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.
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