Page 705 - women-in-love

vaguely in and about the blackness of rock. Yet there was no
sound, all this made no noise.
To add to his difficulty, a small bright moon shone bril-
liantly just ahead, on the right, a painful brilliant thing that
was always there, unremitting, from which there was no es-
cape. He wanted so to come to the end—he had had enough.
Yet he did not sleep.
He surged painfully up, sometimes having to cross a
slope of black rock, that was blown bare of snow. Here he
was afraid of falling, very much afraid of falling. And high
up here, on the crest, moved a wind that almost overpow-
ered him with a sleep-heavy iciness. Only it was not here,
the end, and he must still go on. His indefinite nausea would
not let him stay.
Having gained one ridge, he saw the vague shadow of
something higher in front. Always higher, always higher. He
knew he was following the track towards the summit of the
slopes, where was the marienhutte, and the descent on the
other side. But he was not really conscious. He only wanted
to go on, to go on whilst he could, to move, to keep going,
that was all, to keep going, until it was finished. He had lost
all his sense of place. And yet in the remaining instinct of
life, his feet sought the track where the skis had gone.
He slithered down a sheer snow slope. That frightened
him. He had no alpenstock, nothing. But having come safe-
ly to rest, he began to walk on, in the illuminated darkness.
It was as cold as sleep. He was between two ridges, in a hol-
low. So he swerved. Should he climb the other ridge, or
wander along the hollow? How frail the thread of his being

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