Then he was lying on his side, his head deep in the heather, smelling it and the smell of the roots and the earth and the sun came through it and it was scratchy on his bare shoulders and along his flanks and the girl was lying opposite him with her eyes still shut and then she opened them and smiled at him and he said very tiredly and from a great but friendly distance, “Hello, rabbit.” And she smiled and from no distance said, “Hello, my Inglés.”
“I’m not an Inglés,” he said very lazily.
“Oh yes, you are,” she said. “You’re my Inglés,” and reached and took hold of both his ears and kissed him on the forehead.
“There,” she said. “How is that? Do I kiss thee better?”
Then they were walking along the stream together and he said, “Maria, I love thee and thou art so lovely and so wonderful and so beautiful and it does such things to me to be with thee that I feel as though I wanted to die when I am loving thee.”
“Oh,” she said. “I die each time. Do you not die?”
“No. Almost. But did thee feel the earth move?”
“Yes. As I died. Put thy arm around me, please.”
“No. I have thy hand. Thy hand is enough.”
He looked at her and across the meadow where a hawk was hunting and the big afternoon clouds were coming now over the mountains.
“And it is not thus for thee with others?” Maria asked him, they now walking hand in hand.
“No. Truly.”
“Thou hast loved many others.”
“Some. But not as thee.”
“And it was not thus? Truly?”
“It was a pleasure but it was not thus.”
“And then the earth moved. The earth never moved before?”
“Nay. Truly never.”
“Ay,” she said. “And this we have for one day.”
He said nothing.
“But we have had it now at least,” Maria said. “And do you like me too? Do I please thee? I will look better later.”
“Thou art very beautiful now.”
“Nay,” she said. “But stroke thy hand across my head.”
He did that feeling her cropped hair soft and flattening and then rising between his fingers and he put both hands on her head and turned her face up to his and kissed her.
“I like to kiss very much,” she said. “But I do not do it well.”
“Thou hast no need to kiss.”
“Yes, I have. If I am to be thy woman I should please thee in all ways.”
“You please me enough. I would not be more pleased. There is no thing I could do if I were more pleased.”
“But you will see,” she said very happily. “My hair amuses thee now because it is odd. But every day it is growing. It will be long and then I will not look ugly and perhaps you will love me very much.”
“Thou hast a lovely body,” he said. “The loveliest in the world.”
“It is only young and thin.”
“No. In a fine body there is magic. I do not know what makes it in one and not in another. But thou hast it.”
“For thee,” she said.
“Nay.”
“Yes. For thee and for thee always and only for thee. But it is littie to bring thee. I would learn to take good care of thee. But tell me truly. Did the earth never move for thee before?”
“Never,” he said truly.
“Now am I happy,” she said. “Now am I truly happy.
“You are thinking of something else now?” she asked him.
“Yes. My work.”
“I wish we had horses to ride,” Maria said. “In my happiness I would like to be on a good horse and ride fast with thee riding fast beside me and we would ride faster and faster, galloping, and never pass my happiness.”
“We could take thy happiness in a plane,” he said absently.
“And go over and over in the sky like the little pursuit planes shining in the sun,” she said. “Rolling it in loops and in dives. Qué bueno!” she laughed. “My happiness would not even notice it.”
“Thy happiness has a good stomach,” he said half hearing what she said.