strange darkness, the strange, blood fear.

"I am not afraid of the darkness in England," he said. "It is
soft, and natural to me, it is my medium, especially when you
are here. But in Africa it seems massive and fluid with
terror--not fear of anything--just fear. One breathes
it, like the smell of blood. The blacks know it. They worship
it, really, the darkness. One almost likes it--the
fear--something sensual."

She thrilled again to him. He was to her a voice out of the
darkness. He talked to her all the while, in low tones, about
Africa, conveying something strange and sensual to her: the
negro, with his loose, soft passion that could envelop one like
a bath. Gradually he transferred to her the hot, fecund darkness
that possessed his own blood. He was strangely secret. The whole
world must be abolished. He maddened her with his soft,
cajoling, vibrating tones. He wanted her to answer, to
understand. A turgid, teeming night, heavy with fecundity in
which every molecule of matter grew big with increase, secretly
urgent with fecund desire, seemed to come to pass. She quivered,
taut and vibrating, almost pained. And gradually, he ceased
telling her of Africa, there came a silence, whilst they walked
the darkness beside the massive river. Her limbs were rich and
tense, she felt they must be vibrating with a low, profound
vibration. She could scarcely walk. The deep vibration of the
darkness could only be felt, not heard.

Suddenly, as they walked, she turned to him and held him
fast, as if she were turned to steel.

"Do you love me?" she cried in anguish.

"Yes," he said, in a curious, lapping voice, unlike himself.
"Yes, I love you."

He seemed like the living darkness upon her, she was in the
embrace of the strong darkness. He held her enclosed, soft,
unutterably soft, and with the unrelaxing softness of fate, the
relentless softness of fecundity. She quivered, and quivered,
like a tense thing that is struck. But he held her all the time,
soft, unending, like darkness closed upon her, omnipresent as
the night. He kissed her, and she quivered as if she were being
destroyed, shattered. The lighted vessel vibrated, and broke in
her soul, the light fell, struggled, and went dark. She was all
dark, will-less, having only the receptive will.

He kissed her, with his soft, enveloping kisses, and she
responded to them completely, her mind, her soul gone out.
Darkness cleaving to darkness, she hung close to him, pre