Women in Love

That's all it is, Gerald, my young hero. At any rate we'll spare

ourselves the nausea of stirring the old broth any more. You be

beautiful, my Gerald, and reckless. There ARE perfect moments. Wake up,

Gerald, wake up, convince me of the perfect moments. Oh, convince me, I

need it.

He opened his eyes, and looked at her. She greeted him with a mocking,

enigmatic smile in which was a poignant gaiety. Over his face went the

reflection of the smile, he smiled, too, purely unconsciously.

That filled her with extraordinary delight, to see the smile cross his

face, reflected from her face. She remembered that was how a baby

smiled. It filled her with extraordinary radiant delight.

'You've done it,' she said.

'What?' he asked, dazed.

'Convinced me.' And she bent down, kissing him passionately, passionately, so that he

was bewildered. He did not ask her of what he had convinced her, though

he meant to. He was glad she was kissing him. She seemed to be feeling

for his very heart to touch the quick of him. And he wanted her to

touch the quick of his being, he wanted that most of all.

Outside, somebody was singing, in a manly, reckless handsome voice: 'Mach mir auf, mach mir auf, du Stolze, Mach mir ein Feuer von Holze.

Vom Regen bin ich nass Vom Regen bin ich nass-' Gudrun knew that that song would sound through her eternity, sung in a

manly, reckless, mocking voice. It marked one of her supreme moments,

the supreme pangs of her nervous gratification. There it was, fixed in

eternity for her.

The day came fine and bluish. There was a light wind blowing among the

mountain tops, keen as a rapier where it touched, carrying with it a

fine dust of snow-powder. Gerald went out with the fine, blind face of

a man who is in his state of fulfilment. Gudrun and he were in perfect

static unity this morning, but unseeing and unwitting. They went out

with a toboggan, leaving Ursula and Birkin to follow.

Gudrun was all scarlet and royal blue--a scarlet jersey and cap, and a

royal blue skirt and stockings. She went gaily over the white snow,

with Gerald beside her, in white and grey, pulling the little toboggan.

They grew small in the distance of snow, climbing the steep slope.

For Gudrun herself, she seemed to pass altogether into the whiteness of

the snow, she became a pure, thoughtless crystal. When she reached the

top of the slope, in the wind, she looked round, and saw peak beyond

peak of rock and snow, bluish, transcendent in heaven. And it seemed to

her like a garden, with the peaks for pure flowers, and her heart

gathering them. She had no separate consciousness for Gerald.