The Dark Tower

He circled slowly over the black ice surrounded by pink flames. It made him laugh, because he might have been a creature in hell. Yes, that was what hell was like, he had always known it — cold. Cold and lonely, when, if you’d only had a bit of luck, you might have been up somewhere in the sunlight, not alone. He didn’t feel somehow this morning as if his marriage was an obstruction; he felt as if it were a shame. It hurt him terribly that what had driven him to Estelle could be called love, when love was this other feeling — the feeling that he’d like to be torn into little bits rather than fail Claire. He’d be ridiculous to please her; he’d face anything, suffer anything, take anything on. And it wasn’t in the least that she was lovely. He didn’t think about her beauty half as much as he thought about her health and the gentle, tender ways she had with sick people. He’d watched her over and over again, when she had no idea he was anywhere near, being nice to people in ways in which Winn had never dreamed before one could be nice. When people had nothing but their self-esteem left them, no attractions, no courage, no health, she’d just sit down beside them and make their self-esteem happy and comfortable.

She needn’t have been anything but young and gay and triumphant, but she never shirked anybody else’s pain. He had puzzled over her a good deal because, as far as he could see, she hadn’t the ordinary rules belonging to good people — about church, and not playing cards for money, and pulling people up. It wasn’t right and wrong she was thinking of most; it was other people’s feelings.

He tried not to love her like that, because it made it worse. It was like loving God and Peter; it mixed him all up.

He couldn’t see straight because everything he saw turned into love of her, and being with her seemed like being good; and it wasn’t, of course, if he concealed things.

The icy blue rink turned slowly into gold before he had quite made up his mind what to do. Making up his mind had a good deal to do with Lionel, so that he felt fairly safe about it. It was going to hurt horribly, but if it only hurt him, it couldn’t be said to matter. You couldn’t have a safe plan that didn’t hurt somebody, and as long as it didn’t hurt the person it was made for, it could be counted a success.

Davos began to descend upon the rink, first the best skaters — Swedes, Russians, and Germans — and then all the world. The speed-skaters stood about in heavy fur coats down to their feet.

Claire came down surrounded by admirers. Winn heard her laugh before he saw her, and after he had seen her he saw nothing else. She looked like one of the fir-trees when the sun had caught it; she seemed aflame with a quite peculiar radiance and joy. She flew toward Winn, imitating the speed-skaters with one long swift stride of her skates.

“Ah,” she cried, “isn’t it a jolly morning? Isn’t everything heavenly? Aren’t you glad you are alive?”

That was the kind of mood she was in. It was quite superfluous to ask if she was nervous. She was just about as nervous as the sun was when it ran over the mountains.

“There doesn’t seem to be much the matter with you this morning,” said Winn, eying her thoughtfully.

The rink cleared at eleven and the band began to play.

The judges sat in different quarters of the rink so as to get the best all-around impression of the skating. The audience, muffled up in furs, crowded half-way up the valley, as if it were a gigantic amphitheater.

A Polish girl, very tall and slender, with a long black pigtail, swung out upon the ice. She caught the music with a faultless steadiness and swing. Her eyes were fixed on the mountains; her flexible hips and waist swung her to and fro as easily as a winter bird hovers balanced on its steady pinions. Out of the crowd her partner, a huge black-bearded Russian, glided toward her, caught her by the waist, lifted her, and flung her from side to side in great swirls and resounding leaps. Her skirts flew about her, her pigtail swung round her in the air, her feet struck the ice firmly together like a pair of ringing castanets. The crowd shouted applause as he caught her by the wrists after a particularly dazzling plunge into the empty air, and brought her round to face them, her fixed eyes changed and shot with triumph. The dance was over.

Then a succession of men skaters came forward, whirling, twisting, capering with flying feet. Winn watched them with more astonishment than pleasure.

“Like a ring of beastly slippery microbes!” he remarked to Claire.

“Yes,” she said; “but wait.” Half a dozen men and women came running out on the rink; with lifted feet, hand in hand, they danced like flying sunbeams.

Then a German pair followed the Polish. Both were strong, first-rate skaters, but the man was rough and selfish; he pulled his girl about, was careless of her, and in the end let her down, and half the audience hissed.