walking with great dignity, without a single wasted motion. A few beads of sweat

were form­ ing on his forehead, but he didn't wipe them off.

 

The procession seemed to me to be moving a little faster. All around me there

was still the same glowing countryside Hooded with sunlight. The glare from the

sky was unbearable. At one point, we went over a section of the road that had

just been repaved. The tar had burst open in the sun. Our feet sank into it,

leaving its r6shiny pulp exposed. Sticking up above the top of the hearse, the

coachman's hard leather hat looked as if it had been molded out of the same

black mud. I felt a little lost between the blue and white of the sky and the

monotony of the colors around me-the sticky black of the tar, the dull black of

all the clothes, and the shiny black of the hearse. All of it-the sun, the smell

of leather and horse dung from the hearse, the smell of varnish and incense, and

my fatigue after a night without sleep-was making it hard for me to see or think

straight. I turned around again : Perez seemed to be way back there, fading in

the shimmering heat. Then I lost sight of him alto­ gether. I looked around and

saw that he'd left the road and cut out across the fields. I also noticed there

was a bend in the road up ahead. I realized that Perez, who knew the country,

was taking a short cut in order to catch up with us. By the time we rounded the

bend, he was back with us. Then we lost him again. He set off cross country once

more, and so it went on. I could feel the blood pounding in my temples.

 

After that, everything seemed to happen so fast, so deliberately, so naturally

that I don't remember any of it anymore. Except for one thing: as we entered the

village, the nurse spoke to me. She had a remarkable voice which didn't go with