 6 Segment woke with wonder in the morning. It is like the magic tales, he thought, as he realised where he was, and I am transported to a new life, to realise 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. Segment put out his hands for the unfolding happiness of the morning. Helena was in the next room, which she kept in violet. Sparrows in the creeper were shaking shadows of leaves among the sunshine. Milk-white shalop of cloud stemmed bravely across the bright sky. The sea would be blossoming with a dewy shimmer of sunshine. Segment 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-edge, looking out of the casement. The breeze ruffled his hair, blew down the neck of his sleeping-jacket upon his chest. He laughed hastily through 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 whetted his brown shoes and his flannel trousers. Again a 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. Segment 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. Segment 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. It was cold, and he shrank. For a moment he found himself sigh-deep, watching the horizontal stealing of a ship through the intolerable glitter, afraid to plunge. Laughing, he went under the clear green water. He was a poor swimmer. Sometimes a choppy wave swamped him, and he rose gasping, ringing the water from his eyes and nostrils, while he heaved and sank with the rocking of the waves that clasped his breast. Then he stooped again to resume his game with the sea. It is splendid to play, even at middle age, and the sea is a fine partner. With his eyes at the shining level of the water he liked to peer across, taking a seal's view of the cliffs as they confronted the morning. He liked to see the ships standing up on a bright floor. He liked to see the birds come down. But in his playing he drifted towards the spur of rock, where as he swam he caught his thigh on a sharp submerged point. He frowned at the pain, at the sudden cruelty of the sea. Then he thought no more of it, but ruffled his way back to the clear water, busily continuing his play. When he ran out under the fair sand, his heart and brain and body were in a turmoil. He panted, filling his breast with the air that was sparkled and tasted of the sea. As he shuddered a little, the wilful palpitations of his flesh pleased him as if birds had fluttered against him. He offered his body to the morning, glowing with the sea's passion. The wind nestled into him. The sunshine came on his shoulders like warm breath. He delighted in himself. The rock before him was white and wet like himself. It had a pool of clear water, with shells and one rose anemone. She would make so much of this little pool, he thought. And as he smiled, he saw very faintly his own shadow in the water. It made him conscious of himself, seeming to look at him. He glanced at himself at his handsome white maturity. As he looked, he felt the insidious creeping of blood down his thigh, which was marked with the long red slash. Segment watched the blood travel over the bright skin. It wound itself redly round the rise of his knee. That is I, that creeping red, and this whiteness I pride myself on is I, and my black hair and my blue eyes are I. It is a weird thing to be a person. What makes me myself among all these? Feeling chill, he wiped himself quickly. I am at my best, at my strongest, he said proudly to himself. She ought to be rejoiced at me. But she is not. She rejects me, as if I were a baboon under my clothing. He glanced at his whole handsome maturity, the firm plating of his breasts, the full thighs, creatures proud in themselves. Only he was marred by the long raw scratch, which he regretted deeply. If I was giving her myself, I wouldn't want that blemish on me, he thought. He wiped the blood from the wound. It was nothing. She thinks ten thousand times more of that little pool with a bit of pink anemone and some yellow weed than of me. But by Chauve I'd rather see her shoulders and breasts than all heaven and earth put together could show. Why doesn't she like me? he thought as he dressed. It was his physical self thinking. After dabbling his feet in a warm pool he returned home. Helena was in the dining-room arranging a bowl of purple pansies. She looked up at him rather heavily as he stood radiant on the threshold. He put her at her ease. It was a gay, handsome boy she had to meet, not a man, strange and insistent. She smiled on him with tender dignity. You have bathed, she said, smiling and looking at his damp, ruffled black hair. She shrank from his eyes, but he was quite unconscious. You have not bathed, he said, then bent to kiss her. She smelt the brine in his hair. No, I bathed later, she replied. But what? Hesitating, she touched the towel, then looked up at him anxiously. It is blood, she said. I crazed my thigh. Nothing at all, he replied. Are you sure? He laughed. The towel looks bad enough, she said. It's an alarmist, he laughed. She looked in concern at him, then turned aside. Breakfast is quite ready, she said. And I for breakfast, but shall I do? She glanced at him. He was without a collar, so his throat was bare above the neckband of his flannel shirt. All together she disapproved of his slovenly appearance. He was usually so smart in his dress. I would not trouble, she said almost sarcastically. Whistling he threw the towel on the chair. How did you sleep? she asked gravely, as she watched him beginning to eat. Like the dead, solid, he replied, and you? Oh, pretty well, thanks, she said, rather peaked that he had slept so deeply, whilst she had tossed, and had called his name in a torture of sleeplessness. I haven't slept like that for years, he said enthusiastically. Helena smiled gently on him. The charm of his handsome, healthy zest came over her. She liked his naked throat and his shirt-breast, which suggested the breast of the man beneath it. She was extraordinarily happy with him so bright. The dark-faced pansies in a little crowd seemed gaily winking a golden eye at her. After breakfast, while Seagland dressed, she went down to the sea. She dwelled, as she passed, on all tiny, pretty things, on the barbaric yellow ragwort and pink convolvally, on all the twinkling of flowers and dew and snail-tracks drying in the sun. Her walk was one long lingering. More than the spaces, she loved the nooks and fancy more than imagination. She wanted to see just as she pleased, without any of humanity's previous vision for spectacles. So she knew hardly any flower's name, nor perceived any of the relationships, nor cared a jot about an adaptation or a modification. It pleased her that the lowest brownie florets of the clover hung down. She cared no more. She clothed everything in fancy. That yellow flower hadn't time to be brushed and combed by the fairies before dawn came. It is tousled. So she thought to herself, the pink convolvally were fairy horns, or telephones from the day fairies to the night fairies. The rippling sunlight on the sea was the Rhinemaden spreading their bright hair to the sun. That was her favourite form of thinking. The value of all things was in the fancy they evoked. She did not care for people. They were vulgar, ugly and stupid as a rule. Her sense of satisfaction was complete as she leaned on the low sea wall, spreading her fingers to warm on the stones, concocting magic out of the simple morning. She watched the indolent chasing of wavelets round the small rocks, the curling of the deep blue water round the water-shadowed reefs. This is very good, she said to herself. This is eternally cool and clean and fresh. It could never be spoiled by satiety. She tried to wash herself with the white and blue morning to clear away the soiling of the last night's passion. The sea played by itself intent on its own game. Its aloofness, its self-sufficiency are its great charm. The sea does not give and take, like the land and the sky. It has no traffic with the world. It spends its passion upon itself. Helena was something like the sea, self-sufficient and careless of the rest. Seekman came bare-headed, his black hair ruffling to the wind, his eyes shining warmer than the sea-like corn-flowers, rather, his limbs swinging backward and forward like the water. Together they leaned on the wall, warming the four white hands upon the gray-bleached stone as they watched the water playing. When Seekman had Helena near, he lost the ache, the yearning towards something which he always felt otherwise. She seemed to connect him with the beauty of things, as if she were the nerve through which he received intelligence of the sun and wind and sea, and of the moon and the darkness. Beauty she never felt herself came to him through her. It is that makes love. He could always sympathize with the wistful little flowers and trees lonely in their crowds, and wild, sad sea-birds. In these things he recognized the great yearning, the ache outwards towards something with which he was ordinarily burdened, but with Helena in this large sea-morning he was whole and perfect as the day. Will it be fine all day? he asked, when a cloud came over. I don't know, she replied in her gentle, inattentive manner, as if she did not care at all. I think it will be a mixed day, cloud and sun, more sun than cloud. She looked up gravely to see if he agreed. He turned from frowning at the cloud to smile at her. He seemed so bright, teeming with life. I like a bare blue sky, he said, sunshine that you seem to stir about as you walk. It is warm enough here, even for you, she smiled. Ah, here, he answered, putting his face down to receive the radiation from the stone, letting his fingers creep towards Helena's. She laughed and captured his fingers pressing them into her hand. For nearly an hour they remained thus in the still sunshine by the sea wall till Helena began to sigh and to lift her face to the little breeze that wandered down from the west. She fled as soon from warmth as from cold. Physically she was always so. She shrank from anything extreme. But psychically she was an extremist and a dangerous one. They climbed the hill to the fresh breathing west. On the highest point of land stood a tall cross railed in by a red iron fence. They read the inscription. That's all right, but a wildly ugly railing, exclaimed Siegmund. Oh, they'd have to fence in Lord Tennyson's white marble, said Helena, rather indefinitely. He interpreted her according to his own idea. Yes, he did belittle great things, didn't he? said Siegmund. Tennyson, she exclaimed. Not peacocks and princesses, but the bigger things. I shouldn't say so, she declared. He sounded indeterminate, but was not really so. They wandered over the downs westward among the wind. As they followed the headland to the needles, they felt the breeze from the wings of the sea brushing them, and heard restless poignant voices screaming below the cliffs. Now and again a gull, like a piece of spume, flung up, rose over the cliff's edge, and sank again. Now and again, as the path dipped in a hollow, they could see the low, suspended, intertwining of the birds, passing in and out of the cliff's shelter. These savage birds appealed to all the poetry and yearning in Helena. They fascinated her. They almost voiced her. She crept nearer and nearer the edge, feeling she must watch the gulls thread out in flakes of white above the weed-black rocks. Seekments stood away back, anxiously. He would not dare to tempt fate now, having too strong a sense of death to risk it. Come back, dear. Don't go so near, he pleaded, following as close as he might. She heard the pain and appeal in his voice. It thrilled her, and she went a little nearer. What was death to her but one of her symbols, the death of which the sagas talk, something grand and sweeping and dark? Leaning forward she could see the line of grey sand and the line of foam broken by black rocks, and over all the gulls, stirring round like froth on a pot, screaming in chorus. She watched the beautiful birds, heard the pleading of Seekmond, and she thrilled with pleasure, toying with his keen anguish. Helena came smiling to Seekmond, saying, They look so fine down there. He fastened his hands upon her as a relief from his pain. He was filled with a keen, strong anguish of dread, like a presentiment. She laughed as he gripped her. They went searching for a way of descent. At last Seekmond inquired of the Coast Guard, the nearest way down the cliff. He was pointed to the path of the hundred steps. When is a hundred not a hundred, he said skeptically, as they descended the dazzling white chalk. There were sixty-eight steps. Helena laughed at his exactitude. It must be a love of round numbers, he said. No doubt she laughed. He took to think so seriously. Or of exaggeration, he added. There was a shelving beach of warm white sand, bleached soft as velvet. A sounding of gulls filled the dark recesses of the headland. A low chatter of shingle came from where the easy water was breaking, the confused shell-like murmur of the sea between the folded cliffs. Seekmond and Helena lay side by side upon the dry sand, small as two resting birds, while thousands of gulls whirled in a white-flaked storm above them, and the great cliffs towered beyond, and high up over the cliffs, the multitudinous clouds were travelling a vast caravan en route. Amidst the journeying of oceans and clouds, and the circling flight of heavy spheres, lost to sight in the sky, Seekmond and Helena, two grains of life in the vast movement, were travelling a moment side by side. They lay on the beach like a grey and a white seabird together. The lazy ships that were idling down the solent observed the cliffs and the boulders, but Seekmond and Helena were too little. They lay ignored and insignificant, watching through half-closed fingers the diverse caravan of day go past. They lay with their latticed fingers over their eyes, looking out at the sailing of ships across their vision of blue water. Now that one with the greyish sails, Seekmond was saying, like a housewife of forty, going placidly round with the duster. Yes, interrupted Helena. That is a schooner. You see her four sails, and he continued to classify the shipping, until he was interrupted by the wicked laughter of Helena. That is right, I am sure, he protested. I won't contradict you, she laughed, in a tone which showed him he knew even less of the classifying of ships than she did. So you have lain there amusing yourself at my expense all the time, he said, not knowing in the least why she laughed. They turned and looked at one another, blue eyes smiling and wavering as the beach wavers in the heat. Then they closed their eyes with sunshine. Drowsed by the sun and the white sand and the foam, their thoughts slept like butterflies on the flowers of delight. But cold shadows startled them up. The clouds are coming, he said regretfully. Yes, but the wind is quite strong enough for them, she answered. Look at the shadows, like blocks floating away. Don't they devour the sunshine? It is quite warm enough here, she said, nestling into him. Yes, but the sting is missing. I like to feel the warmth biting in. No, I do not. To be cosy is enough. I like the sunshine on me real and manifest and tangible. I feel like a seed that has been frozen for ages. I want to be bitten by the sunshine. She leaned over and kissed him. The sun came bright-footed over the water, leaving a shining print on Seekman's face. He lay with half-closed eyes, sprawled loosely on the sand. Looking at his limbs, she imagined he must be heavy, like the boulders. She sat over him, with her fingers stroking his eyebrows, that were broad and rather arched. He lay perfectly still, in a half-dream. Presently she laid her head on his breast, and remained so, watching the sea, and listening to his heartbeats. The throb was strong and deep. It seemed to go through the whole island, and the whole afternoon, and it fascinated her. So deep, unheard, with its great expulsions of life. Had the world a heart? Was there also deep in the world a great god, studying out waves of life, like a great heart? Unconscious! It frightened her. This was the god she knew not, as she knew not this Seekman. It was so different from the half-shut eyes with black lashes, and the winsome shapely nose, and the heart of the world, as she heard it, could not be the same as the curling splash of retreat of the little sleepy waves. She listened for Seekman's soul, but his heart overbeat all other sound, thudding powerfully. End of Chapter 6. Recording by Martin Geeson. In Hazelmere Surrey. Chapter 7 of The Trespasser. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Martin Geeson. The Trespasser by D. H. Lawrence. Chapter 7. Seekman woke to the muffled firing of guns on the sea. He looked across at the shaggy grey water in wonder. Then he turned to Helena. I suppose, he said, they are saluting the Tsar, poor beggar. I was afraid they would wake you, she smiled. They listened again to the hollow dull sound of salutes from across the water and the downs. The day had gone grey. They decided to walk down below to the next bay. The tide is coming in, said Helena. But this broad strip of sand hasn't been wet for months. It's as soft as pepper, he replied. They laboured along the shore beside the black, sinuous line of shriveled fucous. The base of the cliff was piled with chalk debris. On the other side was the level plain of the sea. Hand in hand, alone and overshadowed by huge cliffs, they toiled on. The waves staggered in and fell, overcome at the end of the race. Seekman and Helena neared a headland, sheer as the side of a house. Its base waited with a tremendous white mass of boulders that the green sea broke amongst with a hollow sound, followed by a sharp hiss of withdrawal. The lovers had to cross this desert of white boulders that glistened in smooth skins uncannily. But Seekman saw the waves were almost at the wall of the headland. Glancing back, he saw the other headland white-dashed at the base with foam. He and Helena must hurry, or they would be prisoned on the thin crescent of strand still remaining between the great wall and the water. The cliffs overhead oppressed him, made him feel trapped and helpless. He was caught by them in a net of great boulders, while the sea fumbled for him. But he and Helena, she laboured strenuously beside him, blinded by the skin-like glisten of the white rock. I think I will rest awhile, she said. No, come along, he begged. My dear, she laughed, there is tons of this shingle to buttress us from the sea. He looked at the waves curving and driving maliciously at the boulders. It would be ridiculous to be trapped. Look at this black wood, she said. Does the sea really char it? Let us get round the corner, he begged. Really, Seekman, the sea is not so anxious to take us, she said ironically. When they rounded the first point, they found themselves in a small bay jutted out to sea. The front of the headland was, as usual, grooved. This bay was pure white at the base, from its great heaped mass of shingle. With the huge concave of the cliff behind, the foothold of the masked white boulders, and the immense arc of the sea in front, Helena was delighted. This is fine, Seekman, she said, halting and facing west. Smiling ironically, he sat down on a boulder. They were quite alone, in this great white niche thrust out to sea. Here he could see the tide would beat the base of the wall. It came plunging not far from their feet. Would you really like to travel beyond the end? he asked. She looked round quickly, thrilled, then answered as if in rebuke. This is a fine place, I should like to stay here an hour. And then where? Then, oh, then I suppose it would be tea time. Tea on brine and pink anemones with daddy Neptune. She looked sharply at the out-jutting capes. The sea did foam perilously near their bases. I suppose it is rather risky, she said, and she turned, began silently to clamber forwards. He followed. She should set the pace. I have no doubt there's plenty of room really, he said. The sea only looks near. But she toiled on intently. Now it was a question of danger, not of inconvenience. Segment felt elated. The waves foamed up, as it seemed, against the exposed headland, from which the massive shingle had been swept back, supposing they could not get by. He began to smile curiously. He became aware of the tremendous noise of waters, of the slight shudder of the shingle, when a wave struck it, and he always laughed to himself. Helena laboured on in silence. He kept just behind her. The point seemed near, but it took longer than they thought. They had against them the tremendous cliff, the enormous weight of shingle, and the swinging sea. The waves struck louder, booming fearfully. Wind sweeping round the corner, wet their faces. Segment hoped they were cut off, and hoped anxiously the way was clear. The smile became set on his face. Then he saw there was a ledge or platform at the base of the cliff, and it was against this the waves broke. They climbed the edge of this ridge, hurried round to the front. There the wind caught them, wet and furious. The water raged below. Between the two Helena shrank, wilted. She took hold of Segment. The great brutal wave flung itself at the rock, then drew back for another heavy spring. Fume and spray were spun on the wind like smoke. The roaring thud of the waves reminded Helena of a beating heart. She clung closer to him as her hair was blown out damp, and her white dress flapped in the wet wind. Always against rock came the slow thud of the waves, like a great heart beating under the breast. There was something brutal about it, but she could not bear. She had no weapon against brute force. She glanced up at Segment. Tiny drops of mist grade his eyebrows. He was looking out to see, screwing up his eyes, and smiling brutally. Her face became heavy and sullen. He was like the heart and the brute sea, just here. He was not her Segment. She hated the brute in him. Turning suddenly, she plunged over the shingle towards the wide populous bay. He remained alone, grinning at the smashing turmoil careless of her departure. He would easily catch her. When at last he turned from the wrestling water, he had spent his savagery, and was sad. He could never take part in the great battle of action. It was beyond him. Many things he had let slip by. His life was whittled down to only a few interests, only a few necessities. Even here he had but Helena, and through her the rest. After this week, well, that was vague. He left it in the dark, dreading it. And Helena was toiling over the rough beach alone. He saw her small figure bowed as she plunged forward. It smote his heart with the keenest tenderness. She was so winsome, a playmate with beauty and fancy. Why was he so cruel to her, because she had not his own bitter wisdom of experience? She was young and naive, and should he be angry with her for that? His heart was tight at the thought of her. She would have to suffer also because of him. He hurried after her, not till they had nearly come to a little green mound, where the downs sloped, and the cliffs were gone, did he catch her up. Then he took her hand as they walked. They halted on the green hillock beyond the sand, and without a word he folded her in his arms. Both were out of breath. He clasped her close, seeming to rock her with his strong panting. She felt his body lifting into her and sinking away. It seemed to force a rhythm, a new pulse in her. Gradually, with a fine keen thrilling, she melted down on him, like metal sinking on a mould. He was sea and sunlight mixed, heaving, warm, deliciously strong. Segment exalted. At last she was moulded to him in pure passion. They stood folded thus for some time. Then Helen erased her burning face, and relaxed. She was throbbing with strange elation and satisfaction. It might as well have been the sea as any other way, dear, she said, startling both of them. The speech went across their thoughtfulness, like a star flying into the night, from nowhere. She had no idea why she said it. He pressed his mouth on hers. Not for you, he thought, by reflex, you can't go that way yet. But he said nothing, strained her very tightly, and kept her lips. They were roused by the sound of voices, unclasping they went to walk at the fringe of the water. The tide was creeping back. Segment stooped, and from among the water's comings picked up an electric light bulb. It lay in some weed at the base of a rock. He held it in his hand to Helena. Her face lighted with a curious pleasure. She took the thing delicately from his hand, fingered it with her exquisite softness. Isn't it remarkable? she exclaimed joyously. The sea must be very, very gentle and very kind. Sometimes smiled Segment. But I did not think it could be so fine-fingered, she said. She breathed on the glass bulb till it looked like a dim magnolia bud. She inhaled its fine savour. It would not have treated you so well, he said. She looked at him with heavy eyes. Then she returned to her bulb. Her fingers were very small and very pink. She had the most delicate touch in the world, like a faint feel of silk. As he watched her lifting her fingers from off the glass, then gently stroking it, his blood ran hot. He watched her weighted upon her words and movements attentively. It is a graceful act on the sea's part, she said. Votan is so clumsy. He knocks over the bowl and flap, flap, flap, go the gasping fishes. Pizzicato! But the sea! Helena's speech was often difficult to render into plain terms. She was not lucid. But life so full of anti-climax, she concluded. Segment smiled softly at her. She had him too much in love to disagree or to examine her words. There's no reckoning with life and no reckoning with the sea. The only way to get on with both is to be as near a vacuum as possible, and float, he gested. It hurt her that he was flippant. She proceeded to forget he had spoken. There were three children on the beach. Helena had handed him back the senseless bauble, not able to throw it away. Being a father, I will give it to the children, he said. She looked up at him, loved him for the thought. Wandering hand in hand, for it pleased them both to own each other publicly after years of conventional distance, they came to a little girl who was bending over a pool. Her black hair hung in long snakes to the water. She stood up, flung back her locks to see them as they approached. In one hand she clasped some pebbles. Would you like this? I found it down there," said Segment, offering her the bulb. She looked at him with grave blue eyes and accepted his gift. Evidently she was not going to say anything. The sea brought it all the way from the mainland without breaking it, said Helena, with the interesting intonation some folk use to children. The girl looked at her. The waves put it out of their lap onto some seaweed with such careful fingers. The child's eyes brightened. The tide-line is full of treasures, said Helena, smiling. The child answered her smile a little. Segment had walked away. What beautiful eyes she had, said Helena. Yes, he replied. She looked up at him. He felt her searching him tenderly with her eyes, but he could not look back at her. She took his hand and kissed it, knowing he was thinking of his own youngest child. End of chapter 7. Recording by Martin Giesen in Hazelmere Surrey. Chapter 8 of The Trespasser. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Martin Giesen. The Trespasser by D. H. Lawrence. Chapter 8. The way home lay across country, through deep little lanes, where the late fox-glove sat seriously, like sad hounds, over open downlands, rough with gorse and ling, and through pocketed hollows of bracken and trees. They came to a small Roman Catholic church in the fields. There the carved Christ looked down on the dead, whose sleeping forms made mounds under the coverlet. Helena's heart was swelling with emotion. All the yearning and pathos of Christianity filled her again. The path skirted the churchyard wall, so that she had on the one hand the sleeping dead, and on the other, Siegmund, strong and vigorous, but walking in the old dejected fashion. She felt a rare tenderness and admiration for him. It was unusual for her to be so humble-minded, but this evening she felt she must minister to him, and be submissive. She made him stop to look at the graves. Suddenly, as they stood, she kissed him, clasped him fervently, roused him till his passion burned away his heaviness, and he seemed tipped with life, his face glowing as if he would soon burst a light. Then she was satisfied and could laugh. As they went through the fur-cops, listening to the birds, like a family assembled and chattering at home in the evening, listening to the light swish of the wind, she let Siegmund predominate. He set the swing of their motion. She rested on him like a bird on a swaying bow. They argued concerning the way. Siegmund, as usual, submitted to her. They went quite wrong. As they retraced their steps, stealthily, through a poultry farm whose fowls were standing in forlorn groups, once more dismayed by evening, Helen's pride battled with her new subjugation to Siegmund. She walked head down, saying nothing. He also was silent, but his heart was strong in him. Somewhere in the distance, a band was playing the watch on the Rhine. As they passed the beaches and were near home, Helen had said to try him and to strike a last blow for her pride. I wonder what next Monday will bring us? Quick curtain, he answered joyously. He was looking down and smiling at her with such careless happiness that she loved him. He was wonderful to her. She loved him. Was jealous of every particle of him that evaded her. She wanted to sacrifice to him, make herself a burning altar to him, and she wanted to possess him. The hours that would be purely their own came too slowly for her. That night she met his passion with love. It was not his passion she wanted actually, but she desired that he should want her madly, and that he should have all, everything. It was a wonderful night to him. It restored in him the full will to live. But she felt it destroyed her. Her soul seemed blasted. At seven o'clock in the morning, Helen allay in the deliciously cool water, while small waves ran up the beach full and clear and foam-less, continuing perfectly in their flicker the rhythm of the night's passion. Nothing, she felt, had ever been so delightful as this cool water running over her. She lay and looked out on the shining sea. All things, it seemed, were made of sunshine, more or less soiled. The cliffs rose out of the shining waves like clouds of strong, fine texture, and rocks along the shore were the daplings of a bright dawn. The coarseness was fused out of the world, so that sunlight showed in the veins of the morning cliffs and the rocks. Yay, everything ran with sunshine as we are full of blood, and plants are tissueed from green gold glistening sap. Substance and solidity were shadows that the morning cast round itself to make itself tangible. As she herself was a shadow cast by that fragment of sunshine, her soul over its inefficiency. She remembered to have seen the bats flying low over a burnished pool at sunset, and the web of their wings had burned in scarlet flickers, as they stretched across the light. Winged momentarily on bits of tissueed flame, threaded with blood, the bats had flickered a secret to her. Now the cliffs were like wings uplifted, and the morning was coming dimly through them. She felt the wings of all the world upraised against the morning in a flashing, multitudinous flight. The world itself was flying. Sunlight poured on the large round world till she fancied it a heavy bee humming on its iridescent atmosphere across a vast air of sunshine. She lay and rode the fine journey. Sunlight liquid in the water made the waves heavy, golden and rich with a velvety coolness like cow slips. Her feet fluttered in the shadowy underwater. Her breast came out bright as the breast of a white bird. Where was Siegmund, she wondered? He also was somewhere among the sea and the sunshine, white and playing like a bird, shining like a vivid, restless speck of sunlight. She struck the water, smiling, feeling along with him. They too were the owners of this morning, as a pair of wild, large birds inhabiting an empty sea. Siegmund had found a white cave, welling with green water, brilliant and full of life as mounting sap. The white rock glimmered through the water, and soon Siegmund shimmered also in the living green of the sea, like pale flowers trembling upward. The water, said Siegmund, is as full of life as I am. And he pressed forward his breast against it. He swam very well that morning. He had more willful life than the sea, so he mastered it, laughingly with his arms, feeling a delight in his triumph over the waves. Venturing recklessly in his new pride, he swam round the corner of the rock, through an archway, lofty and spacious, into a passage where the water ran like a flood of green light over the skin-white bottom. Suddenly he emerged in the brilliant daylight of the next tiny scoop of a bay. There he arrived like a pioneer, for the bay was inaccessible from the land. He waded out of the green cold water, onto sand that was pure as the shoulders of Helena, out of the shadow of the archway, into the sunlight, onto the glistening petal of this blossom of a sea bay. He did not know till he felt the sunlight how the sea had drunk with its cold lips deeply of his warmth. Throwing himself down on the sand that was soft and warm as white fur, he lay glistening wet, panting, swelling with glad pride at having conquered also this small inaccessible sea cave, creeping into it like a white bee, into a white virgin blossom that had waited how long for its bee. The sand was warm to his breast, and his belly, and his arms. It was like a great body he cleaved to. Almost, he fancied, he felt it heaving under him in its breathing. Then he turned his face to the sun and laughed. All the while he hugged the warm body of the sea bay beneath him. He spread his hands upon the sand. He took it in handfuls, and let it run smooth, warm, delightful through his fingers. Surely, he said to himself, it is like Helena. And he laid his hands again on the warm body of the shore, let them wander, discovering, gathering all the warmth, the softness, the strange wonder of smooth warm pebbles. Then shrinking from the deep weight of cold, his hand encountered as he burrowed under the surface, wrist deep. In the end he found the cold mystery of the deep sand, also thrilling. He pushed in his hands again and deeper, enjoying the almost hurt of the dark, heavy coldness. For the sun and the white flower of the bay were breathing and kissing him dry, were holding him in their warm concave, like a bee in a flower, like himself on the bosom of Helena. And flowing like the warmth of her breath in his hair came the sunshine, breathing near and lovingly. Yet, under all, was this deep mass of cold, that the softness and warmth merely floated upon. Segment lay and clasped the sand, and tossed it in handfuls, till over him he was all hot and cloyed. Then he rose and looked at himself and laughed. The water was swaying reproachfully against the steep pebbles below, murmuring like a child that it was not fair. It was not fair he should abandon his playmate. Segment laughed, and began to rub himself free of the clogging sand. He found himself strangely dry and smooth. He tossed more dry sand, and more over himself, busy and intent, like a child playing some absorbing game with itself. Soon his body was dry and warm and smooth as a chamomile flower. He was, however, greyed and smeared with sand dust. Segment looked at himself with disapproval, though his body was full of delight, and his hands glad with the touch of himself. He wanted himself clean. He felt the sand thick in his hair, even in his moustache. He went painfully over the pebbles till he found himself on the smooth rock bottom. Then he soused himself and shook his head in the water, and washed and splashed, and rubbed himself with his hands assiduously. He must feel perfectly clean and free, fresh, as if he had washed away all the years of soilia in the morning sea and sun and sand. It was the purification. Segment became again a happy priest of the sun. He felt as if all the dirt of misery were soaked out of him, as he might soak clean a soiled garment in the sea, and bleach it white on the sunny shore. So white and sweet and tissue clean he felt, full of lightness and grace. The garden in front of their house, where Helena was waiting for him, was long and crooked, with a sunken, flagstone pavement running up to the door by the side of the lawn. On either hand the high fence of the garden was heavy with wild clematis and honeysuckle. Helena sat sideways, with a map spread out on her bench under the bushy little labyrinum tree, tracing the course of their wanderings. It was very still. There was just a murmur of bees going in and out the brilliant little porches of nasturtium flowers. The nasturtium leaf coins stood cool and grey. In their delicate shade, underneath in the green twilight, a few flowers shone their submerged gold and scarlet. There was a faint scent of mignonette. Helena, like a white butterfly in the shade, had two white arms for antennae, stretching firmly to the bench, leaned over her map. She was busy, very busy, out of sheer happiness. She traced word after word, and evoked scene after scene. As she discovered a name, she conjured up the place. As she moved to the next mark, she imagined the long path lifting and falling happily. She was waiting for Siegmund, yet his hand upon the latch startled her. She rose suddenly in agitation. Siegmund was standing in the sunshine at the gate. They greeted each other across the tall roses. When Siegmund was holding her hand, he said, softly laughing, You have come out of the water very beautiful this morning. She laughed, she was not beautiful, but she felt so at that moment. She glanced up at him, full of love and gratefulness. And you, she murmured, in a still tone, as if it were almost sacrilegiously unnecessary to say it. Siegmund was glad. He rejoiced to be told he was beautiful. After a few moments of listening to the bees and breathing the mignonette, he said, I found a little white bay, just like you, a virgin bay. I had to swim there. Oh, she said, very interested in him, not in the fact. It seemed just like you. Many things seem like you, he said. She laughed again in her joyous fashion, and the read-like vibration came into her voice. I saw the sun through the cliffs and the sea, and you, she said. He did not understand. He looked at her searchingly. She was white and still and inscrutable. Then she looked up at him, her earnest eyes that would not flinch, gazed straight into him. He trembled, and things all swept into a blur. After she had taken away her eyes, he found himself saying, you know, I felt as if I were the first man to discover things, like Adam, when he opened the first eyes in the world. I saw the sunshine in you, repeated Helena quietly, looking at him with her eyes heavy with meaning. He laughed again, not understanding, but feeling she meant love. No, but you have altered everything, he said. The note of wonder, of joy in his voice, touched her almost beyond self-control. She caught his hand and pressed it, then quickly kissed it. He became suddenly grave. I feel as if it were right. You and me, Helena, so even righteous. It is so, isn't it? And the sea and everything, they all seem with us. Do you think so? Looking at her, he found her eyes full of tears. He bent and kissed her, and she pressed his head to her bosom. He was very glad. End of chapter 8 Recording by Martin Giesen in Hazelmere Surrey Chapter 9 of The Trespasser This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Martin Giesen The Trespasser by D. H. Lawrence Chapter 9 The day waxed hot. A few little silver tortoises of cloud had crawled across the desert of sky and hidden themselves. The chalk roads were white, quivering with heat. Helena and Siegmund walked eastward, bare-headed, under the sunshine. They felt like two insects in the niche of a hot hearth, as they toiled along the deep road. A few poppies here and there among the wild rye floated scarlet in sunshine, like blood drops on green water. Helena recalled Francis Thompson's poems, which Siegmund had never read. She repeated what she knew and laughed, thinking what an ineffectual pale shadow of a person Thompson must have been. She looked at Siegmund, walking in large easiness beside her. Artists are supremely unfortunate persons, she announced. Dinka Wagner, said Siegmund, lifting his face to the hot bright heaven and drinking the heat with his blinded face. All states seemed meager, save his own. He recalled people who had loved, and he pitied them dimly, drowsily, without pain. They came to a place where they might gain access to the shore by a path down a landslip. As they descended through the rockery, yellow with ragwort, they felt themselves dip into the inert hot air of the bay. The living atmosphere of the uplands was left overhead. Among the rocks of the sand, white as if smelted, the heat glowed and quivered. Helena sat down and took off her shoes. She walked on the hot, glistening sand till her feet were delightfully, almost intoxicatingly scorched. Then she ran into the water to cool them. Siegmund and she paddled in the light water, pensively watching the haste of the ripples, like crystal beetles running over the white outline of their feet, looking out on the sea that rose so near to them, dwarfing them by its far reach. For a short time they flitted silently in the water's edge. Then they settled down on them a twilight of sleep, the little hush that closes the doors, and draws the blinds of the house after a festival. They wandered out across the beach, above High Watermark, where they sat down together on the sand, leaning back against a flat brown stone. Siegmund with the sunshine on his forehead, Helena drooping close to him in his shadow. Then the hours ride by unnoticed, making no sound as they go. The sea creeps nearer, nearer, like a snake which watches two birds asleep, it may not disturb them, but sinks back, ceasing to look at them with its bright eyes. Meanwhile the flowers of their passion were softly shed, as poppies fall at noon, and the seed of beauty ripened rapidly within them. Dreams came like a wind through their souls, drifting off with the seed-dust of beautiful experience which they had ripened to fertilise the souls of others with all. In them the sea and the sky and ships had mingled and bred new blossoms of the torrid heat of their love, and the seed of such blossoms was shaken as they slept into the hand of God, who held it in his palm preciously, then scattered it again to produce new splendid blooms of beauty. A little breeze came down the cliffs, sleep lightened the lovers of their experience, new buds were urged in their souls as they lay in a shadowed twilight at the porch of death. The breeze found the face of Helena, a coolness wafted on her throat. As the afternoon wore on, she revived. Quick to flag, she was easy to revive, like a white pansy flung into water. She shivered lightly and rose. Strange it seemed to her to rise from the brown stone into life again. She felt beautifully refreshed, all around was quick as a garden wet in the early morning of June. She took her hair and loosened it, shook it free from sound, spread, and laughed like a fringed poppy that opens itself to the sun. She let the wind comb through its soft fingers the tangles of her hair. Helena loved the wind. She turned to it and took its kisses on her face and throat. Siegmund lay still, looking up at her. The changes in him were deeper, like alteration in his tissue. His new buds came slowly and were of a fresh type. He lay smiling at her. At last he said, You look now as if you belonged to the sea. I do, and some day I shall go back to it, she replied. For to her at that moment the sea was a great lover, like Siegmund, but more impersonal, who would receive her when Siegmund could not. She rejoiced momentarily in the fact. Siegmund looked at her and continued smiling. His happiness was budded firm and secure. Come! said Helena, holding out her hand. He rose somewhat reluctantly from his large, fruitful inertia. End of chapter 9 Recording by Martin Giesen in Hazelmere Surrey Chapter 10 of The Trespasser This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Martin Giesen The Trespasser by D. H. Lawrence Chapter 10 Siegmund carried the boots and the shoes while they wandered over the sand to the rocks. There was a delightful sense of risk in scrambling with bare feet over the smooth, irregular jumble of rocks. Helena laughed suddenly from fear as she felt herself slipping. Siegmund's heart was leaping like a child's with excitement as he stretched forward, himself very insecure to succour her. Thus they travelled slowly. Often she called to him to come and look in the lovely little rock-pools, dusky with blossoms of red anemones and brown anemones that seemed nothing but shadows, and curtained with green of finest sea silk. Siegmund loved to poke the white pebbles and startled the little ghosts of crabs in a shadowy scuttle through the weed. He would tease the expectant anemones, causing them to close suddenly over his finger. But Helena liked to watch without touching things. Meanwhile the sun was slanting behind the cross far away to the west, and the light was swimming in silver and gold upon the lacquered water. At last Siegmund looked doubtfully at two miles more of glistening gilded boulders. Helena was seated on a stone, dabbling her feet in a warm pool, delicately feeling the wet sea velvet of the weeds. Don't you think we had better be mounting the cliffs? he said. She glanced up at him, smiling with irresponsible eyes. Then she lapped the water with her feet and surveyed her pink toes. She was absurdly childishly happy. Why should we? she asked lightly. He watched her. Her childlike indifference to consequences touched him with a sense of the distance between them. He himself might play with the delicious warm surface of life, but always he reeked of the relentless mass of cold beneath, the mass of life which has no sympathy with the individual, no cognizance of him. She loved the trifles and the toys, the mystery and the magic of things. She would not own life to be relentless. It was either beautiful, fantastic, or weird, or inscrutable, or else mean and vulgar, below consideration. He had to get a sense of the anemone and a sympathetic knowledge of its experience into his blood before he was satisfied. To Helena an anemone was one more fantastic pretty figure in her kaleidoscope. So she sat dabbling her pink feet in the water, quite unconscious of his gravity. He waited on her since he never could capture her. Come, he said very gently, you are only six years old today. She laughed as she let him take her. Then she nestled up to him, smiling in a brilliant childlike fashion. He kissed her with all the father in him sadly alive. Now put your stockings on, he said. But my feet are wet. She laughed. He kneeled down and dried her feet on his handkerchief, while she sat tossing his hair with her fingertips. The sunlight grew more and more golden. I envy the savages their free feet, she said. There is no broken glass in the wilderness, or they used not to be, he replied. As they were crossing the sands, a whole family entered by the cliff-track. They descended in single file, unequally, like the theatre. Two boys, then a little girl, the father, another girl, then the mother. Last of all trotted the dog warily, suspicious of the descent. The boys emerged into the bay with a shout. The dog rushed barking after them. The little one waited for her father, calling shrilly. Tiss can't fall now, can she, dada? Shall I put her down? I let her have a run, said the father. Very carefully she lowered the kitten which she had carried clasped to her bosom. The might was bewildered and scared. It turned round pathetically. Go on, Tissie, you're all right, said the child. Go on, have a run on the sand. The kitten stood dubious and unhappy. Then, perceiving the dog some distance ahead, it scampered after him a fluffy scurrying might. But the dog had already raced into the water. The kitten walked a few steps, turning its small face this way and that, and mewing pitiously. It looked extraordinarily tiny as it stood, a fluffy handful, staring away from the noisy water. Its thin cry floating over the plush of waves. Helena glanced at Siegmund, and her eyes were shining with pity. He was watching the kitten and smiling, crying because things are too big and it can't take them in, he said. But look how frightened it is, she said. So am I, he laughed, and if there are any gods looking on and laughing at me, at least they won't be kind enough to put me in their pinafores. She laughed very quickly. But why, she exclaimed, why should you want putting in a pinafore? I don't, he laughed. On top of the cliff there were between two bays, with darkening blue water on the left, and on the right, gold water smoothing to the sun. Siegmund seemed to stand waist-deep in shadow, with his face bright and glowing. He was watching earnestly. I want to absorb it all, he said. When at last they turned away. Yes, said Helena slowly. One can recall the details, but never the atmosphere. He pondered a moment. How strange, he said. I can recall the atmosphere, but not the detail. It is a moment to me, not a piece of scenery. I should say the picture was in me, not out there. Without troubling to understand, she was inclined to think it was verbiage. She made a small sound of ascent. That is why you want to go again to a place, and I don't care so much, because I have it with me. He concluded. End of chapter 10. Recording by Martin Giesen in Hazelmere Surrey. Chapter 11 of The Trespasser This Librivox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Martin Giesen. The Trespasser by D. H. Lawrence. Chapter 11. They decided to find their way through the lanes to Allam Bay, and then keeping the cross in sight, to return over the downs, with the moon-path broad on the water before them. For the moon was rising late. Twilight, however, rose more rapidly than they had anticipated. The lane twisted among meadows and wild lands and copses, a willful little lane quite incomprehensible. So they lost their distant landmark, the White Cross. Darkness filtered through the daylight. When at last they came to a signpost, it was almost too dark to read it. The fingers seemed to withdraw into the dusk the more they looked. We must go to the left, said Helena. To the left rose the downs, smooth and grey near at hand, but higher, black with gorse, like a giant lying asleep with a bare skin over his shoulders. Several pale chalk tracks ran side by side through the turf. Climbing, they came to a disused chalk pit, which they circumvented. Having passed a lonely farmhouse, they mounted the side of the open down, where there was a sense of space and freedom. We can steer by the night, said Siegmund, as they trod upwards pathlessly. Helena did not mind whither they steered. All places in that large fair night were home and welcome to her. They drew nearer to the shaggy cloak of furs. There will be a path through it, said Siegmund. But when they arrived there was no path. They were confronted by a tall, impenetrable growth of gorse, taller than Siegmund. Stay here, said he, while I look for a way through, I am afraid you will be tired. She stood alone by the walls of gorse. The lights that had flickered into being during the dusk grew stronger, so that a little farmhouse down the hill glowed with great importance on the night, while the far-off, invisible sea became like a roadway, large and mysterious. Its specks of light moving slowly, and its bigger lamps stationed out amid the darkness. Helena wanted the day oneness to be quite wiped off the west. She asked for the full, black night that would obliterate everything saves Siegmund. Siegmund it was that the whole world meant. The darkness, the gorse, the downs, the specks of light, seemed only to bespeak him. She waited for him to come back. She could hardly endure the condition of intense waiting. He came, in his grey clothes almost invisible, but she felt him coming. No good, he said, no vestige of a path, not a rabbit run. Then we will sit down a while, she said, calmly. 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 sea, 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 are all so different. This morning it does seem absurd to talk about this morning. Why should I be parceled up into mornings and evenings and nights? I am not made up of sections of time. No, I am not. 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 him in his arms, and he was able to see what was going on in his body. 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. I wonder how it is you have such a fine, natural perfume, he said, always in the same abstract, inquiring tone of happiness. Haven't all women, she replied, and the peculiar penetrating twang of a brass reed was again in her voice. I don't know, he said, quite untouched, but you are scented like nuts, new kernels of hazelnuts, and a touch of opium. He remained abstractedly breathing her with his open mouth, quite absorbed in her. You are so strange, she murmured tenderly, hardly able to control her voice to speak. I believe, he said slowly, I can't hear you. I believe, he said slowly, I can see the stars moving through your hair. No, keep still. You can't see them. Helena lay obediently very still. I thought I could watch them travelling, crawling like gold flies on the ceiling. He continued in a slow sing-song. But now you make your hair tremble. And the stars rush about. Then, as a new thought struck him, have you noticed that you can't recognize the constellations lying back like this? I can't see one. Where is the North, even? She laughed at the idea of his questioning her concerning these things. She refused to learn the names of the stars or of the constellations as of the wayside plants. Why should I want to label them, she would say? I prefer to look at them, not to hide them under a name. So she laughed when he asked her to find Vega or Octurus. How full the sky is, Segment dreamed on, like a crowded street. Down here it is vastly lonely in comparison. We found a place far quieter and more private than the stars, Helena. Isn't it fine to be up here with the sky for nearest neighbour? I did well to ask you to come, she inquired wistfully. He turned to her. As wise as God for the minute, he replied softly. I think a few furtive angels brought us here, smuggled us in. And are you glad, she asked. He laughed. Carpe diem, he said. We have plucked a beauty, my dear. With this rose in my coat I dare go to hell or anywhere. Why hell, Segment, she asked in displeasure. I suppose it is the postero. In anything else I'm a failure, Helena. But, he laughed, this day of ours is a rose not many men have plucked. She kissed him passionately, beginning to cry in a quick noiseless fashion. What does it matter, Helena? He murmured, what does it matter? We are here yet. The quiet tone of Segment moved her with a vivid passion of grief. She felt she should lose him. Clasping him very closely, she burst into uncontrollable sobbing. He did not understand, but he did not interrupt her. He merely held her very close, while he looked through her shaking hair at the motionless stars. He bent his head to hers. He sought her face with his lips heavy with pity. She grew a little quieter. He felt his cheek all wet with her tears, and between his cheek and hers the ravelled roughness of her wet hair that chafed and made his face burn. What is it, Helena? he asked at last. Why should you cry? She pressed her face in his breast, and said in a muffled, unrecognisable voice. You won't leave me, will you, Segment? How could I? How should I? He murmured soothingly. She lifted her face suddenly, and pressed on him a fierce kiss. How could I leave you? he repeated, and she heard his voice waking, the grip coming into his arms, and she was glad. An intense silence came over everything. Helena almost expected to hear the stars moving. Everything below was so still. She had no idea what Segment was thinking. He lay with his arms strong around her. Then she heard the beating of his heart, like the muffled sound of salutes, she thought. It gave her the same thrill of dread and excitement, mingled with a sense of triumph. Segment had changed again, his mood was gone, so that he was no longer wandering in a night of thoughts, but had become different, incomprehensible to her. She had no idea what she thought or felt. All she knew was that he was strong, and was knocking urgently with his heart on her breast, like a man who wanted something, and who dreaded to be sent away. How he came to be so concentratedly urgent, she could not understand. It seemed an unreasonable, an incomprehensible obsession to her. Yet she was glad, and she smiled in her heart, feeling triumphant and restored. Yet again, dimly, she wondered where was the Segment of ten minutes ago, and her heart lifted slightly with yearning, to sink with a dismay. This Segment was so incomprehensible. Then again, when he raised his head and found her mouth, his lips filled her with a hot flush like wine, a sweet flaming flush of her whole body, most exquisite as if she were nothing but a soft, rosy flame of fire against him for a moment or two. That, she decided, was supreme, transcendental. The lights of the little farmhouse below had vanished, the yellow specks of ships were gone, only the pier light far away shone in the black sea, like the broken piece of a star. Overhead was a silver grayness of stars, below was the velvet blackness of the night and the sea. Helena found herself glimmering with fragments of poetry, as she saw the sea, when she looked very closely, glimmered dusterly with a reflection of stars. Tiefe stille herst im Wasser, una regung rot das Meer. She was fond of what scraps of German verse she knew, with French verse she had no sympathy, but Goethe and Heine and Ulland seemed to speak her language. Die Luft ist kühl und es dunkelt und ruhig fließt der Rein. She liked Heine best of all. Wie Träume der Kindheit seh' ich es flimmern auf deinem wogenden Wellengebiet und alte Erinnerung erzählt mir aufs Neue von all dem lieben herrlichen Spielzeug, von all dem blinkenden Weihnachtsgaben. As she lay in Siegmund's arms again, and he was very still, dreaming she knew not what, fragments such as these flickered and were gone, like the gleam of a falling star over water. The night moved on imperceptibly across the sky. Unlike the day it made no sound and gave no sign, but passed unseen, unfelt over them. Till the moon was ready to step forth, then the eastern sky blenched, and there was a small gathering of clouds round the opening gates. Helena sang this to herself as the moon lifted herself slowly among the clouds. She found herself repeating them aloud in a forgetful sing-song as children do. What is it? said Siegmund. They were both of them sunk in their own stillness, therefore it was a moment or two before she repeated her sing-song in a little louder tone. He did not listen to her, having forgotten that he had asked her a question. Turn your head, she told him, when she had finished the verse, and look at the moon. He pressed back his head, so that there was a gleaming pallor on his chin and his forehead, and deep black shadow over his eyes and his nostrils. This thrilled Helena with a sense of mystery and magic. Die großen Blumen schmachten, she said to herself, curiously awake and joyous. The big flowers open with black petals and silvery one, Siegmund. You are the big flowers, Siegmund. Yours is the bridegroom face, Siegmund. Like a black and glistening flesh-petalled flower, Siegmund. And it blooms in the Sauberland, Siegmund. This is the magic land. Between the phrases of this whispered ecstasy, she kissed him swiftly on the throat, in the shadow, and on his faintly gleaming cheeks. He lay still, his heart beating heavily. He was almost afraid of the strange ecstasy she concentrated on him. Meanwhile, she whispered over him sharp, breathless phrases in German and English, touching him with her mouth and her cheeks and her forehead. Und liebes weisen turnen. Not to night, Siegmund. They are all still. Gorse and the stars and the sea and the trees are all kissing, Siegmund. The sea has its mouth on the earth, and the gorse and the trees press together, and they all look up at the moon. They put up their faces in a kiss, my darling. But they haven't you, and it all centres in you, my dear, and all the wonder-love is in you. More than in them all, Siegmund. Siegmund. He felt the tears falling on him as he lay with heart beating, in slow heavy drops under the ecstasy of her love. Then she sank down and lay prone on him, spent, clinging to him, lifted up and down by the beautiful strong motion of his breathing. Rocked thus on his strength, she swooned lightly into unconsciousness. When she came to herself, she sighed deeply. She woke to the exquisite heaving of his life beneath her. I have been beyond life. I have been a little way into death, she said to her soul, with wide-eyed delight. She lay dazed, wondering upon it, that she should come back into a marvellous, peaceful happiness astonished her. Suddenly, she became aware that she must be slowly weighing down the life of Siegmund. There was a long space between the lift of one breath and the next. Her heart melted with sorrowful pity. Resting herself on her hands, she kissed him, a long anguished kiss, as if she would fuse her soul into his forever. And she rose, sighing, sighing again deeply. She put up her hands to her head and looked at the moon. No more, said her heart, almost as if it sighed too. No more. She looked down at Siegmund. He was drawing in great heavy breaths. He lay still on his back, gazing up at her. And she stood motionless at his side, looking down at him. He felt stunned, half-conscious. Yet as he lay helplessly looking up at her, some other consciousness inside him murmured, hawa! Eve! Mother! She stood compassionate over him. Without touching him, she seemed to be yearning over him like a mother. Her compassion, her benignity, seemed so different from his little Helena. This woman, tall and pale, drooping with the strength of her compassion, seemed stable, immortal, not a fragile human being, but a personification of the great motherhood of women. I am her child too, he dreamed, as a child murmurs unconscious in sleep. He had never felt her eyes so much as now, in the darkness, when he looked only into deep shadow. She had never before so entered and gathered his plaintive, masculine soul to the bosom of her nurture. Come! she said gently, when she knew he was restored. Shall we go? He rose, with difficulty gathering his strength. End of chapter 11 Recording by Martin Giesen in Hazelmere, Surrey