QUOTE : She had the feeling that life ran thick and slow inside her, bubbling like a hot sheet of lava. Maybe she loved herself . . . And what if she thought distantly, a bugle suddenly cut through that mantle of night with its sharp sound and left the plains free, green and vast . . . And then nervous white horses with rebellious neck and leg movements, almost flying, crossed rivers, mountains, valleys . . . Thinking of them, she felt the cool air circulate inside herself as if it had come out of a cool, moist, hidden grotto in the middle of the desert.