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.