Three Arched Bridge

52

AT THE END OF THE WEEK the two representatives of the bridge owners, mounted on mules, turned up again after being absent for so long* People gaped at them openmouthed when they arrived, as if they were seeing shades. People’s eyes followed them, as if asking, Still on this earth?

They themselves did not show the slightest curiosity in glancing at the bridge, not even at the dead man in the first arch, but applied themselves immediately to the task for which they had come, They dug two holes, one at the entrance and the other at the end of the bridge, fixed iron stakes in them, and fixed metal signs on the stakes, like those that “Boats and Rafts” had once used. It was understood at once that these were tables of tolls for crossing the bridge, Everything was set out in detail; the toll for individuals, reduced rates for whole families and clans, the toll for the crossing of each head of livestock, reductions for herds, the toll for individual carts, reductions for caravans, and so forth.

People looked at the sign as if to say. We turned our noses up before at crossing for free, and now we have to pay!

The two employees of the road and bridge company did not leave after erecting the signs but took over the ferryman’s small abandoned lodge, which, it seems, the company had bought some time before. They began to do duty at the bridge in turns.

Surprisingly, people began to cross the bridge more and more often after the toll was imposed.