And the laughter crashed out again, in wild paroxysms, the Professor's daughters were reduced to shaking helplessness, the veins of the Professor's neck were swollen, his face was purple, he was strangled in ultimate, silent spasms of laughter.The students were shouting half-articulated words that tailed off in helpless explosions.Then suddenly the rapid patter of the artist ceased, there were little whoops of subsiding mirth, Ursula and Gudrun were wiping their eyes, and the Professor was crying loudly.
`Das war ausgezeichnet, das war famos --'
`Wirklich famos,' echoed his exhausted daughters, faintly.
`And we couldn't understand it,' cried Ursula.
`Oh leider, leider!' cried the Professor.
`You couldn't understand it?' cried the Students, let loose at last in speech with the newcomers.`Ja, das ist wirklich schade, das ist schade, gnadige Frau.Wissen Sie --'
The mixture was made, the newcomers were stirred into the party, like new ingredients, the whole room was alive.Gerald was in his element, he talked freely and excitedly, his face glistened with a strange amusement.
Perhaps even Birkin, in the end, would break forth.He was shy and withheld, though full of attention.
Ursula was prevailed upon to sing `Annie Lowrie,' as the Professor called it.There was a hush of extreme deference.She had never been so flattered in her life.Gudrun accompanied her on the piano, playing from memory.
Ursula had a beautiful ringing voice, but usually no confidence, she spoiled everything.This evening she felt conceited and untrammelled.Birkin was well in the background, she shone almost in reaction, the Germans made her feel fine and infallible, she was liberated into overweening self-confidence.
She felt like a bird flying in the air, as her voice soared out, enjoying herself extremely in the balance and flight of the song, like the motion of a bird's wings that is up in the wind, sliding and playing on the air, she played with sentimentality, supported by rapturous attention.She was very happy, singing that song by herself, full of a conceit of emotion and power, working upon all those people, and upon herself, exerting herself with gratification, giving immeasurable gratification to the Germans.
At the end, the Germans were all touched with admiring, delicious melancholy, they praised her in soft, reverent voices, they could not say too much.
`Wie schon, wie ruhrend! Ach, die Schottischen Lieder, sie haben so viel Stimmung! Aber die gnadige Frau hat eine wunderbare Stimme;die gnadige Frau ist wirklich eine Kunstlerin, aber wirklich!'
She was dilated and brilliant, like a flower in the morning sun.She felt Birkin looking at her, as if he were jealous of her, and her breasts thrilled, her veins were all golden.She was as happy as the sun that has just opened above clouds.And everybody seemed so admiring and radiant, it was perfect.
After dinner she wanted to go out for a minute, to look at the world.
The company tried to dissuade her -- it was so terribly cold.But just to look, she said.
They all four wrapped up warmly, and found themselves in a vague, unsubstantial outdoors of dim snow and ghosts of an upper-world, that made strange shadows before the stars.It was indeed cold, bruisingly, frighteningly, unnaturally cold.Ursula could not believe the air in her nostrils.It seemed conscious, malevolent, purposive in its intense murderous coldness.
Yet it was wonderful, an intoxication, a silence of dim, unrealised snow, of the invisible intervening between her and the visible, between her and the flashing stars.She could see Orion sloping up.How wonderful he was, wonderful enough to make one cry aloud.
And all around was this cradle of snow, and there was firm snow underfoot, that struck with heavy cold through her boot-soles.It was night, and silence.
She imagined she could hear the stars.She imagined distinctly she could hear the celestial, musical motion of the stars, quite near at hand.She seemed like a bird flying amongst their harmonious motion.
And she clung close to Birkin.Suddenly she realised she did not know what he was thinking.She did not know where he was ranging.
`My love!' she said, stopping to look at him.
His face was pale, his eyes dark, there was a faint spark of starlight on them.And he saw her face soft and upturned to him, very near.He kissed her softly.
`What then?' he asked.
`Do you love me?' she asked.
`Too much,' he answered quietly.
She clung a little closer.
`Not too much,' she pleaded.
`Far too much,' he said, almost sadly.
`And does it make you sad, that I am everything to you?' she asked, wistful.He held her close to him, kissing her, and saying, scarcely audible:
`No, but I feel like a beggar -- I feel poor.'
She was silent, looking at the stars now.Then she kissed him.
`Don't be a beggar,' she pleaded, wistfully.`It isn't ignominious that you love me.'
`It is ignominious to feel poor, isn't it?' he replied.
`Why? Why should it be?' she asked.He only stood still, in the terribly cold air that moved invisibly over the mountain tops, folding her round with his arms.
`I couldn't bear this cold, eternal place without you,' he said.`Icouldn't bear it, it would kill the quick of my life.'
She kissed him again, suddenly.
`Do you hate it?' she asked, puzzled, wondering.
`If I couldn't come near to you, if you weren't here, I should hate it.I couldn't bear it,' he answered.
`But the people are nice,' she said.
`I mean the stillness, the cold, the frozen eternality,' he said.
She wondered.Then her spirit came home to him, nestling unconscious in him.
`Yes, it is good we are warm and together,' she said.
And they turned home again.They saw the golden lights of the hotel glowing out in the night of snow-silence, small in the hollow, like a cluster of yellow berries.It seemed like a bunch of sun-sparks, tiny and orange in the midst of the snow-darkness.Behind, was a high shadow of a peak, blotting out the stars, like a ghost.
