 CHAPTER XII Segment made a great effort to keep the control of his body. The hillside, the gorse, when he stood up, seemed to have fallen back into shadowed vagueness about him. They were meaningless dark heaps at some distance, very great it seemed. "'I can't get hold of them,' he said distractedly to himself. He felt detached from the earth, from all the near concrete beloved things, as if these had melted away from him, and left him sick and unsupported, somewhere alone on the edge of an enormous space. He wanted to lie down again, to relieve himself of the sickening effort of supporting and controlling his body. If he could lie down again, perfectly still, he need not struggle to animate the cumbersome matter of his body, and then he would not feel thus sick and outside himself. But Helena was speaking to him, telling him they would see the moon-path. They must set off downhill. He felt her arm clasped firmly, joyously round his waist. Therein was his stability and warm support. Segment felt a keen flush of pitiful tenderness for her, as she walked with buoyant feet beside him, clasping him so happily, all unconscious. This pity for her drew him nearer to life. He shuddered lightly now and again, as they stepped lurching down the hill. He set his jaws hard to suppress this shuddering. It was not in his limbs, or even on the surface of his body, for Helena did not notice it. Yet he shuddered almost in anguish internally. What is it? he asked himself in wonder. His thought consisted of these detached phrases, which he spoke verbally to himself. Between wiles he was conscious only of an almost insupportable feeling of sickness, as a man feels who is being brought from under an anesthetic. Also he was vaguely aware of a teeming stir of activity, such as one may hear from a closed hive within him. They swung rapidly downhill. Segment still shuddered, but not so uncontrollably. They came to a style which they must climb. As he stepped over, it needed a concentrated effort of will to place his foot securely on the step. The effort was so great that he became conscious of it. Good Lord! he said to himself, I wonder what it is. He tried to examine himself. He thought of all the organs of his body, his brain, his heart, his liver. There was no pain and nothing wrong with any of them. He was sure. His dim searching resolved itself into another detached phrase. There is nothing the matter with me, he said. Then he continued vaguely wondering, recalling the sensation of wretched sickness which sometimes follows drunkenness, thinking of the times when he had fallen ill. But I am not like that, he said, because I don't feel tremulous. I am sure my hand is steady. Helena stood still to consider the road. He held out his hand before him. It was as motionless as a dead flower on this silent night. Yes, I think this is the right way, said Helena, and they set off again, as if gaily. It certainly feels rather deathly, said Siegmund to himself. He remembered distinctly when he was a child and had dyspheria. He had stretched himself in the horrible sickness which he felt was, and here he chose the French word, lagonie. But his mother had seen and had cried aloud which suddenly caused him to struggle with all his soul to spare her her suffering. Certainly it is like that, he said. Certainly it is rather deathly. I wonder how it is. Then he reviewed the last hour. I believe we are lost, Helena interrupted him. Lost? What matter? he answered indifferently, and Helena pressed him tighter, nearer to her, in a kind of triumph. But did we not come this way? he added. No, see! her voice was reeded with restrained emotion. We have certainly not been along this bare path which dips up and down. Well, then, we must merely keep due eastward, towards the moon pretty well as much as we can, said Siegmund, looking forward over the down where the moon was wrestling heroically to win free of the pack of clouds which hung on her like wolves on a white deer. As he looked at the moon he felt a sense of companionship. Helena, not understanding, left him so much alone. The moon was nearer. And continued to review the last hours. He had been so wondrously happy. The world had been filled with a new magic, a wonderful, stately beauty which he had perceived for the first time. For long hours he had been wandering in another, a glamorous primordial world. I suppose, he said to himself, I have lived too intensely. I seem to have had the stars and moon and everything else for guests, and now they've gone, my house is weak. So he struggled to diagnose his case of splendour and sickness. He reviewed his hour of passion with Helena. Surely, he told himself, I have drunk life too hot and it has hurt my cup. My soul seems to leak out. I am half here, half gone away. That's why I understand the trees and the night so painfully. Then he came to the hour of Helena's strange ecstasy over him. That somehow had filled him with passionate grief. It was happiness concentrated one drop too keen, so that what should have been vivid wine was like a pure poison scathing him. But his consciousness which had been unnaturally active now was dulling. He felt the blood flowing vigorously along the limbs again and stilling his brain, sweeping away his sickness, soothing him. I suppose, he said to himself for the last time, I suppose living too intensely kills you more or less. Then Siegmund forgot. He opened his eyes and saw the night about him. The moon had escaped from the cloud-pack and was radiant behind a fine veil which glistened to her rays and which was broided with a lustrous halo, very large indeed the largest halo Siegmund had ever seen. When the little lane turned full towards the moon it seemed as if Siegmund and Helena would walk through a large moorish arch of horseshoe shape, the enormous white halo opening in front of them. They walked on, keeping their faces to the moon, smiling with wonder and a little rapture, until once more the little lane curved willfully and they were walking north. Helena observed three cottages crouching under the hill and under trees to cover themselves from the magic of the moonlight. We certainly did not come this way before, she said triumphantly. The idea of being lost delighted her. Siegmund looked round at the grey hills smeared over with a low dim glisten of moon mist. He could not yet fully realize that he was walking along a lane in the Isle of Wight. His surroundings seemed to belong to some state beyond ordinary experience, some place in romance perhaps, or among the hills where Brynhilde lay sleeping in her large bright halo of fire. How could it be that he and Helena were two children of London wandering to find their lodging in fresh water? He sighed and looked again over the hills where the moonlight was condensing in mist, ethereal, frail and yet substantial, reminding him of the way the manor must have condensed out of the white moonlit mists of Arabian deserts. We, baby, on the road to Newport, said Helena presently, and the distance is ten miles. She laughed, not caring in the least whether they wandered, exulting in this wonderful excursion. She and Siegmund alone in a glistening wilderness of night at the back of habited days and nights. Siegmund looked at her. He by no means shared her exultation, though he sympathized with it. He walked on alone in his deep seriousness of which she was not aware. Yet when he noticed her abandon he drew nearer and his heart softened with protecting tenderness towards her and grew heavy with responsibility. The fields breathed off ascent as if they were come to life with the night and were talking with fragrant eagerness. The farms huddled together in sleep and pulled the dark shadow over them to hide from the supernatural white night. The cottages were locked and darkened. Helena walked on in triumph through this wondrous hinterland of night, actively searching for the spirits, watching the cottages they approached, listening, looking for the dreams of those sleeping inside in the darkened rooms. She imagined she could see the frail dream-faces at the windows. She fancied they stole out timidly into the gardens and went running away among the rabbits on the gleamy hillside. Helena laughed to herself, pleased with her fancy of wayward little dreams, playing with weak hands and feet among the large solemn sleeping cattle. This was the first time, she told herself, that she had ever been out among the grey-frocked dreams and white-armed fairies. She imagined herself lying asleep in her room, while her own dreams slid out down the moonbeams. She imagined Siegmund sleeping in his room, while his dreams, dark-eyed, their blue eyes very dark and yearning at night-time, came wandering over the grey grass, seeking her dreams. So she wove her fancies as she walked, until for very weariness she was feigned to remember that it was a long way, a long way. Siegmund's arm was about her to support her. She rested herself upon it. They crossed a style and recognised on the right of the path the graveyard of the Catholic Chapel. The moon, which the days were pairing smaller with envious keen knife, shone upon the white stones in the burial-ground. The carved Christ upon his cross hung against a silver-grey sky. Helena looked up, wearily, bowing to the tragedy. Siegmund also looked and bowed his head. Thirty years of earnest love, three years life like a passionate ecstasy, and it was finished. He was very great and very wonderful. I am very insignificant, and shall go out ignoble. But we are the same, love, the brief ecstasy, and the end. But mine is one rose, and his all the white beauty in the world. Siegmund felt his heart very heavy, sad and at fault in presence of the Christ. Yet he derived comfort from the knowledge that life was treating him in the same manner as it had treated the Master, though his compared small and despicable with the Christ tragedy. Siegmund stepped softly into the shadow of the pine-cops. Let me get under cover, he thought. Let me hide in it. It is good, the sudden, intense darkness. I am small and futile. My small, futile tragedy. Helena shrank in the darkness. It was almost terrible to her, and the silence was like a deep pit. She shrank to Siegmund. He drew her closer, leaning over her as they walked, trying to assure her. His heart was heavy, and heavy with a tenderness approaching grief for his small, brave Helena. Are you sure this is the right way? he whispered to her. Quite, quite sure, she whispered confidently in reply, and presently they came out into the hazy moonlight, and began stumbling down the steep hill. They were both very tired, but both found it difficult to go with ease or surety this sudden way down. Soon they were creeping cautiously across the pasture and the poultry farm. Helena's heart was beating, as she imagined what a merry noise there would be should they wake all the fowls. She dreaded any commotion, any questioning, this night, so she stole carefully along till they issued on the high road, not far from home. CHAPTER XIII In the morning, after bathing, Siegmund leaned upon the sea wall in a kind of reverie. It was late, towards nine o'clock, yet he lounged, dreamily looking out on the turquoise blue water, and the white haze of the morning, and the small, fair shadows of ships slowly realising before him. In the bay were two battleships, uncouth monsters, lying as naive and curious as sea lions, strayed afar. Siegmund was gazing over sea in a half-stupid way, when he heard a voice beside him say, Where have they come from? Do you know, sir? He turned, saw a fair slender man of some thirty-five years, standing beside him, and smiling faintly at the battleships. The men of war, there are a good many at spit-head, said Siegmund. The other glanced negligently into his face. They look rather incongruous, don't you think? We left the sea empty and shining, and when we come again, behold, these objects keeping their eye on us. Siegmund laughed. You are not an anarchist, I hope, he said, gestingly. An nihilist, perhaps, laughed the other, but I am quite fond of the Tsar, if pity is akin to love. No, but you can't turn round without finding some policeman or other at your elbow. Look at them, abominable iron-mongery, ready to put his hand on your shoulder. The speaker's grey-blue eyes, always laughing with mockery, glanced from the battleships, and lit on the dark-blue eyes of Siegmund. The latter felt his heart lift in a convulsive movement. This stranger ran so quickly to a perturbing intimacy. I suppose we are in the hands of God, something moved Siegmund to say. The stranger contracted his eyes slightly, as he gazed deep at the speaker. Ah! he drawled curiously. Then his eyes wandered over the wet hair, the white brow, and the bare throat of Siegmund, after which they returned again to the eyes of his interlocutor. Does the Tsar sail this way? he asked at last. I do not know, replied Siegmund, who, troubled by the others penetrating gaze, had not expected so trivial a question. I suppose the newspaper will tell us, said the man. Sure to, said Siegmund. You haven't seen it this morning? Not since Saturday. The swift-blue eyes of the man dilated. He looked curiously at Siegmund. You were not alone on your holiday? No! Siegmund did not like this. He gazed over the sea in displeasure. I live here, at least for the present, named Hampson. Why went you one of the first violins at the Savoy fifteen years back? asked Siegmund. They chatted a while about music. They had known each other, had been fairly intimate, and had since become strangers. Hampson excused himself for having addressed Siegmund. I saw you with your nose flattened against the window, he said, and as I had mine in the same position too, I thought we were fit to be reacquainted. Siegmund looked at the man in astonishment. I only mean he was staring rather hard at nothing. It's a pity to try and stare out of a beautiful blue day like this, don't you think? Stare beyond it, you mean, asked Siegmund. Exactly, replied the other, with a laugh of intelligence. I call a day like this the blue room. It's the least draughty apartment in all the confoundedly draughty house of life. Siegmund looked at him very intently. This Hampson seemed to express something in his own soul. I mean, the man explained, that after all the great mass of life that washes unidentified and that we call death creeps through the blue envelope of the day and through our white tissue and we can't stop it once we've begun to leak. What do you mean by leak? asked Siegmund. Goodness knows, I talk through my hat, but once you've got a bit tired of the house, you glue your nose to the window-pane and stare for the dark as you were doing. Not to use your metaphor, I'm not tired of the house, if you mean life, said Siegmund. Praise God! I've met a poet who's not afraid of having his pocket picked, or his soul or his brain, said the stranger, throwing his head back in a brilliant smile, his eyes dilated. I don't know what you mean, sir, said Siegmund, very quietly, with a strong fear and a fascination opposing each other in his heart. You're not tired of the house, but of your own particular room, say, sweet of rooms. Tomorrow I am turned out of this blue room, said Siegmund, with a wry smile. The other looked at him seriously. Dear Lord! exclaimed Hampson, then do you remember Flaubert Saint, who laid naked against a leper? I could not do it. Nor I, shuddered Siegmund. But you've got to, or something near it. Siegmund looked at the other with frightened, horrified eyes. What of yourself, he said resentfully. I funked, ran away from my leper, and now I'm eating my heart out and staring from the window at the dark. But can't you do something? said Siegmund. The other man laughed with amusement, throwing his head back and showing his teeth. I won't ask you what your intentions are, he said, with delicate irony in his tone. You know, I'm a tremendously busy man. I earn five hundred a year by hard work. But it's no good. If you have acquired a liking for intensity in life, you can't do without it. I mean vivid soul experience. It takes the place with us of the old adventure and physical excitement. Siegmund looked at the other man with baffled, anxious eyes. Well, and what then? he said. What then? A craving for intense life is nearly as deadly as any other craving. You become a concentré. You feed your normal flame with oxygen, and it devours your tissue. The soulful ladies of romance are always semi-transparent. Siegmund laughed, at least I am quite opaque, he said. The other glanced over his easy, mature figure and strong throat. Not altogether, said Hampson, and you, I should think, are one whose flame nearly goes out when the stimulant is lacking. Siegmund glanced again at him, startled. You haven't much reserve. You're like a tree that'll flower till it kills itself, the man continued. You'll run till you drop, and then you won't get up again. You've no dispassionate intellect to control you and economise. You're telling me very plainly what I am and am not, said Siegmund, laughing rather sarcastically. He did not like it. Oh, it's only what I think, replied Hampson. We're a good deal alike, you see, and have gone the same way. You married, and I didn't. But women have always done as they liked with me. That's hardly so in my case, said Siegmund. Hampson eyed him critically. Say one woman, it's enough, he replied. Siegmund gazed, musing over the sea. The best sort of women, the most interesting, are the worst for us, Hampson resumed. By instinct they aim at suppressing the gross and animal in us. Then they are super-sensitive, refined a bit beyond humanity. We, who are as little gross as need be, become their instruments. Life is grounded in them, like electricity in the earth, and we take from them their unrealised life, turn it into light or warmth or power for them. The ordinary woman is, alone, a great potential force, an accumulator, if you like, charged from the source of life. In us her force becomes evident. She can't live without us, but she destroys us. These deep, interesting women don't want us. They want the flowers of the spirit they can gather of us. We as natural men are more or less degrading to them, and to their love of us, therefore they destroy the natural man in us. That is, us all together. You're a bit downright, are you not?" asked Siegmund deprecatingly. He did not disagree with what his friend said, nor tell him such statements were arbitrary. "'That's according to my intensity,' laughed Hampson, "'I can open the blue heaven with looking, and push back the doors of day a little, and see, God knows what. One of these days I shall slip through. Oh, I am perfectly sane. I only strive beyond myself.' "'Don't you think it's wrong to get like it?' asked Siegmund. "'Well, I do, and so does everybody. But the crowd profits by us in the end. When they understand my music, it will be an education to them, and the whole aim of mankind is to render life intelligible.' Siegmund pondered a little. "'You make me feel as if I were loose, and a long way off from myself,' he said slowly. The young man smiled, then looked down at the wall, where his own hands lay white and fragile, showing the blue veins. "'I can scarcely believe they are me,' he said. "'If they rose up and refused me, I should not be surprised. But aren't they beautiful?' He looked with a faint smile at Siegmund. Siegmund glanced from the strangers to his own hands, which lay curved on the seawall as if asleep. They were small for a man of his stature, but lying warm in the sun, they looked particularly secure in life. Instinctively, with a wave of self-love, he closed his fists over his thumbs. "'I wonder,' said Hampson softly, with strange bitterness, that she can't see it. "'I wonder she doesn't cherish you. You are full and beautiful enough in the flesh. Will she help to destroy you, when she loved you to such extremity?' Siegmund looked at him with awe-stricken eyes. The frail, swift man, with his intensely living eyes, laughed suddenly. "'Fools, the fools, these women,' he said, either they smash their own crystal or it revolts, turns opaque, and leaps out of their hands. "'Look at me, I am whittled down to the quick. But your neck is thick with compressed life. It is a stem so tense with life that it will hold up by itself.' "'I am very sorry.' All at once he stopped. The bitter despair in his tone was the voice of a heavy feeling of which Siegmund had been vaguely aware for some weeks. Siegmund felt a sense of doom. He laughed, trying to shake it off. "'I wish I didn't go on like this,' said Hampson piteously. "'I wish I could be normal. How hot it is already. You should wear a hat. It is really hot.' He pulled open his flannel shirt. "'I like the heat,' said Siegmund. "'So do I.' Directly the young man dashed the long hair on his forehead into some sort of order, bowed, and smiling in his gay fashion, warped leisurely to the village. Siegmund stood a while as if stunned. It seemed to him only a painful dream. Sighing deeply to relieve himself of the pain, he set off to find Helena. End of chapter 13. Recording by Martin Giesen in Hazelmere Surrey. Chapter 14 of The Trespasser This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Martin Giesen. The Trespasser by D. H. Lawrence. Chapter 14 In the garden of tall rose-trees and nasturtiums, Helena was again waiting. It was past nine o'clock, so she was growing impatient. To herself, however, she professed a great interest in a little book of verses she had bought in St. Martin's Lane for tuppence. A late, harsh blackbird smote him with her wings as through the glade dim in the dark she flew. So she read. She made a curious, pleased sound and remarked to herself that she thought these verses very fine. But she watched the road for Siegmund. And now she takes the scissors on her thumb. Oh, then, no more unto my lattice come. Hmm! she said, I really don't know whether I like that or not. Therefore she read the piece again before she looked down the road. He really is very late. It is absurd to think he may have got drowned. But if he were washing about at the bottom of the sea, his hair loose on the water, her heart stood still as she imagined this. But what nonsense! I like these verses very much. I will read them as I walk along the side path where I shall hear the bees and catch the flutter of a butterfly among the words. That would be a very fitting way to read this poet. So she strolled to the gate, glancing up now and again. There, sure enough, was Siegmund coming. The towel hanging over his shoulder, his throat bare and his face bright. She stood in the mottled shade. I have kept you waiting, said Siegmund. Well, I was reading, you see. She would not admit her impatience. I have been talking, he said. Talking, she exclaimed, in slight displeasure. Have you found an acquaintance even here? A fellow who was quite close friends in Savoy days. He made me feel queer, sort of doppelganger he was. Helen had glanced up swiftly and curiously. In what way, she said. He talked all the skeletons in the cupboard. Such piffle it seems now. The sea is like a hair-bell, and there are two battleships lying in the bay. You can hear the voices of the men on deck distinctly. Well, have you made the plans for today? They went into the house to breakfast. She watched him helping himself to the scarlet and green salad. Mrs. Curtis, she said, in a rather reedy tone, has been very motherly to me this morning. Oh, very motherly! Siegmund, who is in a warm, gay mood, shrank up. What has she been saying something about last night? he asked. She was very much concerned for me, was afraid something dreadful had happened, continued Helena, in the same keen sarcastic tone which showed she was trying to rid herself of her own mortification. Because we weren't in till about eleven, said Siegmund, also with sarcasm, I mustn't do it again. Oh, no, I mustn't do it again, really! For fear of alarming the old lady, he asked. You know, dear, it troubles me a good deal, but if I were your mother, I don't know how I should feel, she quoted. When one engages rums, one doesn't usually stipulate for a stepmother to nourish one's conscience, said Siegmund. They laughed, making jest of the affair, but they were both too thin-skinned. Siegmund writhed within himself with mortification, while Helena talked as if her teeth were on edge. I don't mind, in the least, she said, the poor old woman has her opinions, and I mine. Siegmund brooded a little. I know I'm a moral coward, he said bitterly. Nonsense, she replied, then with a little heat, but you do continue to try so hard to justify yourself, as if you felt you needed justification. He laughed bitterly. I tell you, a thing like this, it remains tied, tight round something inside me, reminding me for hours. Well, what everybody else's opinion of me is. Helena laughed rather plaintively. I thought you were so sure we were right, she said. He winced again. In myself I am, but in the eyes of the world. If you feel so in yourself, is that not enough? she said brutally. He hung his head and slowly turned his serviettering. What is myself? he asked. Nothing very definite, she said, with a bitter laugh. They were silent. After a while she rose, went lovingly over to him, and put her arms round his neck. This is our last clear day, dear, she said. A wave of love came over him, sweeping away all the rest. He took her in his arms. It will be hot today, said Helena, as they prepared to go out. I felt the sun steaming in my hair as I came up, he replied. I shall wear a hat. You had better do so too. No, he said. I told you I wanted a sun-soaking. Now I think I shall get one. She did not urge nor compel him. In these matters he was old enough to choose for himself. This morning they were rather silent. Each felt the tarnish on their remaining day. I think, dear, she said, we ought to find the little path that escaped us last night. We were lucky to miss it, he answered. You don't get a walk like that twice in a lifetime, in spite of the old ladies. She glanced up at him with a winsome smile, glad to hear his words. They set off, Siegmund bare-headed. He was dressed in flannels and a loose canvas shirt, but he looked what he was, a Londoner on holiday. He had the appearance, the diffident bearing, and the well-cut clothes of a gentleman. He had a slight stoop, a strong-shouldered stoop, and as he walked he looked unseeing in front of him. Helena belonged to the unclassed. She was not ladylike, nor smart, nor assertive. One could not tell whether she were of independent means or a worker. One thing was obvious about her. She was evidently educated. Rather short of strong figure, she was much more noticeably a concentré than was Siegmund. Unless definitely looking at something, she always seemed coiled within herself. She wore a white voile dress made with the waist just below her breasts, and the skirt dropping straight and clinging. On her head was a large, simple hat of burnt straw. Through the open-worked sleeves of her dress, she could feel the sun bite vigorously. I wish you had put on a hat, Siegmund, she said. Why, he laughed, my hair is like a horde. He ruffled it back with his hand. The sunlight glistened on his forehead. On the higher paths a fresh breeze was energetically chasing the butterflies and driving the few small clouds disconsolate out of the sky. The lovers stood for some time, watching the people of the farm in the down below, dip their sheep on this sunny morning. There was a ragged noise of bleeding from the flock penned in a corner of the yard. Two red-armed men seized a sheep, hauled it to a large bath that stood in the middle of the yard, and there held it, more or less in the bath, while a third man bailed a dirty yellow liquid over its body. The white legs of the sheep twinkled as it buttered this way and that to escape the yellow douche. The blue-shirted men ducked and struggled. There was a faint splashing and shouting to be heard, even from a distance. The farmer's wife and children stood by, ready to rush in with assistance, if necessary. Helen laughed with pleasure. That really is a very quaint and primitive proceeding, she said. It is cruder than Theocritus. In an instant it makes me wish I were a farmer, he laughed. I think every man has a passion for farming at the bottom of his blood. It would be fine to be plain-minded, to see no farther than the end of one's nose and to own cattle and land. Would it?" asked Helena skeptically. If I had a red face and went to sleep as soon as I sat comfortable, I should love it, he said. It amuses me to hear you long to be stupid, she replied. To have a simple, slow-moving mind and an active life is the desideratum. Is it?" she asked ironically. I would give anything to be like that, he said. That is not to be yourself, she said pointedly. He laughed without much heartiness. Don't they seem a long way off, he said, staring at the bucolic scene. They are farther than Theocritus. Down there is farther than Sicily, and more than twenty centuries from us. I wish it weren't. Why do you?" she cried with curious impatience. He laughed. Crossing the down, scattered with dark bushes, they came directly opposite the path through the furs. There it is, she cried. How could we miss it? Ascribe it to the fairies, he replied, whistling the bird music out of Siegfried, then pieces of Tristan. They talked very little. She was tired. When they arrived at a green naked hollow near the cliff's edge, she said, This shall be our house today. Welcome home, said Siegfried. He flung himself down on the high breezy slope of the dip, looking out to sea. Helena sat beside him. It was absolutely still, and the wind was slackening more and more. Though they listened attentively, they could hear only an indistinct breathing sound, quite small, from the water below. No clapping nor horse conversation of waves. Siegmund lay with his hands beneath his head, looking over the sparkling sea. To put her page in the shadow, Helena propped her book against him, and began to read. Presently the breeze and Siegmund dropped asleep. The sun was pouring with dreadful persistence. It beat and beat on Helena, gradually drawing her from her book in a confusion of thought. She closed her eyes wearily, longing for shade. Vaguely she felt a sympathy with Adam, in Adam cast forth. Her mind traced again the tumult to a obscure struggleings of the two, forth from Eden through the primitive wildernesses, and she felt sorrowful. Thinking of Adam blackened with struggle, she looked down at Siegmund. The sun was beating him upon the face, and upon his glistening brow. Its two hands which lay out on the grass were full of blood, the veins of his wrists purple and swollen with heat. Yet he slept on, breathing with a slight panting motion. Helena felt deeply moved. She wanted to kiss him as he lay helpless, abandoned to the charge of the earth and the sky. She wanted to kiss him and shed a few tears. She did neither, but instead moved her position so that she shaded his head. Cautiously putting her hand on his hair, she found it warm, quite hot, as when you put your hand under a sitting hen and feel the hot feathered bosom. It will make him ill, she whispered to herself, and she bent over to smell the hot hair. She noticed where the sun was scalding his forehead. She felt very pitiful and helpless when she saw his brow becoming inflamed with the sun scalding. Turning weirdly away, she sought relief in the landscape. But the sea was glittering unbearably, like a scaled dragon wreathing. The houses of fresh water slept as cattle sleep motionless in the hollow valley. Green faringford on the slope was drawn over with a shadow of heat and sleep. In the bay below the hill the sea was hot and restless. Helena was sick with sunshine and the restless glitter of water. And there shall be no more sea, she quoted to herself. She knew not wherefrom. No more sea, no more anything, she thought daisidly as she sat in the midst of this fierce welter of sunshine. It seemed to her as if all the lightness of her fancy and her hope were being burned away in this tremendous furnace, leaving her, Helena, like a heavy piece of slag, seemed with metal. She tried to imagine herself resuming the old activities, the old manner of living. It is impossible, she said. It is impossible. What shall I be when I come out of this? I shall not come out, except as metal to be cast in another shape. No more the same segment, no more the same life. What will become of us? What will happen? She was roused from these semi-delirious speculations in the sun furnace by Siegmunds waking. He opened his eyes, took a deep breath, and looked smiling at Helena. It is worth while to sleep, said he, for the sake of waking like this I was dreaming of huge ice crystals. She smiled at him. He seemed unconscious of fate, happy and strong. She smiled upon him almost in condescension. I should like to realise your dream, she said. This is terrible. They went to the cliff's edge to receive the cool upflow of air from the water. She drank the travelling freshness eagerly with her face, and put forward her sun-burned arms to be refreshed. It is really a very fine sun, said Siegmund likely. I feel as if I were almost satisfied with heat. Helena felt the chagrin of one whose wretchedness must go unperceived, while she affects a light interest in another's pleasure. This time, when Siegmund failed to follow her, as she put it, she felt she must follow him. You are having your satisfaction complete this journey, she said, smiling, even a sufficiency of me. I, said Siegmund drowsily, I think I am. I think this is about perfect, don't you? She laughed. I want nothing more and nothing different, he continued, and that's the extreme of a decent time, I should think. The extreme of a decent time, she repeated. But he drawled on lazily. I've only rubbed my bread on the cheese-board until now. Now I've got all the cheese, which is you, my dear. I certainly feel eaten up, she laughed rather bitterly. She saw him lying in a royal ease, his eyes naive as a boy's, his whole being careless. Although very glad to see him thus happy, for herself she felt very lonely. Being listless with sun-weariness, and heavy with a sense of impending fate, she felt a great yearning for his sympathy, his fellow suffering. Instead of receiving this, she had to play to his buoyant happiness, so as not to shrivel one petal of his flower, or spoil one minute of his consummate hour. From the high point of the cliff where they stood, they could see the path winding down to the beach, and broadening upwards towards them. Slowly approaching up the slight incline came a black invalid's chair, wheeling silently over the short dry grass. The invalid, a young man, was so much deformed that already his soul seemed to be wilting in his pale, sharp face, as if there were not enough life-flow in the distorted body to develop the fair bud of the spirit. He turned his pain-sunken eyes towards the sea, whose meaning, like that of all things, was half obscure to him. Siegmund glanced, and glanced quickly away, before he should see. Helena looked intently for two seconds. She thought of the torn, shriveled seaweed flung across the reach of the tide. The life tied, she said to herself. The pain of the invalid overshadowed her own distress. She was fretted to her soul. Come, she said quietly to Siegmund, no longer resenting the completeness of his happiness which left her unnecessary to him. We will leave the poor invalid in possession of our green hollow. So quiet, she said to herself. They sauntered downwards towards the bay. Helena was brooding on her own state, after her own fashion. The mist-spirit, she said to herself. The mist-spirit draws a curtain round us. It is very kind. A heavy gold curtain sometimes. A thin torn curtain sometimes. I want the mist-spirit to close the curtain again. I do not want to think of the outside. I am afraid of the outside, and I am afraid when the curtain tears open in rags. I want to be in our own fine world, inside the heavy gold mist-curtain. As if in answer or in protest to her thoughts, Siegmund said, Do you want anything better than this, dear? Shall we come here again next year and stay for a whole month?" If there be any next year, said she. Siegmund did not reply. She wondered if he had really spoken in sincerity, or if he too were mocking fate. They walked slowly through the broiling sun towards their lodging. There will be an end to this, said Helena, communing with herself. And when we come out of the mist-curtain, what will it be? No matter. Let come what will. All along fate has been resolving, from the very beginning, resolving obvious discords, gradually, by unfamiliar progression, and out of original combinations, weaving wondrous harmonies with our lives. Really the working out has been wondrous, is wondrous now. The master fate is too great an artist to suffer an anti-climax. I am sure the master musician is too great an artist to allow a pathetic anti-climax. In Hazelmere, Surrey, Chapter 15 of The Trespasser. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Martin Giesen. The Trespasser by D. H. Lawrence. Chapter 15. The afternoon of the blazing day passed drowsily. Lying close together on the beach, Siegmund and Helena let the day exhale its hours, like perfume, unperceived. Siegmund slept, a light, evanescent sleep, irised with dreams and with suffering. Nothing definite, the colour of dreams without shape. Helena, as usual, retained her consciousness much more clearly. She watched the far-off floating of ships and the near wading of children through the surf. Endless trains of thoughts, like little waves, rippled forward and broke on the shore of her drowsiness. But each thought-ripple, though it ran lightly, was tinged with copper-coloured gleams, as from a lurid sunset. Helena felt that the sun was setting on her and Siegmund. The hour was too composed, spellbound, for grief or anxiety, or even for close perception. She was merely aware that the sun was wheeling down, tangling Siegmund and her in the traces, like overthrown charioteers. So the hours passed. After tea they went eastwards on the downs. Siegmund was animated, so that Helena caught his mood. It was very rare that they spoke of the time preceding their acquaintance. Helena knew little or nothing of Siegmund's life up to the age of thirty, whilst he had never learned anything concerning her childhood. Somehow she did not encourage him to self-discovery. Today, however, the painful need of lovers for self-revelation took hold on him. It is awfully funny, he said. I was so gone on Beatrice when I married her. She had only just come back from Egypt. Her father was an army officer, a very handsome man, and I believe a bit of a rake. Beatrice is really well connected, you know. But old Fitzherbert ran through all his money and through everything else. He was too hot for the rest of the family, so they dropped him altogether. He came to live at Peckham when I was sixteen. I had just left school and was to go into father's business. Mrs. Fitzherbert left cards, and very soon we were acquainted. Beatrice had been a good time in a French convent school. She had only knocked about with the army a little while, but it had brought her out. I remember I thought she was miles above me, which she was. She wasn't bad-looking either, and you know men all like her. I bet she'd marry again in spite of the children. At first I fluttered round her. I remember I'd got a little silky moustache. They all said I looked older than sixteen. At that time I was mad on the violin, and she played rather well. Then Fitzherbert went off abroad somewhere, so Beatrice and her mother half lived at our house. The mother was an invalid. I remember I nearly stood on my head one day. The conservatory opened off the smoking-room, so when I came in the room, I heard my two sisters and Beatrice talking about good-looking men. I consider Bertram will make a handsome man, said my younger sister. He's got beautiful eyes, said my other sister. And a real darling nose and chin, cried Beatrice, if only he was more solid. He is like a windmill, all limbs. He will fill out. Remember he's not quite seventeen, said my elder sister. Ah, he is do, he is cala, said Beatrice. I think he is rather too spoony for his age, said my elder sister. But he is a fine boy for all that. See how thick his knees are, my younger sister chimed in. Ah, see, see, cried Beatrice. I made a row against the door, then walked across. Hello is somebody in here, I said, as I pushed into the little conservatory. I looked straight at Beatrice, and she at me. We seemed to have formed an alliance in that look. She was the other half of my consciousness, I of hers. There were a lot of white Narcissus and little white Hyacinths, Roman Hyacinths, in the conservatory. I can see them now, great white stars and tangles of little ones, among a bank of green. And I can recall the keen fresh scent on the warm air, and the look of Beatrice, her great dark eyes. It's funny, but Beatrice is as dead. I far more dead than Dante's. And I am not that young fool, not a bit. I was very romantic, fearfully emotional, and the soul of honour. Beatrice said nobody cared a thing about her. Pitz Herbert was always jaunting off. The mother was a fretful invalid. So I was seventeen, earning half a guinea-week, and she was eighteen, with no money. When we ran away to Brighton and got married. Poor old Pater, he took it awfully well. I have been a frightful drag on him, you know. There's the romance. I wonder how it will all end. Helena laughed, and he did not detect her extreme bitterness of spirit. They walked on in silence for some time. He was thinking back before Helena's day. This left her very much alone, and forced on her the idea that after all, love, which she chose to consider as single and wonderful a thing in a man's life as birth or adolescence or death, was temporary and formed only an episode. It was her hour of disillusion. Come to think of it, Segment continued, I have always shirked. Whenever I've been in a tight corner, I've gone to Pater. I think, she said, marriage has been a tight corner you couldn't get out of to go to anybody. Yet I'm here, he answered simply. The blood suffused her face and neck. And some men would have made a better job of it. When it's come to sticking out against Beatrice and sailing the domestic ship in spite of her, I've always funked. I tell you I'm something of a moral coward. He had her so much on edge, she was inclined to answer. So be it. Indeed, she ran back over her own history. It consisted of petty discords in contemptible surroundings, then of her dreams and fancies. Finally, Segment. In my life, she said, with the fine, grating discord in her tones, I might say always, the real life has seemed just outside, brownies running and fairies peeping, just beyond the common, ugly place where I am. I seem to have been hedged in by vulgar circumstances, able to glimpse outside now and then and see the reality. You are so hard to get out, said Segment, and so scornful of familiar things. She smiled, knowing he did not understand. The heat had jaded her, so that physically she was full of discord, of dreariness that set her teeth on edge. Body and soul she was out of tune. A warm, noiseless twilight was gathering over the downs and rising darkly from the sea. Fate, with wide wings, was hovering just over her. Fate, ashen gray and black, like a carrion crow, had her in its shadow. Yet Segment took no notice. He did not understand. He walked beside her, whistling to himself, which only distressed her the more. They were alone on the smooth hills to the east, Helena looked at the day melting out of the sky, leaving the permanent structure of the night. It was her turn to suffer the sickening detachment which comes after moments of intense living. The rosiness died out of the sunset as embers fade into thick ash. In herself, too, the ruddy glow sank and went out. The earth was a cold, dead heap, coloured drearily. The sky was dark with flocculent gray ash, and she herself an upright mass of soft ash. She shuddered slightly with horror. The whole face of things was to her livid and ghastly. Being a moralist rather than an artist, coming of fervent Wesleyan stock, she began to scourge herself. She had done wrong again. Looking back, no one had she touched without hurting. She had a destructive force. Anyone she embraced, she injured. Faint voices echoed back from her conscience. The shadows were full of complaint against her. It was all true she was a harmful force, dragging fate to petty, mean conclusions. Life and hope were ash in her mouth. She shuddered with discord, despair grated between her teeth. This dreariness was worse than any her dreary, lonely life had known. She felt she could bear it no longer. Segment was there. Surely he could help. He would rekindle her. But he was straying ahead, carelessly whistling the spring-song from Divalcure. She looked at him and again shuddered with horror. Was that really Segment? That stooping, thick-shouldered, indifferent man. Was that the Segment who had seemed to radiate joy into his surroundings? The Segment whose coming had always changed the whole weather of her soul? Was that the Segment whose touch was keen with bliss for her? Whose face was a panorama of passing God? She looked at him again. His radiance was gone. His aura had ceased. She saw him a stooping man, past the buoyancy of youth, walking and whistling rather stupidly. In short, something of the clothed animal on end, like the rest of men. She suffered an agony of disillusion. Was this the real Segment, and her own only a projection of his soul? She took her breath sharply. Was he the real clay, and that other her beloved only the breathing of her soul upon this? There was an awful blank before her. Segment, she said in despair. He turned sharply at the sound of her voice. Seeing her face pale and distorted in the twilight, he was filled with dismay. She mutely lifted her arms to him, watching him in despair. Swiftly he took her in his arms, and asked in a troubled voice, What is it, dear? Is something wrong? His voice was nothing to her. It was stupid. She felt his arms round her, felt her face pressed against the cloth of his coat, against the beating of his heart. What was all this? This was not comfort or love. He was not understanding or helping, only chaining her, hurting. She did not want his brute embrace. She was most utterly alone, gripped so in his arms. If he could not save her from herself, he must leave her free to pant her heart out in free air. The secret thud, thud of his heart, the very self of that animal in him she feared and hated, repulsed her. She struggled to escape. What is it? Won't you tell me what is the matter? He pleaded. She began to sob, dry, wild sobs, feeling as if she would go mad. He tried to look at her face, for which she hated him. And all the time he held her fast, all the time she was imprisoned in the embrace of this brute, blind creature, whose heart confessed itself in thud, thud, thud. Have you heard anything against us? Have I done anything? Have I said anything? Tell me, at any rate tell me, Helena. Her sobbing was like the chattering of dry leaves. She grew frantic to be free. Stifled in that prison any longer, she would choke and go mad. His coat chafed her face, as she struggled she could see the strong working of his throat. She fought against him. She struggled in panic to be free. Let me go! Let me go! Let me go! He held her in bewilderment and terror. She thrust her hands in his chest and pushed him apart. Her face, blind to him, was very much distorted by her suffering. She thrust him furiously away with great strength. His heart stood still with wonder. She broke from him and dropped down, sobbing wildly in the shelter of the tumuli. She was bunched in a small, shaken heap. Segment could not bear it. He went on one knee beside her, trying to take her hand in his and pleading. Only tell me, Helena, what it is! Tell me what it is! At least tell me, Helena, tell me what it is! Oh! but this is dreadful! She had turned convulsively from him. She shook herself, as if beside herself, and at last covered her ears with her hands to shut out this unreasoning pleading of his voice. Seeing her like this, Segment at last gave in. Quite still he knelt on one knee beside her, staring at the late twilight. The intense silence was crackling with the sound of Helena's dry, hissing sobs. He remained silenced, stunned by the unnatural conflict. After waiting a while, he put his hand on her. She winced convulsively away. Then he rose, saying in his heart, It is enough! He went behind the small hill and looked at the night. It was all exposed. He wanted to hide, to cover himself from the openness, and there was not even a bush under which he could find cover. He lay down flat on the ground, pressing his face into the wiry turf, trying to hide. Quite stunned, with a death taking place in his soul, he lay still, pressed against the earth. He held his breath for a long time before letting it go. Then again he held it. He could scarcely bear, even by breathing, to betray himself. His consciousness was dark. Helena had sobbed and struggled the life-animation back into herself. At length, weary but comfortable, she lay still to rest. Almost she could have gone to sleep. But she grew chilly, and a ground insect tickled her face. Was somebody coming? It was dark when she rose. Segment was not in sight. She tidied herself, and rather frightened went to look for him. She saw him like a thick shadow on the earth. Now she was heavy with tears, good to shed. She stood in silent sorrow, looking at him. Suddenly she became aware of someone passing, and looking curiously at them. Dear! she said softly, stooping and touching his hair. He began to struggle with himself to respond. At that minute he would rather have died than face any one. His soul was too much uncovered. Dear! someone is looking! she pleaded. He drew himself up from cover, but he kept his face averted. They walked on. Forgive me, dear! she said softly. No, it's not you, he answered, and she was silenced. They walked on till the night seemed private. She turned to him, and Segment, she said, in a voice of great sorrow and pleading. He took her in his arms, but did not kiss her, though she lifted her face. He put his mouth against her throat, below the ear, as she offered it, and stood looking out through the ravel of her hair, dazed, dreamy. The sea was smoking with darkness and a half-luminous heavens. The stars, one after another, were catching a light. Segment perceived first one, and then another, dimmer one, flicker out in the darkness over the sea. He stood perfectly still, watching them. Gradually he remembered how, in the cathedral, the tapers of the choir stalls would tremble and set steadily to burn, opening the darkness point after point, with yellow drops of flame, as the acolyte touched them one by one delicately with his rod. The night was religious, then, with its proper order of worship. Day and night had their ritual, and passed in uncouth worship. Segment found himself in an abbey. He looked up the nave of the night, where the sky came down on the sea-like arches, and he watched the stars catch fire. At least it was all sacred, whatever the God might be. Helena herself, the bitter bread, was stuff of the ceremony which he touched with his lips as part of the service. He had Helena in his arms, which was sweet company, but in spirit he was quite alone. She would have drawn him back to her, and on her woman's breast have hidden him from fate, and saved him from searching the unknown. But this night he did not want comfort. If he were an infant crying in the night, it was crying that a woman could not still. He was abroad seeking courage and faith for his own soul. He in loneliness must search the night for faith. My fate is finally wrought out, he thought to himself. Even damnation may be finely imagined for me in the night. I have come so far. Now I must get clarity and courage to follow out the theme. I don't want to botch and bungle even damnation. But he needed to know what was right, what was the proper sequence of his acts. Staring at the darkness, he seemed to feel his course, though he could not see it. He bowed in obedience. The stars seemed to swing softly. In token of submission. End of chapter 15 Feeling him abstract, withdrawn from her, Helena experienced the dread of losing him. She was in his arms, but his spirit ignored her. That was insufferable to her pride. Yet she dared not disturb him. She was afraid. Bitterly she repented her of the giving way to her revulsion a little space before. Why had she not smothered it and pretended? Why had she, a woman, betrayed herself so flagrantly? Now perhaps she had lost him for good. She was consumed with uneasiness. At last she drew back from him, held him her mouth to kiss. As he gently, sadly, kissed her, she pressed him to her bosom. She must get him back, whatever else she lost. She put her hand tenderly on his brow. What are you thinking of? she asked. I, he replied, I really don't know. I suppose I was hardly thinking anything. She waited a while, clinging to him. Then, finding some difficulty in speech, she asked, Was I very cruel, dear? It was so unusual to hear her grieved and filled with humility that he drew her close into him. It was pretty bad, I suppose, he replied, But I should think neither of us could help it. She gave a little sob, pressed her face into his chest, wishing she had helped it. Then, with Madonna love, she clasped his head upon her shoulder, covering her hands over his hair. Twice she kissed him softly in the nape of the neck with fond, reassuring kisses. All the while, delicately, she fondled and soothed him, till he was child to her Madonna. They remained standing with his head on her shoulder for some time, till at last he raised himself to lay his lips on hers in a long kiss of healing and renewal, long pale kisses of after-suffering. Someone was coming along the path. Helena let him go, shook herself free, turned sharply aside and said, Shall we go down to the water? If you like, he replied, putting out his hand to her. They went thus with clasped hands down the cliff-path to the beach. There they sat in the shadow of the uprising island, facing the restless water. Around them the sand and shingle were grey. They stretched a long pale line of surf, beyond which the sea was black and smeared with star reflections. The deep, velvety sky shone with lustrous stars. As yet the moon was not risen, Helena proposed that they should lie on a tuft of sand in a black cleft of the cliff to await its coming. They lay close together without speaking. Each was looking at a low, large star which hung straight in front of them, dripping its brilliance in a thin streamlet of light along the sea, almost to their feet. It was a star-path, fine and clear, trembling in its brilliance, but certain upon the water. Helena watched it with delight. As Segment looked at the star, it seemed to him a lantern hung at the gate to light someone home. He imagined himself following the thread of the star-track, what was behind the gate. They heard the wash of a steamer crossing the bay. The water seemed populous in the night-time with dark uncanny comings and goings. Segment was considering, what was the matter with you? he asked. She leaned over him, took his head in her lap, holding his face between her two hands, as she answered in a low, grey voice, very wise and old in experience. Why, you see, dear, you won't understand, but there was such a greyish darkness, and through it the crying of lives I have touched. His heart suddenly shrank and sank down. She acknowledged then that she also had helped to injure Beatrice and his children. He coiled with shame, a crying of lives against me, and I couldn't silence them, nor escape out of the darkness. I wanted you. I saw you in front, whistling the spring song, but I couldn't find you. It was not you. I couldn't find you. She kissed his eyes and his brows. No, I don't see it, he said. You would always be you. I could think of hating you, but you'd still be yourself. She made a moaning, loving sound. Full of passionate pity, she moved her mouth on his face, as a woman does on her child that has hurt itself. Sometimes, she murmured in a low, grieved confession, you lose me. He gave a brief laugh. I lose you, he repeated. You mean I lose my attraction for you, or my hold over you, and then you. He did not finish. She made the same grievous, murmuring noise over him. It shall not be any more, she said. All right, he replied, since you decide it. She clasped him round the chest and fondled him, distracted with pity. You mustn't be bitter, she murmured. Four days is enough, he said. In a fortnight I should be intolerable to you. I am not masterful. It is not so, Siegmund, she said sharply. I give way always, he repeated, and then, to-night. To-night, to-night, she cried in wrath. To-night I have been a fool. And I, he asked. You, what of you, she cried. Then she became sad. I have little perverse feelings, she lamented. And I can't bear to compel anything for fear of hurting it. So I'm always pushed this way and that, like a fool. You don't know how you hurt me talking so, she said. He kissed her. After a moment he said, You are not like other folk. Ihr Laschecks seid ein anderes Geschlecht. I thought of you when we read it. Would you rather have me more like the rest or more unlike, Siegmund? Which is it? Neither, he said. You are you. They were quiet for a space. The only movement in the night was the faint gambling of starlight on the water. The last person had passed in black silhouette between them and the sea. He was thinking bitterly. She seemed to goad him deeper and deeper into life. He had a sense of despair, a preference of death. The Germans she read with him, she loved its loose and violent romance, came back to his mind. Der Tod geht einem zur Seite, fast sichtbarlich und jacht einem immer tiefer ins Leben. Well, the next place he would be hunted to, like a hare run down, was home. It seemed impossible the morrow would take him back to Beatrice. This time, tomorrow night, he said. Siegmund, she implored. Why not, he laughed. Don't, dear, she pleaded. All right, I won't. Some large steamer crossing the mouth of the bay made the water dash a little as it broke in accentuated waves. A warm puff of air wandered in on them now and again. You won't be tired when you go back, Helena asked. Tired, he echoed. You know how you were when you came, she reminded him, in tones full of pity. He laughed. Oh, that is gone, he said. With a slow mechanical rhythm she stroked his cheek. And will you be sad, she said, hesitating. Sad, he repeated. But will you be able to take the old life up happier when you go back? The old life will take me up, I suppose, he said. There was a pause. I think, dear, she said, I have done wrong. Good Lord, you have not! He replied sharply, pressing back his head to look at her for the first time. I shall have to send you back to Beatrice and the babies to Morrow, as you are now. Take no thought for the Morrow. Be quiet, Helena, he exclaimed, as the reality bit him. He sat up suddenly. Why, she asked, afraid. Why, he repeated. He remained sitting, leaning forward on the sand, staring intently at Helena. She looked back in fear at him. The moment terrified her, and she lost courage. With a fluttered motion she put her hand on his, which was pressed hard on the sand as he leaned forward. At once he relaxed his intensity, laughed, then became tender. Helena yielded herself like a forlorn child to his arms, and there lay, half crying, while he smoothed her brow with his fingers, and grains of sand fell from his palm on her cheek. She shook with dry, withered sobs, as a child does when it snatches itself away from the lancet of the doctor, and hides in the mother's bosom, refusing to be touched. But she knew the Morrow was coming, whether or not, and she cowered down on his breast. She was wild with fear of the parting and the subsequent days. They must drink after tomorrow separate cups. She was filled with vague terror of what it would be. The sense of the oneness and unity of their fates was gone. Siegmund also was cowed by the threat of separation. He had more definite knowledge of the next move than had Helena. His heart was certain of calamity, which would overtake him directly. He shrank away. Wildly he beat about to find a means of escape from the next day and its consequences. He did not want to go, anything rather than go back. In the midst of their passion of fear the moon rose. Siegmund started to see the rim appear rudderly beyond the sea. His struggling suddenly ceased, and he watched spellbound the oval horn of fiery gold come up, resolve itself. Some golden liquor dripped and spilled upon the far waves, where it shook in ruddy splashes. The gold-red cup rose higher, looming before him, very large, yet still not all discovered. By degrees the horn of gold detached itself from the darkness at back of the waves. It was immense and terrible. When would the tip be placed upon the table of the sea? It stood at last, whole and calm before him. Then the night took up this drinking cup of fiery gold, lifting it with majestic movement overhead, letting stream forth the wonderful, unwasted liquor of gold over the sea. A libation. Siegmund looked at the shaking flood of gold and paling gold, spread wider as the night up raised the blanching crystal. He poured out farther and farther the immense libation from the whitening cup, till at last the moon looked frail and empty. And there, exhaustless in the night, the white light shook on the floor of the sea. He wondered how it would be gathered up. I gather it up into myself, he said, and the stars and the cliffs and a few trees were watching too. If I have spilled my life, he thought, the unfamiliar eyes of the land and sky will gather it up again. Turning to Helena, he found her face white and shining as the empty moon. End of chapter 16 Recording by Martin Giesen in Hazelmere Surrey