“I shall get away,” she said.
“And, this time, I shall go with you.”
The stile, the elder tree, and the field floated away from her. She was going under the beech trees down the Park drive towards the south gate and the village, slinking close to the right-hand row of trees. She was aware that Oscar Wade was going with her under the left-hand row, keeping even with her, step by step, and tree by tree. And presently there was grey pavement under her feet and a row of grey pillars on her right hand. They were walking side by side down the rue de Rivoli towards the hotel.
They were sitting together now on the edge of the dingy white bed. Their arms hung by their sides, heavy and limp, their heads drooped, averted. Their passion weighed on them with the unbearable, unescapable boredom of immortality.
“Oscar—how long will it last?”
“I can’t tell you. I don’t know whether this is one moment of eternity, or the eternity of one moment.”
“It must end some time,” she said. “Life doesn’t go on for ever. We shall die.”
“Die? We have died. Don’t you know what this is? Don’t you know where you are? This is death. We’re dead, Harriott. We’re in hell.”
“Yes. There can’t be anything worse than this.”
“This isn’t the worst. We’re not quite dead yet, as long as we’ve life in us to turn and run and get away from each other; as long as we can escape into our memories. But when you’ve got back to the farthest memory of all and there’s nothing beyond it—when there’s no memory but this—