Microsoft Word KoboAbe-WomanInTheDunes doc

particularly difficult to make a superstable state into a normally stable 
one. 
A supersaturated solution, just by being shaken, at once produces a 
crystalline precipitate and moves toward the normal saturation point. 
Suddenly he had the feeling that someone was near; he turned around. 
He had been unaware of the woman, who was standing in the doorway 
staring fixedly at him. He was understandably embarrassed and took a 
step back in confusion, glancing around as if in search of help. He 
raised his eyes, and there at the top of the east bank were three men, 
all in a row, looking down at him. They wore towels wrapped around 
their heads; as they were not visible from the mouth down, he could 
not be sure, but they seemed to be the old men of the day before. At 
once he straightened up, but just as suddenly he changed his mind and 
decided to ignore them and go on with his work. The fact that he was 
being watched spurred him on. 
The perspiration ran into his eyes and dripped from the end of his nose. 
Since there was no time to wipe it away, he just closed his eyes and 
shoveled. Under no condition must he rest his arms. When they saw 
his unflagging pace, they would realize, unless they were dim-wits, how 
despicable they were. 
He looked at his watch. He wiped it against his pants to remove the 
sand on its face; it was only 2:10. The same ten minutes after two as 
when he had looked before. He suddenly lost confidence in his pace. 
From a snail's point of view the sun probably moves with the speed of a 
baseball. He changed his grip on the shovel, and turning back again to 
the wall, he set frantically to work. 
Suddenly the flow of sand grew violent. There was a muffled sound and 
then a pressure against his chest. He tried to look up to see what was 
happening, but he no longer had any sense of direction. He was only 
dimly aware of a faint milky light playing over him as he lay doubled 
up in the black splotch of his vomit. 

---