Robert Coover - Pricksongs & Descants

For a brief but stunning moment, we suddenly see the man’s hysterical face again, as though in a memory, a sudden terrorizing recollection that drives a cold and unwanted tremor through us — but we gradually perceive that it is not the man at all, no, it is only the face of the white rabbit, nothing more, its wide-nostriled nose quivering, its rodent eyes cloudy, its mouth split in a sardonic grin. As we slip back, we discover that it is between the jaws of the lean-bodied dog. Listening carefully, we.are able to hear a rhythmic crackle, not unlike soldiers marching over fragile porcelain. Louder it grows and louder, even after the dog and the rabbit it is munch ing on are long since out of sight. At last, nevertheless, even this sound diminishes, is absorbed into the transcendent silence of winter. Snow again begins to fall.

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2

The Milkmaid of Samaniego

Uevaba en la cabeza

una lechera el cdntaro etcetera futuro;

mira que ni el presente estd seguro.

We’ve nothing present to let us suppose it, except the realization perhaps of being, vaguely, in the country somewhere, yet nevertheless it is true: there is, though we do not now see her, a milkmaid approaching. Nor is her coming suggested in any way by the man’s expression or position. He for his part merely sits, as a man alone might sit, at the foot of the small arched bridge, staring idly at the stream eddying by, occasionally breaking a hunk of bread from the loaf in his lap and stuffing it between his yellow teeth. He chews without much interest, the thick wads of bread forming shifting bulges in his dark unshaven cheeks. Yet, for all that, there is in fact a milkmaid approaching, on her head a tall gently curving pitcher filled with fresh milk for the market It’s almost as though there has been some sort of unspoken but well understood prologue, no mere epigraph of random design, but a precise structure of predetermined images, both basic and prior to us, that describes her to us before our senses have located her in the present combination of shapes and colors. We are, then, aware of her undeniable approach, aware somehow of the slim graceful pitcher, the red kerchief knotted about her neck, her starched white blouse and brightly flowered skirt, her firm yet jubilant stride down the dusty road, this dusty road leading to the arched bridge, past the oaks and cypresses, the twisted wooden fences, the haphazard system of sheep and cattle, alongside the occasional cottage and frequent fields, fields of clover, cabbage, and timothy, past chickens scratching in the gravel by the road, and under the untempered ardor of the summer sun.

We might not, on the other hand, have thought of the man. And even had the ambiguity of our expectations allowed a space for him, as it might allow, for example, foe various dispositions of the oaks, the cypresses, the daffodils and the cabbages, we probably would not have had him just at the bridge, just where our attention might, at the wrong moment, be distracted from the maid. And, what is more, his tattered black hat, the hair curling about his ears and around his sun-blackened neck, his torn yellow shirt open down the front, his fixed and swollen right eye, nearly two fingers lower than the left: these are all surprises, too, and of a sort that might encourage us to look for another bridge and another milkmaid, were such a happy option available. But, as though conscious of our sensing him intrusive and discomposing, he suddenly starts up from his idle contemplation of the brook below him, cocks his head attentively to the right, exaggerating thereby the grotesquerie of his bad eye, and slowly, deliberately, turns to look over his right shoul der, thus guiding us directly toward the milkmaid herself, now barely visible at a turning in the road, several hundred paces away.

The maid moves gracefully, evenly, surely toward us, as if carried by a breeze, though there is none this hot day, her delicate hands in the folds of her brightly flowered apron, lifting her apron and skirt slightly to make still smoother her light-bodied stride, on her head as though mounted there for all time the tall eggshell-white pitcher, the kind used for carrying fresh milk to the market Her feet stir small swirls of dust in the road, intensifying the general effect of midsummer haze. A white hen rears up, ruffles its feathers, then scrambles across the road in front of her, stopping to scratch in the gravel on the other side. Even from this distance, we can make out the trace of a smile on the girl’s fine-boned face, and beneath the red — or rather, daffodil yellow — kerchief knotted around her neck, her full breasts, fuller perhaps than we had expected, thrust proudly forward within the white starched blouse.

As she slowly completes the long turn in the road and approaches us from directly ahead, her hips broaden perceptibly, her skirts grow fuller. The pitcher, a stoneware jug, long and smooth with a narrow mouth, is a soft absorbent white, the slightly gray color of eggshells; it rests steadily on her auburn head, as beneath it she moves with a gliding, purely linear motion down the dusty rutted road, a smile playing suggestively on her rouged mouth, her eyes looking neither left nor right, but steadfastly upon the road several paces ahead. As she walks, her skirt flutters and twists as though caught by some breeze, though there is none. Her — but the man, this one with the tattered hat and bulging eye, he stands and — no, no! the maid, the maid!

Through the eddies of dust swirling about her feet, we can catch an occasional glimpse of her ankles, rather thick but flashing nimbly in the summer sun beneath her dark skirt and brightly checked apron. Her hands, though coarse and broad-palmed, are strong and self-confident, the dark calloused hands of a milkmaid, hands that curry cattle, grasp swollen teats, and shovel fodder into bins. Above the kerchief, the rich color of goldenrods, knotted about her neck, her bemused smile exposes large even teeth, white and healthy. Her nose shifts just a bit to the left, extends slightly, and above the right nostril there appears, or has appeared, a small dark spot, not unlike a wart, or a mole. Her narrow black eyes look neither left nor right, but stare vacantly into the road several paces ahead. Above her high-boned face, tanned dark by the unremittent summer sun, and nested securely in her peat-colored hair is the tall pitcher, completely undisturbed by her graceful heavy-bodied stride.

The pitcher itself is a pale gray in color, shaded darker at the neck, and etched throughout with an intricate tracery of minute rust-colored veins. Even from extreme proximity, we are struck by its resemblance, in both hue and texture, to the shells of white eggs. In fact, as we observe yet more closely, we discover that it is not a pitcher at all, though it has seemed like one, but actually real eggs, six dozen at least, maybe seven, all nestled in a great raffia basket, the kind of basket used for carrying fresh eggs to the market. Suddenly, even as we watch, a kind of internal energy seems to take possession of the eggs: they tumble about in the basket, burst open, and a hundred chicks, or more, yes! surely more! pop out, one by one, fluff their yellow down, and scurry about for the seed tossed at them by the gay excited milkmaid in her brightly flowered apron. They fluster anxiously, almost furiously, about her narrowing ankles, and the fester they run, the fester they grow — now they are fat white hens, now they are still fetter yellow sows, their bellies scraping the ground, their snouts rummaging voraciously in die superfluity of cabbage, bran, and acorns, which the slender maid is flinging into their troughs. And, as we look about now for the first time, we discover still more sows, chickens, too, even cattle with their calves, all surrounding as though glorifying in the happy milkmaid with the eggshell-white pitcher on her head.