At his, Daniel's central, in Santa Clara on the sea, he hoped
some day to offer them the hospitality of his own house.
When he left, Lee made no revelation of what had been said downstairs;
Savina accepted the situation as it had been exposed to her. "I can't
allow myself to think of a night here," she told him; "it will be a
horror." She opened the slats of the long window shutters, and glowing
bars of white heat fell in a ladder-like order across a blue wall; the
segments of sunlight were as sharp and solid as incandescent metal. In
the cobalt shadow Savina was robbed of her vitality; she seemed unreal;
as she passed through the vivid projected rays of midday it appeared as
though they must shine uninterruptedly through her body. Lee considered
the advisability of taking her for a walk--there were, he had seen from
the train, no roads here for driving--but, recalling the insolent
staring and remarks she had met, he was forced to drop that
possibility.
Weary from the prolonged wakefulness of the night, Savina made an
effort to sleep; and, waiting until she was measurably quiet, Lee went
out. The heat was blinding, it walled him in, pressed upon him with a
feeling of suffocation, as though--between him and the freshness, the
salvation, of any air--there were miles of it packed around him like
grey cotton. To the left of the hotel, the bare plaza, half hidden in
scrubby bushes, there was an extended shed with a number of doors and
fragments of fence, heaped rusted tins and uncovered garbage; and,
lounging in the openings, the door-frames often empty, the windows
without sashes, were women, scantily covered, sounding every note in a
scale from black to white.
Pages:
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327