[Ninety-seven]
She sat at the window dreaming of the ways she belonged to him. Her thought was a pantomime which prostrated itself before his memory. She remembered sacrifices…. He would lie cold in his bed. Then she crawled to his side. She dared not look at his eyes. They were above her and kept themselves hidden. She vanished before the thought of them.
Then his body grew warm under her hands. Her lips made his body tremble. He was white and naked like her. He was a fire to which she fed herself. The moment came when there was no longer any Rita. A little ember lay burning happily in his passion.
When he fell asleep she went away. In her own bed she lay dreaming words that were like hiding places. Only he could lure her out of them. After he fell asleep she carried memories of him into herself…. He had smiled. His body had shivered. His fingers had clutched at her face. He had picked her up and fought with her. When he did this it was as if he lifted her to his eyes and she could look at him—as if the wind lifted the flames about.
[Ninety-eight]
The street was dark. But he would come soon. He only stayed away till it grew dark. Now it was his time again. The street and all the lights would open the door and come into the room. And she would be waiting, hidden away. It was exciting to wait. It was the way he kissed her—by making her wait and pretending when he came that there was no Rita.
The night was like a story that frightened. As she watched from the window she remembered the caravan along the roads. Fires and dark faces and red handkerchiefs. The night along the roads changed the trees into birds that flew away. The wagons went to sleep. Everyone slept but Rita. The horses had dreams and whispered to themselves.
Along the roads where the caravan stopped there would be a fire at night to watch. Rita sat alone looking at the flames. Dreams came out of the fire and walked away. Then, hours afterward, they came back when the fire was low. They stood around the coals and finally crawled into the ground. Darkness remained. [Ninety-nine] The wagons became ghosts. She grew sad and wanted to go away with the night like the dreams that crept back into the dead fire.
Now his eyes were like the hiding places she had wished. She trembled. He was coming. She could see him out of the window, walking slowly in the street below. She closed her eyes.
The door opened and her heart bowed itself. Her fingers, stiffened with colored rings, pressed at her breasts. Now there was a game to play. He walked up and down pretending Rita was hidden. He was cold and far away. His face walked like a dead man back and forth in the room. Goliath shuffled as fast as he could and hid himself in the curtains. She crouched in the chair, her knees drawn up, her eyes cringing with delight.
She could watch his face. When he was far away she had further to go to reach him, and each step was like a kiss she gave him. His anger, his words, his cold face and his hands [One Hundred] striking her were wild roads down which she ran toward a fire that waited.
He paid no attention but walked up and down and his eyes ignored her. But he would begin to talk soon. She would undress for him. One by one, rings, bands of gold, silks and petticoats—each that came off was like a part of her already burning.