Page 623 - women-in-love

more. You be beautiful, my Gerald, and reckless. There ARE
perfect moments. Wake up, Gerald, wake up, convince me
of the perfect moments. Oh, convince me, I need it.
He opened his eyes, and looked at her. She greeted him
with a mocking, enigmatic smile in which was a poignant
gaiety. Over his face went the reflection of the smile, he
smiled, too, purely unconsciously.
That filled her with extraordinary delight, to see the smile
cross his face, reflected from her face. She remembered that
was how a baby smiled. It filled her with extraordinary ra-
diant delight.
‘You’ve done it,’ she said.
‘What?’ he asked, dazed.
‘Convinced me.’
And she bent down, kissing him passionately, passion-
ately, so that he was bewildered. He did not ask her of what
he had convinced her, though he meant to. He was glad she
was kissing him. She seemed to be feeling for his very heart
to touch the quick of him. And he wanted her to touch the
quick of his being, he wanted that most of all.
Outside, somebody was singing, in a manly, reckless
handsome voice:
‘Mach mir auf, mach mir auf, du Stolze,
Mach mir ein Feuer von Holze.
Vom Regen bin ich nass
Vom Regen bin ich nass-’
Gudrun knew that that song would sound through her
eternity, sung in a manly, reckless, mocking voice. It marked
one of her supreme moments, the supreme pangs of her ner-

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