Of the Lovers

They are first seen, despite the general darkness, close to the window, from which they draw back prudently, it is to be supposed, in a slow lateral glide along the surface of the far wall. The night darkens continually. There seems no limit to the night’s ability to darken. It must be that the woman let the man into the house. The woman was clothed to begin with, then she was naked. The man was naked a little after that. From the window, along the wall, and over the door to the room, a hand, it is to be supposed the hand of the woman, glides laterally. It disappears in a well of shadow, only to appear again farther along, once it has passed the door, still pressed against the wall, as it glides deeper into the house. A back may sometimes be discerned, his or hers, rising out of the shadows and gliding along the wall with a lifted hand. The pulsing of another hand, flush against a rising and falling shoulder blade, may also sometimes be observed. It appears they are definitely avoiding the windows. They are conspicuously drawing away from the windows, towards which their bodies are prudently angled. Indeed, they are less and less discernible the farther away they glide, except when framed occasionally against the mirror on the far wall, or a piece of furniture positioned flush against it, a sofa or a bed. They might be, perhaps would certainly be, the shadows of bushes and tree limbs the wind arranges, except for the pair of eyes that watches in the mirror.