The next time I passed through Sil, after a period of waiting which narrowly escaped exceeding the limits of my patience, I discovered, with very little difficulty, where I could find the maid for whom I sought.The next time I passed through Sil, after a period of waiting which narrowly escaped exceeding the limits of my patience, I discovered, with very little difficulty, where I could find the maid for whom I sought. She lived in a little inn built of stone, halfway up a hill to the west of Sil, which was kept by her father, her sister, and herself. When first my eyes bathed in her vision (ah, with what cruelness that moment ended!), I resolved to spend the night there, and not without companionship, if her young heart, or at least her passion, could be swayed. Her name was Iana. Her sister's name was Wana, and they were twins, but not, I regretted most painfully, of even remotely equal beauty. Their feet, which they wore naked in the warmer seasons, seemed never to have known shoes; to cramp such lovely, graceful feet in clogs or boots would have seemed a sacrilege. Their legs were slender and well muscled and, like their feet, slightly browned by the sun. When presented with a view of their backs, I could perceive, beneath each skirt, generous swells that suggested pumpkins. When they turned about, my eyes wandered among four small mountain peaks which I longed to climb and explore. But above their shoulders, fate had dealt its cards most unfairly. Iana's face was pretty, although not extraordinarily so, with small ears, brown eyes which sparkled when the light struck them, and light brown hair that hung, as straight as water falls, down to her shoulders. But Wana's face was ugly, with large, misshapen ears, grey lifeless eyes that seemed to have been filled with mud from a river bank, and thin, stringy hair cut in a mockery of her sister's. |