She felt him trembling and she thought that this was the kind of cry she had wanted to tear from him - this surrender through the shreds of his tortured resistance. Yet she knew, at the same time, that the triumph was his, that her laughter was her tribute to him, that her defiance was submission, that the purpose of all her violent strength was only to make his victory greater - he was holding her body against his, as if stressing his wish to let her know that she was now only a tool for the satisfaction of his desire - and his victory, she knew, was her wish to let him reduce her to that. Whatever I am, she thought, whatever pride of person I may hold, the pride of my courage, of my work, of my mind and my freedom - that is what I offer you for the pleasure of your body, that is what I want you to use in your service - and that you want it to serve you is the greatest reward I can have.

There were lights burning in the two rooms behind them. He took her wrist and threw her inside his room, making the gesture tell her that he needed no sign of consent or resistance. He locked the door, watching her face. Standing straight, holding his glance, she extended her arm to the lamp on the table and turned out the light. He approached. He turned the light on again, with a single, contemptuous jerk of his wrist. She saw him smile for the first time, a slow, mocking, sensual smile that stressed the purpose of his action.

He was holding her half-stretched across the bed, he was tearing her clothes off, while her face pressed against him, her mouth moving down the line of his neck, down his shoulder. She knew that every gesture of her desire for him struck him like a blow, that there was some shudder of incredulous anger within him - yet no gesture would satisfy his greed for every evidence of her desire.

He stood looking down at her naked body, he leaned over, she heard his voice - it was more a statement of contemptuous triumph than a question: "You want it?" Her answer was more a gasp than a word, her eyes closed, her mouth open: "Yes."

She knew that what she felt with the skin of her arms was the cloth of his shirt, she knew the lips she felt on her mouth were his, but in the rest of her body there was no distinction between his being and her own, as there was no division between body and spirit. Through all the steps of years behind them, the steps down a course chosen in the courage of a single loyalty: their love of existence - chosen in the knowledge that nothing will be given, that one must make one's own desire and every shape of its fulfillment - through the steps of shaping metal, rails and motors - they had moved by the power of the thought that one remakes the earth for one's enjoyment, that man's spirit gives meaning to insentient matter by molding it to serve one's chosen goal. The course led them to the moment when, in answer to the highest of one's values, in an admiration not to be expressed by any other form of tribute, one's spirit makes one's body the tribute, recasting it - as proof, as sanction, as reward - into a single sensation of such intensity of joy that no other sanction of one's existence is necessary. He heard the moan of her breath, she felt the shudder of his body, in the same instant.