Page 441 - sons-and-lovers

‘What?’
‘To have to go. I feel so still.’
‘Still!’ she repeated.
‘Stiller than I have ever been in my life.’
He was walking with his hand in hers. She pressed his
fingers, feeling a slight fear. Now he seemed beyond her; she
had a fear lest she should lose him.
‘The fir-trees are like presences on the darkness: each
one only a presence.’
She was afraid, and said nothing.
‘A sort of hush: the whole night wondering and asleep: I
suppose that’s what we do in death—sleep in wonder.’
She had been afraid before of the brute in him: now of
the mystic. She trod beside him in silence. The rain fell with
a heavy ‘Hush!’ on the trees. At last they gained the cart-
shed.
‘Let us stay here awhile,’ he said.
There was a sound of rain everywhere, smothering ev-
erything.
‘I feel so strange and still,’ he said; ‘along with every-
thing.’
‘Ay,’ she answered patiently.
He seemed again unaware of her, though he held her
hand close.
‘To be rid of our individuality, which is our will, which
is our effort—to live effortless, a kind of curious sleep—that
is very beautiful, I think; that is our after-life—our immor-
tality.’
‘Yes?’

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