The conversation is like a movement back in time. Soon they are pre-industrial. Soon pre-Christian. Pre-Greek. They remove their clothes, after there is no more speaking. Then a long intercourse: broken phrases of what she sees.
Then they come aware of each other again. There is rose light from the earth in the east. It is the moment of morning. They are up and there is a brook, a stream, trees, woods, plants, a beaver, birds, and a strange, almost total, almost primeval quietness. No bank, no road, no fence, no cemetery. But the stream, and rocks, and up a ways the sound of waterfall—and their clothes are gone.
She sees her legs and arms—they are unshaved, and a touch of earth to them; and as she rises from where they have lain, and stands and looks about, there is a strength in her legs, a strength in her arms.
