We stood at the counter. They had Brett seated on a wine-cask. It was dark in the wine shop and full of

men singing, hard-voiced singing. Back of the counter they drew the wine from casks. I put down money for the wine, but one of the men picked it up

and put it back in my pocket.

“I want a leather wine bottle”, Bill said.“There’s a place down the street” I said. “I’ll

go get a couple”.

The dancers did not want me to go out. Three of them were sitting on the high wine-cask beside Brett, teaching her to

drink out of the wineskins. They had hung a wreath of garlics around her neck. Some one insisted on giving her a glass.

Somebody was teaching Bill a song. Singing it into his ear. Beating time on Bill’s back.

I explained to them that I would be back. Outside in the street I went down the street looking for the shop that made leather wine bottles. The crowd was packed on the sidewalks and many of the

shops were shuttered, and I could not find it. I walked as far as the church looking on both sides of the street. Then I asked a men and he took me by the arm and led me to it.The shutters were up but the

door was open.

Inside it smelled of fresh tanned leather and hot tar. A man was stencilling completed wineskins. They hung from the roof in bunches. He took one

down, blew it up, screwed the nozzle tight, and then jumped on it.“See. It doesn’t leak”.

“I want another one, too. A big one”.