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duty to do so, until in the end Tzili too felt that she was only getting what she deserved.
    But for the mud she would have walked by the riverside. She liked walking on the banks of the river. For some reason she believed that nothing bad would happen toher next to the water, but she was obliged to walk across the bare mountainside, washed by the melted snow. The valleys were full of mud.
    She came to the edge of a forest. The fields spreading below it steamed in the sun. She sat down and fell asleep. When she woke the sun was on the other side of the horizon, low and cold.
    She tried to remember. She no longer remembered anything. The long winter had annihilated even the little memory she possessed. Only her feet sensed the earth as they walked. She knew this piece of ground better than her own body. A strange, uncomprehending sorrow suddenly took hold of her.
    She took the rags carefully off her feet and then bound them on again. She treated her feet with a curious solemnity. It did not occur to her to ask what would happen when darkness fell. The sun was sinking fast on the horizon. For some reason she remembered that Katerina had once said to her, in a rare moment of peace: “Women are lucky. They don’t have to go to war.”
    Now she felt detached from everyone. She had felt the same thing before, but not in the same way. Sometimes she would imagine that someone was waiting for her, far away on the horizon. And she would feel herself drawn toward it. Now she seemed to understand instinctively that there was no point going on.
    As she sat staring into space, a sudden dread descended on her. What is it? she said and rose to herfeet. There was no sound but for the gurgle of the water. On the leafless trees in the distance a blue light flickered.
    It occurred to her that this was her punishment. The old woman had said that many punishments were in store for her. “There’s no salvation for bastards!” she would shriek.
    “What have I done wrong?” Tzili once asked uncautiously.
    “You were born in sin,” said the old woman. “A woman born in sin has to be cleansed, she has to be purified.”
    “How is that done?” asked Tzili meekly.
    “I’ll help you,” said the old woman.
    That night she found shelter in an abandoned shed. It was cold and her body was sore, but she was content, like a lost animal whose neck has been freed from its yoke at last. She slept for hours on the damp straw. And in her dreams she saw Katerina, not the sick Katerina but the young Katerina. She was wearing a transparent dress, sitting by a dressing table, and powdering her face.

12
    W HEN SHE WOKE it was daylight. Scented vapors rose from the fields. And while she was sitting there a man seemed to come floating up from the depths of the earth. For a moment they measured each other with their eyes. She saw immediately: he was not a peasant. His city suit was faded and his face exhausted.
    “Who are you?” he asked in the local dialect. His voice was weak but clear.
    “Me?” she asked, startled.
    “Where are you from?”
    “The village.”
    This reply confused him. He turned his head slowly to see if anyone was there. There was no one. She smelled the stale odor of his mildewed clothes.
    “And what are you doing here?”
    She raised herself slightly on her hands and said: “Nothing.”
    The man made a gesture with his hand as if he was about to turn his back on her. But then he said: “And when are you going back there?”
    “Me?”
    Now it appeared that the conversation was over. But the man was not satisfied. He stroked his coat. He seemed about forty and his hands were a grayish white, like the hands of someone who had not known the shelter of a man-made roof for a long time.
    Tzili rose to her feet. The man’s appearance revolted her, but it did not frighten her. His soft flabbiness.
    “Haven’t you got any bread?” he asked.
    “No.”
    “And no sausage either?”
    “No.”
    “A pity. I would have given you money