All else receded. The weight was small and was as heavy as the world. The dull ivory became a whole sky whose hollowness roofed her in, through which the dark-headed bird winged in eclipse of a moon; she was the earth below, she was the sea. It closed her off from every sound, it made a hush that snowed down through her, drenched her in its coolness until nothing was in Creation but one enormous hearkening, which was herself.
When silence had been completed, she could hear in her spirit, like a dying echo:— Who are you? What would you? —I am Ingeborg, your sister, who also loves him. She put the candle in a holder and brought the thong across her head, brushing her tresses aside, until the piece of bone lay on her bosom. She parted her breasts that it might fall next her heart. Her fingers she clasped above.
Clear within her, a song of longing: -Ingeborg. Yes. You have had what I never may. I’m glad to know you. He keeps remembeflng you. (Surprise) What, you weren’t aware? Well, he does.
(Later)–He is yours, however, Nada.
· He shouldn’t be. If I’d foreseen, I’d have fled him. . . I hope.. .But now I can’t.
· Of course you can’t.
(Later, tirnidly)–lngeborg?
· Yes?
· I’m frightened, Ingeborg. Not for me, really not. For him.
You know what he wants to do.
· Aye. Why do you suppose I’m talking with you?
· But- You? (Aghast) No! I mustn’t!
· Why not?
· I’m damned.
· Well?
· Not you too. I couldn’t.
· Not even if this is my dearest wish? asked Ingeborg into the weeping.
· It can’t be. You’ve Heaven before you.
· What’s that to me without him?
· We know not what ‘II become of us . . . you-me. . . on the Last Day.
Ingeborg lifted her head. Candle-glow went fiery across her.
· Do you care?
· I should. For you.
· Nada, come to me. (With the strength of aliveness) We will be the bride of Tauno Kraken’s-bane.
There was a moment, though, when Ingeborg went on her knees. The rushes had slipped aside and she felt the cold clay underneath. “Mary,” she whispered, “I’m sorry if I’ve made you cry.”
She walked from the sleeping hamlet, down to the strand.
While the Danish nights had grown short, they were still dark. Eastward, thunderclouds had gone to loose their anger elsewhere, and a ghost of dawn was paling the stars. Throughout the rest of the sky they gleamed in their thousandfolds around the Milky Way. Beneath that crystal black which held them, the Kattegat glimmered quicksilver.
She waded out. With no wind behind it, the surf had grown slight, and she was soon in water that merely clucked around her. Neither chill nor the numberlessly lumpy shingle hurt. Instead, they were like promises of a salt streaming that waited farther on. When the seatop kissed her nipples, she went below.
She could not breathe the depths as a mermaid did, and that was a loss, but she did not need to, either, She swam, she flowed, she gave back to the water the infinite endearments it sent gliding everywhere across her. She needed no more luminance than was down here to see how long brown vines with fluttering leaves sought upward from rocks whereto they were anchored, how fish darted like argent meteors, how shoals gave way to deeps and endless mystery. She could hear tides as they rolled around the world in the lunar wake, she could hear dolphins pass news onward from a coast of coral, across immensities she could hear the music of great whales. Beyond, she traced gleams, melodies, magics out of the realms that remained Faerie.
She remembered being Ingeborg and she remembered being Nada, but now she was both and she was neither. What swam was a creature of the halfworld, who could love and laugh and strive and sorrow, could do much that is forever denied to the children of Adam, but could no more know God than can an albatross or the wind whereon it soars. Made free, made whole, she felt ever more keenly how joyful she was. Let her doom take her when the Noms chose. This hour was hers.