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protect her nose, mouth, and eyes from the sand, but the contrast seemed to make the naked body stand out even more.
    The whole surface of her body was covered with a coat of fine sand, which hid the details and brought out the feminine lines; she seemed a statue gilded with sand. Suddenly a viscid saliva rose from under his tongue. But he could not possibly swallow it. Were he to swallow, the sand that had lodged between his lips and teeth would spread through his mouth. He turned toward the earthen floor and spat. Yet no matter how much he ejected he could not get rid of the gritty taste. No matter how he emptied his mouth the sand was still there. More sand seemed to issue constantly from between his teeth.
    Fortunately the water jar had recently been replenished and was brimming full. When he had rinsed his mouth and washed his face he felt better. Never before had he been so keenly aware of the marvel of water. Water was an inorganic substance like sand, a simple, transparent, inorganic substance that adapted to the body more readily than any living thing. As he let the water trickle slowly down his throat, he imagined stone-eating animals.
    Again he turned and looked toward the woman. But he had no desire to go any closer. A sand-covered woman was perhaps attractive to look at but hardly to touch.
    With daylight, the exasperation and excitement of the preceding night seemed pure fantasy. Of course, the whole thing would be good material for conversation. The man again looked around, as if to fix what had already become a memory, and hurriedly began to get ready. His shirt and trousers were loaded with sand. However, there was no sense worrying about such things. It was more difficult to shake all the sand from the fibers of his clothes than to get the dandruff off his head. His shoes, too, were buried in the sand. He wondered if he should say something to the woman before he left. But, on the other hand, it would only embarrass her to be awakened. Anyway, what should he do about paying her for the night’s lodging? Perhaps it would be better to stop on the way back through the village and give the old man from the cooperative the money—the one who had brought him here the day before. Stealthily he went out.
    The sun was boiling mercury, poised at the edge of the sand cliff. Little by little it was beginning to heat the bottom of the hole. He hastily turned his eyes away from the intense glare. In the next instant he had already forgotten it. He simply stared at the facade of the sand wall.
    It was unbelievable! The rope ladder had vanished from the place it had been the night before. The marker bags, half buried by the sand, were perfectly visible. There was no mistake, he remembered the spot. He wondered: Had the ladder alone been swallowed up by the sand? He rushed to the wall and sank his arms into the sand, groping for it. The sand gave way, unresisting, and ran down. However, he wasn’t trying to find a needle in a haystack; if he did not succeed with the first try, he never would, no matter how much he searched. Stifling his rising apprehension, he looked again in blank amazement at the abruptness of the slope.
    Wasn’t there some spot where it could be scaled? he wondered. He circled the house two or three times, looking. If he climbed up on the roof of the house, the distance to the rim of the hole would be shortest on the north side, toward the sea, but it would still be over thirty feet. And, what was more, the wall there was steeper than anywhere else. The massive brow of sand which hung down seemed exceedingly dangerous.
    The west wall seemed to be a comparatively gentle incline, having a curved surface like the inside of a cone. At an optimistic estimate it was probably around fifty or even forty-five degrees. Cautiously he took a probing step. With each step forward he slid back a half step. Even so, it looked as though he could make it with a very great effort.
    Things went as he had expected for the