XI

Felise opened the door of the bathing-room, and stepped out upon the platform before it. She stood in the shadow of the beeches behind; all the rest of the pool was in bright light. Her bathing-tunic was blue, bordered with white, and fringed with gold⁠—such a tunic as might have been worn by a Grecian maiden. It was loose about her shoulders, they were nearly bare; her arms quite so. In the shade the whiteness and purity of her skin was wonderfully beautiful. It gleamed in the cool shade, more so than the yellow iris flowers, though they had the advantage of bright colour.

The beauty of a perfect skin is so great, to gaze at it is happiness. The world holds no enjoyment like the view of beauty.

Her white feet were at the very edge of the dull boards, so that her reflection was complete in the water had anyone been looking from the opposite shore. She put up her hands to settle the strings of pearls in her hair, to make certain that they would not come loose. It was Felise’s fancy to wear her pearls⁠—her only jewellery and dowry⁠—when she bathed out of doors in the sunshine. She decked herself for the bath⁠—the bath not only in water, but in the air and light⁠—as if she had been going to a temple in the ancient times.

With her hands employed at the back of her head and arms raised, the contour of her form was accentuated. The deep broad chest, the bust, the hips, filled out. The action of lifting the arms in this manner opens the ribs, decreases the waist, slightly curves the back, and extends and develops every line. A sculptor should have chosen her in such an attitude.

In a moment, lifting her hands and joining them high above her head, she dived⁠—the pearls glistened as she passed out of the shadow into the sunlight, and the water hid her completely.

The dove flew, startled from his branch in the beech; a swallow that had been coming to drink, as he flew, mounted again into the air.

She rose at some distance from the diving-platform, and immediately struck out slowly, swimming on her chest. Her chin was well out of water, and sometimes her neck; her chest held so large a volume of air that she was as buoyant as a waterbird. It needed no effort to keep afloat; all her strength was at liberty to be used in propulsion. Swimming towards the hatch, presently she turned and came back to the platform, then out again into the centre of the pool, where she floated, dived under, and floated again.

Gathering energy from practice and the touch of the water, she now swam on her side, following the margin of the pool all round, so as to have a larger course. Twice she went round without a pause⁠—swimming her swiftest, equal, in a direct line, to several hundred yards. Still joying in the sunlight and the water, she continued again for the third circle. Her passage was even swifter, her vigour grew with the labour.

The water drew back the tunic from her right shoulder, which shone almost at the surface; her white right arm swept backwards, grasping the wave; her left arm was concealed, being under her, and deeper. It is the fastest, the easiest, and the most graceful mode of swimming. In the moment when her rounded right arm was sweeping backwards, clearly visible in the limpid water⁠—just as the stroke was nearly completed⁠—the sculptor might again have obtained an inspiration. For at that moment there was repose in action, the exertion of the stroke finishing, the form gliding easily, the left cheek resting as if reposing on the surface.

At the completion of the third round, Felise swam to the shallow grassy shore, where Shaw was now waiting for her.

“Oh, how you do panck!” (pant), said Shaw, laughing, as Felise walked up out of the water on to the turf, and sat down at the edge of the shadow of the beech. Her breast was heaving with the labour, her deep grey eyes shone as if enlarged; there was a slight increase of colour in her face. She was not in the least exhausted; she was exhilarated to the utmost. Shaw chatted beside her; Felise neither heard nor heeded, she was full of the influence of the air and light and limpid fountain.

There was something almost sacred to her in the limpid water, in the sweet air, and the light of day. The flower in the grass was not only colour, it was alive. The water was not merely a smooth surface, the air not merely an invisible current, the light not merely illumination. As if they had been living powers, so they influenced her. A feeling entered her from them: the light, the air, the water, the soft sward on which her hand rested, life came to her from them.

With them she felt her own life, she knew her own fullness of existence. Like this the maidens of ancient Greece sang to the stream when they filled their urns. Even Socrates the wisest sat pondering in reverence by the stream. Felise was full of the delicious influence of the great powers of nature. This susceptibility rendered her love so rich and deep.

She sat leaning on her left hand, her knees lying sideways, and her right hand on her ankle; the upper part of her form in shadow? her limbs in the brilliant light. The beams fell on her white rounded knees; the right knee being uppermost was entirely in light, but it cast a partial shadow on the left one.

Twins in exquisite whiteness and shape they reposed together, the under one a little in advance. The kneecap (which in woman is small), slipping naturally aside, left a space on the summit of each knee smooth and almost level, perhaps in the least degree concave. Upon these lovely surfaces the light rested lovingly; in the wide earth there was no spot the sun loved so well.

The rounded supple knee is where the form hinges; there all is poised. They are the centres from which beauty rises. With the knee all grace begins; they bend, and at the same moment the neck bows, and the forehead droops. Resting on them firmly the shape rises, the neck is straightened, and the brow thrown back. All is poised on the knee.

Because of its varying mood of grace the knee can with difficulty be seized in sculpture or painting. The least flexure alters the contour. Now from head to foot it is the flesh that is beautiful, that which covers and conceals the bones and muscles under its texture. Such is the rule, to express beauty you must delineate the adipose tissue; the knee is the exception.

Here the bone⁠—the kneecap⁠—is but thinly covered, and there is cartilage and sinew; not much more than the skin hides them. Here is the only place where the bone and sinew can approach the surface⁠—can be recognised⁠—and yet not interfere with the sense of loveliness. Why so?

Because at this centre motion commences; the idea of motion is inseparable from it, motion in graceful lines. In walking it is the knee that gives the step, in the dance, stooping to gather flowers, bending to prayer; from the knee passion springs to the arms of her lover. We have seen these movements and admired them, and the eye transfers their grace to the knee.

But it is also of itself shaped. There alone the bone and sinew assume an exquisite form. I cannot tell you why the human heart yearns towards that which is rounded, smooth, shapely; it is an instinct in the depth of our nature.

The knee is so very human, so nearly sorrowful in its humanity; sorrow seeks its knees, sadness bends on them, love desiring in secret does so on its knees. They have been bent in many moods in so many lands so many many centuries past Human life is centred in the knee. In the knee we recognise all that the heart has experienced.

Beautiful knees, the poise and centre of the form! Were I rich, how gladly I would give a thousand pounds for a true picture of the knee! and if the coloured shadow on convas were worth so much, how many times multiplied the value of the original reality!

However indifferent the person may be⁠—the individual⁠—to see the knee is to love it for itself.

The shadow of the upper one partially encroached on the lower; round about the under knee, too, the short grass rose. Immediately behind, the least way higher than the upper knee, the bullion fringe of the tunic drooped across the white skin. Her left hand rested among the daisies; her feet reached nearly to some golden lotus flowers.

The left, or under foot, was much hidden by the grass; the grass touched warm, having been hours in the sunshine. The upper foot was visible, and two straight strokes⁠—two parallel dimples crossed the large toe (the thumb of the foot) at the second joint.

She held her ankle lightly with her right hand, so that her right arm descended beside her body. Bare from the shoulder in its luxurious fullness, it reposed against her. The slight pressure of its own weight enlarged it midway between the shoulder and the elbow. But the left arm being straightened appeared, on the contrary, largest at the shoulder.

That shoulder⁠—the left⁠—raised a little higher than the other, on account of her position, was partly bare, the tunic having slipped somewhat. Unconsciously she pressed her cheek against it, feeling and caressing it. Her shoulder lifted itself a little to meet the embrace of her cheek, and the tunic slipped still more, giving it and that side of her bust freedom to the air. She liked to feel herself; the soft skin of the shoulder met the softer cheek; her lips touched the place where arm and shoulder are about to mingle.

Shaw thought Felise had finished bathing, and kneeling behind her, undid her hair, which fell and reached the grass. It was somewhat wavy, very thick and long, and delicate in texture. As it descended it concealed the beautiful shoulders like a mantle. She took her strings of pearls from Shaw, and held them in her right hand; she valued them greatly, and scarcely cared to let even Shaw carry them.

A red butterfly came by and hovered about her knee, inclined to alight, but perceiving that it glistened with the water, flew onwards over the pool.

Felise moved her feet among the grass, she liked to feel it; she extended her foot to the golden lotus flowers. But the moment of luxurious enjoyment of the sunlight and the air, the liberty of the tunic, was over; her active nature reasserted itself; she rose and walked towards the bathing apartment to dress.

“There’s a rabbit in the ferns,” said Shaw, following her; “I heard him rustle twice. Wonder why you won’t talk today, now. If I was to run round the water like you swim round, I should die of pancking [panting], I should.”

She looked as if such exertion would overcome her: short, plump, and merry.

Felise took no heed of Shaw’s chatter; she was thinking how to accomplish her resolution.