He did not count the days. But like a man who journeys in a
ship, he was suspended till the coming to port.
He worked at his carving, he worked in his office, he came to
see her; all was but a form of waiting, without thought or
question.
She was much more alive. She wanted to enjoy courtship. He
seemed to come and go like the wind, without asking why or
whither. But she wanted to enjoy his presence. For her, he was
the kernel of life, to touch him alone was bliss. But for him,
she was the essence of life. She existed as much when he was at
his carving in his lodging in Ilkeston, as when she sat looking
at him in the Marsh kitchen. In himself, he knew her. But his
outward faculties seemed suspended. He did not see her with his
eyes, nor hear her with his voice.
And yet he trembled, sometimes into a kind of swoon, holding
her in his arms. They would stand sometimes folded together in
the barn, in silence. Then to her, as she felt his young, tense
figure with her hands, the bliss was intolerable, intolerable
the sense that she possessed him. For his body was so keen and
wonderful, it was the only reality in her world. In her world,
there was this one tense, vivid body of a man, and then many
other shadowy men, all unreal. In him, she touched the centre of
reality. And they were together, he and she, at the heart of the
secret. How she clutched him to her, his body the central body
of all life. Out of the rock of his form the very fountain of
life flowed.
But to him, she was a flame that consumed him. The flame
flowed up his limbs, flowed through him, till he was consumed,
till he existed only as an unconscious, dark transit of flame,
deriving from her.
Sometimes, in the darkness, a cow coughed. There was, in the
darkness, a slow sound of cud chewing. And it all seemed to flow
round them and upon them as the hot blood flows through the
womb, laving the unborn young.
Sometimes, when it was cold, they stood to be lovers in the
stables, where the air was warm and sharp with ammonia. And
during these dark vigils, he learned to know her, her body
against his, they drew nearer and nearer together, the kisses
came more subtly close and fitting. So when in the thick
darkness a horse suddenly scrambled to its feet, with a dull,
thunderous sound, they listened as one person listening, they
knew as one person, they were conscious of the horse.
Tom Brangwen had taken them a cottage at Cossethay, on a
twenty-one years' lease. Will Brangwen's eyes lit up as he saw
it. It was the cottage next the church, with dark yew-trees,
very black old trees, along the side of the house and the grassy
front garden; a red, squarish cottage with a low slate roof, and
low windows. It had a long dairy-scullery, a big flagged
kitchen, and a low parlour, that went up one step from the
kitchen. There were whitewashed beams across the ceilings, and
odd corners with cupboards. Looking out through the windows,
there was the grassy garden, the procession of black yew trees
down one side, and along the other sides, a red wall with ivy
separating the place from the high-road and the churchyard. The
old, little church, with its small spire on a square tower,
seemed to be looking back at the cottage windows.