Page 268 - women-in-love

actually, and so endless, so different really from what it is on
top, so endless—you wonder how it is so many are alive, why
we’re up here. Are you going? I shall see you again, shan’t I?
Good-night, and thank you. Thank you very much!’
The two girls waited a while, to see if there were any
hope. The moon shone clearly overhead, with almost im-
pertinent brightness, the small dark boats clustered on the
water, there were voices and subdued shouts. But it was all
to no purpose. Gudrun went home when Birkin returned.
He was commissioned to open the sluice that let out the
water from the lake, which was pierced at one end, near the
high-road, thus serving as a reservoir to supply with water
the distant mines, in case of necessity. ‘Come with me,’ he
said to Ursula, ‘and then I will walk home with you, when
I’ve done this.’
He called at the water-keeper’s cottage and took the key
of the sluice. They went through a little gate from the high-
road, to the head of the water, where was a great stone basin
which received the overflow, and a flight of stone steps de-
scended into the depths of the water itself. At the head of the
steps was the lock of the sluice-gate.
The night was silver-grey and perfect, save for the
scattered restless sound of voices. The grey sheen of the
moonlight caught the stretch of water, dark boats plashed
and moved. But Ursula’s mind ceased to be receptive, every-
thing was unimportant and unreal.
Birkin fixed the iron handle of the sluice, and turned it
with a wrench. The cogs began slowly to rise. He turned and
turned, like a slave, his white figure became distinct. Ursula

268 Women in Love