'Surely,' he said to himself, 'it is like Helena;' and he laid his hands
again on the warm body of the shore, let them wander, discovering,
gathering all the warmth, the softness, the strange wonder of smooth
warm pebbles, then shrinking from the deep weight of cold his hand
encountered as he burrowed under the surface wrist-deep. In the end he
found the cold mystery of the deep sand also thrilling. He pushed in his
hands again and deeper, enjoying the almost hurt of the dark, heavy
coldness. For the sun and the white flower of the bay were breathing and
kissing him dry, were holding him in their warm concave, like a bee in a
flower, like himself on the bosom of Helena, and flowing like the warmth
of her breath in his hair came the sunshine, breathing near and
lovingly; yet, under all, was this deep mass of cold, that the softness
and warmth merely floated upon.

Siegmund lay and clasped the sand, and tossed it in handfuls till over
him he was all hot and cloyed. Then he rose and looked at himself and
laughed. The water was swaying reproachfully against the steep pebbles
below, murmuring like a child that it was not fair--it was not fair he
should abandon his playmate. Siegmund laughed, and began to rub himself
free of the clogging sand. He found himself strangely dry and smooth. He
tossed more dry sand, and more, over himself, busy and intent like a
child playing some absorbing game with itself. Soon his body was dry and
warm and smooth as a camomile flower. He was, however, greyed and
smeared with sand-dust. Siegmund looked at himself with disapproval,
though his body was full of delight and his hands glad with the touch of
himself. He wanted himself clean. He felt the sand thick in his hair,
even in his moustache. He went painfully over the pebbles till he found
himself on the smooth rock bottom. Then he soused himself, and shook his
head in the water, and washed and splashed and rubbed himself with his