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and all the dreadful, carrion-bodied people. ‘Ye must be
born again! I believe in the resurrection of the body! Ex-
cept a grain of wheat fall into the earth and die, it shall by
no means bring forth. When the crocus cometh forth I too
will emerge and see the sun!’ In the wind of March endless
phrases swept through her consciousness.
Little gusts of sunshine blew, strangely bright, and lit
up the celandines at the wood’s edge, under the hazel-rods,
they spangled out bright and yellow. And the wood was still,
stiller, but yet gusty with crossing sun. The first windflow-
ers were out, and all the wood seemed pale with the pallor
of endless little anemones, sprinkling the shaken floor. ‘The
world has grown pale with thy breath.’ But it was the breath
of Persephone, this time; she was out of hell on a cold morn-
ing. Cold breaths of wind came, and overhead there was an
anger of entangled wind caught among the twigs. It, too, was
caught and trying to tear itself free, the wind, like Absalom.
How cold the anemones looked, bobbing their naked white
shoulders over crinoline skirts of green. But they stood it. A
few first bleached little primroses too, by the path, and yel-
low buds unfolding themselves.
The roaring and swaying was overhead, only cold cur-
rents came down below. Connie was strangely excited in the
wood, and the colour flew in her cheeks, and burned blue
in her eyes. She walked ploddingly, picking a few primroses
and the first violets, that smelled sweet and cold, sweet and
cold. And she drifted on without knowing where she was.
Till she came to the clearing, at the end of the wood, and
saw the green-stained stone cottage, looking almost rosy,

1 Lady Chatterly’s Lover