everywhere on earth. And after all the dark and alien world of night, of Paris, and another continent, which he had known now for several months, this rediscovery of the buried life, the fundamental structure of the great family of earth to which all men belong, filled him with a quiet certitude and joy.
Ann did not move; bent forward, leaning on her knees, she continued to stare into the fire, and looking up at her warm, dark, sullen face, he fell asleep—into a sleep which, after all the frenzy and exhaustion of the last weeks, was as deep and soundless as if he were drugged.
How long he lay asleep there on the floor he did not know. But he was wakened by the sound of her voice—a sullen monotone that spoke his name—that spoke his name quietly with a toneless, brooding insistence and that at first he thought he must have dreamed. It was repeated, again and again, quietly, insistently, without change or variation until he knew there was no doubt of it, that he no longer was asleep. And with something slow and strange and numb beating through him like a mighty pulse, he opened his eyes and looked up into her face. She had bent forward still more and was looking down at him with a kind of slow, brooding intensity, her face smouldering and drowsy as a flower. And even as he looked at her, she returned his look with that drowsy, brooding stare, and again, without inflection, spoke his name.
He sat up like a flash and put his arms around her. He was beside her on his knees and he hugged her to him in a grip of speechless, impossible desire: he kissed her on the face and neck, again and again; her face was warm with the fire, her skin as soft and smooth as velvet; he kissed her again and again on the face, clumsily, thickly, with that wild, impossible desire, and with a horrible feeling of guilt and shame. He wanted to kiss her on the mouth, and he did not dare to do it: all the time that he kept kissing her and hugging her to him with a clumsy, crushing grip, he wanted her more than he had ever wanted any woman in his life, and at the same time he felt a horrible profanity in his touch, as if he were violating a Vestal virgin, trying to rape a nun.
And he did not know why he felt this way, the reason for these senseless feelings of guilt and shame and profanation. He had been with so many prostitutes and casual loose promiscuous women that he would have thought it easy to make love to this big, clumsy, sullen-looking girl, but now all he could do was to hug her to him in an awkward grip, to mutter foolishly at her, and to kiss her warm sullen face again and again.
