At the height of summer the rains came; the fiery flowers and the fantastic hills were extinguished in a blur of rain, in a steam and smell of rain throughout the valley, in clouds of rain drifting among the crags, arrows of rain slanting across the Lake. For a day or two Yuan and Lychnis stayed at home, amusing themselves in the laboratories, talking in the library, studying paintings on silk, handling bronzes and porcelain, looking out at the rain. They had plenty to say and do, but the deluge had a voice for Lychnis, and she desired to feel the drench on her body, to be enveloped in the embrace of warm rain. The third day, therefore, they took a punt and a cormorant, and went fishing, with only the protection of a flat umbrella, she in her glass-green silk, he in his hunting costume of russet-brown with a note of crimson. Forthwith they were gasping under the minute insistent drive of the myriad rain arrows. They made their way down the squelching path, among dripping laurels, to the shore. She laughed. “We are in the power of the rain. It’s delicious.” And he smiled back, knowing how softly and surely the rain prevails. “See,” he called, “the subject for a picture—Rain on a Sheet of Water and Ducks swimming under a Willow.” They found their punt, and she remembers the touch of his wet hand as he helped her on board. They pushed off, and the rain fell steadily and softly all about them. The sky was full of grey, swirling veils; pale, driving gusts swept the leaves and the white lilies. The shore receded, there was a blur of willows in a slant of rain, a glimpse of rock like a grey core of rain, and then they were together in a warm, misty oblivion. Lychnis put up her face to the soft downpour, taking warm caresses on her eyes, in her mouth. The rain drenched her, soaked into her hair, smoothed the silk robe to her body so that she seemed stripped, blinded her, beat her, knew every part of her, and prevailed. She felt shameless and searching caresses down back and limbs, between her breasts and over her torso, on knees and feet. The rain was possessing her, but the face of the rain that watched her was Yuan’s. She held up her mouth to the down-drenching lover, saying, “I adore you.”