NONSUCH 



right then left side just as a man shuffles along on 

 skis or snowshoes, only the snail gains distance by 

 successive waves or ripples. The horns look and 

 move exactly like the trunk of an elephant, the eyes 

 look like black dots, the head is dark brown and 

 the body and foot are pale olive green: — this is 

 Periwinkle as I see him. 



When he reaches the freshly written preceding 

 paragraph, he smudges a line of the inky writing 

 as he passes over it — as if he well knew how much 

 better it should have been written. In fact when I 

 come to examine his trail I find a split infinitive 

 quite rightly smeared with his slime. The smudge 

 is made by a fluid which he pours out in front, thus 

 oiling his path in advance, smoothing the boulders 

 of dust and killing any unpleasant feel or taste of 

 inks and other alien fluids in his way. I think I have 

 heard of sledges in Madeira, which ease their pas- 

 sage over dry cobbles with dripping oil, or it is as if 

 a sleigh were provided with a pair of ice machines in 

 the fore runners. It is an excellent idea and brings 

 a snail clean and fresh to the end of its journey, 

 whereas otherwise it would be coated and choked 

 with dust. 



As Periwinkle climbs the algse-coated glass he 

 leaves another trail — a narrow, cleared path on 

 the glass over which his mouth passes and which his 

 tongue scrapes clean. And I marvel again at the 

 slimy alchemy by which he can transmute lowly 

 vegetable scum and salt water into graceful lime- 

 stone spirals and strata of mother-of-pearl. 



212 



