They return again and again to such a landscape, like animals drawn nightly to the same oasis. And perhaps it was in this pattern that Marie found herself unable to turn her back entirely on the dream; or as if, even in turning her back, she could not be separated fully from it, for now it followed her, even if unbidden. A scratching, rasping sound within her, of new grooves being cut, and water trickling, flowing down those grooves; and in her dreams she began to follow those new slots and canyons, even while in the bright light of day clinging tightly to the old routines, and to the ax. Men came to visit her in her dreams, in the new country. They moved close to her, and she to them, easily. In the dreams, she and he leaned their heads in against one another, rested upon each other shoulder to shoulder; and in the dreams, she was astonished to be the recipient of tenderness and affection: and not merely the crude pawings that masqueraded as caresses in the brief preliminary to sex, but tenderness and kindness of its own accord, existing for its own sake.
