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. I think you re an idle loafer who ought to learn a little about honest work.I think you ve lain so soft all your life that you need some hardship andcrude discomfort to catch your spine before it dissolves altogether.Boththose things are going to happen to you before we get to Innsbruck.You veceased to be ornamental; so now you re going to turn into a useful workingsquaw-and like it! Am I? she said; and then her open hand struck him across the face.It was done before she knew what she was doing, an instant after she hadknocked the pan spinning out of his light grasp into mid-stream, her thin andragged self-control bursting like tissue before the intolerable flame of herresentment.The torrent of words came afterwards: she saw his smile quietly,and lashed out in sudden fear at the good-humored white flash of his teeth,but her clenched fist met empty air.He bent her over his knee and did exactly what he had promised to do, with animpersonal efficiency quite devoid of heat.When he released her she wassobbing with im-potent rage and real stinging pain.She turned and ran blindlyup the bank: if she had had a knife she would have driven it into his throat,but without it her one idea was to get away.Half unconsciously she found thepath which he had pointed out as the one that ran into Austria.There must bea road somewhere further on: there would be cars, someone would give her alift.Her eyes were hot and swimming with shame and anger.Then she looked back and saw him following her.She glimpsed his tall figurethrough the trees, rucksack on back, swinging lithely along without making anyeffort to overtake her.She plunged on till her lungs were bursting and theagony of her stiffened joints made every step a torture; but he was always thesame distance behind, unhurried and inescapable as doom.She had to rest orfall down. Go away! Go away! she cried, and struggled on with her heartpounding.The trees thinned out, and she saw telegraph poles on the other side of afield.She ran out into the road.A truck was coming towards her, headedsouth: she stood in the middle of the road and waved to it till it stopped.Page 60 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html Take me wherever you re going! she babbled. Take me to Innsbruck! I ll payyou anything you ask! The driver looked down at her uncomprehendingly. Innsbruck? He pointed down the road. Dorthin; aber es ist sehr weit zelaufen She pantomimed frantically, trying to make him under-stand.Why couldn t shespeak German?.And then the Saint s clear voice spoke cooly from the sideof the road, in the driver s own idiom. Permit me to introduce my wife.A little family argu-ment.Please don tbother.She ll get over it. The driver s mouth and eyes opened in an elaborate Ach, so! ofintelligence, the bottomless sympathy of one woman-ridden male to another.Hechuckled, and engaged his gears. Verzehen Sie, mein Herr! Ich habe auch eine Frau! he flung backwards as hedrove on.Belinda s strength drained out of her.She threw herself down at the side ofthe road and wept, with her face hidden in her arms.The Saint s quiet voicespoke from above her head like the voice of destiny. It s no good, Belinda.You can t run away.Life has caught up with you. 4Days followed through which she moved in a kind of fog -days of physicalexhaustion, dark rooms in inns, meals tastelessly yet ravenously devoured,washing of dishes and ruin of manicured hands, lumpy beds on the bare ground,scorching sun, dust, sweat, rain, and cold.Once, after a day of ceaselessdrizzle, when she had to sleep in her sodden clothes on earth that squelchedunder the flimsy ground-sheet, she was certain she must catch pneumonia anddie, and felt cruelly injured when the fresh air and healthy life refused evento let her catch a cold in the nose.She had those moods of self-pity when anyadded affliction would have been welcome, so that she could have looked up toHeaven like Job and protested that no one had ever suf-fered so much.Self-pity alternated with the hours when her mind was filled with nothing butmurderous hatred of the man who was always beside her, calm and unchanging asa mountain, blithely unruffled in good weather and bad.She carried out thetasks he set her because she had no choice; but she swore she would die beforehe could say he had broken her spirit.At first she washed the frying-panper-functorily, and brought it back with scraps of earth still clinging to thestubborn traces of egg: he said nothing about it, but that night he scrambledonly two eggs and gave them to her, grey and gritty with the remains of mudshe had left. That s your ration, he said remorselessly. If you don t like it, have thepan clean next time. Next time she finished her scouring with the towel, and when she wanted towash she tried to take his.He stopped her. Egg is grand for the complexion, he said. But if you object to drying yourface on a dishcloth, the usual remedy applies-plus washing the towel. Page 61 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlSometimes she thought she would steal his knife while he slept and cut histhroat: the impulse was there, but she knew she would have been lost withouthim.Even when the rain had poured all day and everything was drenched, heconjured dry wood out of empty air and had a fire going in no time; heintroduced unexpected variety into their simple fare, and robbed orchards forapples with abandoned en-thusiasm of a schoolboy.He was never bad-tempered orat a loss: he smoothed difficulties away without appearing to notice them
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