U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [312]
to her feet and said she wanted to go up to the little round temple that stood on the hil side opposite like something in an old engraving. Ed said the path was too steep for so
-370-soon after lunch. Mr. Barrow said without enthusiasm, er, he'd go. Anne Elizabeth was off running across the bridge and down the path with Dick running after her slipping and stumbling in the loose gravel and the puddles. When they got to the bottom the mist was soppy and cold on their faces. The waterfal was right over their heads. Their ears were ful of the roar of it. Dick looked back to see if Mr. Barrow was coming.
"He must have turned back," he shouted above the fal s.
"Oh, I hate people who won't ever go anywhere," yel ed Anne Elizabeth. She grabbed his hand. "Let's run up to the temple." They got up there breathless. Across the ravine they could see Ed and Mr. Barrow stil sitting on the ter-race of the restaurant. Anne Elizabeth thumbed her nose at them and then waved. "Isn't this wonderful?" she spluttered. "Oh, I'm wild about ruins and scenery . . . I'd like to go al over Italy and see everything. . . . Where can we go this afternoon? . . . Let's not go back and listen to them mouthing about the Roman Empire."
"We might get to Nemi . . . you know the lake where Caligula had his gal eys . . . but I don't think we can get there without the car.""Then they'd come along. . . . No, let's take a walk.""It might rain on us.""Wel , what if it does? We won't run." They went up a path over the hil s above the town and soon found themselves walking through wet pastures and oakwoods with the Campagna stretching lightbrown below them and the roofs of Tivoli picked out with black cypresses like exclamation points. It was a showery springfeeling afternoon. They could see the showers moving in dark grey and whitish blurs across the Campagna. Underfoot little redpurple cyclamens were blooming. Anne Elizabeth kept picking them and poking them in his face for him to smel . Her cheeks were red and her hair was untidy and she seemed to feel too happy to walk, running and skip-ping al the way. A smal sprinkle of rain wet them a
-371-little and made the hair streak on her forehead. Then there was a patch of chil y sunlight. They sat down on the root of a big beechtree and looked up at the long redbrown pointed buds that glinted against the sky. Their noses were ful of the smel of the little cyclamens. Dick felt steamy from the climb and the wet underbrush and the wine he'd drunk and the smel of the little cyclamens. He turned and looked in her eyes. "Wel ," he said. She grabbed him by the ears and kissed him again and again. "Say you love me," she kept saying in a strangling voice. He could smel her sandy hair and warm body and the sweetness of the little cyclamens. He pul ed her to her feet and held her against his body and kissed her on the mouth; their tongues touched. He dragged her through a break in the hedge into the next field. The ground was too wet. Across the field was a little hut made of brush. They staggered as they walked with their arms around each other's waists, their thighs grinding stiffly together. The hut was ful of dry cornfodder. They lay squirming together among the dry crackling cornfodder. She lay on her back with her eyes closed, her lips tightly pursed. He had one hand under her head and with the other was trying to undo her clothes; something tore under his hand. She began push-ing him away. "No, no, Dick, not here . . . we've got to go back.""Darling girl . . . I must . . . you're so won-derful." She broke away from him and ran out of the hut. He sat up on the floor, hating her, brushing the dry shreds off his uniform.
Outside it was raining hard. "Let's go back; Dick, I'm crazy about you but you oughtn't to have torn my panties
. . . oh, you're so exasperating." She began to laugh.
"You oughtn't to start anything you don't want to fin-ish," said Dick. "Oh, I think women are terrible . . . ex-cept prostitutes . . . there you know what you're getting." She went up to him and kissed him. "Poor little boy . . . he feels so cross. I'm so sorry . . . I'l sleep with you,