“Not that night when you took me out of the dancing-house, not our ride to Sidi-Zerzour, not—there are things I shall remember. When I am dying, after I am dead, I shall remember them.”
The song faded away. The torch was still, then fell downwards and became one with the fire. Then Androvsky drew Domini down beside him on to the warm earth before the tent door, and held her hand in his against the earth.
“Feel it,” he said. “It’s our home, it’s our liberty. Does it feel alive to you?”
“Yes.”
“As if it had pulses, like the pulses in our hearts, and knew what we know?”
“Yes. Mother Earth—I never understood what that meant till to-night.”
“We are beginning to understand together. Who can understand anything alone?”
He kept her hand always in his pressed against the desert as against a heart. They both thought of it as a heart that was full of love and protection for them, of understanding of them. Going back to their words before the song of Ali, he said:
“Love burns up evil, then love can never be evil.”
“Not the act of loving.”