And at last she began to draw near to him, she nestled to
him. His limbs, his body, took fire and beat up in flames. She
clung to him, she cleaved to his body. The flames swept him, he
held her in sinews of fire. If she would kiss him! He bent his
mouth down. And her mouth, soft and moist, received him. He felt
his veins would burst with anguish of thankfulness, his heart
was mad with gratefulness, he could pour himself out upon her
for ever.
When they came to themselves, the night was very dark. Two
hours had gone by. They lay still and warm and weak, like the
new-born, together. And there was a silence almost of the
unborn. Only his heart was weeping happily, after the pain. He
did not understand, he had yielded, given way. There was
no understanding. There could be only acquiescence and
submission, and tremulous wonder of consummation.
The next morning, when they woke up, it had snowed. He
wondered what was the strange pallor in the air, and the unusual
tang. Snow was on the grass and the window-sill, it weighed down
the black, ragged branches of the yews, and smoothed the graves
in the churchyard.
Soon, it began to snow again, and they were shut in. He was
glad, for then they were immune in a shadowy silence, there was
no world, no time.
The snow lasted for some days. On the Sunday they went to
church. They made a line of footprints across the garden, he
left a flat snowprint of his hand on the wall as he vaulted
over, they traced the snow across the churchyard. For three days
they had been immune in a perfect love.
There were very few people in church, and she was glad. She
did not care much for church. She had never questioned any
beliefs, and she was, from habit and custom, a regular attendant
at morning service. But she had ceased to come with any
anticipation. To-day, however, in the strangeness of snow, after
such consummation of love, she felt expectant again, and
delighted. She was still in the eternal world.
She used, after she went to the High School, and wanted to be
a lady, wanted to fulfil some mysterious ideal, always to listen
to the sermon and to try to gather suggestions. That was all
very well for a while. The vicar told her to be good in this way
and in that. She went away feeling it was her highest aim to
fulfil these injunctions.
But quickly this palled. After a short time, she was not very
much interested in being good. Her soul was in quest of
something, which was not just being good, and doing one's best.
No, she wanted something else: something that was not her
ready-made duty. Everything seemed to be merely a matter of
social duty, and never of her self. They talked about her soul,
but somehow never managed to rouse or to implicate her soul. As
yet her soul was not brought in at all.