Women in Love

They were at Brussels--half an hour for breakfast. They got down. On

the great station clock it said six o'clock. They had coffee and rolls

and honey in the vast desert refreshment room, so dreary, always so

dreary, dirty, so spacious, such desolation of space. But she washed

her face and hands in hot water, and combed her hair--that was a

blessing.

Soon they were in the train again and moving on. The greyness of dawn

began. There were several people in the compartment, large florid

Belgian business-men with long brown beards, talking incessantly in an

ugly French she was too tired to follow.

It seemed the train ran by degrees out of the darkness into a faint

light, then beat after beat into the day. Ah, how weary it was!

Faintly, the trees showed, like shadows. Then a house, white, had a

curious distinctness. How was it? Then she saw a village--there were

always houses passing.

This was an old world she was still journeying through, winter-heavy

and dreary. There was plough-land and pasture, and copses of bare

trees, copses of bushes, and homesteads naked and work-bare. No new

earth had come to pass.

She looked at Birkin's face. It was white and still and eternal, too

eternal. She linked her fingers imploringly in his, under the cover of

her rug. His fingers responded, his eyes looked back at her. How dark,

like a night, his eyes were, like another world beyond! Oh, if he were

the world as well, if only the world were he! If only he could call a

world into being, that should be their own world!

The Belgians left, the train ran on, through Luxembourg, through

Alsace-Lorraine, through Metz. But she was blind, she could see no

more. Her soul did not look out.

They came at last to Basle, to the hotel. It was all a drifting trance,

from which she never came to. They went out in the morning, before the

train departed. She saw the street, the river, she stood on the bridge.

But it all meant nothing. She remembered some shops--one full of

pictures, one with orange velvet and ermine. But what did these

signify?--nothing.

She was not at ease till they were in the train again. Then she was

relieved. So long as they were moving onwards, she was satisfied. They

came to Zurich, then, before very long, ran under the mountains, that

were deep in snow. At last she was drawing near. This was the other

world now.

Innsbruck was wonderful, deep in snow, and evening. They drove in an

open sledge over the snow: the train had been so hot and stifling. And

the hotel, with the golden light glowing under the porch, seemed like a

home.