He waited at the temple for the woman, and she came in the rain. But she said to him:
“Let me sit awhile with Isis. And come to me, will you come to me, in the second hour of night?”
So he went back to the cave and lay in stillness and in the joy of being in touch, waiting for the woman who would come with the night, and consummate again the contact. Then when night came the woman came, and came gladly, for her great yearning, too, was upon her, to be in touch, to be in touch with him, nearer.
So the days came, and the nights came, and days came again, and the contact was perfected and fulfilled. And he said: “I will ask her nothing, not even her name, for a name would set her apart.”
And she said to herself: “He is Osiris. I wish to know no more.”
Plum blossom blew from the trees, the time of the narcissus was past, anemones lit up the ground and were gone, the perfume of bean-field was in the air. All changed, the blossom of the universe changed its petals and swung round to look another way. The spring was fulfilled, a contact was established, the man and the woman were fulfilled of one another, and departure was in the air.
One day he met her under the trees, when the morning sun was hot, and the pines smelled sweet, and on the hills the last pear blossom was scattering. She came slowly towards him, and in her gentle lingering, her tender hanging back from him, he knew a change in her.
“Hast thou conceived?” he asked her.
“Why?” she said.
“Thou art like a tree whose green leaves follow the blossom, full of sap. And there is a withdrawing about thee.”
“It is so,” she said. “I am with young by thee. Is it good?”
“Yea!” he said. “How should it not be good? So the nightingale calls no more from the valley-bed. But where wilt thou bear the child, for I am naked of all but life?”
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