We hurried, so at one in our approaching distress that we went too fast. The house behind the trees and bushes came into more prominent view—shutters like eyes pitilessly closed, pointed teeth of a gray-painted fence, threatening minutiae of a garden descending a bushy battered skull of a slope. But after all, there can be no such thing as separation between us two.... And for a moment, to prove the strength of love, yes, for a moment, I was ready to run.
Here we are at the house. Seen at close range with its covering of red tiles and rugged face and front fanned by two dwarf firs, the little house in the way of our free career does not seem very imposing.
It must be. What's the use of delaying any more? Is it saddening to part when each carries away the other? For I carry away your voice, and the sadness of your eyes, and this kiss I give you.... I do not leave you; I am not even distressed. Look, I am leaving you.
I took a few steps away. They rang under my eyes. I picked up every detail of our parting and held it pressed against my heart, each grain of red earth, each flash of mica in the road. It was not so difficult....
Behind me I heard him walking away with a tread heavier than mine, which seemed to set stones tumbling down a mountainside.... Two months.... What is an absence of two months? I decided not to turn around.
The road narrowed and became a serpent of clay, then a creamy winding. I tried so hard to think of nothing that I noticed a great many surprising things we had not observed before. That tree with a heavy black ball at the end of its longest branch which the birds of heaven had stuffed with earth and was now grass-grown; the slope with a red covering of rich plants made, you'd think, of fingers dipped in blood....
It was in spite of myself that I faced about. A dark figure just this side of the last bend in the road.
Ah, he turns round; he heard me. Could we remain apart? I stretch my arms out to him, I begin to run. Why did we talk of other things a few minutes ago? Were we insane?...
I have already passed the dead aloe, I am near the house with its two firs. My abrupt race swells my decision not to leave him. I lift my eyes. He didn't see me.