She looked at it in the moonlight and
it was no longer the desert, sand with a soul in it, blue distances full
of a music of summons, spaces, peopled with spirits from the sun. It
was only a barren waste of dried-up matter, arid, featureless, desolate,
ghastly with the bones of things that had died.
She heard the dogs barking by the tents of the nomads and the noises of
the insects, but still she did not feel the horse underneath her. Yet
she was gradually recovering her powers, and their recovery brought with
it sharp, physical pain, such as is felt by a person who has been nearly
drowned and is restored from unconsciousness.
Androvsky turned round. She saw his eyes fastened upon her, and
instantly pride awoke in her, and, with pride, her whole self.
She felt her horse under her, the reins in her hands, the stirrup at her
foot. She moved in her saddle. The blood tingled in her veins fiercely,
bitterly, as if it had become suddenly acrid. She felt as if her face
were scarlet, as if her whole body flushed, and as if the flush could be
seen by her companion. For a moment she was clothed from head to foot
in a fiery garment of shame.
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