here?"

She was aware of people who passed around her, not as
persons, but as looming presences. It was very difficult for her
to adjust herself. In Poland, the peasantry, the people, had
been cattle to her, they had been her cattle that she owned and
used. What were these people? Now she was coming awake, she was
lost.

But she had felt Brangwen go by almost as if he had brushed
her. She had tingled in body as she had gone on up the road.
After she had been with him in the Marsh kitchen, the voice of
her body had risen strong and insistent. Soon, she wanted him.
He was the man who had come nearest to her for her
awakening.

Always, however, between-whiles she lapsed into the old
unconsciousness, indifference and there was a will in her to
save herself from living any more. But she would wake in the
morning one day and feel her blood running, feel herself lying
open like a flower unsheathed in the sun, insistent and potent
with demand.

She got to know him better, and her instinct fixed on
him--just on him. Her impulse was strong against him,
because he was not of her own sort. But one blind instinct led
her, to take him, to leave him, and then to relinquish herself
to him. It would be safety. She felt the rooted safety of him,
and the life in him. Also he was young and very fresh. The blue,
steady livingness of his eyes she enjoyed like morning. He was
very young.

Then she lapsed again to stupor and indifference. This,
however, was bound to pass. The warmth flowed through her, she
felt herself opening, unfolding, asking, as a flower opens in
full request under the sun, as the beaks of tiny birds open
flat, to receive, to receive. And unfolded she turned to him,
straight to him. And he came, slowly, afraid, held back by
uncouth fear, and driven by a desire bigger than himself.

When she opened and turned to him, then all that had been and
all that was, was gone from her, she was as new as a flower that
unsheathes itself and stands always ready, waiting, receptive.
He could not understand this. He forced himself, through lack of
understanding, to the adherence to the line of honourable
courtship and sanctioned, licensed marriage. Therefore, after he
had gone to the vicarage and asked for her, she remained for
some days held in this one spell, open, receptive to him, before
him. He was roused to chaos. He spoke to the vicar and gave in
the banns. Then he stood to wait.

She remained attentive and instincti