And all the
time she was dipping, dipping to the rim of the world. And then I
tripped; but, as I rose, I saw that she had lingered for me; her long
sliding eyes were full, it seemed to me, of pity, as if she would have
liked for me to have enjoyed the sight of her. I stood still,
breathless, thinking that at last she would consent; but flinging back,
up into the air, one dark-ivory arm, she sighed and vanished. And the
breath of her sigh stirred all the birch-tree twigs just coloured with
the dawn. Long I stood in that thicket gazing at the spot where she had
leapt from me over the edge of the world-my heart quivering.
III
We embarked on the estuary steamer that winter morning just as daylight
came full. The sun was on the wing scattering little white clouds, as an
eagle might scatter doves. They scurried up before him with their broken
feathers tipped and tinged with gold. In the air was a touch of frost,
and a smoky mist-drift clung here and there above the reeds, blurring the
shores of the lagoon so that we seemed to be steaming across boundless
water, till some clump of trees would fling its top out of the fog, then
fall back into whiteness.
And then, in that thick vapour, rounding I suppose some curve, we came
suddenly into we knew not what--all white and moving it was, as if the
mist were crazed; murmuring, too, with a sort of restless beating.
Pages:
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117