Women in Love

He poured a little coffee into a tin can.

'You won't tell me where you will go?' he asked.

'Really and truly,' she said, 'I don't know. It depends which way the

wind blows.' He looked at her quizzically, then he pursed up his lips, like

Zephyrus, blowing across the snow.

'It goes towards Germany,' he said.

'I believe so,' she laughed.

Suddenly, they were aware of a vague white figure near them. It was

Gerald. Gudrun's heart leapt in sudden terror, profound terror. She

rose to her feet.

'They told me where you were,' came Gerald's voice, like a judgment in

the whitish air of twilight.

'MARIA! You come like a ghost,' exclaimed Loerke.

Gerald did not answer. His presence was unnatural and ghostly to them.

Loerke shook the flask--then he held it inverted over the snow. Only a

few brown drops trickled out.

'All gone!' he said.

To Gerald, the smallish, odd figure of the German was distinct and

objective, as if seen through field glasses. And he disliked the small

figure exceedingly, he wanted it removed.

Then Loerke rattled the box which held the biscuits.

'Biscuits there are still,' he said.

And reaching from his seated posture in the sledge, he handed them to

Gudrun. She fumbled, and took one. He would have held them to Gerald,

but Gerald so definitely did not want to be offered a biscuit, that

Loerke, rather vaguely, put the box aside. Then he took up the small

bottle, and held it to the light.

'Also there is some Schnapps,' he said to himself.

Then suddenly, he elevated the battle gallantly in the air, a strange,

grotesque figure leaning towards Gudrun, and said: 'Gnadiges Fraulein,' he said, 'wohl--' There was a crack, the bottle was flying, Loerke had started back, the

three stood quivering in violent emotion.

Loerke turned to Gerald, a devilish leer on his bright-skinned face.

'Well done!' he said, in a satirical demoniac frenzy. 'C'est le sport,

sans doute.' The next instant he was sitting ludicrously in the snow, Gerald's fist

having rung against the side of his head. But Loerke pulled himself

together, rose, quivering, looking full at Gerald, his body weak and

furtive, but his eyes demoniacal with satire.

'Vive le heros, vive--' But he flinched, as, in a black flash Gerald's fist came upon him,

banged into the other side of his head, and sent him aside like a

broken straw.

But Gudrun moved forward. She raised her clenched hand high, and

brought it down, with a great downward stroke on to the face and on to

the breast of Gerald.