The train ground lazily to a halt, a darksome smoker in a first class compartment window.
Small station.
[...]
A three minute stop. Three only. But here's what happened in the light of June. Behind the station had arrived a huge country carriage, old and worn, drawn by shaggy long-eared ponies, sort of donkey-looking. A smile misted the light above this carriage, who seemed brought forward from a land of yore, through fields of wheat and corn poppies.
The ponies had soft-singing bells hanging on their necks.
A girl talked loudly with the sparrows in the month of cherries, and laughed at them with fresh teeth; the second one, more quiet, more nun-like in the shadows of her black eyelashes, had her arms filled with a bouquet of briskly multicolored wild flowers. Both wore that kind of straw hats made in Transylvania, barely held on the top of the head -- floating in the sun like lotuses on water -- tied with a ribbon under the chin, not to be blown away by wind. Linen dresses, short sleeved, a bit rumpled. Sandals. Seen from behind, same height, they looked like sisters, seen from the front, young friends just climbed down from a swing, a swing where they had floated together suspended in the sky, sun, wind, both alive, dizzied by summer, bringing with them an airy elfishness.
All around them, spilled from the carriage, crowding and fidgeting like frightened doves, were packets, packages and baskets, all packed and tied quite carelessly. On top of all, a brimming suitcase tied with string, a thermos, and a flock of chicks with high soprano voices like swallows piping under roofs. An old woman dressed in mourning also climbed down from the carriage; from the driving box, an old man with a proud mustache and the end of his whip planted in his jackboot. Their shepherd dog, shaggy and thistly, had lain down in the carriage shade, its long pink tongue lolling, now and then barking suddenly, angrily, at a random fly.
The girls moved fast, like small parts of seconds, while the old man and the woman, their hurry like turtles on land, brought all their goods and chattels to the train.
The girl with the chirpy voice came with the tickets, holding a little basket in one hand. She almost reached the train when she tripped and fell, spilling the basket of black cherries right in front of it. Round and elastic, the fruits scattered like as many mustangs seen from far above.
"Goodness gracious!"
She was already up. Her hat had fallen on her back, hung only on the ribbon that slipped around her neck. Black, thick and curled, her hair surrounded compactly her temples and her nape, billowing tumultuously with a kind of wild and lively movement, like Barbarian hordes riding fast with spears, came to surround a stronghold with orange trees in bloom. Because her forehead, cheek and neck were at the most luminous and tender time of youth.
The other girl's hand rested affectionately on her shoulder, pushing her gently to the train.
"Come Luli, come, the train is leaving."
The syllables of her name ringed in the light -- Loo-lee -- colliding lightly like the call of an unseen bird, high above, between a thicket's leaves.
Luli remained for a moment undecided between the train and her cherries, but, defeated by the bugle call of departure, she got up, two tears elongated on her cheeks.
That was all. Three minutes.
But, among the billions of minutes in a lifetime, gray like the webs of long dead spiders, these three arose with the grace and deftness of an aquarelle by Tonitza.
The train departed.
A pony turned its head in its direction, sending towards it the soft sound of bells under June sun, and the names of the girls now gone.
The darksome smoker in the window of the first class compartment lit a new cigarette straight from the one he had just finished, not because the wait was long and time moved slowly, but for the fresh heartbeat one feels when finding a delightful quote in an otherwise boring book.
