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88 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1962
I listened to invisible trains weeping in the night and to crackly leaves latching onto the hard, frozen earth with their fingernails.
Everywhere packs of ravenous, scraggly dogs came out to meet us. They appeared out of dark doorways and squeezed through narrow openings in the fences. They would accompany us mutely in large packs. But from time to time they would raise their somber, sad eyes to look at us. They had some sort of strange respect for our noiseless steps, for our embraces.
In late autumn I returned to the attic. I climbed the stairs excitedly, lugging my heavy backpack loaded with shells and the seeds of exotic plants. I had brought a gift for everyone: for Eurydice a necklace of dolphin teeth and a conch named Mandragora, for Igor a shrunken head from Equatorial Africa, and for the old cleaning lady a seven-colored reed mat.



