(no subject)
From The Drawing of the Three, US hardcover edition, pp.287-288:
"Look, Eddie!" she cried, pointing up.
He looked, and saw a single star gleaming on the breast of the night.
"Isn't it beautiful?"
"Yes," he said, and suddenly, for no reason, his eyes filled with tears. Just where had he been all of his goddamned life? Where had he been, what had he been doing, who had been with him while he did it, and why did he suddenly feel so grimy and abysmally beshitted?
Her lifted face was terrible in its beauty, irrefutable in this light, but the beauty was unknown to its possessor, who only looked at the star with wide wondering eyes, and laughed softly.
"Star light, star bright," she said, and stopped. She looked at him. "Do you know it, Eddie?"
"Yeah." Eddie kept his head down. His voice sounded clear enough, but if she looked up she would see he was weeping.
"Then help me. But you have to look."
He wiped the tears into the palm of one hand and looked up at the star with her.
"Star light--"she looked at him and he joined her. "Star bright--"
Her hand reached out, groping, and he clasped it, one the delicious brown of light chocolate, the other the delicious white of a dove's breast.
"First star I see tonight," they spoke solemnly in unison, boy and girl for this now, not man and woman as they would be later, when the dark was full and she called to ask him if he was asleep and he said no and she asked if he would hold her because she was cold; "Wish I may, wish I might--"
They looked at each other, and he saw that tears were streaming down her cheeks. His own came again, and he let them fall in her sight. This was not a shame but an inexpressible relief.
They smiled at each other.
"Have the wish I wish tonight," Eddie said, and thought: Please, always you.
"Have the wish I wish tonight," she echoed, and thought If I must die in this odd place, please let it not be too hard and let this good young man be with me.
"I'm sorry I cried," she said, wiping her eyes. "I don't usually, but it's been--"
"A very trying day," he finished for her.
"Yes. And you need to eat, Eddie."
"You do, too."
"I just hope it doesn't make me sick again."
He smiled at her.
"I don't think it will."
Later, with strange galaxies turning in slow gavotte overhead, neither thought the act of love had ever been so sweet, so full.