Fear and
sorrow in like measure choked her, and her soul awoke, and tremblingly she
walked out of the house, glad to breathe the sweet evening air.
She walked towards the artificial water. The sky was melancholy and grey,
and the park lay before her, hushed and soundless. Through the shadows of
the darkening island two swans floated softly, leaving behind slight silver
lines; above, the swallows flew high in the evening. There was sensation of
death, too, in this cold, mournful water, and in the silence that hung
about it, and in some vague way it reminded Emily of her own life. She had
known little else but death; her life seemed full of death; and those
reflections, so distinct and so colourless, were like death.
Then, in a sudden expansion of youth she wondered. Her own life, how
strange, how personal, how intense! What did it mean, what meaning had it
in the great, wide world? And the impressive tranquillity, the pale death
of the day, lying like a flower on the water, seemed to symbolise her
thought, and she felt more distinctly than she had ever done before. And
there arose in her a nervous and passionate interest in herself. She seemed
so strange, so wonderful. Her childhood was in itself an enigma.
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