I’d be in bed with the covers up to my chin and I’d say in a tiny voice, “Here she is, David.”

He’d come over to me and sit down on the edge of the bed, and look at me so tenderly that sometimes I’d start to cry. I’d start to cry just like a little girl. He’d be so kind to me and would sit me up and take me in his arms and kiss me so sweetly that I thought I would just dissolve—he was so sweet. And he’d say, “I love you, Camille.”

“Oh God, David,” I’d say, “I love you so much.” And then he’d get undressed and we’d make love for hours.

But it wasn’t just the making love that was so wonderful; I don’t want you to think that. And it wasn’t only that we’d just gotten married. Sometimes we acted like people who’d been married fifty years. I imagine that it was mostly that we understood each other so well—at least David understood me, and I trusted him and so didn’t really have to understand him.

Anyway, THAT was how it was when we first got married. We were living in New Marsails then and David was working for the A-T, that’s the New Marsails Evening Almanac-Telegraph.

I had met him at a party on the Northside. My father had sent me away to a school in Atlanta, where they were supposed to teach me to be a lady, and where I was supposed to meet a nice, young southern gentleman. But I had managed to survive it, and came back to New Marsails without a husband.

When I got back, I discovered some of my friends had fallen in with a kind of Bohemian group who were studying art at the museum or writing and who sat on the floor talking about Marx. So they took me to one of their parties. I wanted very much to go because it would be such a relief from my exile in Atlanta. And I met David there.

We started to go out a lot, only it wasn’t exactly what my Mama would’ve called COURTING, because we didn’t really have dates; I just went with David when he had an assignment. But I didn’t care where he took me just as long as I was with him.