And I turned, too.
Never had I seen such lovely sunburn. He was all sunburn, of the
sort a blond takes on when his skin does not peel. His long yellow
hair was burnt, so was his beard, which sprang from a soil
unploughed by any razor. He was a tawny man, a golden-tawny man,
all glowing and radiant with the sun. Another prophet, thought I,
come up to town with a message that will save the world.
A few weeks later I was with some friends in their bungalow in the
Piedmont hills overlooking San Francisco Bay. "We've got him, we've
got him," they barked. "We caught him up a tree; but he's all right
now, he'll feed from the hand. Come on and see him." So I
accompanied them up a dizzy hill, and in a rickety shack in the
midst of a eucalyptus grove found my sunburned prophet of the city
pavements.
He hastened to meet us, arriving in the whirl and blur of a
handspring. He did not shake hands with us; instead, his greeting
took the form of stunts. He turned more handsprings. He twisted
his body sinuously, like a snake, until, having sufficiently
limbered up, he bent from the hips, and, with legs straight and
knees touching, beat a tattoo on the ground with the palms of his
hands.
