The Moon 4.

This is the penultimate part of Drieka and the moon, by Herman Charles Bosman.

We were holding hands then, sitting on the grass with our feet in the road, and Drieka leant  her head on my shoulder, and her long hair stirred against my face, but I looked only at her feet. And I thought for a moment that I loved her. And I did not love her because her body was beautiful, or because she had red lips, or because her eyes were blue. In that moment I did not understand about her body or her red lips or her eyes. I loved her for her feet; and because her feet were in the road next to mine.

And yet all the time I felt, far away at the back of my mind, that it was the moon that was doing these things to me.

"You have got good feet for walking on," I said to Drieka.

"Braam Venter would have said that I have got good feet for dancing on," Drieka answered, laughing. And I began to grow jealous of Braam Venter.

The next thing I knew was that Drieka had thrown herself into my arms.

"Do you think I'm very beautiful, Schalk?" she asked.

"You are very beautiful, Drieka," I answered slowly, "very beautiful."

"Will you do something for me Schalk?" Drieka asked again, and her red lips were very close to my cheek. "Will you do something for me if I love you very much?"

"What do you want me to do Drieka?"

She drew my head down to her lips and whispered hot words in my ear.

And so it came about that I thrust her from me suddenly. I jumped unsteadily to my feet; found my horse and rode away. I left Drieka Breytenbach where I had found her, under the thorn-tree by the roadside, with her hot whisperings still ringing in my ears, and before I reached home the moon had set behind the Dwarsberge*.

*Berge, mountains.