She stood again behind a tree, looking on the camp-fire and the three
figures that stretched or moved about it. She listened, but now
without joy, to the babel of laughter which sped between them. Back
and forth it went, endless, tireless. Youth calling and answering to
youth; catching a facile fire from each other, and tossing it back as
carelessly. Spendthrift they were as young gods; care-free as young
animals; with minds untroubled because they need not work, and bodies
that were at ease because they were active; scorning the darkness in
a gaiety that was delicious because it was thoughtless, and with a
thoughtlessness that was lovely because it was young. But, to her,
watching, listening, waiting, all that merriment was a torment. She
was their peer in youth and activity, but she was their superior in
that she was thoughtful, for desire is thought not yet translated,
and her desire would swell about the world and banish all else from
existence so that she could fashion the regal solitude in which so
gigantic a mystery might be contemplated.
Why, she thought frowningly, did these children not go to sleep? And
why, she wondered, should older people submit to annoyance or be forced
to await any young person’s convenience?
But the night was advanced, and young people will sleep. Soon they
stretched about the fire, and each composed himself to the slumber
which comes as deliciously in its season as waking does; and, for their
life favoured it, they fell into sleep as precipitately as though they
were falling down a cliff.
She could scarcely wait for the five minutes that was required. Then
she plucked a scrap of moss and tossed it on Naoise’s breast.
As he fell asleep so he sprang awake: he went dead asleep: he came
wide awake, with every faculty alert, and his limbs as composed for
movement as for rest. He saw the scrap of moss lying on his bosom, and,
knowing that such things do not travel of their own accord, he looked
for the cause, searching keenly among the boles that stretched in
endless gleam and gloom about them.
She stood forward a pace.
Had she really moved, or was she impelled? Surely a hand had taken her
by the shoulder and pushed her forward! But in the moment that she
moved panic seized her as suddenly and overwhelmingly as a hawk swoops
upon a mouse. She lifted a hand to her breast so that her heart might
not be snatched away, but the hand went on to her lips and covered them
in terror lest they should call. She turned with one swift and flying
gesture, but the foot that aimed for flight continued its motion, and
the full circle held her again facing the terror. For he had already
risen, lithe as a cat and as noiseless, and in three great strides he
was standing beside her, standing over her, encompassing her about; not
now to be retreated from or escaped from or eluded in any way.
And as her heart had leaped so his leaped also, and they stood in an
internal tumult, so loud, so intimate and violent, that the uproar and
rush of a storm was quietude in the comparison.
They could not speak. There were no words left in the world. There were
only eyes that plunged into and fled from each other, and a mighty hand
that had gripped her arm and would never release it again. A hand that
pushed her backwards and backwards, away from the friendly logs that
crackled and flamed; away from the quiet forms that might have rescued
her but that lay as though slumbering in stone. She might have escaped
with one sound, but the law of her being was that she must not make a
sound. She might have escaped by just a show of reluctance; one small
opposition, nay, hesitation, to the pressure of that hand. But she
would not make that infinitesimal wraith of motion. A weariness as of
piled worlds went from his finger to her mind, and it was forbidden her
to have any longer an initiative. A lethargy that was utter surrender
stole into her limbs. She did not think, she did not desire: she was
as void of speculation as though she were dead; and while his hand
continued to guide she would go, and when it ceased she would no longer
be capable of either movement or repose.
All fear of interruption had passed, and yet they went on cautiously,
noiselessly, as though interruption was imminent or unescapable;
putting trees and yet more trees between them and the leaping fire;
striving to forget the fire; seeking a more involved darkness, and
finding everywhere a gloom that yet revealed them. They could not
discover darkness. They could not get to a place where they could cease
to see each other. Always it looked black farther on, and always when
they got there they could each see the pale confronting face of the
other, with the darkness everywhere but in those faces.
They stopped perforce, with that feeling of tremendous discouragement
wherein passion sinks back upon itself, where desire ceases and nothing
is instant but weariness. His hand yet held her, but it gripped no
longer: it lay on her arm as a dead weight: she had only to move an
inch and it would fall away: she had but to turn and he would not
follow her even with his eyes; but the energy which had drained from
him flooded into her in one whirling stream, and when his hand fell
away hers took up the duty it relinquished.