Page 577 - women-in-love

In Ursula the sense of the unrealised world ahead tri-
umphed over everything. In the midst of this profound
darkness, there seemed to glow on her heart the effulgence
of a paradise unknown and unrealised. Her heart was full
of the most wonderful light, golden like honey of darkness,
sweet like the warmth of day, a light which was not shed on
the world, only on the unknown paradise towards which
she was going, a sweetness of habitation, a delight of living
quite unknown, but hers infallibly. In her transport she lift-
ed her face suddenly to him, and he touched it with his lips.
So cold, so fresh, so sea-clear her face was, it was like kissing
a flower that grows near the surf.
But he did not know the ecstasy of bliss in fore-knowl-
edge that she knew. To him, the wonder of this transit was
overwhelming. He was falling through a gulf of infinite
darkness, like a meteorite plunging across the chasm be-
tween the worlds. The world was torn in two, and he was
plunging like an unlit star through the ineffable rift. What
was beyond was not yet for him. He was overcome by the
trajectory.
In a trance he lay enfolding Ursula round about. His face
was against her fine, fragile hair, he breathed its fragrance
with the sea and the profound night. And his soul was at
peace; yielded, as he fell into the unknown. This was the
first time that an utter and absolute peace had entered his
heart, now, in this final transit out of life.
When there came some stir on the deck, they roused.
They stood up. How stiff and cramped they were, in the
night-time! And yet the paradisal glow on her heart, and

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