"It wouldn't be possible, would it, Lee, to have the night go on
forever, to have something happen to the scheme of things? Or perhaps
I'm blind." Her voice was plainly terrified. "Light a match, please.
Oh, thank you. What an idiot I am. Hold me closer; then I can forget,
then nothing else matters. I can never get close enough; I wish I could
pour myself into you."
"You'll be able to, if this keeps up," he observed, with a note of
brutality. "They will find us, in the morning, in a bowl and two
pitchers."
But there was no corresponding lightness in his spirit; periods like
this extended into an infinity of torment beyond time. A thinning of
the dark expanded through the room. A cerulean unnatural dawn crept
about him: there was the muffled clatter of horses' hoofs in the dust
outside; a locomotive whistled in a far universal key. Savina slowly
became visible; asleep, her personality, her vividness, were gone; she
was as featureless, as pallid, as a nameless marble of remote Greece.
There were marks across her feet where the mules chafed her; the mules
themselves were lying on the bare floor. He saw his clothes, the
familiar habit of the day, with a sharp surprise.
* * * * *
It had been a night without rest, without the coolness and assuagement
of a release from the fever of the day; and, Lee thought, he felt as
haggard as Savina looked.
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