Page 609 - women-in-love

past—ah, let it go! She rose free on the wings of her new
condition.
Gudrun and Gerald had not come in. They had walked
up the valley straight in front of the house, not like Ursula
and Birkin, on to the little hill at the right. Gudrun was driv-
en by a strange desire. She wanted to plunge on and on, till
she came to the end of the valley of snow. Then she wanted
to climb the wall of white finality, climb over, into the peaks
that sprang up like sharp petals in the heart of the frozen,
mysterious navel of the world. She felt that there, over the
strange blind, terrible wall of rocky snow, there in the na-
vel of the mystic world, among the final cluster of peaks,
there, in the infolded navel of it all, was her consummation.
If she could but come there, alone, and pass into the infold-
ed navel of eternal snow and of uprising, immortal peaks of
snow and rock, she would be a oneness with all, she would
be herself the eternal, infinite silence, the sleeping, timeless,
frozen centre of the All.
They went back to the house, to the Reunionsaal. She was
curious to see what was going on. The men there made her
alert, roused her curiosity. It was a new taste of life for her,
they were so prostrate before her, yet so full of life.
The party was boisterous; they were dancing all together,
dancing the Schuhplatteln, the Tyrolese dance of the clap-
ping hands and tossing the partner in the air at the crisis.
The Germans were all proficient—they were from Munich
chiefly. Gerald also was quite passable. There were three
zithers twanging away in a corner. It was a scene of great
animation and confusion. The Professor was initiating Ur-

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