“That is all right,” said his voice softly.
She held up the lantern. It had a flight of storks streaming through a turquoise sky of light, over a dark earth.
“This is beautiful,” she said.
“Lovely,” echoed Gudrun, who wanted to hold one also, and lift it up full of beauty.
“Light one for me,” she said. Gerald stood by her, incapacitated. Birkin lit the lantern she held up. Her heart beat with anxiety, to see how beautiful it would be. It was primrose yellow, with tall straight flowers growing darkly from their dark leaves, lifting their heads into the primrose day, while butterflies hovered about them, in the pure clear light.
Gudrun gave a little cry of excitement, as if pierced with delight.
“Isn’t it beautiful, oh, isn’t it beautiful!”
Her soul was really pierced with beauty, she was translated beyond herself. Gerald leaned near to her, into her zone of light, as if to see. He came close to her, and stood touching her, looking with her at the primrose-shining globe. And she turned her face to his, that was faintly bright in the light of the lantern, and they stood together in one luminous union, close together and ringed round with light, all the rest excluded.
Birkin looked away, and went to light Ursula’s second lantern. It had a pale ruddy sea-bottom, with black crabs and sea-weed moving sinuously under a transparent sea, that passed into flamy ruddiness above.
“You’ve got the heavens above, and the waters under the earth,” said Birkin to her.