I'd have wakened him by now."
This jerked her, wakened her, widened her. Swiftly she was able to see
that Louis, on his whisky chase, de Quincy on his opium chase, King
David, Solomon, Nelson, Byron and Kraill on their woman chase were not
perhaps so fortunate as to get a nail jabbed in their feet, pulling them
up sharp and giving them time to think.
"There I've been blaming them a bit--pitying them a lot! Heavens, I was
_superior_!" she said.
The sun came up out of the sea and looked at her.
"Because I didn't know," she told it. "I was superior! Because I'd never
felt the pull of a chain."
She thought the sun took on a horribly knowing, superior expression.
Another rather shaking thought came. Since her recollection of the
blameless fool that first night in Sydney she had sought the bookshops
for the text of "Parsifal" and had found it, a ragged copy for twopence,
in a second-hand bookshop near the station. She had been puzzled when
Parsifal, trying to free himself from the enchantment of the
witch-woman's embrace, had suddenly been confronted by her exultant:
"And so then, with my kiss,
The world's heart have I shewn thee?
In my soft arms enfolded
Like to a god thou'llt deem thee."
"Yes, that's it," she cried. "Oh, you old sun, listen to the
speciousness of it all! Listen--I mustn't let Louis hear, because he'd
be hurt.
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