But if Alexander could be so indifferent,
he could be determined and ardent. "What's a little mirk and cold? I
want to say I've swum in it." He began to unbutton his waistcoat.
They stripped, left their clothes in the stone's keeping, and ran down
the moorside. The light played over their bodies, unblemished, smooth,
and healthfully colored, clean-lined and rightly spare. They had
beautiful postures and movements when they stood, when they ran; a
youthful and austere grace as of Spartan youth plunging down to the
icy Eurotas. The earth around lay as stripped as they; the naked,
ineffable blue ether held them as it did all things; the wandering air
broke against them in invisible surf. They ran down the long slope of
the moor, parted the reeds, and dived to meet their own reflections.
The water was most truly deep and cold. They struck out, they swam to
the middle of the pool, they turned upon their backs and looked up to
the blue zenith, then, turning again, with strong arm strokes they
sent the wave over each other. They rounded the pool under the twisted
willows, beside the shaking reeds; they swam across and across.
Alexander looked at the sun that was deep in the western quarter.
"Time to be out and going!" He swam to the edge of the pool, but
before he should draw himself out stopped to look up at a willow above
him, the one that he thought he might, in the mist, have taken for the
kelpie's daughter.
Pages:
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70