to listen for, and I start from my seat, and softly open the door and
look out. But only the Night stands there. Then I close-to the
latch, and she--the living woman--asks me in her purring voice what
sound I heard, hiding a smile as she stoops low over her work; and I
answer lightly, and, moving towards her, put my arm about her,
feeling her softness and her suppleness, and wondering, supposing I
held her close to me with one arm while pressing her from me with the
other, how long before I should hear the cracking of her bones.

"For here, amid these savage solitudes, I also am grown savage. The
old primeval passions of love and hate stir within me, and they are
fierce and cruel and strong, beyond what you men of the later ages
could understand. The culture of the centuries has fallen from me as
a flimsy garment whirled away by the mountain wind; the old savage
instincts of the race lie bare. One day I shall twine my fingers
about her full white throat, and her eyes will slowly come towards
me, and her lips will part, and the red tongue creep out; and
backwards, step by step, I shall push her before me, gazing the while
upon her bloodless face, and it will be my turn to smile. Backwards
through the open door, backwards along the garden path between the
juniper bushes, backwards till her heels are overhanging the ravine,
and she grips life with nothing but her little toes, I shall force
her, step by step, before me. Then I shall lean forward, closer,
closer, till I kiss her purpling lips, and down, down, down, past the
startled sea-birds, past the white spray of the foss, past the
downward peeping pines, down, down, down, we will go together, till
we find the thing that lies sleeping beneath the waters of the
fiord."