changed. But it had always a kind of leisurely dignity, a trailing kind
of polka-waltz, intimate, passionate, yet never hurried, never violent
in its passion, always becoming more intense. The women's faces changed
to a kind of transported wonder, they were in the very rhythm of
delight. From the soft bricks of the floor the red ochre rose in a thin
cloud of dust, making hazy the shadowy dancers; the three musicians, in
their black hats and their cloaks, sat obscurely in the corner, making a
music that came quicker and quicker, making a dance that grew swifter
and more intense, more subtle, the men seeming to fly and to implicate
other strange inter-rhythmic dance into the women, the women drifting
and palpitating as if their souls shook and resounded to a breeze that
was subtly rushing upon them, through them; the men worked their feet,
their thighs swifter, more vividly, the music came to an almost
intolerable climax, there was a moment when the dance passed into a
possession, the men caught up the women and swung them from the earth,
leapt with them for a second, and then the next phase of the dance had
begun, slower again, more subtly interwoven, taking perfect, oh,
exquisite delight in every interrelated movement, a rhythm within a
rhythm, a subtle approaching and drawing nearer to a climax, nearer,
till, oh, there was the surpassing lift and swing of the women, when the
woman's body seemed like a boat lifted over the powerful, exquisite wave
of the man's body, perfect, for a moment, and then once more the slow,
intense, nearer movement of the dance began, always nearer, nearer,
always to a more perfect climax.
And the women waited as if in transport for the climax, when they would
be flung into a movement surpassing all movement. They were flung, borne
away, lifted like a boat on a supreme wave, into the zenith and nave of
the heavens, consummate.
Then suddenly the dance crashed to an end, and the dancers stood
stranded, lost, bewildered, on a strange shore. The air was full of red
dust, half-lit by the lamp on the wall; the players in the corner were
putting down their instruments to take up their glasses.
And the dancers sat round the wall, crowding in the little room, faint
with the transport of repeated ecstasy. There was a subtle smile on the
face of the men, subtle, knowing, so finely sensual that the conscious
eyes could scarcely look at it. And the women were dazed, like creatures
dazzled by too much light. The light was still on their faces, like a
blindness, a reeling, like a transfiguration. The men were bringing
wine, on a little tin tray, leaning with their proud, vivid loins, their
faces flickering with the same subtle smile. Meanwhile, Maria Fiori was
splashing water, much water, on the red floor. There was the smell of
water among the glowing, transfigured men and women who sat gleaming in
another world, round the walls.
The peasants have chosen their women. For the dark, handsome
Englishwoman, who looks like a slightly malignant Madonna, comes Il
Duro; for the '_bella bionda_', the wood-cutter. But the peasants have
always to take their turn after the young well-to-do men from the
village below.
Nevertheless, they are confident. They cannot understand the
middle-class diffidence of the young men who wear collars and ties and
finger-rings.
The wood-cutter from the mountain is of medium height, dark, thin, and
hard as a hatchet, with eyes that are black like the very flaming thrust
of night. He is quite a savage. There is something strange about his
dancing, the violent way he works one shoulder. He has a wooden leg,
from the knee-joint. Yet he dances well, and is inordinately proud. He
is fierce as a bird, and hard with energy as a thunderbolt. He will
dance with the blonde signora. But he never speaks. He is like some
violent natural phenomenon rather than a person. The woman begins to
wilt a little in his possession.
'_È bello--il ballo?_' he asked at length, one direct, flashing
<<BackPagesTo menuForward>>