Chapter 5 part two

one A straight shadow, less than a foot wide, molded on the white dirt of the avenue.It sloped slightly towards the center of the road, but did not cut off the whole pavement: its rounded end—almost flat—reached only the middle of the road, and the left half of the road was free of shadows.Between the end of this shadow and the light grass by the roadside lay the body of a small, crushed frog: legs spread, arms folded, forming a darker circle in the white mud. gray point.The body had become so thin that it seemed that only a layer of skin remained, so dry and hard that it could not be harmed again; Shadow on the ground.The long shadow to the right of the body was the real shadow, which was actually much darker in color; now this long shadow gradually faded, and disappeared completely after a few seconds.Mathias looked up at the sky.

The upper half of a cloud has no sun, and the fringe of light leaking from the edge of the cloud moves rapidly, indicating the position of the sun.Other thinner and smaller clouds were blowing from the southwest and scattered here and there.Most of them are loose in shape, blown by the wind into loose meshes.Mathias took a moment to watch the transformation of a cloud: at first it resembled a sitting frog, then stretched its limbs and became a bird in profile, with its wings drawn down and its neck rather short, like a seagull The mouth is slightly curved, and even a big round eye can be recognized.For a fraction of a second, the gigantic gull appears to be perched on top of a telegraph pole.In fact the long shadow was the shadow of a telegraph pole, and now it reappeared undamaged, lying across the road.In the white mud and dust, the shadow of the wire cannot be seen.

A hundred meters away, a peasant woman was walking towards Mathias with a grain bag—it must have come from the village where the lighthouse was located.The twists and turns of the road and the position of this intersection prevented her from seeing which way Mathias came from.He might have come straight from town, or he might have come back from Malick's farmhouse.But on the other hand, the peasant woman might have found it quite unreasonable for him to stop here, and he himself was surprised when he thought about it.Why was he parked in the middle of the road, looking up at the clouds, with one hand on the handle of a nickel-plated bicycle and the other a small fiber box?Only then did he realize that he had been wandering hitherto in a state of desensitization (since when?).What he couldn't understand above all was why he didn't get on his bicycle, but pushed it along without haste, as if he didn't have to go anywhere else, and had nothing else to do.

The peasant woman walking towards him was now only about fifty meters away from him.She didn't look at him, but she must have noticed him and his unusual behavior.It was too late for him to hop on the bike and pretend he had come peacefully from the town, the farmhouse, or whatever.There wasn't even a shallow incline to force him to dismount, and his stay could only be explained by an accident; a minor accident, of course: some delicate part of the car—the transmission, for example— A malfunction has occurred. He looked at the rented bicycle, gleaming in the sun, and thought for a moment that such glitches could sometimes happen to brand-new bikes.He grabbed the handlebar with his left hand, which was already holding the small case, and bent down to check the chain.The chain seemed to be in good condition, carefully oiled and set neatly on the pedal sprockets.But the oily stains still clearly visible on his right hand proved that he had touched the chain at least once as a last resort.But the mark was of no use: as soon as he actually touched the chain, the tips of his four fingers were covered with large drops of thick black oil, much larger and thicker than the original oil, and even covered up the chain. Part of the original oil stain was covered.He added two horizontal lines on the clean thumb.Then he stood up.He recognized the yellow, sloping peasant woman two steps away from him as old Mrs. Malick.

Mathias had come that morning by steamer, intending to spend the day on the island; he had tried to find a bicycle as soon as he landed, but while he was waiting for the bicycle, he had already begun to sell goods in the port, which was different from his own. The original plan was the opposite.Since he didn't sell a single watch—although they were cheap and good—he doggedly visited all (or almost all) the households on both sides of the road from house to house, thinking that by doing so, he might have more chances.But he still wasted a lot of time in vain, so that when he reached the intersection after walking two kilometers, he was suddenly taken aback: it was too late, it was better to keep going straight ahead, and don't make another turn to reach the farmhouse. side went.Worst of all: the derailleur on the bicycle he rented from the coffee and tobacco shop...

The old peasant woman seemed to be walking past him instead of accosting him.She had looked him over carefully, and then turned away as if she didn't know him.He felt relieved at first, but then thought it would be better to talk to her.Finally it occurred to him that maybe she was pretending not to know him on purpose, although he couldn't see why she wouldn't want to chat with him for a few minutes, or just say hello.In any case, he decided to speak to her first, even though at this particular moment he was having a hard time getting the words out.In doing so, at a minimum, the real situation can be found out.So he amplified the grimace he had begun to contort, which he thought resembled a smile.

But it was too late to attract the peasant woman's attention by facial movements alone.She had crossed the perilous passage between the withered corpse of the frog and the dome of the telephone pole, and was about to walk away in the opposite direction.Now someone has to call her to stop her from continuing to those areas that are more difficult to walk through.Mathias' right hand gripped the smooth metal handle of the bicycle. A strange sentence came out of his mouth--not clear, Taikasu, too sudden to be very friendly, grammatically wrong--but he also heard from this sentence that the main The content already has: "Malick", "Hi", "Didn't recognize".The old woman turned her head and looked at him inexplicably.He said the main thing again more calmly, adding his own name.

"Oh!" said the old lady, "I didn't recognize you." She thought he looked tired, and she said he was "queer looking" as soon as she opened her mouth.She last saw him more than two years ago (the last time she was in town at her son-in-law's house), when Mathias still had a little mustache... He stated that he never had a big beard or a little mustache .The old peasant woman didn't seem to believe his words.To change the subject, she asked him what he was doing here: he wouldn't have much electrical equipment to fix, especially in the country where kerosene lamps were used almost everywhere.

Mathias explained that he had long since quit working as a mobile electrical repairman.Now he sells watches.He came this morning by steamer and wanted to stay on the island for a day.He rented a bicycle, but unfortunately it wasn't as good as its owner claimed (he showed her his greasy hand).So he wasted a lot of time until he got to the two-kilometre corner, when he... Mrs. Malick interrupted him: "Yes, you must have seen no one in our house." The traveling salesman told her to go on.She said that her daughter-in-law had gone to the mainland and was going to live there for half a month.The daughter-in-law's husband (her eldest son) was to stay in town all morning (the other two sons were sailors).Josephine has lunch at her husband's house every Tuesday.The children did not return from school until half past twelve, and only the eldest, who was apprenticed in the bakery, did not return until evening.The little guy is not sensible at all: last week...

Mathias may have met the father or the son, for he had begun his sales at the port, contrary to his original plan.Later, he thought that customers in the countryside were more reliable, so he painstakingly visited every household on the roadside.Here, as in town, too, he wasted a great deal of time.He hoped at least to be better received at the home of his old friend Malick, whom he would never fail to visit; but what he got was a greater disappointment, for he saw the house closed and had to Going back, it was impossible to find out how the family was doing--what was going on with Mrs. Malick, her sons, and the children.He couldn't figure out what it might mean that no one was home at the time when the family usually gathered for dinner.Could he not be worried about this incomprehensible silence?

He strained his ears to listen, and all he heard was silence.The breathing that might break this silence also stopped on its own initiative.Couldn't hear any sound inside at all.No one spoke.Nothing moves.Everything is silent.Mathias stooped a little more towards the closed door. He knocked again on the wooden door with his thick ring, and it sounded deep like an empty chest; but he had long since known that the gesture was useless: the sun was so bright that the door would have been open if anyone had been inside, Even the windows were open.He looked up at the windows on the second floor, but he could not see any signs of people—such as the shutters were opened, the curtains were drawn down, the figures on the windows disappeared suddenly, etc.; People guessed that someone was leaning on the window just now, but now the person is gone, or that the person who suddenly appeared just now is going to lean on the window again. He put the bicycle against the wall, and hesitantly walked a few steps on the muddy ground in the yard.He went as far as the kitchen window, trying to look in through the pane; but it was too dark to see anything clearly.He turned around, walked back to the way he came in, stopped after walking two or three meters, turned and walked in the opposite direction, took another look at the door downstairs and the closed shutters, and walked straight to the door. over the garden fence.The sparse lattice gate of the garden is also leaning on. He went back to the house again, went to what was presumably the kitchen window, and ascertained that the wooden shutters were indeed closed, not merely drawn.Then it was impossible to look inside the house. He went to get his bicycle.He had nothing else to do but leave. He was very disappointed.He had hoped to be received as he pleased here.Along the way he was already delighted to be able to visit his childhood friends, it never occurred to him that they would not be at home. Since this morning—since last night—he had been delighted to be able to visit his childhood friends, and he thought they must be surprised to see him arrive on his bicycle, since he had never been back to his hometown.He had had occasion, however, to meet Robert Malick's four sons several times, for they often went on holidays in the city to their uncle's house, which lived only a few steps away.They must have grown up since the last time he saw them, and he probably wouldn't recognize them, and he certainly couldn't help their parents discover that.They might keep him for lunch, which would certainly be better than being alone with two sandwiches; his sandwich, which was in the left pocket of his jacket for a snack, was now scorched by the hot sun. Get mushy. It was unbearably hot.The road got steeper and steeper, forcing him to slow down.Twice he stopped to visit two lonely houses on the side of the road.He walked out almost as soon as he realized they didn't want to buy watches.When he reached the fork that led to the mill, he continued straight on, for the information he had received told him that it was impossible for these people to buy even the cheapest watches; He has wasted a lot of time. A little further on, he saw a cottage set back from the road, at the end of a path that had fallen into disrepair.The humble appearance of the house dissuaded him from visiting.He looked at his watch: it was past noon. Now the road is less steep and it is easier to pedal a bicycle.Soon he reached a fork in the road two kilometers away.He saw freshly painted on the white road sign: Take this to Black Rock Lighthouse - one kilometer six. All the inhabitants of the island called this lighthouse the "Great Lighthouse." After another fifty meters, he left the main road and turned left into the side road that led directly to Malik's farmhouse. The surrounding scenery has changed significantly: there is a slope on both sides of the road, and thick thorn bushes grow almost continuously on the slope, and a pine tree grows behind the thorn bush every other section of the road. Yearning to slope southeast (in other words, the trees on the left side of the road slope towards the thornbush, and the trees on the right side of the road slope away from the thornbush). In order to reach the destination where there is hope to make a business sooner, Mathias began to pedal faster.The bike's chain started to make a nasty noise—as if something was rubbing against a cog on the rear axle.After he stepped on the slope, the transmission was a little strange, but he didn't take it to heart, and the chugging sound gradually weakened—or else he didn't continue to pay attention to the sound.Now the sound intensified so quickly that he had to get out of the car.He put the little box on the road, squatted down and turned the pedals by hand, checking the rotation.As a result of the inspection, he thought it would be enough to put a little pressure on the sprocket, but when he touched the chain with his hands, his fingers were stained with oil, and he had to clean his hands on the grass by the pit.He got back on the bike.The suspicious noise had almost completely disappeared. As soon as he entered the dirt yard in front of the farmhouse (which was really just the end of the road he had come on), he saw that the shutters of the two downstairs windows had been lowered.The door between the two windows, which he had thought to be open, was in fact closed.The two windows on the first floor were just above the two downstairs; the shutters on the upper floor were open, but the panes were closed, despite the bright sunlight beating against the panes.Above the gate, between the two windows on the second floor, was a mass of gray stone, as if there should have been a third window; It was used to put statues, but now there is nothing in it. On either side of the gate grew a cluster of thorn roses, which were still green and were beginning to turn yellow.Mathias leaned his bicycle against the wall of the house, under the closed shutter of the first window, to the left of the thorn rose bush on the left.He went all the way to the gate, holding the small box in his hand. In order not to regret it later, he knocked on the door, but he knew that no one would answer it. After a few seconds, he tapped again with his big round ring.Then he took a step back and looked up at the second-story window.There was apparently no one in the house. He looked towards the hay shed in the depths of the yard, turned around and walked three meters to the road he came in, stopped at the entrance, and walked in another direction, this time he walked all the way to the vegetable garden yellow outside.The latticed garden gate was also closed, and locked with a chain and a padlock. He came back to the house again.The rich man on the right was probably the kitchen window, and it seemed to him that the shutters were not closed securely, as if they were only drawn to block the sun.He went over and tried to throw the window open with his hands, but was unsuccessful: the inside hooks were locked. Mathias had no choice but to go back.He went to get his bicycle, which was leaning against the wall under the other window.He got on the bike and walked back along the original road, holding the handlebar in his right hand and the small box in his left hand - the small box was slightly leaning against the left handle of the handlebar.He had just stepped onto the road when the car screeched again, louder this time.About a hundred meters in front of him, a peasant woman holding a grain bag came towards him. He had to get off again to push the chain back into the sprocket on the keywheel.As before, his fingers were soiled again.When he was done, he stood up straight, only to realize that the wrinkled, yellow-faced peasant woman who was about to pass him by was the old lady Malick. The old lady did not recognize him at once.If he hadn't spoken to her first, she might have walked past him without looking at him, because it was hard for her to expect to meet him here.The old lady apologized that she hadn't recognized him because his appearance had changed since she last saw him in town, and he looked tired today - which was normal because he Had to wake up earlier than usual to board the boat, and hadn't gone to bed earlier the night before departure, plus he had been sleep deprived for the last few days. The last time they met was two years ago.Mathias says he has changed careers in the past two years: he now sells watches.He regretted not seeing anyone at the farmhouse, for he was selling cheap and fine watches that would surely please Robert and his wife.How come neither of them were home, and neither were the children?Mathias wished them all good health. Yes, they are all in good health.The old lady—listed the reasons why they were not at home—the father had gone to town, the mother would not come back until half a month after going out, the children were still in school, etc... She also said that if this afternoon immediately One more time with David, and he'd see Robert, and see old Sephine, the poor girl who needed a watch so badly that she wouldn't be always a quarter of an hour late. Mathias must have missed his father and the three youngest children by just a little, who were usually home by half past twelve.They took a short cut, across the meadow to the garden, and entered through the back of the house.She added that perhaps they were home by now; but she did not invite Mathias to go back with her, and Mathias did not dare to propose it himself, because it was lunch time and he was afraid of disturbing others.All she asked was to see her watch, and Mathias had to put down the little case by the side of the road and show her the watch.On the road next to it lay the shriveled corpse of a macro clam. The old lady was anxious to go home, and it didn't take her long to make up her mind.She wanted to give her grandson - the baker's apprentice - a nice present on his seventeenth birthday.She bought a watch (including a metal bracelet) for 155 crowns, which, she said, would be enough for a child.The traveling salesman assured her that she would not regret choosing the watch, but the old lady was not interested in his detailed description of the quality of the watch, so she interrupted his explanation and assurance, paid the money and thanked her , I wished Mathias good luck, and hurriedly turned and left.A traveling salesman is used to doing business in other people's houses. He can't pack the watch well when doing business on the roadside. Yes, although the clockwork has already been wound. Mathias squatted in front of the small box, put the cardboard, the manual and the memo on the black cloth--all together, closed the lid, and closed the button.Now he could take a closer look at the gray speck in the white dirt on the road—he thought at first it was a dead frog.Judging from the too short hind legs, this is actually the corpse of a clam (and usually it is always the clam that is crushed to death by the side of the road).This one may have died last night, for the body wasn't too shriveled, but the dirt that covered it made it look very shriveled.The squashed head has changed shape, and beside it is a red ant scavenging for edible scraps. The surrounding pavement changed color.Mathias looked up at the sky.A piece of cloud that was blown by the wind seemed to be scattered but not yet dispersed was flying, and once again lost the sun.The sky gradually darkened. The traveling salesman got back on his bicycle and continued on his way.The weather became cooler and the jacket became less unbearable.The ground neither rises nor falls.This favorable situation made the car go smoothly.The wind blowing from the side didn't actually hinder the bicycle. With a small box in his hand, Judi Yasi pedaled quickly, almost without exerting any effort. He stopped to visit a lonely house on the side of the road—a bungalow of the most ordinary style.On either side of the gate were two tufts of gorse-like thorn-roses, the shrubs that grow before the doors of most houses on the island and on the opposite coast.He leaned his bicycle against the wall below the window and knocked on the door. The person who opened the door appeared through the crack, much smaller than he had expected.It must have been a child—judged by his height—even a relatively young child—but Ma Rongyasi could not even look to see whether the other party was a boy or a girl, because the person quickly Shrunk back and disappeared into the dimly lit corridor.He walked in and closed the door behind him.It was very dark inside, and his eyes had not had time to adjust to the darkness, so he went through the second door without knowing how it was opened. A man and a woman sat facing each other at a table.They didn't eat, maybe they had finished eating.It seemed as if they were waiting for this traveler. The traveler put the small case on the bare oilcloth table.He regarded the silence of the masters as acquiescence, and began to brag confidently while showing the goods.The two owners sat in their chairs and listened politely; they even scrutinized the watches with a certain interest, passing the cardboard to each other, trying to make some brief comments: "This one has a very practical look," That one has a nicer case", etc. . and their opinions are often limited to some cautious and objective remarks: "This one is flatter", "The glass of that one is protruding", "The surface of this one is rectangular"... …these obvious nonsense didn’t bother them one iota. In the end they settled on the cheapest one--exactly the same as the one the old peasant woman had just bought.They pick one, with neither enthusiasm nor apparent reason (“Why not buy this one?”).They didn't ask each other for advice, as if they didn't even look at the watch.After the man took out his wallet and paid for it, Mathias regretted not asking them to buy a watch worth two or three times the price, and he thought they would have bought it with the same unhesitating indifference. No one sent him out.The new watch with the metal bracelet was still placed on the oilcloth table, shining brightly between the man and woman who had already looked away, ignored and wronged. From here to Heiyan Village, there are no other houses along the road.Mathias stepped quickly and steadily for nearly a kilometer.The bicycle cast only very dim shadows on the road—and intermittently—and within a few moments the shadows disappeared completely.The sky is covered with gray clouds, leaving only a few sparse and unstable blue patches; the lighthouse, which is getting closer, now stands on the gray sky. The lighthouse is one of the tallest and most massive structures in the area.In addition to the white-painted, nearly conical lighthouse itself, it also includes a signal machine, a radio station, a small power station, and a protruding outpost equipped with four beacons to send signals in foggy weather. The giant siren, several ancillary buildings for machinery and supplies, and finally staff and family dormitories.If these employees are engineers or ordinary technicians, they may become the richest buyers. Unfortunately, these people are not the type of people who want to buy watches from a traveling salesman. All that remains is the village itself.There used to be only three or four run-down houses in this village, but now it has grown with the development of the adjacent lighthouse, but on a smaller scale.No matter how good Mathias's memory was, he could not have recognized the village, because the village was much larger than in his childhood: a dozen or so newly built small houses had surrounded and covered the old ones, and new ones had been built. It was in haste, but handsome in appearance; the original house had thicker walls, a lower roof, and small square windows, which the experienced eye could recognize here and there.The new houses are not of the weather-proof kind: though they are in fact not very different from the old ones--except for the minor differences just mentioned--they seem to be Regardless of any weather, regardless of historical dynasties, regardless of geographical location, it can exist.One wonders: How can they also withstand the harsh weather here?Unless the climatic conditions here also improve slightly. Arriving in this village was like arriving in any other place.There is a grocery store in the village, and of course a small hotel, situated almost at the entrance of the village.Mathias put the bicycle by the gate and walked into the hotel. The furnishings inside are exactly the same as those of all shops of this kind, whether in the country or in the suburbs of a large city, or on the wharf of a small fishing port, the furnishings of this kind of hotel are all the same.The girl who sells wine behind the counter is jittery and nervous like a dog, and the girl who is nervous like a dog is selling wine behind the counter... Behind the counter is a fat woman with a thick head of gray hair, a contented and happy woman. faces; she was pouring wine for two workmen in blue overalls.Her gesture of pouring wine is clean and neat, and she is a complete expert; just as the wine is full to the rim, she gently twists her wrist and lifts the neck of the bottle.Mathias went to the counter, put the little case on the ground between his feet, and ordered a glass of absinthe. The traveling salesman was just about to order a glass of absinthe without thinking about it, when he suddenly changed his mind--the word "good absinthe" has not yet been uttered.He tried to think of the name of the other kind of wine, but he couldn't think of it, and when he saw that the shopkeeper was still holding the bottle after she had poured the wine for the two lighthouse workers, he pointed to it and said: "Give me a drink too." After finishing speaking, he put the small box on the ground between his feet. The woman put a wine glass in front of him, which was exactly the same as the glasses of the two workmen just now; her other hand had not put down the wine bottle, and then poured wine into the glass-with the same clean gesture. Soon, most of the wine was still in the space between the bottom of the glass and the bottle, so she lifted the bottle at this moment.As soon as the rotation of the wrist stops, the surface of the wine also stops at the same time, filling the glass exactly to the rim - not even a little higher - as if there is an imaginary pattern limiting the theoretical capacity of the wine glass. The color—a fairly dark reddish brown—is that of a typical wine-based drink.The bottle was quickly returned to the shelf, lined up with other bottles of a different brand, indistinguishable from each other.Just now the wine bottle was in the woman's fat hand, and Mathias couldn't see the brand of the wine because of the spread of the fingers—or because of the position of the signboard and the angle of the observer.Mathias wanted to go over the scene in his mind, so that he could record the fragment of the colorful signboard, compare it with the bottles on the shelf, and find the bottle.In the end, all he could find was an abnormality that had not surprised him at all: the proprietress poured wine with her left hand. He looked at her more closely; she was washing and swabbing glasses--movements with the usual dexterity and speed--but he did not know how to step down for each hand in advance according to their respective functions in this complicated work. An indicator, so that in the end, he couldn't tell whether she was right-handed like ordinary people or left-handed.As he watched, he recalled the scene, and finally he got confused himself, and began to confuse his left hand with his right hand. The woman put down the rag, picked up a coffee grinder beside her, sat on a stool, and began to grind coffee vigorously.Fearing that she would tire one arm by grinding so fast, she turned the handle of the mill with both hands in turn. Amid the noise of coffee beans being ground, a customer said something to his companion - Mathias did not understand what was said.A couple of syllables, he recalled, seemed to make up "cliff" and—this was more difficult to be sure—the verb "to bind."He listened attentively and no one spoke anymore. The traveling salesman found it odd: the two men had been silent since his arrival, just sipping their wine, setting their glasses on the counter with each sip.Maybe he interrupted an important conversation of theirs?He tried to imagine what they were talking about.But he was suddenly afraid of knowing the subject, and began to fear that they might continue their conversation, as if their conversation might involve him inadvertently.According to this unreasonable reasoning, he can go on without difficulty: the words "unintentionally", for example, are superfluous, because if they are silent when he comes, they will not be in front of the landlady. There is no silence, apparently because they ... because "he" ... "in front of" the proprietress, rather "talking with her".Now they and the shopkeeper pretended not to know each other.The hostess grinds continuously, pausing only when she is about to pour coffee beans into the grinder.The two workers always managed to leave a sip of wine in the bottom of the glass.No one seemed to have anything to say, but five minutes before he had seen the three of them, outside the glass window, talking really well. The shopkeeper was pouring wine for the two men, who, like most lighthouse workers, wore blue overalls.Mathias leaned his bicycle against the window, pushed open the glass door, went up to the two men on the counter, leaned his hand on the counter, and ordered a glass of wine.After the hostess had poured him the wine, she began to grind the coffee.She is a middle-aged woman, fat, bulky, and deftly moving.At this time there were no sailors in the hotel.The house has no buildings.Looking out from the gate, you can't see the sparkling water in the harbor. Apparently no one had anything to say.Mathias turned his head and looked at the hall.Suddenly afraid that everything would start all over again: three fishermen whom he hadn't noticed when he came in - one very young and two older - were sitting at a table in the house with Sanlin red wine in front of them; At this moment the youngest one began to speak—but the noise of the coffee being ground prevented Mathias from hearing what he began.He pricked up his ears to listen.As usual, the talk is about sluggish sales of crabs.He turned his head to the counter again, trying to finish the glass of red wine whose name he didn't know. He met the gaze of the landlady; it turned out that just as he turned his head to look behind him, the landlady was peeking at him while grinding the coffee.He looked down at his glass as if he saw nothing.To his left, two workmen looked ahead at a row of bottles on a wine rack. "Maybe you are the traveling salesman who sells watches?" the shopkeeper asked suddenly in a calm voice. He looks up.She was looking at him all the time, turning the handle of the coffee grinder all the time—he thought her gaze was friendly. "Yes, that's me," replied Mathias. "Have you been told that a traveling salesman is passing by? News travels so fast here!" "Maria, daughter of the Leducs, was here just before you came in. She was looking for her sister, the youngest. You were at their house this morning, the last one on the edge of town." "Well, of course I've been to their house. Her brother—Joseph—was an old friend of mine, the one who worked in the steamship company. But I didn't see any of his daughters today. No. They never told me that the youngest daughter was with you." "She's not here. Her mother told her to graze their family's four or five sheep over the cliff. She slipped away again. Always going where she wasn't supposed to, making a lot of 3Es." "Did they tell her to take the flock all that far?" "No, of course not; just tell her to go under the corner of the road two kilometers away. Maria went to tell her to go home early, but there was no one left, only the sheep, and the girl tied the flock in a row.木桩上。”