Siegmund woke with wonder in the morning. 'It is like the magic tales,'
he thought, as he realized where he was; 'and I am transported to a new
life, to realize my dream! Fairy-tales are true, after all.' He had slept very deeply, so that he felt strangely new. He issued with
delight from the dark of sleep into the sunshine. Reaching out his hand,
he felt for his watch. It was seven o'clock. The dew of a sleep-drenched
night glittered before his eyes. Then he laughed and forgot the night.
The creeper was tapping at the window, as a little wind blew up the
sunshine. Siegmund put out his hands for the unfolding happiness of the
morning. Helena was in the next room, which she kept inviolate. Sparrows
in the creeper were shaking shadows of leaves among the sunshine;
milk-white shallop of cloud stemmed bravely across the bright sky; the
sea would be blossoming with a dewy shimmer of sunshine.
Siegmund rose to look, and it was so. Also the houses, like white, and
red, and black cattle, were wandering down the bay, with a mist of
sunshine between him and them. He leaned with his hands on the
window-ledge looking out of the casement. The breeze ruffled his hair,
blew down the neck of his sleeping-jacket upon his chest. He laughed,
hastily threw on his clothes, and went out.
There was no sign of Helena. He strode along, singing to himself, and
spinning his towel rhythmically. A small path led him across a field and
down a zigzag in front of the cliffs. Some nooks, sheltered from the
wind, were warm with sunshine, scented of honeysuckle and of thyme. He
took a sprig of woodbine that was coloured of cream and butter. The
grass wetted his brown shoes and his flannel trousers. Again, a fresh
breeze put the scent of the sea in his uncovered hair. The cliff was a
tangle of flowers above and below, with poppies at the lip being blown
out like red flame, and scabious leaning inquisitively to look down, and
pink and white rest-harrow everywhere, very pretty.
Siegmund stood at a bend where heath blossomed in shaggy lilac, where
the sunshine but no wind came. He saw the blue bay curl away to the
far-off headland. A few birds, white and small, circled, dipped by the
thin foam-edge of the water; a few ships dimmed the sea with silent
travelling; a few small people, dark or naked-white, moved below the
swinging birds.
He chose his bathing-place where the incoming tide had half covered a
stretch of fair, bright sand that was studded with rocks resembling
square altars, hollowed on top. He threw his clothes on a high rock. It
delighted him to feel the fresh, soft fingers of the wind touching him
and wandering timidly over his nakedness. He ran laughing over the sand
to the sea, where he waded in, thrusting his legs noisily through the
heavy green water.