s to him terrible, how she
could be transfigured. He could not look at her, it burnt his
heart.

"My love!" she said.

And she put her arms round him as he stood before her round
his thighs, pressing him against her breast. And her hands on
him seemed to reveal to him the mould of his own nakedness, he
was passionately lovely to himself. He could not bear to look at
her.

"My dear!" she said. He knew she spoke a foreign language.
The fear was like bliss in his heart. He looked down. Her face
was shining, her eyes were full of light, she was awful. He
suffered from the compulsion to her. She was the awful unknown.
He bent down to her, suffering, unable to let go, unable to let
himself go, yet drawn, driven. She was now the transfigured, she
was wonderful, beyond him. He wanted to go. But he could not as
yet kiss her. He was himself apart. Easiest he could kiss her
feet. But he was too ashamed for the actual deed, which were
like an affront. She waited for him to meet her, not to bow
before her and serve her. She wanted his active participation,
not his submission. She put her fingers on him. And it was
torture to him, that he must give himself to her actively,
participate in her, that he must meet and embrace and know her,
who was other than himself. There was that in him which shrank
from yielding to her, resisted the relaxing towards her, opposed
the mingling with her, even while he most desired it. He was
afraid, he wanted to save himself.

There were a few moments of stillness. Then gradually, the
tension, the withholding relaxed in him, and he began to flow
towards her. She was beyond him, the unattainable. But he let go
his hold on himself, he relinquished himself, and knew the
subterranean force of his desire to come to her, to be with her,
to mingle with her, losing himself to find her, to find himself
in her. He began to approach her, to draw near.

His blood beat up in waves of desire. He wanted to come to
her, to meet her. She was there, if he could reach her. The
reality of her who was just beyond him absorbed him. Blind and
destroyed, he pressed forward, nearer, nearer, to receive the
consummation of himself, he received within the darkness which
should swallow him and yield him up to himself. If he could come
really within the blazing kernel of darkness, if really he could
be destroyed, burnt away till he lit with her in one
consummation, that were supreme, supreme.

Their coming together now, a