Malamud at Oregon State: A Digital Humanities Project

Event Horizon


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She took his hand and they went back into the woods,. He Levin glanceding back once to see where his property lay things were, but went on with her, half-blinded by desire.  

She led him back into the woods. “Here,” she murmured said, in the green gloom of the evergreens shade. The trees evergreens were thick and, the ground damp but soft with rusty fir needles and dead leaves 

“Spread your coat.” Pauline She spread hers coat on the needle-soft earth. over his, He watched her kick off then stepped out of her shoes. and She removed a black undergarment from under her skirt, the mask unmaskedIt seemed to Levin that the way she did it, with such grace, so trusting, generous, so freely intimate was Lying on the coasts, Pauline raised her hips and drew back her skirt, to Levin the most intimate and beautiful thing he had ever seen a woman do gesture ever made for him. Always in his life he had paid for any significant pleasure prior pain. 

This was pure joy. Miraculous. 

For comfort, hHe hung his trousers on a over the branch of a nearby tree fir. When he knelt she received him with outstretched arms, and as their lips met, Pauline gently stroked smoothed his beard, then embraced him with passion as she fixed her rhythm to hisWhat an extraordinary thing to be happening to me, thought Levin. He was throughout conscious of the marvel of itOut in the open in a forest., nothing less, Quelle triomphe. what triumph!   

 

Contextual note:

    This scene begins the day after Bullock’s party with Levin wandering alone, reflecting on his time at Cascadia College thus far. Pauline approaches him and, after a brief exchange, they begin to kiss. The section reads as a conclusion to what their exchange during Bullock’s party began. Levin’s desire for Pauline to remove her veil is subtly answered by the published line, “the mask unmasked,” and the tension that has built between them is released by the sense of triumph at the end of this scene. The interaction that follows strengthens the bond between the two characters when Levin reveals his past to Pauline and, by the end of the chapter, the reader gets a sense that  this is a significant turning point in the novel; from here, Levin’s troubles have only begun.

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