I

The foreman's head slowly circling... White rims under yellow disks of eyes.... Gold hairs starting out of a blond scowl... Hovering... disappearing... recurring... the foreman's head.

Droning of power-machines... droning of girl with adenoids... Arms flapping with a fin-like motion under sun burning down through a sky-light like a glass lid. Light skating on the rims of wheels... boring in gimlet points. Needles flickering fierce white threads of light fine as a wasp's sting. Light in sweat-drops brighter than eyes and calico-pallid faces and bodies throwing off smells-- and the air a bloated presence pressing on the walls and the silence a compressed scream.

Allons enfants de la patrie-- Electric... piercing... shrill as a fife the voice of a little Russian breaks out of the shivered circle. Another voice rises... another and another leaps like flame to flame. And life--surging, clamorous, swarming like a rabble crazily fluttering ragged petticoats-- comes rushing back into torpid eyes like suddenly yielded gates.

The girl with adenoids rocks on her hams. A torrent of song strains at her throat, gurgles, rushes, gouges her blocked pipes. Her feet beat a wild tattoo-- head flung back and pelvis lifting to the white body of the sun. Mates now, these two-- goddess and god.... Marchons!

Only the power machines drone with metallic docility under the flaxen head of the foreman poised like an amazed gull.