She went to the window and stood among the filmy curtains, looking out into the mist; a springlike aroma penetrated the room. She opened the window a little way, and the sweet, virile odour enveloped her.
A thousand longings rose within her; unnumbered wistful questions stirred her, sighing, unanswered.
Aware that her lips were moving unconsciously, she listened to the words forming automatic repetitions of phrases long forgotten:
“And those that look out of the windows be darkened, And the door shall be shut in the streets.”
What was it she was repeating?
“Also they shall be afraid of that which is high, and fear shall be in the way.”
What echo of the past was this?
“And desire shall fail: because—”
Intent, absorbed in retracing the forgotten sequence to its source, she stood, breathing the thickening incense of the rain; and every breath was drawing her backward, nearer, nearer to the source of memory. Ah, the cliff chapel in the rain!—the words of a text mumbled deafly—the yearly service for those who died at sea! And she, seated there in the chapel dusk thinking of him who sat beside her, and how he feared a heavier, stealthier, more secret tide crawling, purring about his feet!
Enfin! Always, always at the end of everything, He! Always, reckoning step by step, backward through time, He! the source, the inception, the meaning of all!