“Not now,” she said.
“Why not now?”
“Oh, I don’t know.—You treat me as if I had no life of my own,” she said. “But I have.”
“A life of your own? Who gave it you? Where did you get it?”
“I don’t know. But I have got it. And I must live it. I can’t be just swallowed up.”
“Why, Malintzi?” he said, giving her a name. “Why can’t you?”
“Be just swallowed up?” she said. “Well, I just can’t.”
“I am the living Huitzilopochtli,” he said. “And I am swallowed up. I thought, so could you be, Malintzi.”
“No! Not quite?” she said.
“Not quite! Not quite! Not now! Not just now! How often you say Not, to-day!—I must go back to Ramón.”