She did not want things to materialise, to take any definite shape. She
wanted, suddenly, at one moment of the journey tomorrow, to be wafted
into an utterly new course, by some utterly unforeseen event, or
motion. So that, although she wanted to go out with Loerke for the last
time into the snow, she did not want to be serious or businesslike.
And Loerke was not a serious figure. In his brown velvet cap, that made
his head as round as a chestnut, with the brown-velvet flaps loose and
wild over his ears, and a wisp of elf-like, thin black hair blowing
above his full, elf-like dark eyes, the shiny, transparent brown skin
crinkling up into odd grimaces on his small-featured face, he looked an
odd little boy-man, a bat. But in his figure, in the greeny loden suit,
he looked CHETIF and puny, still strangely different from the rest.
He had taken a little toboggan, for the two of them, and they trudged
between the blinding slopes of snow, that burned their now hardening
faces, laughing in an endless sequence of quips and jests and polyglot
fancies. The fancies were the reality to both of them, they were both
so happy, tossing about the little coloured balls of verbal humour and
whimsicality. Their natures seemed to sparkle in full interplay, they
were enjoying a pure game. And they wanted to keep it on the level of a
game, their relationship: SUCH a fine game.
Loerke did not take the toboganning very seriously. He put no fire and
intensity into it, as Gerald did. Which pleased Gudrun. She was weary,
oh so weary of Gerald's gripped intensity of physical motion. Loerke
let the sledge go wildly, and gaily, like a flying leaf, and when, at a
bend, he pitched both her and him out into the snow, he only waited for
them both to pick themselves up unhurt off the keen white ground, to be
laughing and pert as a pixie. She knew he would be making ironical,
playful remarks as he wandered in hell--if he were in the humour. And
that pleased her immensely. It seemed like a rising above the
dreariness of actuality, the monotony of contingencies.
They played till the sun went down, in pure amusement, careless and
timeless. Then, as the little sledge twirled riskily to rest at the
bottom of the slope, 'Wait!' he said suddenly, and he produced from somewhere a large
thermos flask, a packet of Keks, and a bottle of Schnapps.
'Oh Loerke,' she cried. 'What an inspiration! What a COMBLE DE JOIE
INDEED! What is the Schnapps?' He looked at it, and laughed.