even here, I reach my object and say, “Wander no more. All else is trial and make-believe. Here is the end.” But these pilgrimages, these moments of departure, start always in your presence, from this table, these lights from Percival and Susan, here and now. Always I see the grove over your heads, between your shoulders, or from a window when I have crossed the room at a party and stand looking down into the street.’
‘But his slippers?’ said Neville. ‘And his voice downstairs in the hall? And catching sight of him when he does not see one? One waits and he does not come. It gets later and later. He has forgotten. He is with someone else. He is faithless, his love meant nothing. Oh, then the agony — then the intolerable despair! And then the door opens. He is here.’
‘Ripping gold, I say to him, “Come”,’ said Jinny. ‘And he comes; he crosses the room to where I sit, with my dress like a veil billowing round me on the gilt chair. Our hands touch, our bodies burst into fire. The chair, the cup, the table — nothing remains unlit. All quivers, all kindles, all burns clear.’
(‘Look, Rhoda,’ said Louis, ‘they have become nocturnal, rapt. Their eyes are like moths’ wings moving so quickly that they do not seem to move at all.’
‘Horns and trumpets,’ said Rhoda, ‘ring out. Leaves unfold; the stags blare in the thicket. There is a dancing and a drumming, like the dancing and the drumming of naked men with assegais.’
‘Like the dance of savages,’ said Louis, ‘round the camp-fire. They are savage; they are ruthless. They dance in a circle, flapping bladders. The flames leap over their painted faces, over the leopard skins and the bleeding limbs which they have torn from the living body.’
‘The flames of the festival rise high,’ said Rhoda. ‘The great procession passes, flinging green boughs and flowering branches. Their horns spill blue smoke; their skins are dappled red and yellow in the torchlight. They throw violets. They deck the beloved with garlands and with laurel leaves, there
