And yet in the remaining instinct of life, his feet sought the track where the skis had gone.
He slithered down a sheer snow slope.
That frightened him.
He had no alpenstock, nothing.
But having come safely to rest, he began to walk on, in the illuminated darkness.
It was as cold as sleep.
He was between two ridges, in a hollow.
So he swerved.
Should he climb the other ridge, or wander along the hollow?
How frail the thread of his being was stretched!
He would perhaps climb the ridge.
The snow was firm and simple.
He went along.
There was something standing out of the snow.
He approached, with dimmest curiosity.
It was a half-buried Crucifix, a little Christ under a little sloping hood, at the top of a pole.
He sheered away.
Somebody was going to murder him.
He had a great dread of being murdered.
But it was a dread which stood outside him, like his own ghost.
Yet why be afraid?
It was bound to happen.
To be murdered!
He looked round in terror at the snow, the rocking, pale, shadowy slopes of the upper world.
He was bound to be murdered, he could see it.
This was the moment when the death was uplifted, and there was no escape.
Lord Jesus, was it then bound to be—Lord Jesus!
He could feel the blow descending, he knew he was murdered.
Vaguely wandering forward, his hands lifted as if to feel what would happen, he was waiting for the moment when he would stop, when it would cease.
It was not over yet.
He had come to the hollow basin of snow, surrounded by sheer slopes and precipices, out of which rose a track that brought one to the top of the mountain.
But he wandered unconsciously, till he slipped and fell down, and as he fell something broke in his soul, and immediately he went to sleep.
Chapter 31 Exeunt
When they brought the body home, the next morning, Gudrun was shut up in her room.
From her window she saw men coming along with a burden, over the snow.
She sat still and let the minutes go by.
There came a tap at her door.
She opened.
There stood a woman, saying softly, oh, far too reverently:
'They have found him, madam!'
'Il est mort?'
'Yes—hours ago.'
Gudrun did not know what to say.
What should she say?
What should she feel?
What should she do?
What did they expect of her?
She was coldly at a loss.
'Thank you,' she said, and she shut the door of her room.
The woman went away mortified.