One day the man began to think that he could not stand it any longer. His body and emotion had taken all they could; he was racked with desire and his head was full of pain with inner weeping. He suggested to the woman that they should part. He explained that the idea had come to him that there might be other lands where a person might live, over the horizon, away to the north and south, things they had neither of them dreamed of, other loves perhaps, other climates and better food. He felt then that anything would be better than to sit here forever just yearning for something that could never be had. At first, when the woman listened to this idea, she was shocked so deeply inside herself that she became as stone, she neither spoke nor moved for a day or a night, but lay with her head on the stone of the wall in a cold agony such as she had never before experienced. And then she began to weep, silently at first, then with little moans, then louder and from lower in her being, until she screamed in great pain, and cut her forehead on the blue rock and the blood ran into her dark hair, although she felt nothing but the pain of the emotions caused by the idea. But the man persisted. He spoke to her soothingly and gently, and he explained with a heavy heart that it would cause him an equal pain to be parted forever from her, but that it seemed the only course open to them unless they were to die here without ever having known any other thing better than craving.
After twenty-eight days the woman had absorbed this idea herself; she had turned it over, and tried to visualize the world beyond, without the man, perhaps with strangers, other women, more food, another dress, but she could feel none of it and gave up as the pictures refused to take shape. But she knew also that her man was right, that it had to be so, that they would part, and turn their backs on each other and walk off, she over the hot sand, he over the sticky red clay. She knew it would be like this, she had accepted the idea, and so she finally bent her head down to the hole and agreed with him that they should part. They decided to begin their separate journeys the very next day.
They spent the rest of the day gathering food; the woman tore off her petticoat and wrapped it around heaps of dried grapes, mushrooms and meat that the man had given her, and he took off his shirt and did the same. They spent a sleepless silent night of unspoken doubts leaning against the hole, and at dawn they clasped hands through the hole, said quiet goodbyes and turned around to walk, he with his bundle, she with a bundle and a handbag.
They each walked for several hours, with such a weight of dread and despair in their hearts as they had never known; their feet dragged, their backs bent, tears ran gently down their faces, and they each tried to recall the feel of the other’s hand through the wall, but already the impression was fading, and it was very difficult to feel anything. So, grieving, they walked slowly toward the perimeter of the north and south sides of the valley, and there in the distance they could each hear strange sounds, smell strange smells, and feel strange changes in the atmosphere. They were four miles apart by now and it was not yet noon, and the way had been uphill for both of them.
At exactly the same moment in time, the man in the north and the woman in the south met strangers of the opposite sex, and these two asked them the same questions. They inquired who they were, where they lived, and where they were going. Sadly they both told the same tale, and the woman who now faced the man in the north asked him to touch her long fair hair and made kissing mouths at him. He was immediately impassioned by this brazenness and, full of unspent vigor from the many dry years, he held her in his arms and began to make love to her, clumsily and fiercely, his own dark woman already forgotten. At the other side of the valley, she was just then succumbing to the advances of a tall dark man, a person more handsome than she could ever have visualized, raven and brown like herself, strong and passionate, and she was so filled with admiration and physical hunger that she succumbed easily to his embrace. And then the two couples parted, after long kisses and greedy sighing. As they stood up to brush their clothes in the afternoon light they chanced to look back across the valley, and in the distance saw each other, infinite specks, but each speck duplicated, and because each had just then been unfaithful with a stranger, they each knew that the other had too, that the double speck in the distance could mean only one thing.
They were immediately filled with remorse at what they had done, and longed for each other again as much as before, and because they could now see each other, even though it was so far away, they wished very much to be close together again. Having tasted full physical contact with others they now knew that no bliss in the world could match what they would feel for one another, could it be achieved. They had the instant idea that they would run to each other across the sinking plain and somehow overcome the obstacle of the wall which, from this distance, looked very small indeed. So they set off running without even saying goodbye to their lovers-that-were-not-lovers, running and breathing heavily from the unaccustomed effort.
When they were only one mile apart they could see one another quite clearly in the sharp white air which lit this part of the valley with an illusion of clarity which seemed to telescope everything distant much nearer. They paused, then, and, staring in wonder, each at the other, a pure brave kind of love lighted them up within, and it was as if they could see the pool that was the hidden soul. They began to run again, and, as the ground leveled off, the sight of them was almost lost behind the top of the wall; but this made them run the last few hundred yards even harder. At last they came up to the wall, and ran up and down at its base in joyous haste, seeking the hole. Soon they stood opposite, and the woman shouted to the man that she was going to climb the wall, and the man shouted to the woman that he was going to scale the wall, but they were so out of breath with running that their words were all muddled up and lost, and together they dropped the bundles and the bag at the base of the wall, and began to climb. It was easy to find toe and handholds in the old vines and creepers and in the crystalline hardness of the rock, and in minutes they were near the top where the cruel spikes stood waiting. Together they made one last desperate push upwards and saw themselves close together at the narrow top of the wall; as the spikes pushed into their bodies and as the blood ran down they stared in horror, not at the pain of Death but at what was really in the heart and soul of the other. In terror they clung to one another, closer and closer, hoping that it was not true, as they embraced breast to breast across the spikes, their cheeks pressed close with blood and tears; it was then that they noticed all the other lovers impaled on the spikes.