The young foreigners went across the tracks and established themselves
on the rocks, partly out of sight, just at the brink of the great drop
to the Campagna. The setting sun was full in their faces. But they did
not see it, seeing only each other.
Below them spread the divinely colored plain, crossed by the ancient
yellow river, rolling its age-old memories out to the sea, a blue
reminder of the restfulness of eternity, at the rim of the weary old
land. Like a little cluster of tiny, tarnished pearls, Rome gleamed
palely, remote and legendary.
* * * * *
The two young people looked at each other earnestly, with a passionate,
single-hearted attention to their own meaning, thrusting away
impatiently the clinging brambles of speech which laid hold on their
every effort to move closer to each other. They did not look down, or
away from each other's eyes as they strove to free themselves, to step
forward, to clasp the other's outstretched hands. They reached down
blindly, tearing at those thorny, clutching entanglements, pulling and
tugging at those tenuous, tough words which would not let them say what
they meant: sure, hopefully sure that in a moment . . . now . . . with the
next breath, they would break free as no others had ever done before
them, and crying out the truth and glory that was in them, fall into
each other's arms.
The girl was physically breathless with this effort, her lips parted,
her eyebrows drawn together. "Neale, Neale dear, if I could only tell
you how I want it to be, how utterly utterly true I want us to be.
Nothing's of any account except that."
She moved with a shrugging, despairing gesture. "No, no, not the way
that sounds. I don't mean, you know I don't mean any old-fashioned
impossible vows never to change, or be any different! I know too much
for that. I've seen too awfully much unhappiness, with people trying to
do that. You know what I told you about my father and mother. Oh, Neale,
it's horribly dangerous, loving anybody. I never wanted to. I never
thought I should. But now I'm in it, I see that it's not at all
unhappiness I'm afraid of, your getting tired of me or I of you . . .
everybody's so weak and horrid in this world, who knows what may be
before us? That's not what would be unendurable, sickening. That would
make us unhappy. But what would poison us to death . . . what I'm afraid
of, between two people who try to be what we want to be to each
other . . . how can I say it?" She looked at him in an anguish of endeavor,
". . . not to be true to what is deepest and most living in us . . . that
would be the betrayal I'm afraid of. That's what I mean. No matter what it
costs us personally, or what it brings, we must be true to that. We
must!"