The note was from Ramón, saying in Spanish: “Take the dress of the bride of Huitzilopochtli, and put it on, and take off everything but this. Leave no thread nor thing that can touch you from the past. The past is finished. It is the new twilight.”
Kate did not quite know how to put on the slip, for it had no sleeves nor arm-holes, but was just a straight slip with a running string. Then she remembered the old Indian way, and tied the string over her left shoulder; rather, slipped the tied string over her left shoulder, leaving her arms and part of her right breast bare, the slip gathered full over her breasts. And she sighed. For it was but a shirt with flowers upturned at the bottom.
Ramón, barefoot, in his white clothes, came for her and took her in silence downstairs into the garden. The zaguan was dark, the rain fell steadily in the twilight, but was abating. All was dark twilight.
Ramón took off his blouse and threw it on the stairs. Then with naked breast he led her into the garden, into the massive rain. Cipriano came forward, barefoot, with naked breast, bareheaded, in the floppy white pantaloons.
They stood barefoot on the earth, that still threw back a white smoke of waters. The rain drenched them in a moment.
“Barefoot on the living earth, with faces to the living rain,” said Ramón in Spanish, quietly; “at twilight, between the night and the day; man, and woman, in presence of the unfading star, meet to be perfect in one another. Lift your face, Caterina, and say: This man is my rain from heaven.”
Kate lifted her face and shut her eyes in the downpour.
“This man is my rain from heaven,” she said.
“This woman is the earth to me—say that, Cipriano,” said Ramón, kneeling on one knee and laying his hand flat on the earth.
Cipriano kneeled and laid his hand on the earth.