At the end of supper, during dessert, the music began to
play, violins, and flutes. Everybody's face was lit up. A glow
of excitement prevailed. When the little speeches were over, and
the port remained unreached for any more, those who wished were
invited out to the open for coffee. The night was warm.
Bright stars were shining, the moon was not yet up. And under
the stars burned two great, red, flameless fires, and round
these lights and lanterns hung, the marquee stood open before a
fire, with its lights inside.
The young people flocked out into the mysterious night. There
was sound of laughter and voices, and a scent of coffee. The
farm-buildings loomed dark in the background. Figures, pale and
dark, flitted about, intermingling. The red fire glinted on a
white or a silken skirt, the lanterns gleamed on the transient
heads of the wedding guests.
To Ursula it was wonderful. She felt she was a new being. The
darkness seemed to breathe like the sides of some great beast,
the haystacks loomed half-revealed, a crowd of them, a dark,
fecund lair just behind. Waves of delirious darkness ran through
her soul. She wanted to let go. She wanted to reach and be
amongst the flashing stars, she wanted to race with her feet and
be beyond the confines of this earth. She was mad to be gone. It
was as if a hound were straining on the leash, ready to hurl
itself after a nameless quarry into the dark. And she was the
quarry, and she was also the hound. The darkness was passionate
and breathing with immense, unperceived heaving. It was waiting
to receive her in her flight. And how could she start--and
how could she let go? She must leap from the known into the
unknown. Her feet and hands beat like a madness, her breast
strained as if in bonds.
The music began, and the bonds began to slip. Tom Brangwen
was dancing with the bride, quick and fluid and as if in another
element, inaccessible as the creatures that move in the water.
Fred Brangwen went in with another partner. The music came in
waves. One couple after another was washed and absorbed into the
deep underwater of the dance.
"Come," said Ursula to Skrebensky, laying her hand on his
arm.
At the touch of her hand on his arm, his consciousness melted
away from him. He took her into his arms, as if into the sure,
subtle power of his will, and they became one movement, one dual
movement, dancing on the slippery grass. It would be endless,
this movement, it would continue for ever. It was his will and
her will locked in a trance of motion, two wills locked in one
motion, yet never fusing, never yielding one to the other. It
was a glaucous, intertwining, delicious flux and contest in
flux.