第 49 页

little bit ingratiatingly from the door. And she came out to

examine the jewel on the child's neck.

"It is Ursula, isn't it?" said Ursula Brangwen.

The father looked up at her, with an intimate, half-gallant,

half-impudent, but wistful look. His captive soul loved her: but

his soul was captive, he knew, always.

She wanted to go. He set a little ladder for her to climb up

to the wharf. She kissed the child, which was in its mother's

arms, then she turned away. The mother was effusive. The man

stood silent by the ladder.

Ursula joined Skrebensky. The two young figures crossed the

lock, above the shining yellow water. The barge-man watched them

go.

"I loved them," she was saying. "He was so

gentle--oh, so gentle! And the baby was such a dear!"

"Was he gentle?" said Skrebensky. "The woman had been a

servant, I'm sure of that."

Ursula winced.

"But I loved his impudence--it was so gentle

underneath."

She went hastening on, gladdened by having met the grimy,

lean man with the ragged moustache. He gave her a pleasant warm

feeling. He made her feel the richness of her own life.

Skrebensky, somehow, had created a deadness round her, a

sterility, as if the world were ashes.

They said very little as they hastened home to the big

supper. He was envying the lean father of three children, for

his impudent directness and his worship of the woman in Ursula,

a worship of body and soul together, the man's body and soul

wistful and worshipping the body and spirit of the girl, with a

desire that knew the inaccessibility of its object, but was only

glad to know that the perfect thing existed, glad to have had a

moment of communion.

Why could not he himself desire a woman so? Why did he never

really want a woman, not with the whole of him: never loved,

never worshipped, only just physically wanted her.

But he would want her with his body, let his soul do as it

would. A kind of flame of physical desire was gradually beating

up in the Marsh, kindled by Tom Brangwen, and by the fact of the

wedding of Fred, the shy, fair, stiff-set farmer with the

handsome, half-educated girl. Tom Brangwen, with all his secret

power, seemed to fan the flame that was rising. The bride was

strongly attracted by him, and he was exerting his influence on

another beautiful, fair girl, chill and burning as the sea, who

said witty things which he appreciated, making her glint with

more, like phosphorescence. And her greenish eyes seemed to rock

a secret, and her hands like mother-of-pearl seemed luminous,

transparent, as if the secret were burning visible in them.

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.

They were both absorbed into a profound silence, into a deep,

fluid underwater energy that gave them unlimited strength. All

the dancers were waving intertwined in the flux of music.

Shadowy couples passed and repassed before the fire, the dancing

feet danced silently by into the darkness. It was a vision of

the depths of the underworld, under the great flood.

There was a wonderful rocking of the darkness, slowly, a

great, slow swinging of the whole night, with the music playing

lightly on the surface, making the strange, ecstatic, rippling

on the surface of the dance, but underneath only one great flood

heaving slowly backwards to the verge of oblivion, slowly

forward to the other verge, the heart sweeping along each time,

and tightening with anguish as the limit was reached, and the

movement, at crises, turned and swept back.

As the dance surged heavily on, Ursula was aware of some

influence looking in upon her. Something was looking at her.

Some powerful, glowing sight was looking right into her, not

upon her, but right at her. Out of the great distance, and yet

imminent, the powerful, overwhelming watch was kept upon her.

And she danced on and on with Skrebensky, while the great, white

watching continued, balancing all in its revelation.

"The moon has risen," said Anton, as the music ceased, and

they found themselves suddenly stranded, like bits of jetsam on

a shore. She turned, and saw a great white moon looking at her

over the hill. And her breast opened to it, she was cleaved like

a transparent jewel to its light. She stood filled with the full

moon, offering herself. Her two breasts opened to make way for

it, her body opened wide like a quivering anemone, a soft,

dilated invitation touched by the moon. She wanted the moon to

fill in to her, she wanted more, more communion with the moon,

consummation. But Skrebensky put his arm round her, and led her

away. He put a big, dark cloak round her, and sat holding her

hand, whilst the moonlight streamed above the glowing fires.

She was not there. Patiently she sat, under the cloak, with

Skrebensky holding her hand. But her naked self was away there

beating upon the moonlight, dashing the moonlight with her

breasts and her knees, in meeting, in communion. She half

started, to go in actuality, to fling away her clothing and flee

away, away from this dark confusion and chaos of people to the

hill and the moon. But the people stood round her like stones,

like magnetic stones, and she could not go, in actuality.

Skrebensky, like a load-stone weighed on her, the weight of his

presence detained her. She felt the burden of him, the blind,

persistent, inert burden. He was inert, and he weighed upon her.

She sighed in pain. Oh, for the coolness and entire liberty and

brightness of the moon. Oh, for the cold liberty to be herself,

to do entirely as she liked. She wanted to get right away. She

felt like bright metal weighted down by dark, impure magnetism.

He was the dross, people were the dross. If she could but get

away to the clean free moonlight.

"Don't you like me to-night?" said his low voice, the voice

of the shadow over her shoulder. She clenched her hands in the

dewy brilliance of the moon, as if she were mad.

"Don't you like me to-night?" repeated the soft voice.

And she knew that if she turned, she would die. A strange

rage filled her, a rage to tear things asunder. Her hands felt

destructive, like metal blades of destruction.

"Let me alone," she said.

A darkness, an obstinacy settled on him too, in a kind of

inertia. He sat inert beside her. She threw off her cloak and

walked towards the moon, silver-white herself. He followed her

closely.

The music began again and the dance. He appropriated her.

There was a fierce, white, cold passion in her heart. But he

held her close, and danced with her. Always present, like a soft

weight upon her, bearing her down, was his body against her as

they danced. He held her very close, so that she could feel his

body, the weight of him sinking, settling upon her, overcoming

her life and energy, making her inert along with him, she felt

his hands pressing behind her, upon her. But still in her body

was the subdued, cold, indomitable passion. She liked the dance:

it eased her, put her into a sort of trance. But it was only a

kind of waiting, of using up the time that intervened between

her and her pure being. She left herself against him, she let

him exert all his power over her, to bear her down. She received

all the force of his power. She even wished he might overcome

her. She was cold and unmoved as a pillar of salt.

His will was set and straining with all its tension to

encompass him and compel her. If he could only compel her. He

seemed to be annihilated. She was cold and hard and compact of

brilliance as the moon itself, and beyond him as the moonlight

was beyond him, never to be grasped or known. If he could only

set a bond round her and compel her!

So they danced four or five dances, always together, always

his will becoming more tense, his body more subtle, playing upon

her. And still he had not got her, she was hard and bright as

ever, intact. But he must weave himself round her, enclose her,

enclose her in a net of shadow, of darkness, so she would be

like a bright creature gleaming in a net of shadows, caught.

Then he would have her, he would enjoy her. How he would enjoy

her, when she was caught.

At last, when the dance was over, she would not sit down, she

walked away. He came with his arm round her, keeping her upon

the movement of his walking. And she seemed to agree. She was

bright as a piece of moonlight, as bright as a steel blade, he

seemed to be clasping a blade that hurt him. Yet he would clasp

her, if it killed him.

They went towards the stackyard. There he saw, with something

like terror, the great new stacks of corn glistening and

gleaming transfigured, silvery and present under the night-blue

sky, throwing dark, substantial shadows, but themselves majestic

and dimly present. She, like glimmering gossamer, seemed to burn

among them, as they rose like cold fires to the silvery-bluish

air. All was intangible, a burning of cold, glimmering,

whitish-steely fires. He was afraid of the great

moon-conflagration of the cornstacks rising above him. His heart

grew smaller, it began to fuse like a bead. He knew he would

die.

She stood for some moments out in the overwhelming luminosity

of the moon. She seemed a beam of gleaming power. She was afraid

of what she was. Looking at him, at his shadowy, unreal,

wavering presence a sudden lust seized her, to lay hold of him

and tear him and make him into nothing. Her hands and wrists

felt immeasurably hard and strong, like blades. He waited there

beside her like a shadow which she wanted to dissipate, destroy

as the moonlight destroys a darkness, annihilate, have done

with. She looked at him and her face gleamed bright and

inspired. She tempted him.

And an obstinacy in him made him put his arm round her and

draw her to the shadow. She submitted: let him try what he could

do. Let him try what he could do. He leaned against the side of

the stack, holding her. The stack stung him keenly with a

thousand cold, sharp flames. Still obstinately he held her.

And timorously, his hands went over her, over the salt,

compact brilliance of her body. If he could but have her, how he

would enjoy her! If he could but net her brilliant, cold,

salt-burning body in the soft iron of his own hands, net her,

capture her, hold her down, how madly he would enjoy her. He

strove subtly, but with all his energy, to enclose her, to have

her. And always she was burning and brilliant and hard as salt,

and deadly. Yet obstinately, all his flesh burning and

corroding, as if he were invaded by some consuming, scathing

poison, still he persisted, thinking at last he might overcome

her. Even, in his frenzy, he sought for her mouth with his

mouth, though it was like putting his face into some awful

death. She yielded to him, and he pressed himself upon her in

extremity, his soul groaning over and over:

"Let me come--let me come."

She took him in the kiss, hard her kiss seized upon him, hard

and fierce and burning corrosive as the moonlight. She seemed to

be destroying him. He was reeling, summoning all his strength to

keep his kiss upon her, to keep himself in the kiss.

But hard and fierce she had fastened upon him, cold as the

moon and burning as a fierce salt. Till gradually his warm, soft

iron yielded, yielded, and she was there fierce, corrosive,

seething with his destruction, seething like some cruel,