Women in Love

There were three ponds, in terraces descending the valley, large and

smooth and beautiful, lying in the sun. The water ran over a little

stone wall, over small rocks, splashing down from one pond to the level

below. The swans had gone out on to the opposite bank, the reeds

smelled sweet, a faint breeze touched the skin.

Gerald had dived in, after Sir Joshua, and had swum to the end of the

pond. There he climbed out and sat on the wall. There was a dive, and

the little Countess was swimming like a rat, to join him. They both sat

in the sun, laughing and crossing their arms on their breasts. Sir

Joshua swam up to them, and stood near them, up to his arm-pits in the

water. Then Hermione and Miss Bradley swam over, and they sat in a row

on the embankment.

'Aren't they terrifying? Aren't they really terrifying?' said Gudrun.

'Don't they look saurian? They are just like great lizards. Did you

ever see anything like Sir Joshua? But really, Ursula, he belongs to

the primeval world, when great lizards crawled about.' Gudrun looked in dismay on Sir Joshua, who stood up to the breast in

the water, his long, greyish hair washed down into his eyes, his neck

set into thick, crude shoulders. He was talking to Miss Bradley, who,

seated on the bank above, plump and big and wet, looked as if she might

roll and slither in the water almost like one of the slithering

sealions in the Zoo.

Ursula watched in silence. Gerald was laughing happily, between

Hermione and the Italian. He reminded her of Dionysos, because his hair

was really yellow, his figure so full and laughing. Hermione, in her

large, stiff, sinister grace, leaned near him, frightening, as if she

were not responsible for what she might do. He knew a certain danger in

her, a convulsive madness. But he only laughed the more, turning often

to the little Countess, who was flashing up her face at him.

They all dropped into the water, and were swimming together like a

shoal of seals. Hermione was powerful and unconscious in the water,

large and slow and powerful. Palestra was quick and silent as a water

rat, Gerald wavered and flickered, a white natural shadow. Then, one

after the other, they waded out, and went up to the house.

But Gerald lingered a moment to speak to Gudrun.

'You don't like the water?' he said.

She looked at him with a long, slow inscrutable look, as he stood

before her negligently, the water standing in beads all over his skin.