'"Here on this mole-hill,"' he quoted mockingly.
They sat down in a small gap in the gorse, where the turf was very soft,
and where the darkness seemed deeper. The night was all fragrance, cool
odour of darkness, keen, savoury scent of the downs, touched with
honeysuckle and gorse and bracken scent.
Helena turned to him, leaning her hand on his thigh.
'What day is it, Siegmund?' she asked, in a joyous, wondering tone. He
laughed, understanding, and kissed her.
'But really,' she insisted, 'I would not have believed the labels could
have fallen off everything like this.' He laughed again. She still leaned towards him, her weight on her hand,
stopping the flow in the artery down his thigh.
'The days used to walk in procession like seven marionettes, each in
order and costume, going endlessly round.' She laughed, amused at
the idea.
'It is very strange,' she continued, 'to have the days and nights
smeared into one piece, as if the clock-hand only went round once in a
lifetime.' 'That is how it is,' he admitted, touched by her eloquence. 'You have
torn the labels off things, and they all are so different. This morning!
It does seem absurd to talk about this morning. Why should I be
parcelled up into mornings and evenings and nights? _I_ am not made up
of sections of time. Now, nights and days go racing over us like
cloud-shadows and sunshine over the sea, and all the time we take
no notice.' She put her arms round his neck. He was reminded by a sudden pain in his
leg how much her hand had been pressing on him. He held his breath from
pain. She was kissing him softly over the eyes. They lay cheek to cheek,
looking at the stars. He felt a peculiar tingling sense of joy, a
keenness of perception, a fine, delicate tingling as of music.
'You know,' he said, repeating himself, 'it is true. You seem to have
knit all things in a piece for me. Things are not separate; they are all
in a symphony. They go moving on and on. You are the motive in
everything.' Helena lay beside him, half upon him, sad with bliss.
'You must write a symphony of this--of us,' she said, prompted by a
disciple's vanity.
'Some time,' he answered. 'Later, when I have time.' 'Later,' she murmured--'later than what?' 'I don't know,' he replied. 'This is so bright we can't see beyond.' He
turned his face to hers and through the darkness smiled into her eyes
that were so close to his. Then he kissed her long and lovingly. He lay,
with her head on his shoulder looking through her hair at the stars.