The Trespasser. Дэвид Герберт Лоуренс

laughed, and told him to climb the chromatic scale.

      “But you agree?” he said.

      “I do not,” she replied.

      The fog was cold. It seemed to rob them of their courage to talk.

      “What is the note in ‘Tristan?’ ” Helena made an effort to ask.

      “That is not the same,” he replied.

      “No, dear, that is not the same,” she said in low, comforting tones. He quivered at the caress. She put her arms round him, reached up her face yearningly for a kiss. He forgot they were standing in the public footpath, in daylight, till she drew hastily away. She heard footsteps down the fog.

      As they climbed the path the mist grew thinner, till it was only a grey haze at the top. There they were on the turfy lip of the land. The sky was fairly clear overhead. Below them the sea was singing hoarsely to itself.

      Helena drew him to the edge of the cliff. He crushed her hand, drawing slightly back. But it pleased her to feel the grip on her hand becoming unbearable. They stood right on the edge, to see the smooth cliff slope into the mist, under which the sea stirred noisily.

      “Shall we walk over, then ?” said Siegmund, glancing downwards. Helena’s heart stood still a moment at the idea, then beat heavily. How could he play with the idea of death, and the five great days in front? She was afraid of him just then.

      “Come away, dear,” she pleaded.

      He would, then, forego the few consummate days! It was bitterness to her to think so.

      ​“Come away, dear!” she repeated, drawing him slowly to the path.

      “You are not afraid?” he asked.

      “Not afraid, no. …” Her voice had that peculiar, reedy, harsh quality that made him shiver.

      “It is too easy a way,” he said satirically.

      She did not take in his meaning.

      “And five days of our own before us, Siegmund!” she scolded. “The mist is Lethe. It is enough for us if its spell lasts five days.”

      He laughed, and took her in his arms, kissing her very closely.

      They walked on joyfully, locking behind them the doors of forgetfulness.

      As the sun set, the fog dispersed a little. Breaking masses of mist went flying from cliff to cliff, and far away beyond the cliffs the western sky stood dimmed with gold. The lovers wandered aimlessly over the golf-links to where green mounds and turfed banks suggested to Helena that she was tired, and would sit down. They faced the lighted chamber of the west, whence, behind the torn, dull-gold curtains of fog, the sun was departing with pomp.

      Siegmund sat very still, watching the sunset. It was a splendid, flaming bridal chamber where he had come to Helena. He wondered how to express it; how other men had borne this same glory.

      “What is the music of it?” he asked.

      She glanced at him. His eyelids were half lowered, his mouth slightly open, as if in ironic rhapsody.

      “Of what, dear?”

      “What music do you think holds the best interpretation of sunset?”

      ​His skin was gold, his real mood was intense. She revered him for a moment.

      “I do not know,” she said quietly; and she rested her head against his shoulder, looking out west.

      There was a space of silence, while Siegmund dreamed on.

      “A Beethoven symphony—the one——” and he explained to her.

      She was not satisfied, but leaned against him, making her choice. The sunset hung steady; she could scarcely perceive a change.

      “The Grail music in ‘Lohengrin,” ” she decided.

      “Yes,” said Siegmund. He found it quite otherwise, but did not trouble to dispute. He dreamed by himself. This displeased her. She wanted him for herself. How could he leave her alone while he watched the sky? She almost put her two hands over his eyes.

      ​

      Chapter IV

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      IV

       Table of Contents

      The gold march of sunset passed quickly, the ragged curtains of mist closed to. Soon Siegmund and Helena were shut alone within the dense wide fog. She shivered with the cold and the damp. Startled, he took her in his arms, where she lay and clung to him. Holding her closely, he bent forward, straight to her lips. His moustache was drenched cold with fog, so that she shuddered slightly after his kiss, and shuddered again. He did not know why the strong tremor passed through her. Thinking it was with fear and with cold, he undid his overcoat, put her close on his breast, and covered her as best he could. That she feared him at that moment was half pleasure, half shame to him. Pleadingly he hid his face on her shoulder, held her very tightly, till his face grew hot, buried against her soft strong throat.

      “You are so big I can’t hold you,” she whispered plaintively, catching her breath with fear. Her small hands grasped at the breadth of his shoulders ineffectually.

      “You will be cold. Put your hands under my coat.” he whispered.

      He put her inside his overcoat and his coat. She came to his warm breast with a sharp intaking of delight and fear; she tried to make her hands meet in the warmth of his shoulders, tried to clasp him.

      ​“See! I can’t,” she whispered.

      He laughed short, and pressed her closer.

      Then, tucking her head in his breast, hiding her face, she timidly slid her hands along his sides, pressing softly, to find the contours of his figure. Softly her hands crept over the silky back of his waistcoat, under his coats, and as they stirred, his blood flushed up, and up again, with fire, till all Siegmund was hot blood, and his breast was one great ache.

      He crushed her to him—crushed her in upon the ache of his chest. His muscles set hard and unyielding; at that moment he was a tense, vivid body of flesh, without a mind; his blood, alive and conscious, running towards her. He remained perfectly still, locked about Helena, conscious of nothing.

      She was hurt and crushed, but it was pain delicious to her. It was marvellous to her how strong he was, to keep up that grip of her like steel. She swooned in a kind of intense bliss. At length she found herself released, taking a great breath, while Siegmund was moving his mouth over her throat, something like a dog snuffing her, but with his lips. Her heart leaped away in revulsion. His moustache thrilled her strangely. His lips, brushing and pressing her throat beneath the ear, and his warm breath flying rhythmically upon her, made her vibrate through all her body. Like a violin under the bow, she thrilled beneath his mouth, and shuddered from his moustache. Her heart was like fire in her breast.

      Suddenly she strained madly to him, and, drawing back her head, placed her lips on his, close, till at the mouth they seemed to melt and fuse together. It was the long, supreme kiss, in which man and woman have one being, Two-in-one, the only Hermaphrodite.

      ​When Helena drew away her lips, she was exhausted. She belonged to that class of “dreaming women” with whom passion exhausts itself at the mouth. Her desire was accomplished in a real kiss. The fire, in heavy flames, had poured through her to Siegmund, from Siegmund to her. It sank, and she felt herself flagging. She had not the man’s brightness and vividness of blood. She lay upon his breast, dreaming