The Sheltering Sky

by Paul Bowles

He did not think of himself as a tourist; he was a traveler. The difference is partly one of time, he would explain.

For, as he claimed, another important difference between tourist and traveler is that the former accepts his own civilization without question; not so the traveler, who compares it with the others, and rejects those elements he finds not to his liking.

As they came to a well where the women were filling their water jars, she tried to break away from him. In another minute life would be painful. The words were coming back, and inside the wrappings of the words there would be thoughts lying there. The hot sun would shrivel them; they must be kept inside in the dark.

Now that she had betrayed herself, established contact with the other side, every minute counted. They would spare no effort in seeking her out, they would pry open the wall she had built and force her to look at what she had buried there. She knew by the blue-eyed man’s expression that she had set in motion the mechanism which would destroy her. And now it was too late to stop it.

He looked at her and laughed again. “You should not think. Ça c’est mauvais. The head is like the sky. Always turning around and around inside. But very slowly. When you think, you make it go too fast. Then it aches.” “I