Henderson the Rain King - Saul Bellow [26]
and me, and everyone was looking at the fellow and his cow. But seeing how much emotional hardship there was in this sight I started to move on; but the next thing I saw was even sadder. A man of about fifty, white-haired, was kneeling, weeping and shuddering, throwing dust on his head, because his cow was passing away. All watched with grief, while the fellow took her by the horns, which were lyre-shaped, begging her not to leave him. But she was already in the state of indifference and the skin over her eyes wrinkled as if he were only just keeping her awake. At this I myself was swayed; I felt compassion, and I said, "Prince, for Christ's sake, can't anything be done?" Itelo's large chest lifted under the short, loose middy and he pulled a great sigh as if he did not want to spoil my visit with all this grief and mourning. "I do not think," said Itelo. Just then the least expected of things happened, which was that I caught a glimpse of water in considerable amounts, and at first I was inclined to interpret this as the glitter of sheet metal coming and going before my eyes keenly. But there is something unmistakable about the closeness of water. I smelled it too and I stopped the prince and said to him, "Check me out on this, will you, Prince? But here is this guy killing himself with lamentation and if I'm not mistaken I actually see some water shining over there to the left. Is that a fact?" He admitted that it was water. "And the cows are dying of thirst?" I said. "So there must be something wrong with it? It's polluted? But look," I said, "there must be something you can do with it, strain it or something. You could make big pots--vats. You could boil out the impurities. Hey, maybe it doesn't sound practical, but you'd be surprised, if you mobilized the whole place and everybody pitched in--gung-ho! I know how paralyzing a situation like this can become." But all the while the prince, though shaking his head up and down as though he agreed, in reality disagreed with me. His heavy arms were folded across his middy blouse, while a tattered shade came down from the squash flower parasol held aloft by the naked women with their four hands as if they might be carried away by the wind. Only there was no wind. The air was as still as if it were knotted to the zenith and stuck there, parched and blue, a masterpiece of midday beauty. "Oh � thank you," he said, "for good intention." "But I should mind my own business? You may be right. I don't want to bust into your customs. But it's hard to see all this going on and not even make a suggestion. Can I have a look at your water supply at least?" With a certain reluctance he said, "Okay. I suppose." And Itelo and I, the two of us almost of a size, left his wives and the other villagers behind and went to see the water. I inspected it, and except for some slime or algae it looked all right, and was certainly copious. A thick wall of dark green stone retained it, half cistern and half dam. I figured that there must be a spring beneath; a dry watercourse coming from the mountain showed what the main source of supply was normally. To prevent evaporation a big roof of thatch was pitched over this cistern, measuring at least fifty by seventy feet. After my long hike I would have been grateful to pull off my clothes and leap into this shady, warm, albeit slightly scummy water to swim and float. I would have liked nothing better than to lie floating under this roof of delicate-looking straw. "Now, Prince, what's the complaint? Why can't you use this stuff?" I said. Only the prince had come up with me to this sunken tank; the rest of them stood about twenty yards off, obviously unsettled and in a state of agitation, and I said, "What's eating your people? Is there something in this water?" And I stared in and realized for myself that there was considerable activity just below the surface. Through the webbing of the light I saw first polliwogs with huge heads, at all stages of development, with full tails like giant sperm, and with budding feet. And then great powerful frogs, spotted, swimming