Page 514 - women-in-love

long, slow, gloomy waves, breaking with the rhythm of fate,
so monotonously that it seemed eternal. This endless break-
ing of slow, sullen waves of fate held her life a possession,
whilst she lay with dark, wide eyes looking into the dark-
ness. She could see so far, as far as eternity—yet she saw
nothing. She was suspended in perfect consciousness—and
of what was she conscious?
This mood of extremity, when she lay staring into eter-
nity, utterly suspended, and conscious of everything, to the
last limits, passed and left her uneasy. She had lain so long
motionless. She moved, she became self-conscious. She
wanted to look at him, to see him.
But she dared not make a light, because she knew he
would wake, and she did not want to break his perfect sleep,
that she knew he had got of her.
She disengaged herself, softly, and rose up a little to look
at him. There was a faint light, it seemed to her, in the room.
She could just distinguish his features, as he slept the perfect
sleep. In this darkness, she seemed to see him so distinctly.
But he was far off, in another world. Ah, she could shriek
with torment, he was so far off, and perfected, in another
world. She seemed to look at him as at a pebble far away
under clear dark water. And here was she, left with all the
anguish of consciousness, whilst he was sunk deep into the
other element of mindless, remote, living shadow-gleam.
He was beautiful, far-off, and perfected. They would never
be together. Ah, this awful, inhuman distance which would
always be interposed between her and the other being!
There was nothing to do but to lie still and endure. She

514 Women in Love