_Chapter 12_
Siegmund made a great effort to keep the control of his body. Thehill-side, the gorse, when he stood up, seemed to have fallen back intoshadowed vagueness about him. They were meaningless dark heaps at somedistance, very great, it seemed.
'I can't get hold of them,' he said distractedly to himself. He feltdetached from the earth, from all the near, concrete, beloved things; asif these had melted away from him, and left him, sick and unsupported,somewhere alone on the edge of an enormous space. He wanted to lie downagain, to relieve himself of the sickening effort of supporting andcontrolling his body. If he could lie down again perfectly still he neednot struggle to animate the cumbersome matter of his body, and then hewould not feel thus sick and outside himself.
But Helena was speaking to him, telling him they would see themoon-path. They must set off downhill. He felt her arm clasped firmly,joyously, round his waist. Therein was his stability and warm support.Siegmund felt a keen flush of pitiful tenderness for her as she walkedwith buoyant feet beside him, clasping him so happily, all unconscious.This pity for her drew him nearer to life.
He shuddered lightly now and again, as they stepped lurching down thehill. He set his jaws hard to suppress this shuddering. It was not inhis limbs, or even on the surface of his body, for Helena did not noticeit. Yet he shuddered almost in anguish internally.
'What is it?' he asked himself in wonder.
His thought consisted of these detached phrases, which he spoke verballyto himself. Between-whiles he was conscious only of an almostinsupportable feeling of sickness, as a man feels who is being broughtfrom under an anaesthetic; also he was vaguely aware of a teeming stirof activity, such as one may hear from a closed hive, within him.
They swung rapidly downhill. Siegmund still shuddered, but not souncontrollably. They came to a stile which they must climb. As hestepped over it needed a concentrated effort of will to place his footsecurely on the step. The effort was so great that he becameconscious of it.
'Good Lord!' he said to himself. 'I wonder what it is.'
He tried to examine himself. He thought of all the organs of hisbody--his brain, his heart, his liver. There was no pain, and nothingwrong with any of them, he was sure. His dim searching resolved itselfinto another detached phrase. 'There is nothing the matter with me,'he said.
Then he continued vaguely wondering, recalling the sensation of wretchedsickness which sometimes follows drunkenness, thinking of the times whenhe had fallen ill.
'But I am not like that,' he said, 'because I don't feel tremulous. I amsure my hand is steady.'
Helena stood still to consider the road. He held out his hand beforehim. It was motionless as a dead flower on this silent night.
'Yes, I think this is the right way,' said Helena, and they set offagain, as if gaily.
'It certainly feels rather deathly,' said Siegmund to himself. Heremembered distinctly, when he was a child and had diphtheria, he hadstretched himself in the horrible sickness, which he felt was--and herehe chose the French word--'_l'agonie_'. But his mother had seen and hadcried aloud, which suddenly caused him to struggle with all his soul tospare her her suffering.
'Certainly it is like that,' he said. 'Certainly it is rather deathly. Iwonder how it is.'
Then he reviewed the last hour.
'I believe we are lost!' Helena interrupted him.
'Lost! What matter!' he answered indifferently, and Helena pressed himtighter, hearer to her in a kind of triumph. 'But did we not come thisway?' he added.
'No. See'--her voice was reeded with restrained emotion--'we havecertainly not been along this bare path which dips up and down.'
'Well, then, we must merely keep due eastward, towards the moon prettywell, as much as we can,' said Siegmund, looking forward over the down,where the moon was wrestling heroically to win free of the pack ofclouds which hung on her like wolves on a white deer. As he looked atthe moon he felt a sense of companionship. Helena, not understanding,left him so much alone; the moon was nearer.
Siegmund continued to review the last hours. He had been so wondrouslyhappy. The world had been filled with a new magic, a wonderful, statelybeauty which he had perceived for the first time. For long hours he hadbeen wandering in another--a glamorous, primordial world.
'I suppose,' he said to himself, 'I have lived too intensely, I seem tohave had the stars and moon and everything else for guests, and nowthey've gone my house is weak.'
So he struggled to diagnose his case of splendour and sickness. Hereviewed his hour of passion with Helena.
'Surely,' he told himself, 'I have drunk life too hot, and it has hurtmy cup. My soul seems to leak out--I am half here, half gone away.That's why I understand the trees and the night so painfully.'
Then he came to the hour of Helena's strange ecstasy over him. That,somehow, had filled him with passionate grief. It was happinessconcentrated one drop too keen, so that what should have been vivid winewas like a pure poison scathing him. But his consciousness, which hadbeen unnaturally active, now was dulling. He felt the blood flowingvigorously along the limbs again, and stilling has brain, sweeping awayhis sickness, soothing him.
'I suppose,' he said to himself for the last time, 'I suppose living toointensely kills you, more or less.'
Then Siegmund forgot. He opened his eyes and saw the night about him.The moon had escaped from the cloud-pack, and was radiant behind a fineveil which glistened to her rays, and which was broidered with alustrous halo, very large indeed, the largest halo Siegmund had everseen. When the little lane turned full towards the moon, it seemed as ifSiegmund and Helena would walk through a large Moorish arch ofhorse-shoe shape, the enormous white halo opening in front of them. Theywalked on, keeping their faces to the moon, smiling with wonder and alittle rapture, until once mote the little lane curved wilfully, andthey were walking north. Helena observed three cottages crouching underthe hill and under trees to cover themselves from the magic of themoonlight.
'We certainly did not come this way before,' she said triumphantly. Theidea of being lost delighted her.
Siegmund looked round at the grey hills smeared over with a low, dimglisten of moon-mist. He could not yet fully realize that he was walkingalong a lane in the Isle of Wight. His surroundings seemed to belong tosome state beyond ordinary experience--some place in romance, perhaps,or among the hills where Bruenhild lay sleeping in her large bright haloof fire. How could it be that he and Helena were two children of Londonwandering to find their lodging in Freshwater? He sighed, and lookedagain over the hills where the moonlight was condensing in mistethereal, frail, and yet substantial, reminding him of the way the mannamust have condensed out of the white moonlit mists of Arabian deserts.
'We may be on the road to Newport,' said Helena presently, 'and thedistance is ten miles.'
She laughed, not caring in the least whither they wandered, exulting inthis wonderful excursion! She and Siegmund alone in a glisteningwilderness of night at the back of habited days and nights! Siegmundlooked at her. He by no means shared her exultation, though hesympathized with it. He walked on alone in his deep seriousness, ofwhich she was not aware. Yet when he noticed her abandon, he drew hernearer, and his heart softened with protecting tenderness towards her,and grew heavy with responsibility.
The fields breathed off a scent as if they were come to life with thenight, and were talking with fragrant eagerness. The farms huddledtogether in sleep, and pulled the dark shadow over them to hide from thesupernatural white night; the cottages were locked and darkened. Helenawalked on in triumph through this wondrous hinterland of night, activelysearching for the spirits, watching the cottages they approached,listening, looking for the dreams of those sleeping inside, in thedarkened rooms. She imagined she could see the frail dream-faces at thewindows; she fancied they stole out timidly into the gardens, and wentrunning away among the rabbits on the gleamy hill-side. Helena laughedto herself, pleased with her fancy of wayward little dreams playing withweak hands and feet among
the large, solemn-sleeping cattle. This wasthe first time, she told herself, that she had ever been out among thegrey-frocked dreams and white-armed fairies. She imagined herself lyingasleep in her room, while her own dreams slid out down the moonbeams.She imagined Siegmund sleeping in his room, while his dreams, dark-eyed,their blue eyes very dark and yearning at night-time, came wanderingover the grey grass seeking her dreams.
So she wove her fancies as she walked, until for very weariness she wasfain to remember that it was a long way--a long way. Siegmund's arm wasabout her to support her; she rested herself upon it. They crossed astile and recognized, on the right of the path, the graveyard of theCatholic chapel. The moon, which the days were paring smaller withenvious keen knife, shone upon the white stones in the burial-ground.The carved Christ upon His cross hung against a silver-grey sky. Helenalooked up wearily, bowing to the tragedy. Siegmund also looked, andbowed his head.
'Thirty years of earnest love; three years' life like a passionateecstasy-and it was finished. He was very great and very wonderful. I amvery insignificant, and shall go out ignobly. But we are the same; love,the brief ecstasy, and the end. But mine is one rose, and His all thewhite beauty in the world.'
Siegmund felt his heart very heavy, sad, and at fault, in presence ofthe Christ. Yet he derived comfort from the knowledge that life wastreating him in the same manner as it had treated the Master, though hiscompared small and despicable with the Christ-tragedy. Siegmund steppedsoftly into the shadow of the pine copse.
'Let me get under cover,' he thought. 'Let me hide in it; it is good,the sudden intense darkness. I am small and futile: my small,futile tragedy!'
Helena shrank in the darkness. It was almost terrible to her, and thesilence was like a deep pit. She shrank to Siegmund. He drew her closer,leaning over her as they walked, trying to assure her. His heart washeavy, and heavy with a tenderness approaching grief, for his small,brave Helena.
'Are you sure this is the right way?' he whispered to her.
'Quite, quite sure,' she whispered confidently in reply. And presentlythey came out into the hazy moonlight, and began stumbling down thesteep hill. They were both very tired, both found it difficult to gowith ease or surety this sudden way down. Soon they were creepingcautiously across the pasture and the poultry farm. Helena's heart wasbeating, as she imagined what a merry noise there would be should theywake all the fowls. She dreaded any commotion, any questioning, thisnight, so she stole carefully along till they issued on the high-roadnot far from home.