The Trespasser

'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 Siegmund dressed, she went down to the sea. She

dwelled, as she passed, on all tiny, pretty things--on the barbaric

yellow ragwort, and pink convolvuli; 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 browny

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

convolvuli were fairy horns or telephones from the day fairies to the

night fairies. The rippling sunlight on the sea was the Rhine maidens

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.

Siegmund came bareheaded, his black hair ruffling to the wind, his eyes

shining warmer than the sea-like cornflowers rather, his limbs swinging

backward and forward like the water. Together they leaned on the wall,

warming the four white hands upon the grey bleached stone as they

watched the water playing.