Page 513 - women-in-love

His brain was hurt, seared, the tissue was as if destroyed.
He had not known how hurt he was, how his tissue, the very
tissue of his brain was damaged by the corrosive flood of
death. Now, as the healing lymph of her effluence flowed
through him, he knew how destroyed he was, like a plant
whose tissue is burst from inwards by a frost.
He buried his small, hard head between her breasts, and
pressed her breasts against him with his hands. And she
with quivering hands pressed his head against her, as he
lay suffused out, and she lay fully conscious. The lovely cre-
ative warmth flooded through him like a sleep of fecundity
within the womb. Ah, if only she would grant him the flow
of this living effluence, he would be restored, he would be
complete again. He was afraid she would deny him before it
was finished. Like a child at the breast, he cleaved intense-
ly to her, and she could not put him away. And his seared,
ruined membrane relaxed, softened, that which was seared
and stiff and blasted yielded again, became soft and flex-
ible, palpitating with new life. He was infinitely grateful, as
to God, or as an infant is at its mother’s breast. He was glad
and grateful like a delirium, as he felt his own wholeness
come over him again, as he felt the full, unutterable sleep
coming over him, the sleep of complete exhaustion and res-
toration.
But Gudrun lay wide awake, destroyed into perfect
consciousness. She lay motionless, with wide eyes staring
motionless into the darkness, whilst he was sunk away in
sleep, his arms round her.
She seemed to be hearing waves break on a hidden shore,

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