Birkin stopped short. A spasm of anger and chagrin went over Ursula.
His face set. And he bade good-bye, as if he had ceased to notice her.
They were gone. Ursula stood looking at the door for some moments. Then
she put out the lights. And having done so, she sat down again in her
chair, absorbed and lost. And then she began to cry, bitterly, bitterly
weeping: but whether for misery or joy, she never knew.
CHAPTER IV.
DIVER
The week passed away. On the Saturday it rained, a soft drizzling rain
that held off at times. In one of the intervals Gudrun and Ursula set
out for a walk, going towards Willey Water. The atmosphere was grey and
translucent, the birds sang sharply on the young twigs, the earth would
be quickening and hastening in growth. The two girls walked swiftly,
gladly, because of the soft, subtle rush of morning that filled the wet
haze. By the road the black-thorn was in blossom, white and wet, its
tiny amber grains burning faintly in the white smoke of blossom. Purple
twigs were darkly luminous in the grey air, high hedges glowed like
living shadows, hovering nearer, coming into creation. The morning was
full of a new creation.
When the sisters came to Willey Water, the lake lay all grey and
visionary, stretching into the moist, translucent vista of trees and
meadow. Fine electric activity in sound came from the dumbles below the
road, the birds piping one against the other, and water mysteriously
plashing, issuing from the lake.
The two girls drifted swiftly along. In front of them, at the corner of
the lake, near the road, was a mossy boat-house under a walnut tree,
and a little landing-stage where a boat was moored, wavering like a
shadow on the still grey water, below the green, decayed poles. All was
shadowy with coming summer.
Suddenly, from the boat-house, a white figure ran out, frightening in
its swift sharp transit, across the old landing-stage. It launched in a
white arc through the air, there was a bursting of the water, and among
the smooth ripples a swimmer was making out to space, in a centre of
faintly heaving motion. The whole otherworld, wet and remote, he had to
himself. He could move into the pure translucency of the grey,
uncreated water.
Gudrun stood by the stone wall, watching.
'How I envy him,' she said, in low, desirous tones.
'Ugh!' shivered Ursula. 'So cold!'
'Yes, but how good, how really fine, to swim out there!' The sisters
stood watching the swimmer move further into the grey, moist, full
space of the water, pulsing with his own small, invading motion, and
<<BackPagesTo menuForward>>