He was unconscious of her fighting and struggling.The struggling was her reciprocal lustful passion in this embrace, the more violent it became, the greater the frenzy of delight, till the zenith was reached, the crisis, the struggle was overborne, her movement became softer, appeased.
Loerke roused himself on the snow, too dazed and hurt to get up.Only his eyes were conscious.
`Monsieur!' he said, in his thin, roused voice: `Quand vous aurez fini --'
A revulsion of contempt and disgust came over Gerald's soul.The disgust went to the very bottom of him, a nausea.Ah, what was he doing, to what depths was he letting himself go! As if he cared about her enough to kill her, to have her life on his hands!
A weakness ran over his body, a terrible relaxing, a thaw, a decay of strength.Without knowing, he had let go his grip, and Gudrun had fallen to her knees.Must he see, must he know?
A fearful weakness possessed him, his joints were turned to water.He drifted, as on a wind, veered, and went drifting away.
`I didn't want it, really,' was the last confession of disgust in his soul, as he drifted up the slope, weak, finished, only sheering off unconsciously from any further contact.`I've had enough -- I want to go to sleep.I've had enough.' He was sunk under a sense of nausea.
He was weak, but he did not want to rest, he wanted to go on and on, to the end.Never again to stay, till he came to the end, that was all the desire that remained to him.So he drifted on and on, unconscious and weak, not thinking of anything, so long as he could keep in action.
The twilight spread a weird, unearthly light overhead, bluish-rose in colour, the cold blue night sank on the snow.In the valley below, behind, in the great bed of snow, were two small figures: Gudrun dropped on her knees, like one executed, and Loerke sitting propped up near her.That was all.
Gerald stumbled on up the slope of snow, in the bluish darkness, always climbing, always unconsciously climbing, weary though he was.On his left was a steep slope with black rocks and fallen masses of rock and veins of snow slashing in and about the blackness of rock, veins of snow slashing 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 brilliantly just ahead, on the right, a painful brilliant thing that was always there, unremitting, from which there was no escape.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 overpowered 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 safely to rest, he began to walk on, in the illuminated darkness.It was as cold as sleep.He was between two ridges, in a hollow.So he swerved.Should he climb the other ridge, or wander along the hollow? How frail the thread of his being was stretched!
He would perhaps climb the ridge.The snow was firm and simple.He went along.There was something standing out of the snow.He approached, with dimmest curiosity.
It was a half-buried Crucifix, a little Christ under a little sloping hood, at the top of a pole.He sheered away.Somebody was going to murder him.He had a great dread of being murdered.But it was a dread which stood outside him, like his own ghost.
Yet why be afraid? It was bound to happen.To be murdered! He looked round in terror at the snow, the rocking, pale, shadowy slopes of the upper world.He was bound to be murdered, he could see it.This was the moment when the death was uplifted, and there was no escape.
Lord Jesus, was it then bound to be -- Lord Jesus! He could feel the blow descending, he knew he was murdered.Vaguely wandering forward, his hands lifted as if to feel what would happen, he was waiting for the moment when he would stop, when it would cease.It was not over yet.
He had come to the hollow basin of snow, surrounded by sheer slopes and precipices, out of which rose a track that brought one to the top of the mountain.But he wandered unconsciously, till he slipped and fell down, and as he fell something broke in his soul, and immediately he went to sleep.
