Domestic fiction; Family -- England -- Midlands -- Fiction; Midlands (England) -- Fiction
So they danced four or five dances, always together, always his will
becoming more tense, his body more subtle, playing upon her. And still
he had not got her, she was hard and bright as ever, intact. But he
must weave himself round her, enclose her, enclose her in a net of
shadow, of darkness, so she would be like a bright creature gleaming in
a net of shadows, caught. Then he would have her, he would enjoy her.
How he would enjoy her, when she was caught.
At last, when the dance was over, she would not sit down, she walked
away. He came with his arm round her, keeping her upon the movement of
his walking. And she seemed to agree. She was bright as a piece of
moonlight, as bright as a steel blade, he seemed to be clasping a blade
that hurt him. Yet he would clasp her, if it killed him.
They went towards the stackyard. There he saw, with something like
terror, the great new stacks of corn glistening and gleaming
transfigured, silvery and present under the night-blue sky, throwing
dark, substantial shadows, but themselves majestic and dimly present.
She, like glimmering gossamer, seemed to burn among them, as they rose
like cold fires to the silvery-bluish air. All was intangible, a
burning of cold, glimmering, whitish-steely fires. He was afraid of the
great moon-conflagration of the cornstacks rising above him. His heart
grew smaller, it began to fuse like a bead. He knew he would die.
She stood for some moments out in the overwhelming luminosity of the
moon. She seemed a beam of gleaming power. She was afraid of what she
was. Looking at him, at his shadowy, unreal, wavering presence a sudden
lust seized her, to lay hold of him and tear him and make him into
nothing. Her hands and wrists felt immeasurably hard and strong, like
blades. He waited there beside her like a shadow which she wanted to
dissipate, destroy as the moonlight destroys a darkness, annihilate,
have done with. She looked at him and her face gleamed bright and
inspired. She tempted him.
And an obstinacy in him made him put his arm round her and draw her to
the shadow. She submitted: let him try what he could do. Let him try
what he could do. He leaned against the side of the stack, holding her.
The stack stung him keenly with a thousand cold, sharp flames. Still
obstinately he held her.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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