Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - XIII. A Vision of Sudden Death
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290 DAYS IN THE SUN
full responsibility, both legally and morally, for my
wife also, and therefore I had no right to sit with my
back to the abyss. In fact, it would have been quite
correct for me to have jumped off while there was
time; I owed it to my children. But we are cowards,
after all; and the fat woman snored as if there were
no dangers. Her fat made her sleepy.
Again we went uphill, with undiminished speed. My
promise of a duro seemed to have bewitched even our
mules. The bells jangled amidst the ear-racking noises
of the carriage; the window-panes hummed like angry
insects; the galloping mules whined and kicked out
from behind whenever the zagal leaned forward from
the carriage to beat them. “‘Y—aa! Y—aa! Goon!
Go on!” We shot past huts and over mountain
brooks, up and down in a great seesaw. Every five
minutes we thumped over a culvert with a bump to
make the heart fly out of the throat.
Beneath us the road disappeared around a gable of
rock, leaving only a dizzy depth behind. It reap-
peared as a detached fragment on the other side of
the declivity and hung there like a remnant of a small
cornice, again to disappear around a sharp corner.
This was the road we must go, and at this same crazy
speed! The mayoral was standing on his seat shout-
ing and lashing away, while the reins swayed slackly
between the two shaft-animals.
But all things are in flux. A few hours later we were
again breathing freely. We abandoned our worries as
to life and limb and enjoyed the landscape. This was
the highest point of our journey. On either side little
glaciers sparkled in the light; cold clear brooklets
gushed forth—no wider than a finger—and trickled
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