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and shrugged his shoulders. An excellent question. Why not go ask him? And although he meant it in jest, she accepted the suggestion without second thought and ran to the carriage, moving slower than a crawling baby down the street, and jumped up on the running board, peered through the window at the man inside, and there he was, the magistrate, with that damned hat, but he had taken it off to wipe the sweat from his brow, and he stared at her as if she was an apparition, his eyes dark and blazing with youth, and in those eyes she would recognize something she would not see again until she met the would-be warrior, that one night when they were both watching fireworks at the lake, and her would-be lover's eyes were fixated at the tiny explosions in the sky, the lights as tiny as stars in his dark pupils.  |
Don't don't don't! the old man before her sobs. I'll do anything! You will lick my shoes? she says. Yes! You will do whatever I tell you, and you will not tell the madam? He does not respond immediately, and she brandishes the camera before him like a weapon. He falls to his knees. Yes, yes! You will continue to come here and pay me, and you will follow my every command?  |
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