Women in Love (Barnes & Noble Classics S - D. H. Lawrence [176]
She was coming back. He saw her drifting desultorily under the high hedge, advancing towards him slowly. He did not move, he did not look again. He was as if asleep, at peace, slumbering and utterly relaxed.
She came up and stood before him, hanging her head.
“See what a flower I found you,” she said, wistfully holding a piece of purple-red bell-heather under his face. He saw the clump of coloured bells, and the tree-like, tiny branch: also her hands, with their over-fine, over-sensitive skin.
“Pretty!” he said, looking up at her with a smile, taking the flower. Everything had become simple again, quite simple, the complexity gone into nowhere. But he badly wanted to cry: except that he was weary and bored by emotion.
Then a hot passion of tenderness for her filled his heart. He stood up and looked into her face. It was new and oh, so delicate in its luminous wonder and fear. He put his arms round her, and she hid her face on his shoulder.
It was peace, just simple peace, as he stood folding her quietly there on the open lane. It was peace at last. The old, detestable world of tension had passed away at last, his soul was strong and at ease.
She looked up at him. The wonderful yellow light in her eyes now was soft and yielded, they were at peace with each other. He kissed her, softly, many, many times. A laugh came into her eyes.
“Did I abuse you?” she asked.
He smiled too, and took her hand, that was so soft and given.
“Never mind,” she said, “it is all for the good.” He kissed her again, softly, many times.
“Isn’t it?” she said.
“Certainly,” he replied. “Wait! I shall have my own back.”
She laughed suddenly, with a wild catch in her voice, and flung her arms around him.
“You are mine, my love, aren’t you?” she cried straining him close.
“Yes,” he said, softly.
His voice was so soft and final, she went very still, as if under a fate which had taken her. Yes, she acquiesced—but it was accomplished without her acquiescence. He was kissing her quietly, repeatedly, with a soft, still happiness that almost made her heart stop beating.
“My love!” she cried, lifting her face and looking with frightened, gentle wonder of bliss. Was it all real? But his eyes were beautiful and soft and immune from stress or excitement, beautiful and smiling lightly to her, smiling with her. She hid her face on his shoulder, hiding before him, because he could see her so completely. She knew he loved her, and she was afraid, she was in a strange element, a new heaven round about her. She wished he were passionate, because in passion she was at home. But this was so still and frail, as space is more frightening than force.
Again, quickly, she lifted her head.
“Do you love me?” she said, quickly, impulsively.
“Yes,” he replied, not heeding her emotion, only her stillness.
She knew it was true. She broke away.
“So you ought,” she said, turning round to look at the road. “Did you find the rings?”
“Yes.”
“Where are they?”
“In my pocket.”
She put her hand into his pocket and took them out.
She was restless.
“Shall we go?” she said.
“Yes,” he answered. And they mounted to the car once more, and left behind them this memorable battle-field.
They drifted through the wild, late afternoon, in a beautiful motion that was smiling and transcendent. His mind was sweetly at ease, the life flowed through him as from some new fountain, he was as if born out of the cramp of a womb.
“Are you happy?” she asked him, in her strange, delighted way.
“Yes,” he said.
“So am I,” she cried in sudden ecstasy, putting her arm round him and clutching him violently against her, as he steered the motor-car.
“Don’t drive much more,” she said. “I don’t want you to be always doing something.”
“No,” he said. “We’ll finish this little trip, and then we’ll be free.”
“We will, my love, we will,” she cried in delight, kissing him as he turned to her.
He drove on in a strange new wakefulness, the tension of his consciousness broken. He seemed to be conscious all over, all his body awake with a simple, glimmering awareness, as if he had just come awake, like a thing that is born, like a bird when it comes out of an egg, into a new universe.