Oberland quotes

All these people were serene; had come in groups, unscathed, knowing their way, knowing how to quell the bloused fiends into helpfulness. But then, also, the journey to them was uniform grey, a tiresome business to be got through; not black and sudden gold.

Yet even they were relieved to find themselves safely through the tangle.

They strode unnecessarily about, shouted needlessly to each other; expressing travellers’ joy in the English way.

But then, also, the journey to them was uniform grey, a tiresome business to be got through; not black and sudden gold. Yet even they were relieved to find themselves safely through the tangle.

They strode unnecessarily about, shouted needlessly to each other; expressing travellers’ joy in the English way.

There seemed to be plenty of time and for awhile she strolled delighting in them, until the sight of an excited weary child, in a weatherproof that trailed at its heels, marching sturdily about adream with pride and joy perfectly caricaturing the rest of the …

France, for whose sake at once she had longed to cease being a hurrying traveller robbed right and left of things passing too swiftly, had been seen.

Within her now, an irrevocable extension of being, was France.

France that had spoken from its coast the moment she came up from the prison of the battened-down saloon; the moment before the shouting fiends charged up the gangway;

No sound came from the corridor. No one passed. There was nothing but the continuous rattling and the clatter of gear.

The world deserting her just when she would have welcomed, for wordless communication of the joy of achievement, the sight and sound of human kind.

Twelve hours away, and now only a promise of daylight and of food, lay Berne. Beyond Berne, somewhere in the far future of tomorrow afternoon, the terminus, the business of finding and bargaining for a sleigh—the last effort.

The grey and white interior spoke no longer of the strange wide distances of France. He was France at home in a railway carriage, preparing to sleep until, at the end of a definite short space of hours, the Swiss dawn appeared at the windows.

Before he came the night had stretched ahead, timeless.

A moment’s stillness, and then a sound like the pumping of nitrous-oxide into a bag. She opened her eyes upon him seated opposite with cheeks distended and eyes strained wide above indeed a bag, held to his lips and limply flopping.

Upon the platform the air was motionless and yet, walked through, an intensity of movement—movement upon her face of millions of infinitesimal needles attacking.

Mountain air “like wine,” but this effervescence was solid, holding one up, feeding every nerve.

A little way down the platform she came upon the luggage, a few trunks set side by side on a counter, and saw at once that her portmanteau was not there. Anxiety dogging her steps.

A little way down the platform she came upon the luggage, a few trunks set side by side on a counter, and saw at once that her portmanteau was not there. Anxiety dogging her steps.

But this air, that reached, it seemed, to her very spirit, would not let her feel anxious.

The movements of the people leaving the train were leisurely, promising a long wait. Most of the passengers were the English set free, strolling happily about in fur-coats and creased Burberrys. English voices took possession of the air.

They reached details. One of them was on her way home to a place with a tripping gentle name, a fairy keep agleam on a lakeside amidst mountains. To her it was dailiness, life as now she knew it, a hemmed-in loneliness.

Visitors came from afar. Found it full of poetry.

Saw her perhaps as a part of it, a figure of romance.

Each sat staring before her into space, patient and isolated, undisguised isolation. To imagine them alert and busied with their families about them made them no less sad.

Immovable at the centre of their lives was loneliness, its plaints silenced, its source forgotten or unknown.

Of what use traveller’s joy? Frivolous, unfounded, dependent altogether on oblivions.

Each sat staring before her into space, patient and isolated, undisguised isolation. To imagine them alert and busied with their families about them made them no less sad. Immovable at the centre of their lives was loneliness, its plaints silenced, its source forgotten or unknown.

Of what use traveller’s joy? Frivolous, unfounded, dependent altogether on oblivions.

One of them was rummaging in a heavy sack made of black twill and corded at the neck. Toys, she said, were there—“pour mes p’tits enfants.”

Yet they were fortunate.

Laden with wealth they did not count.

It spoke in their complacency. Aspiration asleep. They looked for joy in the wrong place. In this they were humanity, blindly pursuing its way. Their pallid plump faces, so salient, could smile impersonally. Their heads were well-poised above shapely subdued bodies.

And again alone.

Loneliness, that had long gone from her life, had come back for this sudden voyaging to be her best companion, to shelter strangeness that can be known only in solitude.

In a swift glimpse, caught through the mesh woven by the obstinate circlings of her consciousness, she saw her time in Germany, how perfect in pain and joy, how left complete and bright had been that piece of her life.

And oh! that first glimpse that had begun it all, of Brussels in the twilight from the landing window; old peaked houses, grouped irregularly and rising out of greenery, gothic, bringing happy nostalgia. Gothic effects bring nostalgia, have a deep recognisable quality of life.

A gothic house is a person, a square house is a thing.

…

In silence and alone; yet most people prefer to see everything in groups, collectively.

They never lose themselves in strangeness and wake changed.

That man is cheerfully bearing burdens. Usually in a party there is one who is alone. Harassed, yet quietly seeing.

Other words gathered unawares on the way came and placed themselves beside those ringing in her ears. Terminations, turns of sound, upon a new quality of voice. Strong and deep and ringing with a wisdom that brought her a sense of helpless ignorance.

The helpless ignorance of town culture.

The thin penetrating mist promised increasing cold. The driver flung on a cloak, secured at the neck but falling open across his chest and leaving exposed his thinly clad arms and bare hands.

A turn brought peaks whose gold had turned to rose. She had not eyes enough for seeing. Seeing was not enough.

There was sound, if only one could hear it, in this still, signalling light.

The last of it was ruby gathered departing upon the topmost crags, seeming, the moment before it left them, to be deeply wrought into the crinkled rock.

A turn brought peaks whose gold had turned to rose.

She had not eyes enough for seeing. Seeing was not enough.

There was sound, if only one could hear it, in this still, signalling light.

a high radiant background for its mountain, spread like a banner, not pressed dense and close with deeps strangely moving, like the little sky above the collar.

The mountain lights were happiness possessed, sure of recurrence. But these skies, never to return, begged for remembrance.

The dry cold deepened, bringing sleep. Drunk, she felt now, with sleep; dizzy with gazing, and still there was no sign of the end. They were climbing a narrow track between a smooth high drift, a greying wall of snow, and a precipice sharply falling.

Though still oppressive they were triumphant also, speaking a knowledge and a defiance of the uttermost possibilities of cold.

Cold was banished, by day and by night. For a fortnight taken from the rawest depths of the London winter there would be no waste of life in mere endurance.

She discovered the source of the stable warmth in an unsightly row of pipes at the side of the large window, bent over like hairpins and scorching to the touch. The concentrated heat revived her weary nerves.

… and renewal and at once got up again realising that hurry had gone from her days and flung off her blouse and found hot water set waiting on the washstand and was presently at the table in negligee and again ecstatically telling it her news.

The familiar sound of tea pouring into a cup heightened the surrounding strangeness.

In the stillness of the room it was like a voice announcing her installation, and immediately from downstairs there came as if in answer the sound of a piano, crisply and gently touched, seeming not so much to break the stillness as to reveal what …

She felt she knew now why perfect speech, delightful in itself, always seemed insincere. Why women with clear musical voices undulating, and clean enunciation, are always cats; and the corresponding men, ingratiating and charming at first, turn out sooner or later to be charlatans.

The nicest people have bad handwriting and bad delivery.

But all this applied only to English, to Germanics; that was a queer exciting thing, that only these languages had the quality of aggressive disturbance of the speaking face:

Their talk had gone on. It was certain that always they would talk.

Archipelagoes of talk, avoiding anything that could endanger continuous urbanity.

In the midst of a stifled yawn the call to a fortnight’s continuous urbanity fell upon her like a whip. Dodging the blow she lolled resistant to the sound of bland voices. An onlooker, appreciative but resistant;

Here they were, alone together, seeming to have leapt rather than passed through the early stages.

Like love, but unobstructed. A balance of side-by-side, not of opposition.

More open than love, yet as hidden and wonderful; rising from the same depth.

Like love, but unobstructed. A balance of side-by-side, not of opposition.

More open than love, yet as hidden and wonderful; rising from the same depth.

“Hold it in front of the waydiator. Vat’ll take ’em out a bit. Such a poo’hy gown.” She moved a little back from the row of pipes.

But at the moment of parting Mrs. Harcourt became again that one who had waited, impatient of wasting time in formalities. Her smile glanced out from the past, revealing the light upon her earlier days.

It was a greeting for tomorrow rather than a good night.

Going up to the little bedroom that was now merely a refuge offstage, she found it brightly lit in readiness for her coming, summery bright all over, the light curtains drawn and joining with the unvarnished wood to make an enclosure that seemed to emulate …

From which she awoke in light that seemed for a moment to be beyond the confines of earth.

It was as if all her life she had travelled towards this radiance, and was now within it, clear of the past, at an ultimate destination.

How long had it been there, quizzically patient, waiting for her to be aware of it?

But these back premises were touched with sunlight.

Some sense of things he had within him that made him utterly kind.

“Isn’t it extraordinary,” she said, hoping to hide the fact that she had missed his last remark, “the way these people leave the lights switched on all the time, everywhere.”

But the theory of Rent has been worked out by those who are, by people sincerely trying to discover where it is that temporarily useful parts of the machinery of civilisation have got out of gear and become harmful.

No one ought to have to pay for the right to sit down on the earth.

No one ought to be so helplessly expropriated that another can buy him and use him up as he would never dream of using up more costly material—horses for instance.”

Here and there, clear of the pinewoods, and looking perilously high and desolate, a single châlet made a triangular warm brown blot upon the dazzling snow.

In this crystal stillness the smallest sound went easily up to the high peaks; to the high pure blue.

Turning to bless the well-placed little hotel she met a frontage of blank windows, each with its sharply jutting balcony, jaws, dropped beneath the blind stare of the windows set forever upon a single scene. Hotel; queer uncherished thing.

The letters were disappointing. Only in one of them had she escaped expressing yesterday’s excited achievements and set down instead the living joy of today. And this for the one to whom such joy was incredible. But all were warm with affection newly felt.

The long distance not only made people very dear⁠—in a surprising way it rearranged them.

Foremost amongst the men was Densley of the warm heart and wooden head wildly hailed. His letter, the last and shortest, wrote itself in one sentence, descriptive, laughing, affectionate. How it would surprise him. …

Every day, even those that are called ordinary days, with its miracle of return from sleep, is heralded by soap, summoning its retinue of companion days.

To buy a new cake of soap is to buy a fresh stretch of days.

Its little weight, treasure, minutely heavy in the hand, is life, past present and future compactly welded.

Yet the mere atmosphere of a post-office offered something a church could never give. Even to enter it and come away without transactions was to have been in the midst of life.

And to handle stamps, and especially foreign stamps, was to be aware of just those very distances the post had abolished.

The priced goods in the windows were discouragingly high. One window behind whose thick plate glass were set forth just a few things very tastefully arranged, showed no prices at all and had the ominous note of a west-end shop.

But though the clever clothes of these people brought a sense of exile they were powerless to rouse envy or any desire.

Envy was impossible in this air that seemed, so sharp was every outline, to be no longer earth’s atmosphere but open space, electric.

Perhaps even this morning there was time to get clear, to be if only for a few moments, along some side track alone with the landscape, walking lightly clad in midsummer sun through this intensity of winter.

With a little practice, walking could be a joy.

Walking in this scene, through this air, was an occupation in itself.

And she was being assailed by the pangs of a piercing hunger. Obtrusive; insistent as the hunger of childhood.

Not lonely, nor, for all the high-bulging smoothness of snow in which it stood, cold.

It was their secret, pine-breath, that brought a sense of warm life, and their close-clustered needles.

Out on the mountainsides they looked black and bleak, striving towards the sun until they were stayed by the upper cold.

Seen close they were a happy company bearing light upon the green burnish of their needles and the dull live tints of their rough stems.

And very secret; here thought was sheltered as in a quiet room.

Out in the immense landscape, in the down-pouring brilliance of pure light, thought was visible.

The second time he started her in advance and remained behind shouting, his voice rising to a crescendo at the first steepness: “Il n’y a pas de danger!”

With an immense effort she restrained her feet and entered paradise.

“Ça ira, ça ira,” he admitted smiling when once more they were side by side.

These enchanted skaters, cooped upon their sunk enclosure had enlivened the surrounding scene not only by bringing forgetfulness of it, but because she knew the secret of their bliss, had shared long ago the experience that kept them confined here all day.

Gliding, as if forever; the feeling, coming even with the first uncertain balance, of breaking through into an eternal way of being.

In all games it was there, changing the aspect of life, making friends dearer, making even those actually disliked dear, as long as they were within the rhythm of the game. In dancing it was there.

Gliding, as if forever; the feeling, coming even with the first uncertain balance, of breaking through into an eternal way of being.

In all games it was there, changing the aspect of life, making friends dearer, making even those actually disliked dear, as long as they were within the rhythm of the game.

In dancing it was there. But most strongly that sense of being in an eternal way of living had come with skating in the foggy English frost. And this it must be that kept all these English eagerly and shamelessly fooling about on bladed feet;

They seemed to be giving exhibitions of style, with minds and bodies precariously in tune. He was style spontaneously alive.

His whole soul was in his movements.

She made her way to a near bench under the trees to watch for him.

And he was a towering bully. Somewhere within his naive pugnacity was the guilty consciousness of being more pleased in downing an opponent than concerned for human welfare. There was no peace of certainty in him. He had scored and was flushed with victory.

And all over English politics was this perpetual prizefighting. The power of life and death was in the hands of men playing for victory; for their own side.

Morning and evening in some hotel that big man’s voice boomed incessantly. Behind it a kindly disposition and a set of fixed ideas. No mind.

and after each run there had been something more to say. Till Italy lost all strangeness but its beauty and he had seemed a simpler Michael free from Michael’s certainty that everyone in the world was marching to annihilation.

It was the discovery of a shared sense of life at first hand that had made them not fear saying the very small things.

And suddenly there was a wall, dividing. No more communication possible; the mountains grown small and bleak and sad and even now, in being alone upon the promontory there was no peace, in all the wide prospect no beauty.

And suddenly there was a wall, dividing. No more communication possible; the mountains grown small and bleak and sad and even now, in being alone upon the promontory there was no peace, in all the wide prospect no beauty.

Why was it so much a matter of life and death, for men as for women? Why did each always gather all its forces for the conflict?

If all he said were a part of the light by which he lived he should have been able to remain calm. But he had not remained calm. He had been first uneasy, then angry, and then sorry for the destruction of their friendship.

All her compact stillness was the stillness of energy momentarily marking time. Her face, distorted by efforts, mouth firmly closed, with a goodly bite of the stout little roll, was busily thinking and talking. Continuous.

There was no cessation in her way of being, no dependence, none of the tricks of appeal and demand that make most children so quickly wearisome.

Yet she was a baby sitting there; a lonely infant, rotund.

Already it was swelling, growing brighter, clearing to crimson. In a moment it became a star with piercing rays that spread and slowly tilted over the upper snow a flood of rose.

Each morning this miracle of light had happened before her sleeping eyes.

It might not again find her awake. But it had found her awake, carried her away in a moment of pure delight that surely was absolution?

Eaden’s departure was helping time to hurry. In the distance it had promised to leave things as they were before he came. But now that it was at hand it seemed a sliding away of everything.

There was no depth in the morning light.

She turned to survey the scene on which it fell and saw the early gold stealing faithfully towards the valley. Once Eaden had gone this thinned-out urgency of time would cease. For everyone but Vereker his going was only a removal of something grown familiar;

The clouds were a rebuke; for being spellbound into imagining this bright paradise inaccessible.

The world’s weather cannot be arranged as a conversation with one small person.

Then how did the rebuke manage to arrive punctually at the serenest moment of self-congratulation? As if someone were watching …

“You are philosophical.” Always a surprise. What did they mean with their “philosophical”? The alternative was their way of going on cursing, missing everything but the unfavourable surface.

Someone has said that there is nothing meaner than making the best of things.

The clouds made soft patches of shadow upon the higher snow. Beside the angular sharp shadows growing upon the northern slopes they were blemishes, smudgy and vague. But free, able to move and flow while the mountains stood crumbling in their places.

The clouds made soft patches of shadow upon the higher snow. Beside the angular sharp shadows growing upon the northern slopes they were blemishes, smudgy and vague.

But free, able to move and flow while the mountains stood crumbling in their places.

The clouds were beautiful, slowly drifting, leaving torn shreds upon the higher peaks.

But beside the pathetic appeal of his commonness, supporting it, was the appeal of his disarray, his obvious gladness and relief, like Michael coming back after a last, final explanation and dismissal, saying impenitently: “You whipped me yesterday, today you must not whip.”

He was extraordinarily like Michael in his belief in the essential irrelevance of anything a woman may say.

It was his last evening in Oberland and the first time they had found themselves alone together since the afternoons in the snowfields that were now so clearly in his mind as he stood still turning over those hopeless little old Swiss books, but turned …

Yet their life together had gone on. The grim little room was full of it.

Again she had that haunting sense of being a collection of persons living in a world of people always single and the same.

Mrs. Harcourt, she reflected as she said the books were like faded flowers, was fastidiously selective and always one person, one unfaltering aspect. Vereker, Eaden, all the others. Yet the lives she lived with each one were sharply separated lives, separable parts of herself, incompatible.