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160 DAYS IN THE SUN
ocean? Is it true that it runs all around the globe and
that it can rise like a steer on its hind legs and knock
over ships? Pedro, the donkey-driver, was up on the
peak of the Sierra Nevada and saw the ocean; but he
is a liar. He says it is liquid gold and that the sun
comes right up over it. But I say he is a liar; I say,
‘You are a liar, little Pedrico, for gold is hard, and
the sea is water and you can bathe in it and drown in it.
And the sun would be extinguished if it went down into
at.” ”
She once had a daughter, we learn, who was
drowned in the sea on the northern coast of Spain.
That is why her thoughts are so much concerned with
the sea. But there is no one in these mountains who
can talk to her about the sea except Pedro the donkey-
driver, who has seen it from the top of the Sierra
Nevada, and he is a liar. We have actually sailed
over it and bathed in it, like her daughter, that time
when she was drowned; and we have no reason to lie
to her. She drinks in every word and makes the mo-
tions when I tell her what swimming is like. Suddenly
she interrupts with a vehement statement: “Indeed, if
I could only see it or even stick my hand into it—that
couldn’t harm me, could it? Sometimes when there is
a storm and I cannot sleep I look up to the thunder-
clouds and imagine that the sea must be like that too,
and then I weep for my daughter who is faring so ill.
But when the sky is calm and blue again, then I think
that the sea must be like that too, and this makes me
so glad, so glad for her sake.” She nods to herself
confidently, and we set out again on our journey.
Like all travelers, we have our little passport diff-
culties. Under ordinary circumstances a passport is a
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