They Were Divided - Miklos Banffy [122]
The basin had been formed by a natural obstruction in the stream’s path and into this little pool the water cascaded over some other rocks some two and a half metres above its surface. Unusually the water fell not vertically but diagonally, hitting the side of other rocks that projected from the mountain side until it divided into countless little rivulets all casting upwards a spray as fine as powder.
The patches of foam glinted snow-white in the sun, but almost everything else was in deep shadow. The steamy vapour was steel-grey, the pond black as the rocks and, on the bank opposite, the sand was so covered in thick moss that it too seemed as black as the dense vault of the foliage of the maples overhead, which, with the faint blue tinge of the pines that surrounded them, closed off the sky like the roof of a tent.
‘Stay where you are!’ commanded Adrienne as she started to climb down.
Balint stretched himself out on the top of the bank some way above the surface of the water, and fell at once into a profound daydream, in which it seemed that around him was neither forest nor rocks, no rushing stream, no space and no distance. Everything was two-dimensional, with narrow rays of sunlight like ephemeral shafts of transparent gold-dust that glimmered faintly here and there, the only light in a world of shadow where thin clouds of greyish vapour floated weightless like a veil designed to disguise and soften the almost theatrical regularity of some lilac-coloured columns which were, in reality, the tree-trunks around him. Everything seemed unreal and insubstantial.
Now, at the base of this magic picture, there appeared concentric rings moving ever outwards on the smoked glass surface of the water and, in their centre, the vapour clouds swirled round the naked ivory-white limbs of the woman who was making her way to the centre of the pool, shoulders thrown back and alternately swinging her stretched-out arms behind her. Her hair seemed even darker than the surrounding rocks, or the moss and lichen and tree-trunks, and it too seemed to float like a cloud above her pale body. Where she walked the shallow pool grew gradually deeper so that, as she approached the waterfall, the foam which had at first just gathered only round her ankles, started to cling first to her thighs and then, as she was descending ever deeper into the water, mounting higher and higher over her body, to swirl in mounting confusion as if crazed by desire for what it touched and by what it was parted and embraced.
She stood there like a vision of some figure of legend, of a wood nymph bathing herself in the wild deserted forest, perhaps even of the goddess of all forests, Artemis herself. She stretched her arms far above the black crown of her hair and, very slowly, started to turn towards him, the lacy foam sometimes reaching even to her chin as the rushing water swirled round the nipples of her breasts and concealing, but not entirely, the dark triangle of her womanhood. It was as if she were standing in a translucent case of shimmering glass.
One of the sun’s rays fell just where she stood, and where the jet of water splashed fiercely over her shoulders it put up a spray that might have been composed of innumerable tiny diamonds. At that moment a small almost circular rainbow appeared in the air above her head and, as Balint watched entranced, it seemed to be being held high above her head in her own upstretched
The way to Balint’s tent was along a wide but abandoned forest road that wound its way through thickets of young trees. For most of the way they walked hand in hand, only separating for a moment from time to time where the young saplings had invaded the path and blocked their way