This was what their love had bee; a sensuality violent and
extreme as death。 They had no conscious intimacy; no tenderness
of love。 It was all the lust and the infinite; maddening
intoxication of the sense; a passion of death。
He had always; all his life; had a secret dread of Absolute
Beauty。 It had always been like a fetish to him; something to
fear; really。 For it was immoral and against mankind。 So he had
turned to the Gothic form; which always asserted the broken
desire of mankind in its pointed arches; escaping the rolling;
absolute beauty of the round arch。
But now he had given way; and with infinite sensual violence
gave himself to the realization of this supreme; immoral;
Absolute Beauty; in the body of woman。 It seemed to him; that it
came to being in the body of woman; under his touch。 Under his
touch; even under his sight; it was there。 But when he neither
saw nor touched the perfect place; it was not perfect; it was
not there。 And he must make it exist。
But still the thing terrified him。 Awful and threatening it
was; dangerous to a degree; even whilst he gave himself to it。
It was pure darkness; also。 All the shameful things of the body
revealed themselves to him now with a sort of sinister; tropical
beauty。 All the shameful; natural and unnatural acts of sensual
voluptuousness which he and the woman partook of together;
created together; they had their heavy beauty and their delight。
Shame; what was it? It was part of extreme delight。 It was that
part of delight of which man is usually afraid。 Why afraid? The
secret; shameful things are most terribly beautiful。
They accepted shame; and were one with it in their most
unlicensed pleasures。 It was incorporated。 It was a bud that
blossomed into beauty and heavy; fundamental gratification。
Their outward life went on much the same; but the inward life
was revolutionized。 The children became less important; the
parents were absorbed in their own living。
And gradually; Brangwen began to find himself free to attend
to the outside life as well。 His intimate life was so violently
active; that it set another man in him free。 And this new man
turned with interest to public life; to see what part he could
take in it。 This would give him scope for new activity; activity
of a kind for which he was now created and released。 He wanted