“Right,” she answered.
He poured a little coffee into a tin can.
“You won’t tell me where you will go?” he asked.
“Really and truly,” she said, “I don’t know. It depends which way the wind blows.”
He looked at her quizzically, then he pursed up his lips, like Zephyrus, blowing across the snow.
“It goes towards Germany,” he said.
“I believe so,” she laughed.
Suddenly, they were aware of a vague white figure near them. It was Gerald. Gudrun’s heart leapt in sudden terror, profound terror. She rose to her feet.
“They told me where you were,” came Gerald’s voice, like a judgment in the whitish air of twilight.
“Maria! You come like a ghost,” exclaimed Loerke.
Gerald did not answer. His presence was unnatural and ghostly to them.
Loerke shook the flask—then he held it inverted over the snow. Only a few brown drops trickled out.
“All gone!” he said.
To Gerald, the smallish, odd figure of the German was distinct and objective, as if seen through field glasses. And he disliked the small figure exceedingly, he wanted it removed.
Then Loerke rattled the box which held the biscuits.
“Biscuits there are still,” he said.
And reaching from his seated posture in the sledge, he handed them to Gudrun. She fumbled, and took one. He would have held them to Gerald, but Gerald so definitely did not want to be offered a biscuit, that Loerke, rather vaguely, put the box aside. Then he took up the small bottle, and held it to the light.
“Also there is some Schnapps,” he said to himself.
Then suddenly, he elevated the battle gallantly in the air, a strange, grotesque figure leaning towards Gudrun, and said:
“Gnädiges Fräulein,” he said, “wohl—”
There was a crack, the bottle was flying, Loerke had started back, the three stood quivering in violent emotion.
Loerke turned to Gerald, a devilish leer on his bright-skinned face.
“Well done!” he said, in a satirical demoniac frenzy. “C’est le sport, sans doute.”
The next instant he was sitting ludicrously in the snow, Gerald’s fist having rung against the side of his head. But Loerke pulled himself together, rose, quivering, looking full at Gerald, his body weak and furtive, but his eyes demoniacal with satire.
“Vive le héros, vive—”
But he flinched, as, in a black flash Gerald’s fist came upon him, banged into the other side of his head, and sent him aside like a broken straw.
But Gudrun moved forward. She raised her clenched hand high, and brought it down, with a great downward stroke on to the face and on to the breast of Gerald.
A great astonishment burst upon him, as if the air had broken. Wide, wide his soul opened, in wonder, feeling the pain. Then it laughed, turning, with strong hands outstretched, at last to take the apple of his desire. At last he could finish his desire.
He took the throat of Gudrun between his hands, that were hard and indomitably powerful. And her throat was beautifully, so beautifully soft, save that, within, he could feel the slippery chords of her life. And this he crushed, this he could crush. What bliss! Oh what bliss, at last, what satisfaction, at last! The pure zest of satisfaction filled his soul. He was watching the unconsciousness come unto her swollen face, watching the eyes roll back. How ugly she was! What a fulfilment, what a satisfaction! How good this was, oh how good it was, what a God-given gratification, at last! 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
