They went home through the night that was all pale and
glowing around, with shadows and glimmerings and presences.
Distinctly, she saw the flowers in the hedge-bottoms, she saw
the thin, raked sheaves flung white upon the thorny hedge.
How beautiful, how beautiful it was! She thought with anguish
how wildly happy she was to-night, since he had kissed her. But
as he walked with his arm round her waist, she turned with a
great offering of herself to the night that glistened
tremendous, a magnificent godly moon white and candid as a
bridegroom, flowers silvery and transformed filling up the
shadows.
He kissed her again, under the yew trees at home, and she
left him. She ran from the intrusion of her parents at home, to
her bedroom, where, looking out on the moonlit country, she
stretched up her arms, hard, hard, in bliss, agony offering
herself to the blond, debonair presence of the night.
But there was a wound of sorrow, she had hurt herself, as if
she had bruised herself, in annihilating him. She covered up her
two young breasts with her hands, covering them to herself; and
covering herself with herself, she crouched in bed, to
sleep.
In the morning the sun shone, she got up strong and dancing.
Skrebensky was still at the Marsh. He was coming to church. How
lovely, how amazing life was! On the fresh Sunday morning she
went out to the garden, among the yellows and the deep-vibrating
reds of autumn, she smelled the earth and felt the gossamer, the
cornfields across the country were pale and unreal, everywhere
was the intense silence of the Sunday morning, filled with
unacquainted noises. She smelled the body of the earth, it
seemed to stir its powerful flank beneath her as she stood. In
the bluish air came the powerful exudation, the peace was the
peace of strong, exhausted breathing, the reds and yellows and
the white gleam of stubble were the quivers and motion of the
last subsiding transports and clear bliss of fulfilment.
The church-bells were ringing when he came. She looked up in
keen anticipation at his entry. But he was troubled and his
pride was hurt. He seemed very much clothed, she was conscious
of his tailored suit.
"Wasn't it lovely last night?" she whispered to him.
"Yes," he said. But his face did not open nor become
free.
The service and the singing in church that morning passed
unnoticed by her. She saw the coloured glow of the windows, the
forms of the worshippers. Only she glanced at the book of
Genesis, which was her favourite book in the Bible.
"And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be
fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth.
"And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every
beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all
that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes in the sea;
into your hand are they delivered.