outside.

She wanted her own, old, sharp self, detached, detached,
active but not absorbed, active for her own part, taking and
giving, but never absorbed. Whereas he wanted this strange
absorption with her, which still she resisted. But she was
partly helpless against it. She had lived so long in Tom
Brangwen's love, beforehand.

From the Skrebensky's, they went to Will Brangwen's beloved
Lincoln Cathedral, because it was not far off. He had promised
her, that one by one, they should visit all the cathedrals of
England. They began with Lincoln, which he knew well.

He began to get excited as the time drew near to set off.
What was it that changed him so much? She was almost angry,
coming as she did from the Skrebensky's. But now he ran on
alone. His very breast seemed to open its doors to watch for the
great church brooding over the town. His soul ran ahead.

When he saw the cathedral in the distance, dark blue lifted
watchful in the sky, his heart leapt. It was the sign in heaven,
it was the Spirit hovering like a dove, like an eagle over the
earth. He turned his glowing, ecstatic face to her, his mouth
opened with a strange, ecstatic grin.

"There she is," he said.

The "she" irritated her. Why "she"? It was "it". What was the
cathedral, a big building, a thing of the past, obsolete, to
excite him to such a pitch? She began to stir herself to
readiness.

They passed up the steep hill, he eager as a pilgrim arriving
at the shrine. As they came near the precincts, with castle on
one side and cathedral on the other, his veins seemed to break
into fiery blossom, he was transported.

They had passed through the gate, and the great west front
was before them, with all its breadth and ornament.

"It is a false front," he said, looking at the golden stone
and the twin towers, and loving them just the same. In a little
ecstasy he found himself in the porch, on the brink of the
unrevealed. He looked up to the lovely unfolding of the stone.
He was to pass within to the perfect womb.

Then he pushed open the door, and the great, pillared gloom
was before him, in which his soul shuddered and rose from her
nest. His soul leapt, soared up into the great church. His body
stood still, absorbed by the height. His soul leapt up into the
gloom, into possession, it reeled, it swooned with a great
escape, it quivered in the womb, in the hush and the gloom of
fecundity, like seed of procreation in ecstasy.

She too was ov