself in His
place: God was  forever occupied with the affairs of millions of people and,
therefore, she believed that  one should regard the ordinary shadows of life
with  the polite patience of a  guest who,  discovering the  house  full  of
people,  waits for the bustling host,  finding  food and shelter as best  he
can.
     Having done with her sewing, Assol folded her work on the corner table,
undressed and went to  bed. The lamp had been  turned  off. She soon noticed
that she was not sleepy; her mind  was  as clear as it was in  the middle of
the  day,  and  even the darkness seemed  artificial; her body, as her mind,
felt  carefree and dayish. Her heart  beat  as rapidly as a pocket watch; it
seemed to be beating  between the pillow and her ear. Assol was annoyed; she
twisted  and turned, now flinging off  the blanket, now  rolling  up  in it,
pulling  it over her head. At  last  she was able to  bring on the  familiar
scene that  helped her to fall asleep: she imagined herself  tossing pebbles
into clear  water and watching the faint circles grow wider and wider. Sleep
seemed to have been awaiting this handout; it came, whispered with Mary, who
stood  at  the  head of the  bed and,  obeying  her  smile,  said "Shhh"  to
everything all around. Assol was asleep instantly. She dreamed her favourite
dream:  of  blossoming trees, a  yearning,  enchantment,  songs and  strange
scenes, of which, upon  awakening, she could recall only the glitter  of the
blue water rising from  her feet to her heart with a chill of delight. After
dreaming of all this, she remained in  that  improbable world  for  a  while
longer and then awakened fully and sat up.
     She was  not at all sleepy, quite as if she  had  not  fallen asleep at
all. A feeling of novelty, of joy and a desire for  action welled up in her.
She  looked around with the eyes of one  examining a  new room. Dawn  seeped
in--not with  the complete  lucidity  of illumination,  but with that  faint
effort through which  one can  comprehend one's surroundings. The  bottom of
the window was black; the top had become light. Without, by the edge  of the
window  frame, the  morning star twinkled. Knowing  that  she would not fall
asleep again, Assol dressed, went over to the window and, raising  the hook,
opened  it. An attentive, clear silence  reigned outside;  it seemed to have
only  now  descended. In  the blue twilight the bushes shimmered; farther on
the trees slept; the air was heavy and smelled of the earth.
     Leaning her  hand on  the top  of the  frame, the girl looked  out  and
smiled. Suddenly, something akin  to a  distant call stirred  her  both from
within and without, and she seemed to awaken once again from obvious reality
to that  which was clearer still and still more  doubtless. From that moment
on she was  caught  up  by  an  exultant richness  of  consciousness.  Thus,
comprehending them, we listen  to words spoken by others, but if one were to
repeat that which was said, we would come to understand them once again with
a different, a new meaning. She, too, now experienced this.
     Picking up  an  old  but, when she  wore  it, ever  fresh  and new silk
kerchief,  she grasped it under her chin with  one hand, locked the door and
darted out onto the road
     barefoot.  Although  all  was  deserted  and  still,  she  imagined she
resounded like an orchestra and could actually be heard. Everything  pleased
her, everything gladdened her eye. The warm dust tickled her bare  feet; the
air was clear and a joy  to breathe. The rooftops and clouds were etched  in
black against the  clearing  twilight of  the sky; the fences, briar  roses,
gardens,  orchards and the faintly seen road all dozed. In  everything there
was noticeable a different order  than during the  day--the same, yet, in  a
conformity that  had formerly  evaded  one. Everything slept with open eyes,
furtively examining the passing girl.
     She quickened her step as she got farther away, in a hurry to leave the
village behind.  There were meadows beyond Kaperna; beyond the meadows hazel
bushes, poplars and chestnut trees dotted  the slopes of the hills along the
shore. At the spot where the road ended and continued as an overgrown  path,
a silky little black dog with a white chest and eyes tensed to speak circled
gently by Assol's feet. The dog, recognizing Assol, walked along beside her,
squealing  from time  to time and wriggling its body coquettishly,  silently
agreeing  with  the girl about  something as clear as "you" and "me". Assol,
glancing into its communicative eyes,  was convinced that the dog could have
spoken  if it had  not had a  secret  reason for not doing so. Glimpsing its
companion's smile, the dog crinkled its nose cheerfully, wagged its tail and
trotted on ahead, but  suddenly  sat down indifferently,  scratched  its ear
which had been bitten by its eternal enemy, and ran off.
     Assol entered the tall meadow grass that splashed dew upon her; holding
her hand out, palm-down, above its spikelets, she walked  on, smiling at the
streaming touch.  Peering into the  very  special  faces of the flowers, the
confusion of stems, she could make out allusions--poses, efforts, movements,
features and expressions that were nearly human; she would not now have been
surprised at a procession of field mice, a gophers' ball or the rough antics
of a  hedgehog,  scaring a sleeping  gnome with  its huffing. Indeed, a grey
ball  of  a  hedgehog  rolled across  her  path.  "Humph-humph,"  it snorted
angrily, like a cabbie at a pedestrian. Assol spoke with those  whom she saw
and  understood. "Hello, poor thing," she said to a purple, worm-eaten iris.
"You'd better stay home for a  while,"--this was said to  a bush stranded in
the  middle  of the  path  and, therefore, lacking  leaves torn  off by  the
clothes of passers-by. A large beetle was clutching a  bluebell, pulling the
flower  down  and slipping, but scrabbling up  it stubbornly. "Shake off the
fat passenger," Assol  advised it. True enough, the beetle lost its grip and
flew  off  noisily.  Thus, with pounding heart, trembling and  flushed,  she
approached the slope  of  a hill and was  concealed from the openness of the
meadow  in the  thicket where she  was surrounded by true friends who -- and
she knew this--spoke in deep bass voices.
     These  were the  large  old trees that grew amongst the honeysuckle and
hazel bushes. Their drooping branches brushed the  top leaves of the bushes.
White flower cones  rose  among the  solemn  gravity  of the  large chestnut
leaves, their aroma blended with the scent of the dew and the sap. The path,
criss-crossed by the slippery bulges of roots, now dipped, now  clambered up
the slope.  Assol  felt at home here; she greeted the trees as if they  were
people, that  is, by pressing  their broad leaves. She walked on, whispering
to herself or aloud:  "Here you are, here's  another  you. How  many of  you
there are,  my friends! I'm in a hurry,  boys, let me pass! I  recognize you
all, I remember you and respect you." Her "boys" patted  her grandly as best
they could -- with their leaves -- and creaked with an air of kindredness in
reply.  Feet  muddied,  she made  her way out to the bluff above the sea and
stood  at  the  very  edge, breathing  hard  after  her  fast  walk. A deep,
unconquerable  faith rejoiced and bubbled exultantly inside of her. Her gaze
cast  it beyond the  horizon, from whence it returned in the faint  surge of
the incoming waves, proud in its clean flight.
     Meanwhile,  the  sea, stitched with a golden thread  along the horizon,
was still asleep; save at the foot of the bluff did the water rise and fall.
The steel grey of the sleeping ocean at the shore became blue and then black
farther off. Beyond the golden thread the sky, flaring up, glowed in a great
fan of light; the white clouds were now touched with pink.
     Delicate,   heavenly   tints   shimmered   within   them.  A  quivering
snow-whiteness spread across the distant  blackness; the foam  sparkled  and
the  blood-red  splash, flaring  up  along  the golden thread, sent  crimson
ripples across the ocean to Assol's feet.
     She sat down and hugged her knees. She leaned towards the sea and gazed
off  at  the  horizon  with  eyes that had grown large  and in which nothing
grown-up  remained at  • all--with the eyes of a  child.  Everything she had
awaited so long and  so fervently was taking place there, at the end  of the
world.  In that land  of  distant abysses  she  imagined  an undersea  hill;
streaming thongs of seaweed snaked upward from its slopes; amongst the round
leaves pierced by a stem at the edge strange flowers shone. The upper leaves
glistened on the surface of the ocean; he who knew not what Assol knew would
see only a shimmering and glitter.
     A  ship rose from the  seaweed; it  surfaced  and  stopped in the  very
middle of the sunrise. From this great distance it was as clearly visible as
the  clouds. Radiating joy, it flamed like wine,  a rose,  blood, lips,  red
velvet and scarlet  fire. The ship  was heading straight towards  Assol. Two
wings of spray were cast up by the powerful thrust of its keel; rising,  the
girl  pressed her hands to her breast,  but the magic play  of light  became
ripples: the sun rose, and a bright fullness of morning tore the covers from
everything that still languished and stretched on the sleepy earth.
     The  girl sighed and looked around. The music had ended, but  Assol was
still under  the  spell  of its  ringing  chorus. This  impression gradually
weakened, then became a  memory and, finally, simply weariness. She lay down
in  the grass, yawned  and,  closing her eyes  blissfully,  fell asleep -- a
sleep as deep and sound as a young nut, without cares or dreams.
     She was awakened by a fly  crawling along her bare sole. Assol wriggled
her foot impatiently and awoke; sitting up, she  pinned back her dishevelled
hair and, therefore, Gray's ring  made itself known, but believing it to  be
simply a blade of grass that had become caught between her fingers, she held
them out.  However,  since the hindrance did not disappear,  she raised  her
hand to her eyes impatiently and instantly jumped to her feet with the force
of a shooting fountain.
     Gray's radiant ring sparkled on her finger as on someone else's, for at
this moment she  could  not claim it to be her  own,  she did  not feel  the
finger to belong to her.
     "Whose joke  is  this?  Whose  joke is  this?"  she cried. "Am I  still
sleeping? Maybe I found it and forgot about it?"
     She gripped  her right hand, on  which the  ring was placed,  with  her
left, looked around in wonder, searching out the  sea and the green thickets
with her gaze; but no one moved, no one was hiding in the bushes, and  there
was  no sign in the vastly  illumined blue sea. A flush  consumed Assol, and
the  voices of  her  heart  murmured  the  prophetic  "yes".  There  was  no
explanation  for  what had  happened,  but  she  found it  without  words of
thoughts in her  strange  feeling, and the ring now became dear to her.  She
trembled as she pulled it off her finger and held it in her cupped hand like
water as she examined  it--with her soul, her  heart,  the boundless joy and
clear superstition of youth--then, tucking it  into her bodice, Assol buried
her face in her hands from under which a smile strained to burst forth  and,
lowering her head, she slowly followed the road back home.
     Thus--by chance,  as people say who can read and write,--Gray and Assol
found each other on a summer's morning so full of inevitability.
        V. PREPARING FOR BATTLE
     After  Gray  returned  to  the  deck  of  the  Secret  he  stood  there
motionlessly for some  minutes, running his hand over his head from back  to
front, which  indicated a state of  utter confusion. Absent-mindedness --  a
veiled movement of the emotions--was reflected in the senseless smile of the
sleep-walker on his  face. His mate, Panten, was at that moment coming along
the quarter-deck, carrying a dish of fried fish; sighting Gray, he noted the
captain's strange state.
     "You're not hurt, are you, sir?" he  inquired cautiously.  "Where  were
you? What did you see?  Actually, though,  that's none of  my  business.  An
agent has offerred us a profitable cargo with a bonus. But what's the matter
with you, sir?"
     "Thank you," Gray said with a sigh, as if he had been untied. "That was
just what I needed, the sound of your simple, intelligent voice. It's like a
dash of cold  water. Tell the crew we're weighing anchor today,  Panten, and
moving  into the mouth of the Liliana, about ten miles from here. The  river
bed is dotted with shoals. Come for the chart. We won't need a pilot. That's
all  for  now....  Oh, yes, I need that profitable  cargo  like I need  last
year's snow. You  can tell  the agent  that's what I said. I'm going to town
now, and I'll be there till evening."
     "But what happened?"
     "Nothing at all, Panten. I want you to bear in mind my  desire to avoid
all questions. When the time comes, I'll tell you what it's all  about. Tell
the  crew  that  we'll put  up  for  repairs  and  that the local drydock is
occupied."
     "Yes, sir," Panten  replied dazedly to  Gray's  retreating  back. "Aye,
aye, sir."
     Although  the  captain's  orders  were  quite  sensible,  the mate  was
goggled-eyed  and raced off to his own  cabin, carrying the dish of fish and
mumbling:  "You're  puzzled, Panten.  Is he thinking of  trying his  hand at
smuggling?  Will we  be  flying the Jolly  Roger now?" At this Panten became
confused  by  the  wildest guesses. While he nervously wolfed down the fish,
Gray  went  to  his cabin, took out a  sum of money and,  crossing  the bay,
appeared  in  the  shopping  section  of  Liss.   Now,  however,   he  acted
determinedly and calmly, knowing down to the last detail  all  that he would
do on this wondrous journey. Each motion -- thought, movement--warmed him as
with the  refined joy of creative work. His plan  was  formed  instantly and
vividly. His understanding of  life had  undergone that  last  attack of the
chisel after which marble is serene in its magnificent glowing.
     Gray visited  three shops,  placing especial stress on the accuracy  of
his choice, since he was quite sure of the exact shade and colour he wanted.
In the  first two shops he was shown silk  of gaudy hues, intended to please
an  unsophisticated  vanity;  in the third  he found samples of  imaginative
tints. The shopkeeper bustled  about cheerfully, spreading  out fabrics from
his  old  stock, but Gray was  as  serious as  an  anatomist.  He  patiently
unfolded parcels  and bolts, laid them aside, moved them  together, unrolled
and brought up  to the light so many crimson strips that  the counter, piled
high with them, seemed about to burst into  flame. A scarlet  wave fell upon
the tip of Gray's boot; a pink reflection shone on his hands and face. As he
rummaged  among  the  slight  resistance  of the silk he noted  the colours:
cerise,  pink  and old  rose; the richly simmering cherry, orange and gloomy
iron reds; here there were  shades of all density and strength, as different
in  their  imaginary  kinship  as are the  words:  "charming",  "wonderful",
"magnificent", "exquisite"; in the folds there lurked allusions inaccessible
to the language  of the eyesight, but a true crimson tone evaded our captain
for  quite some time. The fabrics the  shopkeeper brought out were good, but
they did  not evoke a clear, firm  "yes". At last, one  colour attracted the
disarmed attention of the buyer;  he sat down in an armchair  by the window,
pulled a long strip  from the rustling  bolt,  dropped it on  his knees and,
sitting   back  with   his   pipe  clenched   between  his   teeth,   became
contemplatively still.
     This colour, as  absolutely pure as a crimson ray of morning,  full  of
noble joy and regality, was just exactly the proud colour Gray was searching
for. It did  not contain the mixed shades of fire, poppy petals, the play of
lilac or purple tints; nor was there any  blueness  or shadow --  nothing to
raise  any  doubt.  It glowed  like  a  smile with  the  charm of  spiritual
reflection.  Gray  became  so  lost  in  thought  that  he  forgot about the
shopkeeper  who  stood at his elbow  with the  alertness  of  a  hunting dog
pointing. Tiring of waiting, the merchant called attention to himself by the
crack of a piece of cloth being ripped.
     "That's enough samples," Gray said, rising. "I'm taking this silk."
     "The  whole bolt?" the  merchant  asked, politely  doubting.  But  Gray
stared at his forehead in silence, which prodded
     the shopkeeper to assume an undue familiarity. "How many metres, then?"
     Gray nodded, as if telling the man to wait, and, with a pencil, figured
the amount he needed on a slip of paper.
     "Two  thousand metres."  He inspected  the shelves dubiously. "Not more
than two thousand metres."
     "Two?"  said the shopkeeper, jumping like a jack-in-the-box. "Thousand?
Metres?  Please sit down, Captain. Would you like to see our latest samples,
Captain? As you wish. May I offer you  a match, and  some excellent tobacco?
Two thousand ... two thousand at...." He named a price  which had as much to
do with  the  real price  as a  vow  does with a simple  "yes", but Gray was
satisfied, because he did not wish to bargain over anything. "A magnificent,
excellent  silk," the  shopkeeper was  saying, "unexcelled  in  quality. You
won't find this anyplace else but here."
     When the man had finally run out of laudation,  Gray arranged  to  have
the silk delivered, paid his bill, including this service,  and left. He was
seen to the door by the shopkeeper with as much pomp as if he were a Chinese
emperor. Meanwhile, somewhere  nearby,  a street musician,  having tuned his
cello,  drew his  bow  gently  across  it,  making it  speak out  sadly  and
wonderfully; his comrade, the flutist, showered the  singing  of the strings
with a trilling of throaty whistling; the simple song with which they filled
the  sun-sleepy yard reached Gray's ears, and he  knew instantly what he had
to do. Actually, all these days he had