Having danced until nearly time to get up, I went on in the harvest, half lame with weariness. And he took no notice, and made no mention of my distress. He went ahead, assuming that I would follow. I followed, dizzy, half blind, bitter with sweat in the hot light. He never turned his head, a man well known by his back in those fields in those days. He led me through long rows of misery, moving like a dancer ahead of me, so elated he was, and able, filled with desire for the ground’s growth. We came finally to the high still heat of four o’clock, a long time before sleep. And then he stood by me and looked at me as I worked, just looked, so that my own head uttered his judgment, even his laughter. He only said: “That social life don’t get down the row, does it, boy?” 2. I worked by will then, he by desire. What was ordeal for me, for him was order and grace, ideal and real. That was my awkward boyhood, the time of his mastery. He troubled me to become what I had not thought to be.
