Page 462 - women-in-love

‘Yes. It looks like quartz crystals sticking up out of the
dark hollow. We’ll have our high tea at the Saracen’s Head.’
As they descended, they heard the Minster bells playing
a hymn, when the hour had struck six.
Glory to thee my God this night
For all the blessings of the light—
So, to Ursula’s ear, the tune fell out, drop by drop, from
the unseen sky on to the dusky town. It was like dim, by-
gone centuries sounding. It was all so far off. She stood in
the old yard of the inn, smelling of straw and stables and
petrol. Above, she could see the first stars. What was it all?
This was no actual world, it was the dream-world of one’s
childhood—a great circumscribed reminiscence. The world
had become unreal. She herself was a strange, transcendent
reality.
They sat together in a little parlour by the fire.
‘Is it true?’ she said, wondering.
‘What?’
‘Everything—is everything true?’
‘The best is true,’ he said, grimacing at her.
‘Is it?’ she replied, laughing, but unassured.
She looked at him. He seemed still so separate. New eyes
were opened in her soul. She saw a strange creature from
another world, in him. It was as if she were enchanted, and
everything were metamorphosed. She recalled again the old
magic of the Book of Genesis, where the sons of God saw
the daughters of men, that they were fair. And he was one of
these, one of these strange creatures from the beyond, look-
ing down at her, and seeing she was fair.

462 Women in Love