Lost trumpet

THE LOST TRUMPET Iiy
from the scenery. The Cairo road opened and closed,
opened and closed with the glister and screech of a
fast-run film. The browns and faint greens of the land
to either side were a blur of racing no-colour. “Do
hope these goats are active-minded,” said Pelagueya.
A straying dunness upon the road careered towards
us, swayed, broke, departed on either side with a
wild bleat and one elongated screech from a human
throat. I looked back. A doll with toy animals in
its charge waved miniature arms and vanished down
the edge of the horizon. I brought out a cigar and
lighted it and leaned back, turning my head and
shoulders so that I might look at Pelagueya, not at
the foolish antics of the landscape. And I forgot the
landscape, so looking at her, bending in that Nike
Apteros intensity of motion and purpose, with those
fine Greek arms of hers curving upon the wheel and
her hair back-blown in the rush of the wind, and a
spray of fine blood below her cheek-bones, and a
little vein beating in the pallor of her throat. And I
seemed to see then things of a breath-taking beauty
and wonder with which, foolishly, I had never made
myself acquainted. That little curve of nostril—a
second curve just where nostril met with cheek :
that was a wonderful thing. And a fine down—a
tracery that was Spanish—along that curved upper
lip. My God, I had never noticed it before ! Nor the
miracle of uptilted breasts beneath a thin dress
I became aware of a gale that had ceased, of a
landscape that crawled, of Pelagueya, very white,
swaying at the wheel. I caught it from her in time