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diff --git a/4240-0.txt b/4240-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..25b83b7 --- /dev/null +++ b/4240-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,24009 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook of Women in Love, by D. H. Lawrence + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you +will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before +using this eBook. + +Title: Women in Love + +Author: D. H. Lawrence + +Release Date: December 14, 2001 [eBook #4240] +[Most recently updated: September 9, 2022] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +Produced by: Col Choat + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WOMEN IN LOVE *** + + + + +Women in Love + + +by D. H. Lawrence + + +CONTENTS + + +CHAPTER I. Sisters +CHAPTER II. Shortlands +CHAPTER III. Class-room +CHAPTER IV. Diver +CHAPTER V. In the Train +CHAPTER VI. Crème de Menthe +CHAPTER VII. Fetish +CHAPTER VIII. Breadalby +CHAPTER IX. Coal-dust +CHAPTER X. Sketch-book +CHAPTER XI. An Island +CHAPTER XII. Carpeting +CHAPTER XIII. Mino +CHAPTER XIV. Water-party +CHAPTER XV. Sunday Evening +CHAPTER XVI. Man to Man +CHAPTER XVII. The Industrial Magnate +CHAPTER XVIII. Rabbit +CHAPTER XIX. Moony +CHAPTER XX. Gladiatorial +CHAPTER XXI. Threshold +CHAPTER XXII. Woman to Woman +CHAPTER XXIII. Excurse +CHAPTER XXIV. Death and Love +CHAPTER XXV. Marriage or Not +CHAPTER XXVI. A Chair +CHAPTER XXVII. Flitting +CHAPTER XXVIII. Gudrun in the Pompadour +CHAPTER XXIX. Continental +CHAPTER XXX. Snowed Up +CHAPTER XXXI. Exeunt + + + + +CHAPTER I. +SISTERS + + +Ursula and Gudrun Brangwen sat one morning in the window-bay of their +father’s house in Beldover, working and talking. Ursula was stitching a +piece of brightly-coloured embroidery, and Gudrun was drawing upon a +board which she held on her knee. They were mostly silent, talking as +their thoughts strayed through their minds. + +“Ursula,” said Gudrun, “don’t you _really want_ to get married?” Ursula +laid her embroidery in her lap and looked up. Her face was calm and +considerate. + +“I don’t know,” she replied. “It depends how you mean.” + +Gudrun was slightly taken aback. She watched her sister for some +moments. + +“Well,” she said, ironically, “it usually means one thing! But don’t +you think anyhow, you’d be—” she darkened slightly—“in a better +position than you are in now.” + +A shadow came over Ursula’s face. + +“I might,” she said. “But I’m not sure.” + +Again Gudrun paused, slightly irritated. She wanted to be quite +definite. + +“You don’t think one needs the _experience_ of having been married?” +she asked. + +“Do you think it need _be_ an experience?” replied Ursula. + +“Bound to be, in some way or other,” said Gudrun, coolly. “Possibly +undesirable, but bound to be an experience of some sort.” + +“Not really,” said Ursula. “More likely to be the end of experience.” + +Gudrun sat very still, to attend to this. + +“Of course,” she said, “there’s _that_ to consider.” This brought the +conversation to a close. Gudrun, almost angrily, took up her rubber and +began to rub out part of her drawing. Ursula stitched absorbedly. + +“You wouldn’t consider a good offer?” asked Gudrun. + +“I think I’ve rejected several,” said Ursula. + +“_Really!_” Gudrun flushed dark—“But anything really worth while? Have +you _really?_” + +“A thousand a year, and an awfully nice man. I liked him awfully,” said +Ursula. + +“Really! But weren’t you fearfully tempted?” + +“In the abstract but not in the concrete,” said Ursula. “When it comes +to the point, one isn’t even tempted—oh, if I were tempted, I’d marry +like a shot. I’m only tempted _not_ to.” The faces of both sisters +suddenly lit up with amusement. + +“Isn’t it an amazing thing,” cried Gudrun, “how strong the temptation +is, not to!” They both laughed, looking at each other. In their hearts +they were frightened. + +There was a long pause, whilst Ursula stitched and Gudrun went on with +her sketch. The sisters were women, Ursula twenty-six, and Gudrun +twenty-five. But both had the remote, virgin look of modern girls, +sisters of Artemis rather than of Hebe. Gudrun was very beautiful, +passive, soft-skinned, soft-limbed. She wore a dress of dark-blue silky +stuff, with ruches of blue and green linen lace in the neck and +sleeves; and she had emerald-green stockings. Her look of confidence +and diffidence contrasted with Ursula’s sensitive expectancy. The +provincial people, intimidated by Gudrun’s perfect _sang-froid_ and +exclusive bareness of manner, said of her: “She is a smart woman.” She +had just come back from London, where she had spent several years, +working at an art-school, as a student, and living a studio life. + +“I was hoping now for a man to come along,” Gudrun said, suddenly +catching her underlip between her teeth, and making a strange grimace, +half sly smiling, half anguish. Ursula was afraid. + +“So you have come home, expecting him here?” she laughed. + +“Oh my dear,” cried Gudrun, strident, “I wouldn’t go out of my way to +look for him. But if there did happen to come along a highly attractive +individual of sufficient means—well—” she tailed off ironically. Then +she looked searchingly at Ursula, as if to probe her. “Don’t you find +yourself getting bored?” she asked of her sister. “Don’t you find, that +things fail to materialize? _Nothing materializes!_ Everything withers +in the bud.” + +“What withers in the bud?” asked Ursula. + +“Oh, everything—oneself—things in general.” There was a pause, whilst +each sister vaguely considered her fate. + +“It does frighten one,” said Ursula, and again there was a pause. “But +do you hope to get anywhere by just marrying?” + +“It seems to be the inevitable next step,” said Gudrun. Ursula pondered +this, with a little bitterness. She was a class mistress herself, in +Willey Green Grammar School, as she had been for some years. + +“I know,” she said, “it seems like that when one thinks in the +abstract. But really imagine it: imagine any man one knows, imagine him +coming home to one every evening, and saying ‘Hello,’ and giving one a +kiss—” + +There was a blank pause. + +“Yes,” said Gudrun, in a narrowed voice. “It’s just impossible. The man +makes it impossible.” + +“Of course there’s children—” said Ursula doubtfully. + +Gudrun’s face hardened. + +“Do you _really_ want children, Ursula?” she asked coldly. A dazzled, +baffled look came on Ursula’s face. + +“One feels it is still beyond one,” she said. + +“_Do_ you feel like that?” asked Gudrun. “I get no feeling whatever +from the thought of bearing children.” + +Gudrun looked at Ursula with a masklike, expressionless face. Ursula +knitted her brows. + +“Perhaps it isn’t genuine,” she faltered. “Perhaps one doesn’t really +want them, in one’s soul—only superficially.” A hardness came over +Gudrun’s face. She did not want to be too definite. + +“When one thinks of other people’s children—” said Ursula. + +Again Gudrun looked at her sister, almost hostile. + +“Exactly,” she said, to close the conversation. + +The two sisters worked on in silence, Ursula having always that strange +brightness of an essential flame that is caught, meshed, contravened. +She lived a good deal by herself, to herself, working, passing on from +day to day, and always thinking, trying to lay hold on life, to grasp +it in her own understanding. Her active living was suspended, but +underneath, in the darkness, something was coming to pass. If only she +could break through the last integuments! She seemed to try and put her +hands out, like an infant in the womb, and she could not, not yet. +Still she had a strange prescience, an intimation of something yet to +come. + +She laid down her work and looked at her sister. She thought Gudrun so +_charming_, so infinitely charming, in her softness and her fine, +exquisite richness of texture and delicacy of line. There was a certain +playfulness about her too, such a piquancy or ironic suggestion, such +an untouched reserve. Ursula admired her with all her soul. + +“Why did you come home, Prune?” she asked. + +Gudrun knew she was being admired. She sat back from her drawing and +looked at Ursula, from under her finely-curved lashes. + +“Why did I come back, Ursula?” she repeated. “I have asked myself a +thousand times.” + +“And don’t you know?” + +“Yes, I think I do. I think my coming back home was just _reculer pour +mieux sauter_.” + +And she looked with a long, slow look of knowledge at Ursula. + +“I know!” cried Ursula, looking slightly dazzled and falsified, and as +if she did _not_ know. “But where can one jump to?” + +“Oh, it doesn’t matter,” said Gudrun, somewhat superbly. “If one jumps +over the edge, one is bound to land somewhere.” + +“But isn’t it very risky?” asked Ursula. + +A slow mocking smile dawned on Gudrun’s face. + +“Ah!” she said laughing. “What is it all but words!” And so again she +closed the conversation. But Ursula was still brooding. + +“And how do you find home, now you have come back to it?” she asked. + +Gudrun paused for some moments, coldly, before answering. Then, in a +cold truthful voice, she said: + +“I find myself completely out of it.” + +“And father?” + +Gudrun looked at Ursula, almost with resentment, as if brought to bay. + +“I haven’t thought about him: I’ve refrained,” she said coldly. + +“Yes,” wavered Ursula; and the conversation was really at an end. The +sisters found themselves confronted by a void, a terrifying chasm, as +if they had looked over the edge. + +They worked on in silence for some time, Gudrun’s cheek was flushed +with repressed emotion. She resented its having been called into being. + +“Shall we go out and look at that wedding?” she asked at length, in a +voice that was too casual. + +“Yes!” cried Ursula, too eagerly, throwing aside her sewing and leaping +up, as if to escape something, thus betraying the tension of the +situation and causing a friction of dislike to go over Gudrun’s nerves. + +As she went upstairs, Ursula was aware of the house, of her home round +about her. And she loathed it, the sordid, too-familiar place! She was +afraid at the depth of her feeling against the home, the milieu, the +whole atmosphere and condition of this obsolete life. Her feeling +frightened her. + +The two girls were soon walking swiftly down the main road of Beldover, +a wide street, part shops, part dwelling-houses, utterly formless and +sordid, without poverty. Gudrun, new from her life in Chelsea and +Sussex, shrank cruelly from this amorphous ugliness of a small colliery +town in the Midlands. Yet forward she went, through the whole sordid +gamut of pettiness, the long amorphous, gritty street. She was exposed +to every stare, she passed on through a stretch of torment. It was +strange that she should have chosen to come back and test the full +effect of this shapeless, barren ugliness upon herself. Why had she +wanted to submit herself to it, did she still want to submit herself to +it, the insufferable torture of these ugly, meaningless people, this +defaced countryside? She felt like a beetle toiling in the dust. She +was filled with repulsion. + +They turned off the main road, past a black patch of common-garden, +where sooty cabbage stumps stood shameless. No one thought to be +ashamed. No one was ashamed of it all. + +“It is like a country in an underworld,” said Gudrun. “The colliers +bring it above-ground with them, shovel it up. Ursula, it’s marvellous, +it’s really marvellous—it’s really wonderful, another world. The people +are all ghouls, and everything is ghostly. Everything is a ghoulish +replica of the real world, a replica, a ghoul, all soiled, everything +sordid. It’s like being mad, Ursula.” + +The sisters were crossing a black path through a dark, soiled field. On +the left was a large landscape, a valley with collieries, and opposite +hills with cornfields and woods, all blackened with distance, as if +seen through a veil of crape. White and black smoke rose up in steady +columns, magic within the dark air. Near at hand came the long rows of +dwellings, approaching curved up the hill-slope, in straight lines +along the brow of the hill. They were of darkened red brick, brittle, +with dark slate roofs. The path on which the sisters walked was black, +trodden-in by the feet of the recurrent colliers, and bounded from the +field by iron fences; the stile that led again into the road was rubbed +shiny by the moleskins of the passing miners. Now the two girls were +going between some rows of dwellings, of the poorer sort. Women, their +arms folded over their coarse aprons, standing gossiping at the end of +their block, stared after the Brangwen sisters with that long, +unwearying stare of aborigines; children called out names. + +Gudrun went on her way half dazed. If this were human life, if these +were human beings, living in a complete world, then what was her own +world, outside? She was aware of her grass-green stockings, her large +grass-green velour hat, her full soft coat, of a strong blue colour. +And she felt as if she were treading in the air, quite unstable, her +heart was contracted, as if at any minute she might be precipitated to +the ground. She was afraid. + +She clung to Ursula, who, through long usage was inured to this +violation of a dark, uncreated, hostile world. But all the time her +heart was crying, as if in the midst of some ordeal: “I want to go +back, I want to go away, I want not to know it, not to know that this +exists.” Yet she must go forward. + +Ursula could feel her suffering. + +“You hate this, don’t you?” she asked. + +“It bewilders me,” stammered Gudrun. + +“You won’t stay long,” replied Ursula. + +And Gudrun went along, grasping at release. + +They drew away from the colliery region, over the curve of the hill, +into the purer country of the other side, towards Willey Green. Still +the faint glamour of blackness persisted over the fields and the wooded +hills, and seemed darkly to gleam in the air. It was a spring day, +chill, with snatches of sunshine. Yellow celandines showed out from the +hedge-bottoms, and in the cottage gardens of Willey Green, +currant-bushes were breaking into leaf, and little flowers were coming +white on the grey alyssum that hung over the stone walls. + +Turning, they passed down the high-road, that went between high banks +towards the church. There, in the lowest bend of the road, low under +the trees, stood a little group of expectant people, waiting to see the +wedding. The daughter of the chief mine-owner of the district, Thomas +Crich, was getting married to a naval officer. + +“Let us go back,” said Gudrun, swerving away. “There are all those +people.” + +And she hung wavering in the road. + +“Never mind them,” said Ursula, “they’re all right. They all know me, +they don’t matter.” + +“But must we go through them?” asked Gudrun. + +“They’re quite all right, really,” said Ursula, going forward. And +together the two sisters approached the group of uneasy, watchful +common people. They were chiefly women, colliers’ wives of the more +shiftless sort. They had watchful, underworld faces. + +The two sisters held themselves tense, and went straight towards the +gate. The women made way for them, but barely sufficient, as if +grudging to yield ground. The sisters passed in silence through the +stone gateway and up the steps, on the red carpet, a policeman +estimating their progress. + +“What price the stockings!” said a voice at the back of Gudrun. A +sudden fierce anger swept over the girl, violent and murderous. She +would have liked them all annihilated, cleared away, so that the world +was left clear for her. How she hated walking up the churchyard path, +along the red carpet, continuing in motion, in their sight. + +“I won’t go into the church,” she said suddenly, with such final +decision that Ursula immediately halted, turned round, and branched off +up a small side path which led to the little private gate of the +Grammar School, whose grounds adjoined those of the church. + +Just inside the gate of the school shrubbery, outside the churchyard, +Ursula sat down for a moment on the low stone wall under the laurel +bushes, to rest. Behind her, the large red building of the school rose +up peacefully, the windows all open for the holiday. Over the shrubs, +before her, were the pale roofs and tower of the old church. The +sisters were hidden by the foliage. + +Gudrun sat down in silence. Her mouth was shut close, her face averted. +She was regretting bitterly that she had ever come back. Ursula looked +at her, and thought how amazingly beautiful she was, flushed with +discomfiture. But she caused a constraint over Ursula’s nature, a +certain weariness. Ursula wished to be alone, freed from the tightness, +the enclosure of Gudrun’s presence. + +“Are we going to stay here?” asked Gudrun. + +“I was only resting a minute,” said Ursula, getting up as if rebuked. +“We will stand in the corner by the fives-court, we shall see +everything from there.” + +For the moment, the sunshine fell brightly into the churchyard, there +was a vague scent of sap and of spring, perhaps of violets from off the +graves. Some white daisies were out, bright as angels. In the air, the +unfolding leaves of a copper-beech were blood-red. + +Punctually at eleven o’clock, the carriages began to arrive. There was +a stir in the crowd at the gate, a concentration as a carriage drove +up, wedding guests were mounting up the steps and passing along the red +carpet to the church. They were all gay and excited because the sun was +shining. + +Gudrun watched them closely, with objective curiosity. She saw each one +as a complete figure, like a character in a book, or a subject in a +picture, or a marionette in a theatre, a finished creation. She loved +to recognise their various characteristics, to place them in their true +light, give them their own surroundings, settle them for ever as they +passed before her along the path to the church. She knew them, they +were finished, sealed and stamped and finished with, for her. There was +none that had anything unknown, unresolved, until the Criches +themselves began to appear. Then her interest was piqued. Here was +something not quite so preconcluded. + +There came the mother, Mrs Crich, with her eldest son Gerald. She was a +queer unkempt figure, in spite of the attempts that had obviously been +made to bring her into line for the day. Her face was pale, yellowish, +with a clear, transparent skin, she leaned forward rather, her features +were strongly marked, handsome, with a tense, unseeing, predative look. +Her colourless hair was untidy, wisps floating down on to her sac coat +of dark blue silk, from under her blue silk hat. She looked like a +woman with a monomania, furtive almost, but heavily proud. + +Her son was of a fair, sun-tanned type, rather above middle height, +well-made, and almost exaggeratedly well-dressed. But about him also +was the strange, guarded look, the unconscious glisten, as if he did +not belong to the same creation as the people about him. Gudrun lighted +on him at once. There was something northern about him that magnetised +her. In his clear northern flesh and his fair hair was a glisten like +sunshine refracted through crystals of ice. And he looked so new, +unbroached, pure as an arctic thing. Perhaps he was thirty years old, +perhaps more. His gleaming beauty, maleness, like a young, +good-humoured, smiling wolf, did not blind her to the significant, +sinister stillness in his bearing, the lurking danger of his unsubdued +temper. “His totem is the wolf,” she repeated to herself. “His mother +is an old, unbroken wolf.” And then she experienced a keen paroxyism, a +transport, as if she had made some incredible discovery, known to +nobody else on earth. A strange transport took possession of her, all +her veins were in a paroxysm of violent sensation. “Good God!” she +exclaimed to herself, “what is this?” And then, a moment after, she was +saying assuredly, “I shall know more of that man.” She was tortured +with desire to see him again, a nostalgia, a necessity to see him +again, to make sure it was not all a mistake, that she was not deluding +herself, that she really felt this strange and overwhelming sensation +on his account, this knowledge of him in her essence, this powerful +apprehension of him. “Am I _really_ singled out for him in some way, is +there really some pale gold, arctic light that envelopes only us two?” +she asked herself. And she could not believe it, she remained in a +muse, scarcely conscious of what was going on around. + +The bridesmaids were here, and yet the bridegroom had not come. Ursula +wondered if something was amiss, and if the wedding would yet all go +wrong. She felt troubled, as if it rested upon her. The chief +bridesmaids had arrived. Ursula watched them come up the steps. One of +them she knew, a tall, slow, reluctant woman with a weight of fair hair +and a pale, long face. This was Hermione Roddice, a friend of the +Criches. Now she came along, with her head held up, balancing an +enormous flat hat of pale yellow velvet, on which were streaks of +ostrich feathers, natural and grey. She drifted forward as if scarcely +conscious, her long blanched face lifted up, not to see the world. She +was rich. She wore a dress of silky, frail velvet, of pale yellow +colour, and she carried a lot of small rose-coloured cyclamens. Her +shoes and stockings were of brownish grey, like the feathers on her +hat, her hair was heavy, she drifted along with a peculiar fixity of +the hips, a strange unwilling motion. She was impressive, in her lovely +pale-yellow and brownish-rose, yet macabre, something repulsive. People +were silent when she passed, impressed, roused, wanting to jeer, yet +for some reason silenced. Her long, pale face, that she carried lifted +up, somewhat in the Rossetti fashion, seemed almost drugged, as if a +strange mass of thoughts coiled in the darkness within her, and she was +never allowed to escape. + +Ursula watched her with fascination. She knew her a little. She was the +most remarkable woman in the Midlands. Her father was a Derbyshire +Baronet of the old school, she was a woman of the new school, full of +intellectuality, and heavy, nerve-worn with consciousness. She was +passionately interested in reform, her soul was given up to the public +cause. But she was a man’s woman, it was the manly world that held her. + +She had various intimacies of mind and soul with various men of +capacity. Ursula knew, among these men, only Rupert Birkin, who was one +of the school-inspectors of the county. But Gudrun had met others, in +London. Moving with her artist friends in different kinds of society, +Gudrun had already come to know a good many people of repute and +standing. She had met Hermione twice, but they did not take to each +other. It would be queer to meet again down here in the Midlands, where +their social standing was so diverse, after they had known each other +on terms of equality in the houses of sundry acquaintances in town. For +Gudrun had been a social success, and had her friends among the slack +aristocracy that keeps touch with the arts. + +Hermione knew herself to be well-dressed; she knew herself to be the +social equal, if not far the superior, of anyone she was likely to meet +in Willey Green. She knew she was accepted in the world of culture and +of intellect. She was a _Kulturträger_, a medium for the culture of +ideas. With all that was highest, whether in society or in thought or +in public action, or even in art, she was at one, she moved among the +foremost, at home with them. No one could put her down, no one could +make mock of her, because she stood among the first, and those that +were against her were below her, either in rank, or in wealth, or in +high association of thought and progress and understanding. So, she was +invulnerable. All her life, she had sought to make herself +invulnerable, unassailable, beyond reach of the world’s judgment. + +And yet her soul was tortured, exposed. Even walking up the path to the +church, confident as she was that in every respect she stood beyond all +vulgar judgment, knowing perfectly that her appearance was complete and +perfect, according to the first standards, yet she suffered a torture, +under her confidence and her pride, feeling herself exposed to wounds +and to mockery and to despite. She always felt vulnerable, vulnerable, +there was always a secret chink in her armour. She did not know herself +what it was. It was a lack of robust self, she had no natural +sufficiency, there was a terrible void, a lack, a deficiency of being +within her. + +And she wanted someone to close up this deficiency, to close it up for +ever. She craved for Rupert Birkin. When he was there, she felt +complete, she was sufficient, whole. For the rest of time she was +established on the sand, built over a chasm, and, in spite of all her +vanity and securities, any common maid-servant of positive, robust +temper could fling her down this bottomless pit of insufficiency, by +the slightest movement of jeering or contempt. And all the while the +pensive, tortured woman piled up her own defences of æsthetic +knowledge, and culture, and world-visions, and disinterestedness. Yet +she could never stop up the terrible gap of insufficiency. + +If only Birkin would form a close and abiding connection with her, she +would be safe during this fretful voyage of life. He could make her +sound and triumphant, triumphant over the very angels of heaven. If +only he would do it! But she was tortured with fear, with misgiving. +She made herself beautiful, she strove so hard to come to that degree +of beauty and advantage, when he should be convinced. But always there +was a deficiency. + +He was perverse too. He fought her off, he always fought her off. The +more she strove to bring him to her, the more he battled her back. And +they had been lovers now, for years. Oh, it was so wearying, so aching; +she was so tired. But still she believed in herself. She knew he was +trying to leave her. She knew he was trying to break away from her +finally, to be free. But still she believed in her strength to keep +him, she believed in her own higher knowledge. His own knowledge was +high, she was the central touchstone of truth. She only needed his +conjunction with her. + +And this, this conjunction with her, which was his highest fulfilment +also, with the perverseness of a wilful child he wanted to deny. With +the wilfulness of an obstinate child, he wanted to break the holy +connection that was between them. + +He would be at this wedding; he was to be groom’s man. He would be in +the church, waiting. He would know when she came. She shuddered with +nervous apprehension and desire as she went through the church-door. He +would be there, surely he would see how beautiful her dress was, surely +he would see how she had made herself beautiful for him. He would +understand, he would be able to see how she was made for him, the +first, how she was, for him, the highest. Surely at last he would be +able to accept his highest fate, he would not deny her. + +In a little convulsion of too-tired yearning, she entered the church +and looked slowly along her cheeks for him, her slender body convulsed +with agitation. As best man, he would be standing beside the altar. She +looked slowly, deferring in her certainty. + +And then, he was not there. A terrible storm came over her, as if she +were drowning. She was possessed by a devastating hopelessness. And she +approached mechanically to the altar. Never had she known such a pang +of utter and final hopelessness. It was beyond death, so utterly null, +desert. + +The bridegroom and the groom’s man had not yet come. There was a +growing consternation outside. Ursula felt almost responsible. She +could not bear it that the bride should arrive, and no groom. The +wedding must not be a fiasco, it must not. + +But here was the bride’s carriage, adorned with ribbons and cockades. +Gaily the grey horses curvetted to their destination at the +church-gate, a laughter in the whole movement. Here was the quick of +all laughter and pleasure. The door of the carriage was thrown open, to +let out the very blossom of the day. The people on the roadway murmured +faintly with the discontented murmuring of a crowd. + +The father stepped out first into the air of the morning, like a +shadow. He was a tall, thin, careworn man, with a thin black beard that +was touched with grey. He waited at the door of the carriage patiently, +self-obliterated. + +In the opening of the doorway was a shower of fine foliage and flowers, +a whiteness of satin and lace, and a sound of a gay voice saying: + +“How do I get out?” + +A ripple of satisfaction ran through the expectant people. They pressed +near to receive her, looking with zest at the stooping blond head with +its flower buds, and at the delicate, white, tentative foot that was +reaching down to the step of the carriage. There was a sudden foaming +rush, and the bride like a sudden surf-rush, floating all white beside +her father in the morning shadow of trees, her veil flowing with +laughter. + +“That’s done it!” she said. + +She put her hand on the arm of her care-worn, sallow father, and +frothing her light draperies, proceeded over the eternal red carpet. +Her father, mute and yellowish, his black beard making him look more +careworn, mounted the steps stiffly, as if his spirit were absent; but +the laughing mist of the bride went along with him undiminished. + +And no bridegroom had arrived! It was intolerable for her. Ursula, her +heart strained with anxiety, was watching the hill beyond; the white, +descending road, that should give sight of him. There was a carriage. +It was running. It had just come into sight. Yes, it was he. Ursula +turned towards the bride and the people, and, from her place of +vantage, gave an inarticulate cry. She wanted to warn them that he was +coming. But her cry was inarticulate and inaudible, and she flushed +deeply, between her desire and her wincing confusion. + +The carriage rattled down the hill, and drew near. There was a shout +from the people. The bride, who had just reached the top of the steps, +turned round gaily to see what was the commotion. She saw a confusion +among the people, a cab pulling up, and her lover dropping out of the +carriage, and dodging among the horses and into the crowd. + +“Tibs! Tibs!” she cried in her sudden, mocking excitement, standing +high on the path in the sunlight and waving her bouquet. He, dodging +with his hat in his hand, had not heard. + +“Tibs!” she cried again, looking down to him. + +He glanced up, unaware, and saw the bride and her father standing on +the path above him. A queer, startled look went over his face. He +hesitated for a moment. Then he gathered himself together for a leap, +to overtake her. + +“Ah-h-h!” came her strange, intaken cry, as, on the reflex, she +started, turned and fled, scudding with an unthinkable swift beating of +her white feet and fraying of her white garments, towards the church. +Like a hound the young man was after her, leaping the steps and +swinging past her father, his supple haunches working like those of a +hound that bears down on the quarry. + +“Ay, after her!” cried the vulgar women below, carried suddenly into +the sport. + +She, her flowers shaken from her like froth, was steadying herself to +turn the angle of the church. She glanced behind, and with a wild cry +of laughter and challenge, veered, poised, and was gone beyond the grey +stone buttress. In another instant the bridegroom, bent forward as he +ran, had caught the angle of the silent stone with his hand, and had +swung himself out of sight, his supple, strong loins vanishing in +pursuit. + +Instantly cries and exclamations of excitement burst from the crowd at +the gate. And then Ursula noticed again the dark, rather stooping +figure of Mr Crich, waiting suspended on the path, watching with +expressionless face the flight to the church. It was over, and he +turned round to look behind him, at the figure of Rupert Birkin, who at +once came forward and joined him. + +“We’ll bring up the rear,” said Birkin, a faint smile on his face. + +“Ay!” replied the father laconically. And the two men turned together +up the path. + +Birkin was as thin as Mr Crich, pale and ill-looking. His figure was +narrow but nicely made. He went with a slight trail of one foot, which +came only from self-consciousness. Although he was dressed correctly +for his part, yet there was an innate incongruity which caused a slight +ridiculousness in his appearance. His nature was clever and separate, +he did not fit at all in the conventional occasion. Yet he subordinated +himself to the common idea, travestied himself. + +He affected to be quite ordinary, perfectly and marvellously +commonplace. And he did it so well, taking the tone of his +surroundings, adjusting himself quickly to his interlocutor and his +circumstance, that he achieved a verisimilitude of ordinary +commonplaceness that usually propitiated his onlookers for the moment, +disarmed them from attacking his singleness. + +Now he spoke quite easily and pleasantly to Mr Crich, as they walked +along the path; he played with situations like a man on a tight-rope: +but always on a tight-rope, pretending nothing but ease. + +“I’m sorry we are so late,” he was saying. “We couldn’t find a +button-hook, so it took us a long time to button our boots. But you +were to the moment.” + +“We are usually to time,” said Mr Crich. + +“And I’m always late,” said Birkin. “But today I was _really_ punctual, +only accidentally not so. I’m sorry.” + +The two men were gone, there was nothing more to see, for the time. +Ursula was left thinking about Birkin. He piqued her, attracted her, +and annoyed her. + +She wanted to know him more. She had spoken with him once or twice, but +only in his official capacity as inspector. She thought he seemed to +acknowledge some kinship between her and him, a natural, tacit +understanding, a using of the same language. But there had been no time +for the understanding to develop. And something kept her from him, as +well as attracted her to him. There was a certain hostility, a hidden +ultimate reserve in him, cold and inaccessible. + +Yet she wanted to know him. + +“What do you think of Rupert Birkin?” she asked, a little reluctantly, +of Gudrun. She did not want to discuss him. + +“What do I think of Rupert Birkin?” repeated Gudrun. “I think he’s +attractive—decidedly attractive. What I can’t stand about him is his +way with other people—his way of treating any little fool as if she +were his greatest consideration. One feels so awfully sold, oneself.” + +“Why does he do it?” said Ursula. + +“Because he has no real critical faculty—of people, at all events,” +said Gudrun. “I tell you, he treats any little fool as he treats me or +you—and it’s such an insult.” + +“Oh, it is,” said Ursula. “One must discriminate.” + +“One _must_ discriminate,” repeated Gudrun. “But he’s a wonderful chap, +in other respects—a marvellous personality. But you can’t trust him.” + +“Yes,” said Ursula vaguely. She was always forced to assent to Gudrun’s +pronouncements, even when she was not in accord altogether. + +The sisters sat silent, waiting for the wedding party to come out. +Gudrun was impatient of talk. She wanted to think about Gerald Crich. +She wanted to see if the strong feeling she had got from him was real. +She wanted to have herself ready. + +Inside the church, the wedding was going on. Hermione Roddice was +thinking only of Birkin. He stood near her. She seemed to gravitate +physically towards him. She wanted to stand touching him. She could +hardly be sure he was near her, if she did not touch him. Yet she stood +subjected through the wedding service. + +She had suffered so bitterly when he did not come, that still she was +dazed. Still she was gnawed as by a neuralgia, tormented by his +potential absence from her. She had awaited him in a faint delirium of +nervous torture. As she stood bearing herself pensively, the rapt look +on her face, that seemed spiritual, like the angels, but which came +from torture, gave her a certain poignancy that tore his heart with +pity. He saw her bowed head, her rapt face, the face of an almost +demoniacal ecstatic. Feeling him looking, she lifted her face and +sought his eyes, her own beautiful grey eyes flaring him a great +signal. But he avoided her look, she sank her head in torment and +shame, the gnawing at her heart going on. And he too was tortured with +shame, and ultimate dislike, and with acute pity for her, because he +did not want to meet her eyes, he did not want to receive her flare of +recognition. + +The bride and bridegroom were married, the party went into the vestry. +Hermione crowded involuntarily up against Birkin, to touch him. And he +endured it. + +Outside, Gudrun and Ursula listened for their father’s playing on the +organ. He would enjoy playing a wedding march. Now the married pair +were coming! The bells were ringing, making the air shake. Ursula +wondered if the trees and the flowers could feel the vibration, and +what they thought of it, this strange motion in the air. The bride was +quite demure on the arm of the bridegroom, who stared up into the sky +before him, shutting and opening his eyes unconsciously, as if he were +neither here nor there. He looked rather comical, blinking and trying +to be in the scene, when emotionally he was violated by his exposure to +a crowd. He looked a typical naval officer, manly, and up to his duty. + +Birkin came with Hermione. She had a rapt, triumphant look, like the +fallen angels restored, yet still subtly demoniacal, now she held +Birkin by the arm. And he was expressionless, neutralised, possessed by +her as if it were his fate, without question. + +Gerald Crich came, fair, good-looking, healthy, with a great reserve of +energy. He was erect and complete, there was a strange stealth +glistening through his amiable, almost happy appearance. Gudrun rose +sharply and went away. She could not bear it. She wanted to be alone, +to know this strange, sharp inoculation that had changed the whole +temper of her blood. + + + + +CHAPTER II. +SHORTLANDS + + +The Brangwens went home to Beldover, the wedding-party gathered at +Shortlands, the Criches’ home. It was a long, low old house, a sort of +manor farm, that spread along the top of a slope just beyond the narrow +little lake of Willey Water. Shortlands looked across a sloping meadow +that might be a park, because of the large, solitary trees that stood +here and there, across the water of the narrow lake, at the wooded hill +that successfully hid the colliery valley beyond, but did not quite +hide the rising smoke. Nevertheless, the scene was rural and +picturesque, very peaceful, and the house had a charm of its own. + +It was crowded now with the family and the wedding guests. The father, +who was not well, withdrew to rest. Gerald was host. He stood in the +homely entrance hall, friendly and easy, attending to the men. He +seemed to take pleasure in his social functions, he smiled, and was +abundant in hospitality. + +The women wandered about in a little confusion, chased hither and +thither by the three married daughters of the house. All the while +there could be heard the characteristic, imperious voice of one Crich +woman or another calling “Helen, come here a minute,” “Marjory, I want +you—here.” “Oh, I say, Mrs Witham—.” There was a great rustling of +skirts, swift glimpses of smartly-dressed women, a child danced through +the hall and back again, a maidservant came and went hurriedly. + +Meanwhile the men stood in calm little groups, chatting, smoking, +pretending to pay no heed to the rustling animation of the women’s +world. But they could not really talk, because of the glassy ravel of +women’s excited, cold laughter and running voices. They waited, uneasy, +suspended, rather bored. But Gerald remained as if genial and happy, +unaware that he was waiting or unoccupied, knowing himself the very +pivot of the occasion. + +Suddenly Mrs Crich came noiselessly into the room, peering about with +her strong, clear face. She was still wearing her hat, and her sac coat +of blue silk. + +“What is it, mother?” said Gerald. + +“Nothing, nothing!” she answered vaguely. And she went straight towards +Birkin, who was talking to a Crich brother-in-law. + +“How do you do, Mr Birkin,” she said, in her low voice, that seemed to +take no count of her guests. She held out her hand to him. + +“Oh Mrs Crich,” replied Birkin, in his readily-changing voice, “I +couldn’t come to you before.” + +“I don’t know half the people here,” she said, in her low voice. Her +son-in-law moved uneasily away. + +“And you don’t like strangers?” laughed Birkin. “I myself can never see +why one should take account of people, just because they happen to be +in the room with one: why _should_ I know they are there?” + +“Why indeed, why indeed!” said Mrs Crich, in her low, tense voice. +“Except that they _are_ there. _I_ don’t know people whom I find in the +house. The children introduce them to me—‘Mother, this is Mr +So-and-so.’ I am no further. What has Mr So-and-so to do with his own +name?—and what have I to do with either him or his name?” + +She looked up at Birkin. She startled him. He was flattered too that +she came to talk to him, for she took hardly any notice of anybody. He +looked down at her tense clear face, with its heavy features, but he +was afraid to look into her heavy-seeing blue eyes. He noticed instead +how her hair looped in slack, slovenly strands over her rather +beautiful ears, which were not quite clean. Neither was her neck +perfectly clean. Even in that he seemed to belong to her, rather than +to the rest of the company; though, he thought to himself, he was +always well washed, at any rate at the neck and ears. + +He smiled faintly, thinking these things. Yet he was tense, feeling +that he and the elderly, estranged woman were conferring together like +traitors, like enemies within the camp of the other people. He +resembled a deer, that throws one ear back upon the trail behind, and +one ear forward, to know what is ahead. + +“People don’t really matter,” he said, rather unwilling to continue. + +The mother looked up at him with sudden, dark interrogation, as if +doubting his sincerity. + +“How do you mean, _matter?_” she asked sharply. + +“Not many people are anything at all,” he answered, forced to go deeper +than he wanted to. “They jingle and giggle. It would be much better if +they were just wiped out. Essentially, they don’t exist, they aren’t +there.” + +She watched him steadily while he spoke. + +“But we didn’t imagine them,” she said sharply. + +“There’s nothing to imagine, that’s why they don’t exist.” + +“Well,” she said, “I would hardly go as far as that. There they are, +whether they exist or no. It doesn’t rest with me to decide on their +existence. I only know that I can’t be expected to take count of them +all. You can’t expect me to know them, just because they happen to be +there. As far as _I_ go they might as well not be there.” + +“Exactly,” he replied. + +“Mightn’t they?” she asked again. + +“Just as well,” he repeated. And there was a little pause. + +“Except that they _are_ there, and that’s a nuisance,” she said. “There +are my sons-in-law,” she went on, in a sort of monologue. “Now Laura’s +got married, there’s another. And I really don’t know John from James +yet. They come up to me and call me mother. I know what they will +say—‘how are you, mother?’ I ought to say, ‘I am not your mother, in +any sense.’ But what is the use? There they are. I have had children of +my own. I suppose I know them from another woman’s children.” + +“One would suppose so,” he said. + +She looked at him, somewhat surprised, forgetting perhaps that she was +talking to him. And she lost her thread. + +She looked round the room, vaguely. Birkin could not guess what she was +looking for, nor what she was thinking. Evidently she noticed her sons. + +“Are my children all there?” she asked him abruptly. + +He laughed, startled, afraid perhaps. + +“I scarcely know them, except Gerald,” he replied. + +“Gerald!” she exclaimed. “He’s the most wanting of them all. You’d +never think it, to look at him now, would you?” + +“No,” said Birkin. + +The mother looked across at her eldest son, stared at him heavily for +some time. + +“Ay,” she said, in an incomprehensible monosyllable, that sounded +profoundly cynical. Birkin felt afraid, as if he dared not realise. And +Mrs Crich moved away, forgetting him. But she returned on her traces. + +“I should like him to have a friend,” she said. “He has never had a +friend.” + +Birkin looked down into her eyes, which were blue, and watching +heavily. He could not understand them. “Am I my brother’s keeper?” he +said to himself, almost flippantly. + +Then he remembered, with a slight shock, that that was Cain’s cry. And +Gerald was Cain, if anybody. Not that he was Cain, either, although he +had slain his brother. There was such a thing as pure accident, and the +consequences did not attach to one, even though one had killed one’s +brother in such wise. Gerald as a boy had accidentally killed his +brother. What then? Why seek to draw a brand and a curse across the +life that had caused the accident? A man can live by accident, and die +by accident. Or can he not? Is every man’s life subject to pure +accident, is it only the race, the genus, the species, that has a +universal reference? Or is this not true, is there no such thing as +pure accident? Has _everything_ that happens a universal significance? +Has it? Birkin, pondering as he stood there, had forgotten Mrs Crich, +as she had forgotten him. + +He did not believe that there was any such thing as accident. It all +hung together, in the deepest sense. + +Just as he had decided this, one of the Crich daughters came up, +saying: + +“Won’t you come and take your hat off, mother dear? We shall be sitting +down to eat in a minute, and it’s a formal occasion, darling, isn’t +it?” She drew her arm through her mother’s, and they went away. Birkin +immediately went to talk to the nearest man. + +The gong sounded for the luncheon. The men looked up, but no move was +made to the dining-room. The women of the house seemed not to feel that +the sound had meaning for them. Five minutes passed by. The elderly +manservant, Crowther, appeared in the doorway exasperatedly. He looked +with appeal at Gerald. The latter took up a large, curved conch shell, +that lay on a shelf, and without reference to anybody, blew a +shattering blast. It was a strange rousing noise, that made the heart +beat. The summons was almost magical. Everybody came running, as if at +a signal. And then the crowd in one impulse moved to the dining-room. + +Gerald waited a moment, for his sister to play hostess. He knew his +mother would pay no attention to her duties. But his sister merely +crowded to her seat. Therefore the young man, slightly too dictatorial, +directed the guests to their places. + +There was a moment’s lull, as everybody looked at the _hors d’oeuvres_ +that were being handed round. And out of this lull, a girl of thirteen +or fourteen, with her long hair down her back, said in a calm, +self-possessed voice: + +“Gerald, you forget father, when you make that unearthly noise.” + +“Do I?” he answered. And then, to the company, “Father is lying down, +he is not quite well.” + +“How is he, really?” called one of the married daughters, peeping round +the immense wedding cake that towered up in the middle of the table +shedding its artificial flowers. + +“He has no pain, but he feels tired,” replied Winifred, the girl with +the hair down her back. + +The wine was filled, and everybody was talking boisterously. At the far +end of the table sat the mother, with her loosely-looped hair. She had +Birkin for a neighbour. Sometimes she glanced fiercely down the rows of +faces, bending forwards and staring unceremoniously. And she would say +in a low voice to Birkin: + +“Who is that young man?” + +“I don’t know,” Birkin answered discreetly. + +“Have I seen him before?” she asked. + +“I don’t think so. _I_ haven’t,” he replied. And she was satisfied. Her +eyes closed wearily, a peace came over her face, she looked like a +queen in repose. Then she started, a little social smile came on her +face, for a moment she looked the pleasant hostess. For a moment she +bent graciously, as if everyone were welcome and delightful. And then +immediately the shadow came back, a sullen, eagle look was on her face, +she glanced from under her brows like a sinister creature at bay, +hating them all. + +“Mother,” called Diana, a handsome girl a little older than Winifred, +“I may have wine, mayn’t I?” + +“Yes, you may have wine,” replied the mother automatically, for she was +perfectly indifferent to the question. + +And Diana beckoned to the footman to fill her glass. + +“Gerald shouldn’t forbid me,” she said calmly, to the company at large. + +“All right, Di,” said her brother amiably. And she glanced challenge at +him as she drank from her glass. + +There was a strange freedom, that almost amounted to anarchy, in the +house. It was rather a resistance to authority, than liberty. Gerald +had some command, by mere force of personality, not because of any +granted position. There was a quality in his voice, amiable but +dominant, that cowed the others, who were all younger than he. + +Hermione was having a discussion with the bridegroom about nationality. + +“No,” she said, “I think that the appeal to patriotism is a mistake. It +is like one house of business rivalling another house of business.” + +“Well you can hardly say that, can you?” exclaimed Gerald, who had a +real _passion_ for discussion. “You couldn’t call a race a business +concern, could you?—and nationality roughly corresponds to race, I +think. I think it is _meant_ to.” + +There was a moment’s pause. Gerald and Hermione were always strangely +but politely and evenly inimical. + +“_Do_ you think race corresponds with nationality?” she asked musingly, +with expressionless indecision. + +Birkin knew she was waiting for him to participate. And dutifully he +spoke up. + +“I think Gerald is right—race is the essential element in nationality, +in Europe at least,” he said. + +Again Hermione paused, as if to allow this statement to cool. Then she +said with strange assumption of authority: + +“Yes, but even so, is the patriotic appeal an appeal to the racial +instinct? Is it not rather an appeal to the proprietory instinct, the +_commercial_ instinct? And isn’t this what we mean by nationality?” + +“Probably,” said Birkin, who felt that such a discussion was out of +place and out of time. + +But Gerald was now on the scent of argument. + +“A race may have its commercial aspect,” he said. “In fact it must. It +is like a family. You _must_ make provision. And to make provision you +have got to strive against other families, other nations. I don’t see +why you shouldn’t.” + +Again Hermione made a pause, domineering and cold, before she replied: +“Yes, I think it is always wrong to provoke a spirit of rivalry. It +makes bad blood. And bad blood accumulates.” + +“But you can’t do away with the spirit of emulation altogether?” said +Gerald. “It is one of the necessary incentives to production and +improvement.” + +“Yes,” came Hermione’s sauntering response. “I think you can do away +with it.” + +“I must say,” said Birkin, “I detest the spirit of emulation.” Hermione +was biting a piece of bread, pulling it from between her teeth with her +fingers, in a slow, slightly derisive movement. She turned to Birkin. + +“You do hate it, yes,” she said, intimate and gratified. + +“Detest it,” he repeated. + +“Yes,” she murmured, assured and satisfied. + +“But,” Gerald insisted, “you don’t allow one man to take away his +neighbour’s living, so why should you allow one nation to take away the +living from another nation?” + +There was a long slow murmur from Hermione before she broke into +speech, saying with a laconic indifference: + +“It is not always a question of possessions, is it? It is not all a +question of goods?” + +Gerald was nettled by this implication of vulgar materialism. + +“Yes, more or less,” he retorted. “If I go and take a man’s hat from +off his head, that hat becomes a symbol of that man’s liberty. When he +fights me for his hat, he is fighting me for his liberty.” + +Hermione was nonplussed. + +“Yes,” she said, irritated. “But that way of arguing by imaginary +instances is not supposed to be genuine, is it? A man does _not_ come +and take my hat from off my head, does he?” + +“Only because the law prevents him,” said Gerald. + +“Not only,” said Birkin. “Ninety-nine men out of a hundred don’t want +my hat.” + +“That’s a matter of opinion,” said Gerald. + +“Or the hat,” laughed the bridegroom. + +“And if he does want my hat, such as it is,” said Birkin, “why, surely +it is open to me to decide, which is a greater loss to me, my hat, or +my liberty as a free and indifferent man. If I am compelled to offer +fight, I lose the latter. It is a question which is worth more to me, +my pleasant liberty of conduct, or my hat.” + +“Yes,” said Hermione, watching Birkin strangely. “Yes.” + +“But would you let somebody come and snatch your hat off your head?” +the bride asked of Hermione. + +The face of the tall straight woman turned slowly and as if drugged to +this new speaker. + +“No,” she replied, in a low inhuman tone, that seemed to contain a +chuckle. “No, I shouldn’t let anybody take my hat off my head.” + +“How would you prevent it?” asked Gerald. + +“I don’t know,” replied Hermione slowly. “Probably I should kill him.” + +There was a strange chuckle in her tone, a dangerous and convincing +humour in her bearing. + +“Of course,” said Gerald, “I can see Rupert’s point. It is a question +to him whether his hat or his peace of mind is more important.” + +“Peace of body,” said Birkin. + +“Well, as you like there,” replied Gerald. “But how are you going to +decide this for a nation?” + +“Heaven preserve me,” laughed Birkin. + +“Yes, but suppose you have to?” Gerald persisted. + +“Then it is the same. If the national crown-piece is an old hat, then +the thieving gent may have it.” + +“But _can_ the national or racial hat be an old hat?” insisted Gerald. + +“Pretty well bound to be, I believe,” said Birkin. + +“I’m not so sure,” said Gerald. + +“I don’t agree, Rupert,” said Hermione. + +“All right,” said Birkin. + +“I’m all for the old national hat,” laughed Gerald. + +“And a fool you look in it,” cried Diana, his pert sister who was just +in her teens. + +“Oh, we’re quite out of our depths with these old hats,” cried Laura +Crich. “Dry up now, Gerald. We’re going to drink toasts. Let us drink +toasts. Toasts—glasses, glasses—now then, toasts! Speech! Speech!” + +Birkin, thinking about race or national death, watched his glass being +filled with champagne. The bubbles broke at the rim, the man withdrew, +and feeling a sudden thirst at the sight of the fresh wine, Birkin +drank up his glass. A queer little tension in the room roused him. He +felt a sharp constraint. + +“Did I do it by accident, or on purpose?” he asked himself. And he +decided that, according to the vulgar phrase, he had done it +“accidentally on purpose.” He looked round at the hired footman. And +the hired footman came, with a silent step of cold servant-like +disapprobation. Birkin decided that he detested toasts, and footmen, +and assemblies, and mankind altogether, in most of its aspects. Then he +rose to make a speech. But he was somehow disgusted. + +At length it was over, the meal. Several men strolled out into the +garden. There was a lawn, and flower-beds, and at the boundary an iron +fence shutting off the little field or park. The view was pleasant; a +highroad curving round the edge of a low lake, under the trees. In the +spring air, the water gleamed and the opposite woods were purplish with +new life. Charming Jersey cattle came to the fence, breathing hoarsely +from their velvet muzzles at the human beings, expecting perhaps a +crust. + +Birkin leaned on the fence. A cow was breathing wet hotness on his +hand. + +“Pretty cattle, very pretty,” said Marshall, one of the +brothers-in-law. “They give the best milk you can have.” + +“Yes,” said Birkin. + +“Eh, my little beauty, eh, my beauty!” said Marshall, in a queer high +falsetto voice, that caused the other man to have convulsions of +laughter in his stomach. + +“Who won the race, Lupton?” he called to the bridegroom, to hide the +fact that he was laughing. + +The bridegroom took his cigar from his mouth. + +“The race?” he exclaimed. Then a rather thin smile came over his face. +He did not want to say anything about the flight to the church door. +“We got there together. At least she touched first, but I had my hand +on her shoulder.” + +“What’s this?” asked Gerald. + +Birkin told him about the race of the bride and the bridegroom. + +“H’m!” said Gerald, in disapproval. “What made you late then?” + +“Lupton would talk about the immortality of the soul,” said Birkin, +“and then he hadn’t got a button-hook.” + +“Oh God!” cried Marshall. “The immortality of the soul on your wedding +day! Hadn’t you got anything better to occupy your mind?” + +“What’s wrong with it?” asked the bridegroom, a clean-shaven naval man, +flushing sensitively. + +“Sounds as if you were going to be executed instead of married. _The +immortality of the soul!_” repeated the brother-in-law, with most +killing emphasis. + +But he fell quite flat. + +“And what did you decide?” asked Gerald, at once pricking up his ears +at the thought of a metaphysical discussion. + +“You don’t want a soul today, my boy,” said Marshall. “It’d be in your +road.” + +“Christ! Marshall, go and talk to somebody else,” cried Gerald, with +sudden impatience. + +“By God, I’m willing,” said Marshall, in a temper. “Too much bloody +soul and talk altogether—” + +He withdrew in a dudgeon, Gerald staring after him with angry eyes, +that grew gradually calm and amiable as the stoutly-built form of the +other man passed into the distance. + +“There’s one thing, Lupton,” said Gerald, turning suddenly to the +bridegroom. “Laura won’t have brought such a fool into the family as +Lottie did.” + +“Comfort yourself with that,” laughed Birkin. + +“I take no notice of them,” laughed the bridegroom. + +“What about this race then—who began it?” Gerald asked. + +“We were late. Laura was at the top of the churchyard steps when our +cab came up. She saw Lupton bolting towards her. And she fled. But why +do you look so cross? Does it hurt your sense of the family dignity?” + +“It does, rather,” said Gerald. “If you’re doing a thing, do it +properly, and if you’re not going to do it properly, leave it alone.” + +“Very nice aphorism,” said Birkin. + +“Don’t you agree?” asked Gerald. + +“Quite,” said Birkin. “Only it bores me rather, when you become +aphoristic.” + +“Damn you, Rupert, you want all the aphorisms your own way,” said +Gerald. + +“No. I want them out of the way, and you’re always shoving them in it.” + +Gerald smiled grimly at this humorism. Then he made a little gesture of +dismissal, with his eyebrows. + +“You don’t believe in having any standard of behaviour at all, do you?” +he challenged Birkin, censoriously. + +“Standard—no. I hate standards. But they’re necessary for the common +ruck. Anybody who is anything can just be himself and do as he likes.” + +“But what do you mean by being himself?” said Gerald. “Is that an +aphorism or a cliché?” + +“I mean just doing what you want to do. I think it was perfect good +form in Laura to bolt from Lupton to the church door. It was almost a +masterpiece in good form. It’s the hardest thing in the world to act +spontaneously on one’s impulses—and it’s the only really gentlemanly +thing to do—provided you’re fit to do it.” + +“You don’t expect me to take you seriously, do you?” asked Gerald. + +“Yes, Gerald, you’re one of the very few people I do expect that of.” + +“Then I’m afraid I can’t come up to your expectations here, at any +rate. You think people should just do as they like.” + +“I think they always do. But I should like them to like the purely +individual thing in themselves, which makes them act in singleness. And +they only like to do the collective thing.” + +“And I,” said Gerald grimly, “shouldn’t like to be in a world of people +who acted individually and spontaneously, as you call it. We should +have everybody cutting everybody else’s throat in five minutes.” + +“That means _you_ would like to be cutting everybody’s throat,” said +Birkin. + +“How does that follow?” asked Gerald crossly. + +“No man,” said Birkin, “cuts another man’s throat unless he wants to +cut it, and unless the other man wants it cutting. This is a complete +truth. It takes two people to make a murder: a murderer and a murderee. +And a murderee is a man who is murderable. And a man who is murderable +is a man who in a profound if hidden lust desires to be murdered.” + +“Sometimes you talk pure nonsense,” said Gerald to Birkin. “As a matter +of fact, none of us wants our throat cut, and most other people would +like to cut it for us—some time or other—” + +“It’s a nasty view of things, Gerald,” said Birkin, “and no wonder you +are afraid of yourself and your own unhappiness.” + +“How am I afraid of myself?” said Gerald; “and I don’t think I am +unhappy.” + +“You seem to have a lurking desire to have your gizzard slit, and +imagine every man has his knife up his sleeve for you,” Birkin said. + +“How do you make that out?” said Gerald. + +“From you,” said Birkin. + +There was a pause of strange enmity between the two men, that was very +near to love. It was always the same between them; always their talk +brought them into a deadly nearness of contact, a strange, perilous +intimacy which was either hate or love, or both. They parted with +apparent unconcern, as if their going apart were a trivial occurrence. +And they really kept it to the level of trivial occurrence. Yet the +heart of each burned from the other. They burned with each other, +inwardly. This they would never admit. They intended to keep their +relationship a casual free-and-easy friendship, they were not going to +be so unmanly and unnatural as to allow any heart-burning between them. +They had not the faintest belief in deep relationship between men and +men, and their disbelief prevented any development of their powerful +but suppressed friendliness. + + + + +CHAPTER III. +CLASS-ROOM + + +A school-day was drawing to a close. In the class-room the last lesson +was in progress, peaceful and still. It was elementary botany. The +desks were littered with catkins, hazel and willow, which the children +had been sketching. But the sky had come overdark, as the end of the +afternoon approached: there was scarcely light to draw any more. Ursula +stood in front of the class, leading the children by questions to +understand the structure and the meaning of the catkins. + +A heavy, copper-coloured beam of light came in at the west window, +gilding the outlines of the children’s heads with red gold, and falling +on the wall opposite in a rich, ruddy illumination. Ursula, however, +was scarcely conscious of it. She was busy, the end of the day was +here, the work went on as a peaceful tide that is at flood, hushed to +retire. + +This day had gone by like so many more, in an activity that was like a +trance. At the end there was a little haste, to finish what was in +hand. She was pressing the children with questions, so that they should +know all they were to know, by the time the gong went. She stood in +shadow in front of the class, with catkins in her hand, and she leaned +towards the children, absorbed in the passion of instruction. + +She heard, but did not notice the click of the door. Suddenly she +started. She saw, in the shaft of ruddy, copper-coloured light near +her, the face of a man. It was gleaming like fire, watching her, +waiting for her to be aware. It startled her terribly. She thought she +was going to faint. All her suppressed, subconscious fear sprang into +being, with anguish. + +“Did I startle you?” said Birkin, shaking hands with her. “I thought +you had heard me come in.” + +“No,” she faltered, scarcely able to speak. He laughed, saying he was +sorry. She wondered why it amused him. + +“It is so dark,” he said. “Shall we have the light?” + +And moving aside, he switched on the strong electric lights. The +class-room was distinct and hard, a strange place after the soft dim +magic that filled it before he came. Birkin turned curiously to look at +Ursula. Her eyes were round and wondering, bewildered, her mouth +quivered slightly. She looked like one who is suddenly wakened. There +was a living, tender beauty, like a tender light of dawn shining from +her face. He looked at her with a new pleasure, feeling gay in his +heart, irresponsible. + +“You are doing catkins?” he asked, picking up a piece of hazel from a +scholar’s desk in front of him. “Are they as far out as this? I hadn’t +noticed them this year.” + +He looked absorbedly at the tassel of hazel in his hand. + +“The red ones too!” he said, looking at the flickers of crimson that +came from the female bud. + +Then he went in among the desks, to see the scholars’ books. Ursula +watched his intent progress. There was a stillness in his motion that +hushed the activities of her heart. She seemed to be standing aside in +arrested silence, watching him move in another, concentrated world. His +presence was so quiet, almost like a vacancy in the corporate air. + +Suddenly he lifted his face to her, and her heart quickened at the +flicker of his voice. + +“Give them some crayons, won’t you?” he said, “so that they can make +the gynaecious flowers red, and the androgynous yellow. I’d chalk them +in plain, chalk in nothing else, merely the red and the yellow. Outline +scarcely matters in this case. There is just the one fact to +emphasise.” + +“I haven’t any crayons,” said Ursula. + +“There will be some somewhere—red and yellow, that’s all you want.” + +Ursula sent out a boy on a quest. + +“It will make the books untidy,” she said to Birkin, flushing deeply. + +“Not very,” he said. “You must mark in these things obviously. It’s the +fact you want to emphasise, not the subjective impression to record. +What’s the fact?—red little spiky stigmas of the female flower, +dangling yellow male catkin, yellow pollen flying from one to the +other. Make a pictorial record of the fact, as a child does when +drawing a face—two eyes, one nose, mouth with teeth—so—” And he drew a +figure on the blackboard. + +At that moment another vision was seen through the glass panels of the +door. It was Hermione Roddice. Birkin went and opened to her. + +“I saw your car,” she said to him. “Do you mind my coming to find you? +I wanted to see you when you were on duty.” + +She looked at him for a long time, intimate and playful, then she gave +a short little laugh. And then only she turned to Ursula, who, with all +the class, had been watching the little scene between the lovers. + +“How do you do, Miss Brangwen,” sang Hermione, in her low, odd, singing +fashion, that sounded almost as if she were poking fun. “Do you mind my +coming in?” + +Her grey, almost sardonic eyes rested all the while on Ursula, as if +summing her up. + +“Oh no,” said Ursula. + +“Are you _sure?_” repeated Hermione, with complete _sang-froid_, and an +odd, half-bullying effrontery. + +“Oh no, I like it awfully,” laughed Ursula, a little bit excited and +bewildered, because Hermione seemed to be compelling her, coming very +close to her, as if intimate with her; and yet, how could she be +intimate? + +This was the answer Hermione wanted. She turned satisfied to Birkin. + +“What are you doing?” she sang, in her casual, inquisitive fashion. + +“Catkins,” he replied. + +“Really!” she said. “And what do you learn about them?” She spoke all +the while in a mocking, half teasing fashion, as if making game of the +whole business. She picked up a twig of the catkin, piqued by Birkin’s +attention to it. + +She was a strange figure in the class-room, wearing a large, old cloak +of greenish cloth, on which was a raised pattern of dull gold. The high +collar, and the inside of the cloak, was lined with dark fur. Beneath +she had a dress of fine lavender-coloured cloth, trimmed with fur, and +her hat was close-fitting, made of fur and of the dull, green-and-gold +figured stuff. She was tall and strange, she looked as if she had come +out of some new, bizarre picture. + +“Do you know the little red ovary flowers, that produce the nuts? Have +you ever noticed them?” he asked her. And he came close and pointed +them out to her, on the sprig she held. + +“No,” she replied. “What are they?” + +“Those are the little seed-producing flowers, and the long catkins, +they only produce pollen, to fertilise them.” + +“Do they, do they!” repeated Hermione, looking closely. + +“From those little red bits, the nuts come; if they receive pollen from +the long danglers.” + +“Little red flames, little red flames,” murmured Hermione to herself. +And she remained for some moments looking only at the small buds out of +which the red flickers of the stigma issued. + +“Aren’t they beautiful? I think they’re so beautiful,” she said, moving +close to Birkin, and pointing to the red filaments with her long, white +finger. + +“Had you never noticed them before?” he asked. + +“No, never before,” she replied. + +“And now you will always see them,” he said. + +“Now I shall always see them,” she repeated. “Thank you so much for +showing me. I think they’re so beautiful—little red flames—” + +Her absorption was strange, almost rhapsodic. Both Birkin and Ursula +were suspended. The little red pistillate flowers had some strange, +almost mystic-passionate attraction for her. + +The lesson was finished, the books were put away, at last the class was +dismissed. And still Hermione sat at the table, with her chin in her +hand, her elbow on the table, her long white face pushed up, not +attending to anything. Birkin had gone to the window, and was looking +from the brilliantly-lighted room on to the grey, colourless outside, +where rain was noiselessly falling. Ursula put away her things in the +cupboard. + +At length Hermione rose and came near to her. + +“Your sister has come home?” she said. + +“Yes,” said Ursula. + +“And does she like being back in Beldover?” + +“No,” said Ursula. + +“No, I wonder she can bear it. It takes all my strength, to bear the +ugliness of this district, when I stay here. Won’t you come and see me? +Won’t you come with your sister to stay at Breadalby for a few +days?—do—” + +“Thank you very much,” said Ursula. + +“Then I will write to you,” said Hermione. “You think your sister will +come? I should be so glad. I think she is wonderful. I think some of +her work is really wonderful. I have two water-wagtails, carved in +wood, and painted—perhaps you have seen it?” + +“No,” said Ursula. + +“I think it is perfectly wonderful—like a flash of instinct.” + +“Her little carvings _are_ strange,” said Ursula. + +“Perfectly beautiful—full of primitive passion—” + +“Isn’t it queer that she always likes little things?—she must always +work small things, that one can put between one’s hands, birds and tiny +animals. She likes to look through the wrong end of the opera glasses, +and see the world that way—why is it, do you think?” + +Hermione looked down at Ursula with that long, detached scrutinising +gaze that excited the younger woman. + +“Yes,” said Hermione at length. “It is curious. The little things seem +to be more subtle to her—” + +“But they aren’t, are they? A mouse isn’t any more subtle than a lion, +is it?” + +Again Hermione looked down at Ursula with that long scrutiny, as if she +were following some train of thought of her own, and barely attending +to the other’s speech. + +“I don’t know,” she replied. + +“Rupert, Rupert,” she sang mildly, calling him to her. He approached in +silence. + +“Are little things more subtle than big things?” she asked, with the +odd grunt of laughter in her voice, as if she were making game of him +in the question. + +“Dunno,” he said. + +“I hate subtleties,” said Ursula. + +Hermione looked at her slowly. + +“Do you?” she said. + +“I always think they are a sign of weakness,” said Ursula, up in arms, +as if her prestige were threatened. + +Hermione took no notice. Suddenly her face puckered, her brow was knit +with thought, she seemed twisted in troublesome effort for utterance. + +“Do you really think, Rupert,” she asked, as if Ursula were not +present, “do you really think it is worth while? Do you really think +the children are better for being roused to consciousness?” + +A dark flash went over his face, a silent fury. He was hollow-cheeked +and pale, almost unearthly. And the woman, with her serious, +conscience-harrowing question tortured him on the quick. + +“They are not roused to consciousness,” he said. “Consciousness comes +to them, willy-nilly.” + +“But do you think they are better for having it quickened, stimulated? +Isn’t it better that they should remain unconscious of the hazel, isn’t +it better that they should see as a whole, without all this pulling to +pieces, all this knowledge?” + +“Would you rather, for yourself, know or not know, that the little red +flowers are there, putting out for the pollen?” he asked harshly. His +voice was brutal, scornful, cruel. + +Hermione remained with her face lifted up, abstracted. He hung silent +in irritation. + +“I don’t know,” she replied, balancing mildly. “I don’t know.” + +“But knowing is everything to you, it is all your life,” he broke out. +She slowly looked at him. + +“Is it?” she said. + +“To know, that is your all, that is your life—you have only this, this +knowledge,” he cried. “There is only one tree, there is only one fruit, +in your mouth.” + +Again she was some time silent. + +“Is there?” she said at last, with the same untouched calm. And then in +a tone of whimsical inquisitiveness: “What fruit, Rupert?” + +“The eternal apple,” he replied in exasperation, hating his own +metaphors. + +“Yes,” she said. There was a look of exhaustion about her. For some +moments there was silence. Then, pulling herself together with a +convulsed movement, Hermione resumed, in a sing-song, casual voice: + +“But leaving me apart, Rupert; do you think the children are better, +richer, happier, for all this knowledge; do you really think they are? +Or is it better to leave them untouched, spontaneous. Hadn’t they +better be animals, simple animals, crude, violent, _anything_, rather +than this self-consciousness, this incapacity to be spontaneous.” + +They thought she had finished. But with a queer rumbling in her throat +she resumed, “Hadn’t they better be anything than grow up crippled, +crippled in their souls, crippled in their feelings—so thrown back—so +turned back on themselves—incapable—” Hermione clenched her fist like +one in a trance—“of any spontaneous action, always deliberate, always +burdened with choice, never carried away.” + +Again they thought she had finished. But just as he was going to reply, +she resumed her queer rhapsody—“never carried away, out of themselves, +always conscious, always self-conscious, always aware of themselves. +Isn’t _anything_ better than this? Better be animals, mere animals with +no mind at all, than this, this _nothingness_—” + +“But do you think it is knowledge that makes us unliving and +self-conscious?” he asked irritably. + +She opened her eyes and looked at him slowly. + +“Yes,” she said. She paused, watching him all the while, her eyes +vague. Then she wiped her fingers across her brow, with a vague +weariness. It irritated him bitterly. “It is the mind,” she said, “and +that is death.” She raised her eyes slowly to him: “Isn’t the mind—” +she said, with the convulsed movement of her body, “isn’t it our death? +Doesn’t it destroy all our spontaneity, all our instincts? Are not the +young people growing up today, really dead before they have a chance to +live?” + +“Not because they have too much mind, but too little,” he said +brutally. + +“Are you _sure?_” she cried. “It seems to me the reverse. They are +over-conscious, burdened to death with consciousness.” + +“Imprisoned within a limited, false set of concepts,” he cried. + +But she took no notice of this, only went on with her own rhapsodic +interrogation. + +“When we have knowledge, don’t we lose everything but knowledge?” she +asked pathetically. “If I know about the flower, don’t I lose the +flower and have only the knowledge? Aren’t we exchanging the substance +for the shadow, aren’t we forfeiting life for this dead quality of +knowledge? And what does it mean to me, after all? What does all this +knowing mean to me? It means nothing.” + +“You are merely making words,” he said; “knowledge means everything to +you. Even your animalism, you want it in your head. You don’t want to +_be_ an animal, you want to observe your own animal functions, to get a +mental thrill out of them. It is all purely secondary—and more decadent +than the most hide-bound intellectualism. What is it but the worst and +last form of intellectualism, this love of yours for passion and the +animal instincts? Passion and the instincts—you want them hard enough, +but through your head, in your consciousness. It all takes place in +your head, under that skull of yours. Only you won’t be conscious of +what _actually_ is: you want the lie that will match the rest of your +furniture.” + +Hermione set hard and poisonous against this attack. Ursula stood +covered with wonder and shame. It frightened her, to see how they hated +each other. + +“It’s all that Lady of Shalott business,” he said, in his strong +abstract voice. He seemed to be charging her before the unseeing air. +“You’ve got that mirror, your own fixed will, your immortal +understanding, your own tight conscious world, and there is nothing +beyond it. There, in the mirror, you must have everything. But now you +have come to all your conclusions, you want to go back and be like a +savage, without knowledge. You want a life of pure sensation and +‘passion.’” + +He quoted the last word satirically against her. She sat convulsed with +fury and violation, speechless, like a stricken pythoness of the Greek +oracle. + +“But your passion is a lie,” he went on violently. “It isn’t passion at +all, it is your _will_. It’s your bullying will. You want to clutch +things and have them in your power. You want to have things in your +power. And why? Because you haven’t got any real body, any dark sensual +body of life. You have no sensuality. You have only your will and your +conceit of consciousness, and your lust for power, to _know_.” + +He looked at her in mingled hate and contempt, also in pain because she +suffered, and in shame because he knew he tortured her. He had an +impulse to kneel and plead for forgiveness. But a bitterer red anger +burned up to fury in him. He became unconscious of her, he was only a +passionate voice speaking. + +“Spontaneous!” he cried. “You and spontaneity! You, the most deliberate +thing that ever walked or crawled! You’d be verily deliberately +spontaneous—that’s you. Because you want to have everything in your own +volition, your deliberate voluntary consciousness. You want it all in +that loathsome little skull of yours, that ought to be cracked like a +nut. For you’ll be the same till it is cracked, like an insect in its +skin. If one cracked your skull perhaps one might get a spontaneous, +passionate woman out of you, with real sensuality. As it is, what you +want is pornography—looking at yourself in mirrors, watching your naked +animal actions in mirrors, so that you can have it all in your +consciousness, make it all mental.” + +There was a sense of violation in the air, as if too much was said, the +unforgivable. Yet Ursula was concerned now only with solving her own +problems, in the light of his words. She was pale and abstracted. + +“But do you really _want_ sensuality?” she asked, puzzled. + +Birkin looked at her, and became intent in his explanation. + +“Yes,” he said, “that and nothing else, at this point. It is a +fulfilment—the great dark knowledge you can’t have in your head—the +dark involuntary being. It is death to one’s self—but it is the coming +into being of another.” + +“But how? How can you have knowledge not in your head?” she asked, +quite unable to interpret his phrases. + +“In the blood,” he answered; “when the mind and the known world is +drowned in darkness everything must go—there must be the deluge. Then +you find yourself a palpable body of darkness, a demon—” + +“But why should I be a demon—?” she asked. + +“‘_Woman wailing for her demon lover_’—” he quoted—“why, I don’t know.” + +Hermione roused herself as from a death—annihilation. + +“He is such a _dreadful_ satanist, isn’t he?” she drawled to Ursula, in +a queer resonant voice, that ended on a shrill little laugh of pure +ridicule. The two women were jeering at him, jeering him into +nothingness. The laugh of the shrill, triumphant female sounded from +Hermione, jeering him as if he were a neuter. + +“No,” he said. “You are the real devil who won’t let life exist.” + +She looked at him with a long, slow look, malevolent, supercilious. + +“You know all about it, don’t you?” she said, with slow, cold, cunning +mockery. + +“Enough,” he replied, his face fixing fine and clear like steel. A +horrible despair, and at the same time a sense of release, liberation, +came over Hermione. She turned with a pleasant intimacy to Ursula. + +“You are sure you will come to Breadalby?” she said, urging. + +“Yes, I should like to very much,” replied Ursula. + +Hermione looked down at her, gratified, reflecting, and strangely +absent, as if possessed, as if not quite there. + +“I’m so glad,” she said, pulling herself together. “Some time in about +a fortnight. Yes? I will write to you here, at the school, shall I? +Yes. And you’ll be sure to come? Yes. I shall be so glad. Good-bye! +Good-bye!” + +Hermione held out her hand and looked into the eyes of the other woman. +She knew Ursula as an immediate rival, and the knowledge strangely +exhilarated her. Also she was taking leave. It always gave her a sense +of strength, advantage, to be departing and leaving the other behind. +Moreover she was taking the man with her, if only in hate. + +Birkin stood aside, fixed and unreal. But now, when it was his turn to +bid good-bye, he began to speak again. + +“There’s the whole difference in the world,” he said, “between the +actual sensual being, and the vicious mental-deliberate profligacy our +lot goes in for. In our night-time, there’s always the electricity +switched on, we watch ourselves, we get it all in the head, really. +You’ve got to lapse out before you can know what sensual reality is, +lapse into unknowingness, and give up your volition. You’ve got to do +it. You’ve got to learn not-to-be, before you can come into being. + +“But we have got such a conceit of ourselves—that’s where it is. We are +so conceited, and so unproud. We’ve got no pride, we’re all conceit, so +conceited in our own papier-maché realised selves. We’d rather die than +give up our little self-righteous self-opinionated self-will.” + +There was silence in the room. Both women were hostile and resentful. +He sounded as if he were addressing a meeting. Hermione merely paid no +attention, stood with her shoulders tight in a shrug of dislike. + +Ursula was watching him as if furtively, not really aware of what she +was seeing. There was a great physical attractiveness in him—a curious +hidden richness, that came through his thinness and his pallor like +another voice, conveying another knowledge of him. It was in the curves +of his brows and his chin, rich, fine, exquisite curves, the powerful +beauty of life itself. She could not say what it was. But there was a +sense of richness and of liberty. + +“But we are sensual enough, without making ourselves so, aren’t we?” +she asked, turning to him with a certain golden laughter flickering +under her greenish eyes, like a challenge. And immediately the queer, +careless, terribly attractive smile came over his eyes and brows, +though his mouth did not relax. + +“No,” he said, “we aren’t. We’re too full of ourselves.” + +“Surely it isn’t a matter of conceit,” she cried. + +“That and nothing else.” + +She was frankly puzzled. + +“Don’t you think that people are most conceited of all about their +sensual powers?” she asked. + +“That’s why they aren’t sensual—only sensuous—which is another matter. +They’re _always_ aware of themselves—and they’re so conceited, that +rather than release themselves, and live in another world, from another +centre, they’d—” + +“You want your tea, don’t you,” said Hermione, turning to Ursula with a +gracious kindliness. “You’ve worked all day—” + +Birkin stopped short. A spasm of anger and chagrin went over Ursula. +His face set. And he bade good-bye, as if he had ceased to notice her. + +They were gone. Ursula stood looking at the door for some moments. Then +she put out the lights. And having done so, she sat down again in her +chair, absorbed and lost. And then she began to cry, bitterly, bitterly +weeping: but whether for misery or joy, she never knew. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. +DIVER + + +The week passed away. On the Saturday it rained, a soft drizzling rain +that held off at times. In one of the intervals Gudrun and Ursula set +out for a walk, going towards Willey Water. The atmosphere was grey and +translucent, the birds sang sharply on the young twigs, the earth would +be quickening and hastening in growth. The two girls walked swiftly, +gladly, because of the soft, subtle rush of morning that filled the wet +haze. By the road the black-thorn was in blossom, white and wet, its +tiny amber grains burning faintly in the white smoke of blossom. Purple +twigs were darkly luminous in the grey air, high hedges glowed like +living shadows, hovering nearer, coming into creation. The morning was +full of a new creation. + +When the sisters came to Willey Water, the lake lay all grey and +visionary, stretching into the moist, translucent vista of trees and +meadow. Fine electric activity in sound came from the dumbles below the +road, the birds piping one against the other, and water mysteriously +plashing, issuing from the lake. + +The two girls drifted swiftly along. In front of them, at the corner of +the lake, near the road, was a mossy boat-house under a walnut tree, +and a little landing-stage where a boat was moored, wavering like a +shadow on the still grey water, below the green, decayed poles. All was +shadowy with coming summer. + +Suddenly, from the boat-house, a white figure ran out, frightening in +its swift sharp transit, across the old landing-stage. It launched in a +white arc through the air, there was a bursting of the water, and among +the smooth ripples a swimmer was making out to space, in a centre of +faintly heaving motion. The whole otherworld, wet and remote, he had to +himself. He could move into the pure translucency of the grey, +uncreated water. + +Gudrun stood by the stone wall, watching. + +“How I envy him,” she said, in low, desirous tones. + +“Ugh!” shivered Ursula. “So cold!” + +“Yes, but how good, how really fine, to swim out there!” The sisters +stood watching the swimmer move further into the grey, moist, full +space of the water, pulsing with his own small, invading motion, and +arched over with mist and dim woods. + +“Don’t you wish it were you?” asked Gudrun, looking at Ursula. + +“I do,” said Ursula. “But I’m not sure—it’s so wet.” + +“No,” said Gudrun, reluctantly. She stood watching the motion on the +bosom of the water, as if fascinated. He, having swum a certain +distance, turned round and was swimming on his back, looking along the +water at the two girls by the wall. In the faint wash of motion, they +could see his ruddy face, and could feel him watching them. + +“It is Gerald Crich,” said Ursula. + +“I know,” replied Gudrun. + +And she stood motionless gazing over the water at the face which washed +up and down on the flood, as he swam steadily. From his separate +element he saw them and he exulted to himself because of his own +advantage, his possession of a world to himself. He was immune and +perfect. He loved his own vigorous, thrusting motion, and the violent +impulse of the very cold water against his limbs, buoying him up. He +could see the girls watching him a way off, outside, and that pleased +him. He lifted his arm from the water, in a sign to them. + +“He is waving,” said Ursula. + +“Yes,” replied Gudrun. They watched him. He waved again, with a strange +movement of recognition across the difference. + +“Like a Nibelung,” laughed Ursula. Gudrun said nothing, only stood +still looking over the water. + +Gerald suddenly turned, and was swimming away swiftly, with a side +stroke. He was alone now, alone and immune in the middle of the waters, +which he had all to himself. He exulted in his isolation in the new +element, unquestioned and unconditioned. He was happy, thrusting with +his legs and all his body, without bond or connection anywhere, just +himself in the watery world. + +Gudrun envied him almost painfully. Even this momentary possession of +pure isolation and fluidity seemed to her so terribly desirable that +she felt herself as if damned, out there on the high-road. + +“God, what it is to be a man!” she cried. + +“What?” exclaimed Ursula in surprise. + +“The freedom, the liberty, the mobility!” cried Gudrun, strangely +flushed and brilliant. “You’re a man, you want to do a thing, you do +it. You haven’t the _thousand_ obstacles a woman has in front of her.” + +Ursula wondered what was in Gudrun’s mind, to occasion this outburst. +She could not understand. + +“What do you want to do?” she asked. + +“Nothing,” cried Gudrun, in swift refutation. “But supposing I did. +Supposing I want to swim up that water. It is impossible, it is one of +the impossibilities of life, for me to take my clothes off now and jump +in. But isn’t it _ridiculous_, doesn’t it simply prevent our living!” + +She was so hot, so flushed, so furious, that Ursula was puzzled. + +The two sisters went on, up the road. They were passing between the +trees just below Shortlands. They looked up at the long, low house, dim +and glamorous in the wet morning, its cedar trees slanting before the +windows. Gudrun seemed to be studying it closely. + +“Don’t you think it’s attractive, Ursula?” asked Gudrun. + +“Very,” said Ursula. “Very peaceful and charming.” + +“It has form, too—it has a period.” + +“What period?” + +“Oh, eighteenth century, for certain; Dorothy Wordsworth and Jane +Austen, don’t you think?” + +Ursula laughed. + +“Don’t you think so?” repeated Gudrun. + +“Perhaps. But I don’t think the Criches fit the period. I know Gerald +is putting in a private electric plant, for lighting the house, and is +making all kinds of latest improvements.” + +Gudrun shrugged her shoulders swiftly. + +“Of course,” she said, “that’s quite inevitable.” + +“Quite,” laughed Ursula. “He is several generations of youngness at one +go. They hate him for it. He takes them all by the scruff of the neck, +and fairly flings them along. He’ll have to die soon, when he’s made +every possible improvement, and there will be nothing more to improve. +He’s got _go_, anyhow.” + +“Certainly, he’s got go,” said Gudrun. “In fact I’ve never seen a man +that showed signs of so much. The unfortunate thing is, where does his +_go_ go to, what becomes of it?” + +“Oh I know,” said Ursula. “It goes in applying the latest appliances!” + +“Exactly,” said Gudrun. + +“You know he shot his brother?” said Ursula. + +“Shot his brother?” cried Gudrun, frowning as if in disapprobation. + +“Didn’t you know? Oh yes!—I thought you knew. He and his brother were +playing together with a gun. He told his brother to look down the gun, +and it was loaded, and blew the top of his head off. Isn’t it a +horrible story?” + +“How fearful!” cried Gudrun. “But it is long ago?” + +“Oh yes, they were quite boys,” said Ursula. “I think it is one of the +most horrible stories I know.” + +“And he of course did not know that the gun was loaded?” + +“Yes. You see it was an old thing that had been lying in the stable for +years. Nobody dreamed it would ever go off, and of course, no one +imagined it was loaded. But isn’t it dreadful, that it should happen?” + +“Frightful!” cried Gudrun. “And isn’t it horrible too to think of such +a thing happening to one, when one was a child, and having to carry the +responsibility of it all through one’s life. Imagine it, two boys +playing together—then this comes upon them, for no reason whatever—out +of the air. Ursula, it’s very frightening! Oh, it’s one of the things I +can’t bear. Murder, that is thinkable, because there’s a will behind +it. But a thing like that to _happen_ to one—” + +“Perhaps there _was_ an unconscious will behind it,” said Ursula. “This +playing at killing has some primitive _desire_ for killing in it, don’t +you think?” + +“Desire!” said Gudrun, coldly, stiffening a little. “I can’t see that +they were even playing at killing. I suppose one boy said to the other, +‘You look down the barrel while I pull the trigger, and see what +happens.’ It seems to me the purest form of accident.” + +“No,” said Ursula. “I couldn’t pull the trigger of the emptiest gun in +the world, not if some-one were looking down the barrel. One +instinctively doesn’t do it—one can’t.” + +Gudrun was silent for some moments, in sharp disagreement. + +“Of course,” she said coldly. “If one is a woman, and grown up, one’s +instinct prevents one. But I cannot see how that applies to a couple of +boys playing together.” + +Her voice was cold and angry. + +“Yes,” persisted Ursula. At that moment they heard a woman’s voice a +few yards off say loudly: + +“Oh damn the thing!” They went forward and saw Laura Crich and Hermione +Roddice in the field on the other side of the hedge, and Laura Crich +struggling with the gate, to get out. Ursula at once hurried up and +helped to lift the gate. + +“Thanks so much,” said Laura, looking up flushed and amazon-like, yet +rather confused. “It isn’t right on the hinges.” + +“No,” said Ursula. “And they’re so heavy.” + +“Surprising!” cried Laura. + +“How do you do,” sang Hermione, from out of the field, the moment she +could make her voice heard. “It’s nice now. Are you going for a walk? +Yes. Isn’t the young green beautiful? So beautiful—quite burning. Good +morning—good morning—you’ll come and see me?—thank you so much—next +week—yes—good-bye, g-o-o-d b-y-e.” + +Gudrun and Ursula stood and watched her slowly waving her head up and +down, and waving her hand slowly in dismissal, smiling a strange +affected smile, making a tall queer, frightening figure, with her heavy +fair hair slipping to her eyes. Then they moved off, as if they had +been dismissed like inferiors. The four women parted. + +As soon as they had gone far enough, Ursula said, her cheeks burning, + +“I do think she’s impudent.” + +“Who, Hermione Roddice?” asked Gudrun. “Why?” + +“The way she treats one—impudence!” + +“Why, Ursula, what did you notice that was so impudent?” asked Gudrun +rather coldly. + +“Her whole manner. Oh, it’s impossible, the way she tries to bully one. +Pure bullying. She’s an impudent woman. ‘You’ll come and see me,’ as if +we should be falling over ourselves for the privilege.” + +“I can’t understand, Ursula, what you are so much put out about,” said +Gudrun, in some exasperation. “One knows those women are impudent—these +free women who have emancipated themselves from the aristocracy.” + +“But it is so _unnecessary_—so vulgar,” cried Ursula. + +“No, I don’t see it. And if I did—pour moi, elle n’existe pas. I don’t +grant her the power to be impudent to me.” + +“Do you think she likes you?” asked Ursula. + +“Well, no, I shouldn’t think she did.” + +“Then why does she ask you to go to Breadalby and stay with her?” + +Gudrun lifted her shoulders in a low shrug. + +“After all, she’s got the sense to know we’re not just the ordinary +run,” said Gudrun. “Whatever she is, she’s not a fool. And I’d rather +have somebody I detested, than the ordinary woman who keeps to her own +set. Hermione Roddice does risk herself in some respects.” + +Ursula pondered this for a time. + +“I doubt it,” she replied. “Really she risks nothing. I suppose we +ought to admire her for knowing she _can_ invite us—school teachers—and +risk nothing.” + +“Precisely!” said Gudrun. “Think of the myriads of women that daren’t +do it. She makes the most of her privileges—that’s something. I +suppose, really, we should do the same, in her place.” + +“No,” said Ursula. “No. It would bore me. I couldn’t spend my time +playing her games. It’s infra dig.” + +The two sisters were like a pair of scissors, snipping off everything +that came athwart them; or like a knife and a whetstone, the one +sharpened against the other. + +“Of course,” cried Ursula suddenly, “she ought to thank her stars if we +will go and see her. You are perfectly beautiful, a thousand times more +beautiful than ever she is or was, and to my thinking, a thousand times +more beautifully dressed, for she never looks fresh and natural, like a +flower, always old, thought-out; and we _are_ more intelligent than +most people.” + +“Undoubtedly!” said Gudrun. + +“And it ought to be admitted, simply,” said Ursula. + +“Certainly it ought,” said Gudrun. “But you’ll find that the really +chic thing is to be so absolutely ordinary, so perfectly commonplace +and like the person in the street, that you really are a masterpiece of +humanity, not the person in the street actually, but the artistic +creation of her—” + +“How awful!” cried Ursula. + +“Yes, Ursula, it _is_ awful, in most respects. You daren’t be anything +that isn’t amazingly _à terre_, so much _à terre_ that it is the +artistic creation of ordinariness.” + +“It’s very dull to create oneself into nothing better,” laughed Ursula. + +“Very dull!” retorted Gudrun. “Really Ursula, it is dull, that’s just +the word. One longs to be high-flown, and make speeches like Corneille, +after it.” + +Gudrun was becoming flushed and excited over her own cleverness. + +“Strut,” said Ursula. “One wants to strut, to be a swan among geese.” + +“Exactly,” cried Gudrun, “a swan among geese.” + +“They are all so busy playing the ugly duckling,” cried Ursula, with +mocking laughter. “And I don’t feel a bit like a humble and pathetic +ugly duckling. I do feel like a swan among geese—I can’t help it. They +make one feel so. And I don’t care what _they_ think of me. _Je m’en +fiche._” + +Gudrun looked up at Ursula with a queer, uncertain envy and dislike. + +“Of course, the only thing to do is to despise them all—just all,” she +said. + +The sisters went home again, to read and talk and work, and wait for +Monday, for school. Ursula often wondered what else she waited for, +besides the beginning and end of the school week, and the beginning and +end of the holidays. This was a whole life! Sometimes she had periods +of tight horror, when it seemed to her that her life would pass away, +and be gone, without having been more than this. But she never really +accepted it. Her spirit was active, her life like a shoot that is +growing steadily, but which has not yet come above ground. + + + + +CHAPTER V. +IN THE TRAIN + + +One day at this time Birkin was called to London. He was not very fixed +in his abode. He had rooms in Nottingham, because his work lay chiefly +in that town. But often he was in London, or in Oxford. He moved about +a great deal, his life seemed uncertain, without any definite rhythm, +any organic meaning. + +On the platform of the railway station he saw Gerald Crich, reading a +newspaper, and evidently waiting for the train. Birkin stood some +distance off, among the people. It was against his instinct to approach +anybody. + +From time to time, in a manner characteristic of him, Gerald lifted his +head and looked round. Even though he was reading the newspaper +closely, he must keep a watchful eye on his external surroundings. +There seemed to be a dual consciousness running in him. He was thinking +vigorously of something he read in the newspaper, and at the same time +his eye ran over the surfaces of the life round him, and he missed +nothing. Birkin, who was watching him, was irritated by his duality. He +noticed too, that Gerald seemed always to be at bay against everybody, +in spite of his queer, genial, social manner when roused. + +Now Birkin started violently at seeing this genial look flash on to +Gerald’s face, at seeing Gerald approaching with hand outstretched. + +“Hallo, Rupert, where are you going?” + +“London. So are you, I suppose.” + +“Yes—” + +Gerald’s eyes went over Birkin’s face in curiosity. + +“We’ll travel together if you like,” he said. + +“Don’t you usually go first?” asked Birkin. + +“I can’t stand the crowd,” replied Gerald. “But third’ll be all right. +There’s a restaurant car, we can have some tea.” + +The two men looked at the station clock, having nothing further to say. + +“What were you reading in the paper?” Birkin asked. + +Gerald looked at him quickly. + +“Isn’t it funny, what they _do_ put in the newspapers,” he said. “Here +are two leaders—” he held out his _Daily Telegraph_, “full of the +ordinary newspaper cant—” he scanned the columns down—“and then there’s +this little—I dunno what you’d call it, essay, almost—appearing with +the leaders, and saying there must arise a man who will give new values +to things, give us new truths, a new attitude to life, or else we shall +be a crumbling nothingness in a few years, a country in ruin—” + +“I suppose that’s a bit of newspaper cant, as well,” said Birkin. + +“It sounds as if the man meant it, and quite genuinely,” said Gerald. + +“Give it to me,” said Birkin, holding out his hand for the paper. + +The train came, and they went on board, sitting on either side a little +table, by the window, in the restaurant car. Birkin glanced over his +paper, then looked up at Gerald, who was waiting for him. + +“I believe the man means it,” he said, “as far as he means anything.” + +“And do you think it’s true? Do you think we really want a new gospel?” +asked Gerald. + +Birkin shrugged his shoulders. + +“I think the people who say they want a new religion are the last to +accept anything new. They want novelty right enough. But to stare +straight at this life that we’ve brought upon ourselves, and reject it, +absolutely smash up the old idols of ourselves, that we sh’ll never do. +You’ve got very badly to want to get rid of the old, before anything +new will appear—even in the self.” + +Gerald watched him closely. + +“You think we ought to break up this life, just start and let fly?” he +asked. + +“This life. Yes I do. We’ve got to bust it completely, or shrivel +inside it, as in a tight skin. For it won’t expand any more.” + +There was a queer little smile in Gerald’s eyes, a look of amusement, +calm and curious. + +“And how do you propose to begin? I suppose you mean, reform the whole +order of society?” he asked. + +Birkin had a slight, tense frown between the brows. He too was +impatient of the conversation. + +“I don’t propose at all,” he replied. “When we really want to go for +something better, we shall smash the old. Until then, any sort of +proposal, or making proposals, is no more than a tiresome game for +self-important people.” + +The little smile began to die out of Gerald’s eyes, and he said, +looking with a cool stare at Birkin: + +“So you really think things are very bad?” + +“Completely bad.” + +The smile appeared again. + +“In what way?” + +“Every way,” said Birkin. “We are such dreary liars. Our one idea is to +lie to ourselves. We have an ideal of a perfect world, clean and +straight and sufficient. So we cover the earth with foulness; life is a +blotch of labour, like insects scurrying in filth, so that your collier +can have a pianoforte in his parlour, and you can have a butler and a +motor-car in your up-to-date house, and as a nation we can sport the +Ritz, or the Empire, Gaby Deslys and the Sunday newspapers. It is very +dreary.” + +Gerald took a little time to re-adjust himself after this tirade. + +“Would you have us live without houses—return to nature?” he asked. + +“I would have nothing at all. People only do what they want to do—and +what they are capable of doing. If they were capable of anything else, +there would be something else.” + +Again Gerald pondered. He was not going to take offence at Birkin. + +“Don’t you think the collier’s _pianoforte_, as you call it, is a +symbol for something very real, a real desire for something higher, in +the collier’s life?” + +“Higher!” cried Birkin. “Yes. Amazing heights of upright grandeur. It +makes him so much higher in his neighbouring collier’s eyes. He sees +himself reflected in the neighbouring opinion, like in a Brocken mist, +several feet taller on the strength of the pianoforte, and he is +satisfied. He lives for the sake of that Brocken spectre, the +reflection of himself in the human opinion. You do the same. If you are +of high importance to humanity you are of high importance to yourself. +That is why you work so hard at the mines. If you can produce coal to +cook five thousand dinners a day, you are five thousand times more +important than if you cooked only your own dinner.” + +“I suppose I am,” laughed Gerald. + +“Can’t you see,” said Birkin, “that to help my neighbour to eat is no +more than eating myself. ‘I eat, thou eatest, he eats, we eat, you eat, +they eat’—and what then? Why should every man decline the whole verb. +First person singular is enough for me.” + +“You’ve got to start with material things,” said Gerald. Which +statement Birkin ignored. + +“And we’ve got to live for _something_, we’re not just cattle that can +graze and have done with it,” said Gerald. + +“Tell me,” said Birkin. “What do you live for?” + +Gerald’s face went baffled. + +“What do I live for?” he repeated. “I suppose I live to work, to +produce something, in so far as I am a purposive being. Apart from +that, I live because I am living.” + +“And what’s your work? Getting so many more thousands of tons of coal +out of the earth every day. And when we’ve got all the coal we want, +and all the plush furniture, and pianofortes, and the rabbits are all +stewed and eaten, and we’re all warm and our bellies are filled and +we’re listening to the young lady performing on the pianoforte—what +then? What then, when you’ve made a real fair start with your material +things?” + +Gerald sat laughing at the words and the mocking humour of the other +man. But he was cogitating too. + +“We haven’t got there yet,” he replied. “A good many people are still +waiting for the rabbit and the fire to cook it.” + +“So while you get the coal I must chase the rabbit?” said Birkin, +mocking at Gerald. + +“Something like that,” said Gerald. + +Birkin watched him narrowly. He saw the perfect good-humoured +callousness, even strange, glistening malice, in Gerald, glistening +through the plausible ethics of productivity. + +“Gerald,” he said, “I rather hate you.” + +“I know you do,” said Gerald. “Why do you?” + +Birkin mused inscrutably for some minutes. + +“I should like to know if you are conscious of hating me,” he said at +last. “Do you ever consciously detest me—hate me with mystic hate? +There are odd moments when I hate you starrily.” + +Gerald was rather taken aback, even a little disconcerted. He did not +quite know what to say. + +“I may, of course, hate you sometimes,” he said. “But I’m not aware of +it—never acutely aware of it, that is.” + +“So much the worse,” said Birkin. + +Gerald watched him with curious eyes. He could not quite make him out. + +“So much the worse, is it?” he repeated. + +There was a silence between the two men for some time, as the train ran +on. In Birkin’s face was a little irritable tension, a sharp knitting +of the brows, keen and difficult. Gerald watched him warily, carefully, +rather calculatingly, for he could not decide what he was after. + +Suddenly Birkin’s eyes looked straight and overpowering into those of +the other man. + +“What do you think is the aim and object of your life, Gerald?” he +asked. + +Again Gerald was taken aback. He could not think what his friend was +getting at. Was he poking fun, or not? + +“At this moment, I couldn’t say off-hand,” he replied, with faintly +ironic humour. + +“Do you think love is the be-all and the end-all of life?” Birkin +asked, with direct, attentive seriousness. + +“Of my own life?” said Gerald. + +“Yes.” + +There was a really puzzled pause. + +“I can’t say,” said Gerald. “It hasn’t been, so far.” + +“What has your life been, so far?” + +“Oh—finding out things for myself—and getting experiences—and making +things _go_.” + +Birkin knitted his brows like sharply moulded steel. + +“I find,” he said, “that one needs some one _really_ pure single +activity—I should call love a single pure activity. But I _don’t_ +really love anybody—not now.” + +“Have you ever really loved anybody?” asked Gerald. + +“Yes and no,” replied Birkin. + +“Not finally?” said Gerald. + +“Finally—finally—no,” said Birkin. + +“Nor I,” said Gerald. + +“And do you want to?” said Birkin. + +Gerald looked with a long, twinkling, almost sardonic look into the +eyes of the other man. + +“I don’t know,” he said. + +“I do—I want to love,” said Birkin. + +“You do?” + +“Yes. I want the finality of love.” + +“The finality of love,” repeated Gerald. And he waited for a moment. + +“Just one woman?” he added. The evening light, flooding yellow along +the fields, lit up Birkin’s face with a tense, abstract steadfastness. +Gerald still could not make it out. + +“Yes, one woman,” said Birkin. + +But to Gerald it sounded as if he were insistent rather than confident. + +“I don’t believe a woman, and nothing but a woman, will ever make my +life,” said Gerald. + +“Not the centre and core of it—the love between you and a woman?” asked +Birkin. + +Gerald’s eyes narrowed with a queer dangerous smile as he watched the +other man. + +“I never quite feel it that way,” he said. + +“You don’t? Then wherein does life centre, for you?” + +“I don’t know—that’s what I want somebody to tell me. As far as I can +make out, it doesn’t centre at all. It is artificially held _together_ +by the social mechanism.” + +Birkin pondered as if he would crack something. + +“I know,” he said, “it just doesn’t centre. The old ideals are dead as +nails—nothing there. It seems to me there remains only this perfect +union with a woman—sort of ultimate marriage—and there isn’t anything +else.” + +“And you mean if there isn’t the woman, there’s nothing?” said Gerald. + +“Pretty well that—seeing there’s no God.” + +“Then we’re hard put to it,” said Gerald. And he turned to look out of +the window at the flying, golden landscape. + +Birkin could not help seeing how beautiful and soldierly his face was, +with a certain courage to be indifferent. + +“You think its heavy odds against us?” said Birkin. + +“If we’ve got to make our life up out of a woman, one woman, woman +only, yes, I do,” said Gerald. “I don’t believe I shall ever make up +_my_ life, at that rate.” + +Birkin watched him almost angrily. + +“You are a born unbeliever,” he said. + +“I only feel what I feel,” said Gerald. And he looked again at Birkin +almost sardonically, with his blue, manly, sharp-lighted eyes. Birkin’s +eyes were at the moment full of anger. But swiftly they became +troubled, doubtful, then full of a warm, rich affectionateness and +laughter. + +“It troubles me very much, Gerald,” he said, wrinkling his brows. + +“I can see it does,” said Gerald, uncovering his mouth in a manly, +quick, soldierly laugh. + +Gerald was held unconsciously by the other man. He wanted to be near +him, he wanted to be within his sphere of influence. There was +something very congenial to him in Birkin. But yet, beyond this, he did +not take much notice. He felt that he, himself, Gerald, had harder and +more durable truths than any the other man knew. He felt himself older, +more knowing. It was the quick-changing warmth and venality and +brilliant warm utterance he loved in his friend. It was the rich play +of words and quick interchange of feelings he enjoyed. The real content +of the words he never really considered: he himself knew better. + +Birkin knew this. He knew that Gerald wanted to be _fond_ of him +without taking him seriously. And this made him go hard and cold. As +the train ran on, he sat looking at the land, and Gerald fell away, +became as nothing to him. + +Birkin looked at the land, at the evening, and was thinking: “Well, if +mankind is destroyed, if our race is destroyed like Sodom, and there is +this beautiful evening with the luminous land and trees, I am +satisfied. That which informs it all is there, and can never be lost. +After all, what is mankind but just one expression of the +incomprehensible. And if mankind passes away, it will only mean that +this particular expression is completed and done. That which is +expressed, and that which is to be expressed, cannot be diminished. +There it is, in the shining evening. Let mankind pass away—time it did. +The creative utterances will not cease, they will only be there. +Humanity doesn’t embody the utterance of the incomprehensible any more. +Humanity is a dead letter. There will be a new embodiment, in a new +way. Let humanity disappear as quick as possible.” + +Gerald interrupted him by asking, + +“Where are you staying in London?” + +Birkin looked up. + +“With a man in Soho. I pay part of the rent of a flat, and stop there +when I like.” + +“Good idea—have a place more or less your own,” said Gerald. + +“Yes. But I don’t care for it much. I’m tired of the people I am bound +to find there.” + +“What kind of people?” + +“Art—music—London Bohemia—the most pettifogging calculating Bohemia +that ever reckoned its pennies. But there are a few decent people, +decent in some respects. They are really very thorough rejecters of the +world—perhaps they live only in the gesture of rejection and +negation—but negatively something, at any rate.” + +“What are they?—painters, musicians?” + +“Painters, musicians, writers—hangers-on, models, advanced young +people, anybody who is openly at outs with the conventions, and belongs +to nowhere particularly. They are often young fellows down from the +University, and girls who are living their own lives, as they say.” + +“All loose?” said Gerald. + +Birkin could see his curiosity roused. + +“In one way. Most bound, in another. For all their shockingness, all on +one note.” + +He looked at Gerald, and saw how his blue eyes were lit up with a +little flame of curious desire. He saw too how good-looking he was. +Gerald was attractive, his blood seemed fluid and electric. His blue +eyes burned with a keen, yet cold light, there was a certain beauty, a +beautiful passivity in all his body, his moulding. + +“We might see something of each other—I am in London for two or three +days,” said Gerald. + +“Yes,” said Birkin, “I don’t want to go to the theatre, or the music +hall—you’d better come round to the flat, and see what you can make of +Halliday and his crowd.” + +“Thanks—I should like to,” laughed Gerald. “What are you doing +tonight?” + +“I promised to meet Halliday at the Pompadour. It’s a bad place, but +there is nowhere else.” + +“Where is it?” asked Gerald. + +“Piccadilly Circus.” + +“Oh yes—well, shall I come round there?” + +“By all means, it might amuse you.” + +The evening was falling. They had passed Bedford. Birkin watched the +country, and was filled with a sort of hopelessness. He always felt +this, on approaching London. + +His dislike of mankind, of the mass of mankind, amounted almost to an +illness. + +“‘Where the quiet coloured end of evening smiles +Miles and miles—’” + +he was murmuring to himself, like a man condemned to death. Gerald, who +was very subtly alert, wary in all his senses, leaned forward and asked +smilingly: + +“What were you saying?” Birkin glanced at him, laughed, and repeated: + +“‘Where the quiet coloured end of evening smiles, +Miles and miles, +Over pastures where the something something sheep +Half asleep—’” + +Gerald also looked now at the country. And Birkin, who, for some reason +was now tired and dispirited, said to him: + +“I always feel doomed when the train is running into London. I feel +such a despair, so hopeless, as if it were the end of the world.” + +“Really!” said Gerald. “And does the end of the world frighten you?” + +Birkin lifted his shoulders in a slow shrug. + +“I don’t know,” he said. “It does while it hangs imminent and doesn’t +fall. But people give me a bad feeling—very bad.” + +There was a roused glad smile in Gerald’s eyes. + +“Do they?” he said. And he watched the other man critically. + +In a few minutes the train was running through the disgrace of +outspread London. Everybody in the carriage was on the alert, waiting +to escape. At last they were under the huge arch of the station, in the +tremendous shadow of the town. Birkin shut himself together—he was in +now. + +The two men went together in a taxi-cab. + +“Don’t you feel like one of the damned?” asked Birkin, as they sat in a +little, swiftly-running enclosure, and watched the hideous great +street. + +“No,” laughed Gerald. + +“It is real death,” said Birkin. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. +CRÈME DE MENTHE + + +They met again in the café several hours later. Gerald went through the +push doors into the large, lofty room where the faces and heads of the +drinkers showed dimly through the haze of smoke, reflected more dimly, +and repeated ad infinitum in the great mirrors on the walls, so that +one seemed to enter a vague, dim world of shadowy drinkers humming +within an atmosphere of blue tobacco smoke. There was, however, the red +plush of the seats to give substance within the bubble of pleasure. + +Gerald moved in his slow, observant, glistening-attentive motion down +between the tables and the people whose shadowy faces looked up as he +passed. He seemed to be entering in some strange element, passing into +an illuminated new region, among a host of licentious souls. He was +pleased, and entertained. He looked over all the dim, evanescent, +strangely illuminated faces that bent across the tables. Then he saw +Birkin rise and signal to him. + +At Birkin’s table was a girl with dark, soft, fluffy hair cut short in +the artist fashion, hanging level and full almost like the Egyptian +princess’s. She was small and delicately made, with warm colouring and +large, dark hostile eyes. There was a delicacy, almost a beauty in all +her form, and at the same time a certain attractive grossness of +spirit, that made a little spark leap instantly alight in Gerald’s +eyes. + +Birkin, who looked muted, unreal, his presence left out, introduced her +as Miss Darrington. She gave her hand with a sudden, unwilling +movement, looking all the while at Gerald with a dark, exposed stare. A +glow came over him as he sat down. + +The waiter appeared. Gerald glanced at the glasses of the other two. +Birkin was drinking something green, Miss Darrington had a small +liqueur glass that was empty save for a tiny drop. + +“Won’t you have some more—?” + +“Brandy,” she said, sipping her last drop and putting down the glass. +The waiter disappeared. + +“No,” she said to Birkin. “He doesn’t know I’m back. He’ll be terrified +when he sees me here.” + +She spoke her r’s like w’s, lisping with a slightly babyish +pronunciation which was at once affected and true to her character. Her +voice was dull and toneless. + +“Where is he then?” asked Birkin. + +“He’s doing a private show at Lady Snellgrove’s,” said the girl. +“Warens is there too.” + +There was a pause. + +“Well, then,” said Birkin, in a dispassionate protective manner, “what +do you intend to do?” + +The girl paused sullenly. She hated the question. + +“I don’t intend to do anything,” she replied. “I shall look for some +sittings tomorrow.” + +“Who shall you go to?” asked Birkin. + +“I shall go to Bentley’s first. But I believe he’s angwy with me for +running away.” + +“That is from the Madonna?” + +“Yes. And then if he doesn’t want me, I know I can get work with +Carmarthen.” + +“Carmarthen?” + +“Lord Carmarthen—he does photographs.” + +“Chiffon and shoulders—” + +“Yes. But he’s awfully decent.” There was a pause. + +“And what are you going to do about Julius?” he asked. + +“Nothing,” she said. “I shall just ignore him.” + +“You’ve done with him altogether?” But she turned aside her face +sullenly, and did not answer the question. + +Another young man came hurrying up to the table. + +“Hallo Birkin! Hallo _Pussum_, when did you come back?” he said +eagerly. + +“Today.” + +“Does Halliday know?” + +“I don’t know. I don’t care either.” + +“Ha-ha! The wind still sits in that quarter, does it? Do you mind if I +come over to this table?” + +“I’m talking to Wupert, do you mind?” she replied, coolly and yet +appealingly, like a child. + +“Open confession—good for the soul, eh?” said the young man. “Well, so +long.” + +And giving a sharp look at Birkin and at Gerald, the young man moved +off, with a swing of his coat skirts. + +All this time Gerald had been completely ignored. And yet he felt that +the girl was physically aware of his proximity. He waited, listened, +and tried to piece together the conversation. + +“Are you staying at the flat?” the girl asked, of Birkin. + +“For three days,” replied Birkin. “And you?” + +“I don’t know yet. I can always go to Bertha’s.” There was a silence. + +Suddenly the girl turned to Gerald, and said, in a rather formal, +polite voice, with the distant manner of a woman who accepts her +position as a social inferior, yet assumes intimate _camaraderie_ with +the male she addresses: + +“Do you know London well?” + +“I can hardly say,” he laughed. “I’ve been up a good many times, but I +was never in this place before.” + +“You’re not an artist, then?” she said, in a tone that placed him an +outsider. + +“No,” he replied. + +“He’s a soldier, and an explorer, and a Napoleon of industry,” said +Birkin, giving Gerald his credentials for Bohemia. + +“Are you a soldier?” asked the girl, with a cold yet lively curiosity. + +“No, I resigned my commission,” said Gerald, “some years ago.” + +“He was in the last war,” said Birkin. + +“Were you really?” said the girl. + +“And then he explored the Amazon,” said Birkin, “and now he is ruling +over coal-mines.” + +The girl looked at Gerald with steady, calm curiosity. He laughed, +hearing himself described. He felt proud too, full of male strength. +His blue, keen eyes were lit up with laughter, his ruddy face, with its +sharp fair hair, was full of satisfaction, and glowing with life. He +piqued her. + +“How long are you staying?” she asked him. + +“A day or two,” he replied. “But there is no particular hurry.” + +Still she stared into his face with that slow, full gaze which was so +curious and so exciting to him. He was acutely and delightfully +conscious of himself, of his own attractiveness. He felt full of +strength, able to give off a sort of electric power. And he was aware +of her dark, hot-looking eyes upon him. She had beautiful eyes, dark, +fully-opened, hot, naked in their looking at him. And on them there +seemed to float a film of disintegration, a sort of misery and +sullenness, like oil on water. She wore no hat in the heated café, her +loose, simple jumper was strung on a string round her neck. But it was +made of rich peach-coloured crêpe-de-chine, that hung heavily and +softly from her young throat and her slender wrists. Her appearance was +simple and complete, really beautiful, because of her regularity and +form, her soft dark hair falling full and level on either side of her +head, her straight, small, softened features, Egyptian in the slight +fulness of their curves, her slender neck and the simple, rich-coloured +smock hanging on her slender shoulders. She was very still, almost +null, in her manner, apart and watchful. + +She appealed to Gerald strongly. He felt an awful, enjoyable power over +her, an instinctive cherishing very near to cruelty. For she was a +victim. He felt that she was in his power, and he was generous. The +electricity was turgid and voluptuously rich, in his limbs. He would be +able to destroy her utterly in the strength of his discharge. But she +was waiting in her separation, given. + +They talked banalities for some time. Suddenly Birkin said: + +“There’s Julius!” and he half rose to his feet, motioning to the +newcomer. The girl, with a curious, almost evil motion, looked round +over her shoulder without moving her body. Gerald watched her dark, +soft hair swing over her ears. He felt her watching intensely the man +who was approaching, so he looked too. He saw a pale, full-built young +man with rather long, solid fair hair hanging from under his black hat, +moving cumbrously down the room, his face lit up with a smile at once +naive and warm, and vapid. He approached towards Birkin, with a haste +of welcome. + +It was not till he was quite close that he perceived the girl. He +recoiled, went pale, and said, in a high squealing voice: + +“Pussum, what are _you_ doing here?” + +The café looked up like animals when they hear a cry. Halliday hung +motionless, an almost imbecile smile flickering palely on his face. The +girl only stared at him with a black look in which flared an +unfathomable hell of knowledge, and a certain impotence. She was +limited by him. + +“Why have you come back?” repeated Halliday, in the same high, +hysterical voice. “I told you not to come back.” + +The girl did not answer, only stared in the same viscous, heavy +fashion, straight at him, as he stood recoiled, as if for safety, +against the next table. + +“You know you wanted her to come back—come and sit down,” said Birkin +to him. + +“No I didn’t want her to come back, and I told her not to come back. +What have you come for, Pussum?” + +“For nothing from _you_,” she said in a heavy voice of resentment. + +“Then why have you come back at _all?_” cried Halliday, his voice +rising to a kind of squeal. + +“She comes as she likes,” said Birkin. “Are you going to sit down, or +are you not?” + +“No, I won’t sit down with Pussum,” cried Halliday. + +“I won’t hurt you, you needn’t be afraid,” she said to him, very +curtly, and yet with a sort of protectiveness towards him, in her +voice. + +Halliday came and sat at the table, putting his hand on his heart, and +crying: + +“Oh, it’s given me such a turn! Pussum, I wish you wouldn’t do these +things. Why did you come back?” + +“Not for anything from you,” she repeated. + +“You’ve said that before,” he cried in a high voice. + +She turned completely away from him, to Gerald Crich, whose eyes were +shining with a subtle amusement. + +“Were you ever vewy much afwaid of the savages?” she asked in her calm, +dull childish voice. + +“No—never very much afraid. On the whole they’re harmless—they’re not +born yet, you can’t feel really afraid of them. You know you can manage +them.” + +“Do you weally? Aren’t they very fierce?” + +“Not very. There aren’t many fierce things, as a matter of fact. There +aren’t many things, neither people nor animals, that have it in them to +be really dangerous.” + +“Except in herds,” interrupted Birkin. + +“Aren’t there really?” she said. “Oh, I thought savages were all so +dangerous, they’d have your life before you could look round.” + +“Did you?” he laughed. “They are over-rated, savages. They’re too much +like other people, not exciting, after the first acquaintance.” + +“Oh, it’s not so very wonderfully brave then, to be an explorer?” + +“No. It’s more a question of hardships than of terrors.” + +“Oh! And weren’t you ever afraid?” + +“In my life? I don’t know. Yes, I’m afraid of some things—of being shut +up, locked up anywhere—or being fastened. I’m afraid of being bound +hand and foot.” + +She looked at him steadily with her dark eyes, that rested on him and +roused him so deeply, that it left his upper self quite calm. It was +rather delicious, to feel her drawing his self-revelations from him, as +from the very innermost dark marrow of his body. She wanted to know. +And her dark eyes seemed to be looking through into his naked organism. +He felt, she was compelled to him, she was fated to come into contact +with him, must have the seeing him and knowing him. And this roused a +curious exultance. Also he felt, she must relinquish herself into his +hands, and be subject to him. She was so profane, slave-like, watching +him, absorbed by him. It was not that she was interested in what he +said; she was absorbed by his self-revelation, by _him_, she wanted the +secret of him, the experience of his male being. + +Gerald’s face was lit up with an uncanny smile, full of light and +rousedness, yet unconscious. He sat with his arms on the table, his +sunbrowned, rather sinister hands, that were animal and yet very +shapely and attractive, pushed forward towards her. And they fascinated +her. And she knew, she watched her own fascination. + +Other men had come to the table, to talk with Birkin and Halliday. +Gerald said in a low voice, apart, to Pussum: + +“Where have you come back from?” + +“From the country,” replied Pussum, in a very low, yet fully resonant +voice. Her face closed hard. Continually she glanced at Halliday, and +then a black flare came over her eyes. The heavy, fair young man +ignored her completely; he was really afraid of her. For some moments +she would be unaware of Gerald. He had not conquered her yet. + +“And what has Halliday to do with it?” he asked, his voice still muted. + +She would not answer for some seconds. Then she said, unwillingly: + +“He made me go and live with him, and now he wants to throw me over. +And yet he won’t let me go to anybody else. He wants me to live hidden +in the country. And then he says I persecute him, that he can’t get rid +of me.” + +“Doesn’t know his own mind,” said Gerald. + +“He hasn’t any mind, so he can’t know it,” she said. “He waits for what +somebody tells him to do. He never does anything he wants to do +himself—because he doesn’t know what he wants. He’s a perfect baby.” + +Gerald looked at Halliday for some moments, watching the soft, rather +degenerate face of the young man. Its very softness was an attraction; +it was a soft, warm, corrupt nature, into which one might plunge with +gratification. + +“But he has no hold over you, has he?” Gerald asked. + +“You see he _made_ me go and live with him, when I didn’t want to,” she +replied. “He came and cried to me, tears, you never saw so many, saying +_he couldn’t_ bear it unless I went back to him. And he wouldn’t go +away, he would have stayed for ever. He made me go back. Then every +time he behaves in this fashion. And now I’m going to have a baby, he +wants to give me a hundred pounds and send me into the country, so that +he would never see me nor hear of me again. But I’m not going to do it, +after—” + +A queer look came over Gerald’s face. + +“Are you going to have a child?” he asked incredulous. It seemed, to +look at her, impossible, she was so young and so far in spirit from any +childbearing. + +She looked full into his face, and her dark, inchoate eyes had now a +furtive look, and a look of a knowledge of evil, dark and indomitable. +A flame ran secretly to his heart. + +“Yes,” she said. “Isn’t it beastly?” + +“Don’t you want it?” he asked. + +“I don’t,” she replied emphatically. + +“But—” he said, “how long have you known?” + +“Ten weeks,” she said. + +All the time she kept her dark, inchoate eyes full upon him. He +remained silent, thinking. Then, switching off and becoming cold, he +asked, in a voice full of considerate kindness: + +“Is there anything we can eat here? Is there anything you would like?” + +“Yes,” she said, “I should adore some oysters.” + +“All right,” he said. “We’ll have oysters.” And he beckoned to the +waiter. + +Halliday took no notice, until the little plate was set before her. +Then suddenly he cried: + +“Pussum, you can’t eat oysters when you’re drinking brandy.” + +“What has it go to do with you?” she asked. + +“Nothing, nothing,” he cried. “But you can’t eat oysters when you’re +drinking brandy.” + +“I’m not drinking brandy,” she replied, and she sprinkled the last +drops of her liqueur over his face. He gave an odd squeal. She sat +looking at him, as if indifferent. + +“Pussum, why do you do that?” he cried in panic. He gave Gerald the +impression that he was terrified of her, and that he loved his terror. +He seemed to relish his own horror and hatred of her, turn it over and +extract every flavour from it, in real panic. Gerald thought him a +strange fool, and yet piquant. + +“But Pussum,” said another man, in a very small, quick Eton voice, “you +promised not to hurt him.” + +“I haven’t hurt him,” she answered. + +“What will you drink?” the young man asked. He was dark, and +smooth-skinned, and full of a stealthy vigour. + +“I don’t like porter, Maxim,” she replied. + +“You must ask for champagne,” came the whispering, gentlemanly voice of +the other. + +Gerald suddenly realised that this was a hint to him. + +“Shall we have champagne?” he asked, laughing. + +“Yes please, dwy,” she lisped childishly. + +Gerald watched her eating the oysters. She was delicate and finicking +in her eating, her fingers were fine and seemed very sensitive in the +tips, so she put her food apart with fine, small motions, she ate +carefully, delicately. It pleased him very much to see her, and it +irritated Birkin. They were all drinking champagne. Maxim, the prim +young Russian with the smooth, warm-coloured face and black, oiled hair +was the only one who seemed to be perfectly calm and sober. Birkin was +white and abstract, unnatural, Gerald was smiling with a constant +bright, amused, cold light in his eyes, leaning a little protectively +towards the Pussum, who was very handsome, and soft, unfolded like some +red lotus in dreadful flowering nakedness, vainglorious now, flushed +with wine and with the excitement of men. Halliday looked foolish. One +glass of wine was enough to make him drunk and giggling. Yet there was +always a pleasant, warm naïveté about him, that made him attractive. + +“I’m not afwaid of anything except black-beetles,” said the Pussum, +looking up suddenly and staring with her black eyes, on which there +seemed an unseeing film of flame, fully upon Gerald. He laughed +dangerously, from the blood. Her childish speech caressed his nerves, +and her burning, filmed eyes, turned now full upon him, oblivious of +all her antecedents, gave him a sort of licence. + +“I’m not,” she protested. “I’m not afraid of other things. But +black-beetles—ugh!” she shuddered convulsively, as if the very thought +were too much to bear. + +“Do you mean,” said Gerald, with the punctiliousness of a man who has +been drinking, “that you are afraid of the sight of a black-beetle, or +you are afraid of a black-beetle biting you, or doing you some harm?” + +“Do they bite?” cried the girl. + +“How perfectly loathsome!” exclaimed Halliday. + +“I don’t know,” replied Gerald, looking round the table. “Do +black-beetles bite? But that isn’t the point. Are you afraid of their +biting, or is it a metaphysical antipathy?” + +The girl was looking full upon him all the time with inchoate eyes. + +“Oh, I think they’re beastly, they’re horrid,” she cried. “If I see +one, it gives me the creeps all over. If one were to crawl on me, I’m +_sure_ I should die—I’m sure I should.” + +“I hope not,” whispered the young Russian. + +“I’m sure I should, Maxim,” she asseverated. + +“Then one won’t crawl on you,” said Gerald, smiling and knowing. In +some strange way he understood her. + +“It’s metaphysical, as Gerald says,” Birkin stated. + +There was a little pause of uneasiness. + +“And are you afraid of nothing else, Pussum?” asked the young Russian, +in his quick, hushed, elegant manner. + +“Not weally,” she said. “I am afwaid of some things, but not weally the +same. I’m not afwaid of _blood_.” + +“Not afwaid of blood!” exclaimed a young man with a thick, pale, +jeering face, who had just come to the table and was drinking whisky. + +The Pussum turned on him a sulky look of dislike, low and ugly. + +“Aren’t you really afraid of blud?” the other persisted, a sneer all +over his face. + +“No, I’m not,” she retorted. + +“Why, have you ever seen blood, except in a dentist’s spittoon?” jeered +the young man. + +“I wasn’t speaking to you,” she replied rather superbly. + +“You can answer me, can’t you?” he said. + +For reply, she suddenly jabbed a knife across his thick, pale hand. He +started up with a vulgar curse. + +“Show’s what you are,” said the Pussum in contempt. + +“Curse you,” said the young man, standing by the table and looking down +at her with acrid malevolence. + +“Stop that,” said Gerald, in quick, instinctive command. + +The young man stood looking down at her with sardonic contempt, a +cowed, self-conscious look on his thick, pale face. The blood began to +flow from his hand. + +“Oh, how horrible, take it away!” squealed Halliday, turning green and +averting his face. + +“D’you feel ill?” asked the sardonic young man, in some concern. “Do +you feel ill, Julius? Garn, it’s nothing, man, don’t give her the +pleasure of letting her think she’s performed a feat—don’t give her the +satisfaction, man—it’s just what she wants.” + +“Oh!” squealed Halliday. + +“He’s going to cat, Maxim,” said the Pussum warningly. The suave young +Russian rose and took Halliday by the arm, leading him away. Birkin, +white and diminished, looked on as if he were displeased. The wounded, +sardonic young man moved away, ignoring his bleeding hand in the most +conspicuous fashion. + +“He’s an awful coward, really,” said the Pussum to Gerald. “He’s got +such an influence over Julius.” + +“Who is he?” asked Gerald. + +“He’s a Jew, really. I can’t bear him.” + +“Well, he’s quite unimportant. But what’s wrong with Halliday?” + +“Julius’s the most awful coward you’ve ever seen,” she cried. “He +always faints if I lift a knife—he’s tewwified of me.” + +“H’m!” said Gerald. + +“They’re all afwaid of me,” she said. “Only the Jew thinks he’s going +to show his courage. But he’s the biggest coward of them all, really, +because he’s afwaid what people will think about him—and Julius doesn’t +care about that.” + +“They’ve a lot of valour between them,” said Gerald good-humouredly. + +The Pussum looked at him with a slow, slow smile. She was very +handsome, flushed, and confident in dreadful knowledge. Two little +points of light glinted on Gerald’s eyes. + +“Why do they call you Pussum, because you’re like a cat?” he asked her. + +“I expect so,” she said. + +The smile grew more intense on his face. + +“You are, rather; or a young, female panther.” + +“Oh God, Gerald!” said Birkin, in some disgust. + +They both looked uneasily at Birkin. + +“You’re silent tonight, Wupert,” she said to him, with a slight +insolence, being safe with the other man. + +Halliday was coming back, looking forlorn and sick. + +“Pussum,” he said, “I wish you wouldn’t do these things—Oh!” He sank in +his chair with a groan. + +“You’d better go home,” she said to him. + +“I _will_ go home,” he said. “But won’t you all come along. Won’t you +come round to the flat?” he said to Gerald. “I should be so glad if you +would. Do—that’ll be splendid. I say?” He looked round for a waiter. +“Get me a taxi.” Then he groaned again. “Oh I do feel—perfectly +ghastly! Pussum, you see what you do to me.” + +“Then why are you such an idiot?” she said with sullen calm. + +“But I’m not an idiot! Oh, how awful! Do come, everybody, it will be so +splendid. Pussum, you are coming. What? Oh but you _must_ come, yes, +you must. What? Oh, my dear girl, don’t make a fuss now, I feel +perfectly—Oh, it’s so ghastly—Ho!—er! Oh!” + +“You know you can’t drink,” she said to him, coldly. + +“I tell you it isn’t drink—it’s your disgusting behaviour, Pussum, it’s +nothing else. Oh, how awful! Libidnikov, do let us go.” + +“He’s only drunk one glass—only one glass,” came the rapid, hushed +voice of the young Russian. + +They all moved off to the door. The girl kept near to Gerald, and +seemed to be at one in her motion with him. He was aware of this, and +filled with demon-satisfaction that his motion held good for two. He +held her in the hollow of his will, and she was soft, secret, invisible +in her stirring there. + +They crowded five of them into the taxi-cab. Halliday lurched in first, +and dropped into his seat against the other window. Then the Pussum +took her place, and Gerald sat next to her. They heard the young +Russian giving orders to the driver, then they were all seated in the +dark, crowded close together, Halliday groaning and leaning out of the +window. They felt the swift, muffled motion of the car. + +The Pussum sat near to Gerald, and she seemed to become soft, subtly to +infuse herself into his bones, as if she were passing into him in a +black, electric flow. Her being suffused into his veins like a magnetic +darkness, and concentrated at the base of his spine like a fearful +source of power. Meanwhile her voice sounded out reedy and nonchalant, +as she talked indifferently with Birkin and with Maxim. Between her and +Gerald was this silence and this black, electric comprehension in the +darkness. Then she found his hand, and grasped it in her own firm, +small clasp. It was so utterly dark, and yet such a naked statement, +that rapid vibrations ran through his blood and over his brain, he was +no longer responsible. Still her voice rang on like a bell, tinged with +a tone of mockery. And as she swung her head, her fine mane of hair +just swept his face, and all his nerves were on fire, as with a subtle +friction of electricity. But the great centre of his force held steady, +a magnificent pride to him, at the base of his spine. + +They arrived at a large block of buildings, went up in a lift, and +presently a door was being opened for them by a Hindu. Gerald looked in +surprise, wondering if he were a gentleman, one of the Hindus down from +Oxford, perhaps. But no, he was the man-servant. + +“Make tea, Hasan,” said Halliday. + +“There is a room for me?” said Birkin. + +To both of which questions the man grinned, and murmured. + +He made Gerald uncertain, because, being tall and slender and reticent, +he looked like a gentleman. + +“Who is your servant?” he asked of Halliday. “He looks a swell.” + +“Oh yes—that’s because he’s dressed in another man’s clothes. He’s +anything but a swell, really. We found him in the road, starving. So I +took him here, and another man gave him clothes. He’s anything but what +he seems to be—his only advantage is that he can’t speak English and +can’t understand it, so he’s perfectly safe.” + +“He’s very dirty,” said the young Russian swiftly and silently. + +Directly, the man appeared in the doorway. + +“What is it?” said Halliday. + +The Hindu grinned, and murmured shyly: + +“Want to speak to master.” + +Gerald watched curiously. The fellow in the doorway was goodlooking and +clean-limbed, his bearing was calm, he looked elegant, aristocratic. +Yet he was half a savage, grinning foolishly. Halliday went out into +the corridor to speak with him. + +“What?” they heard his voice. “What? What do you say? Tell me again. +What? Want money? Want _more_ money? But what do you want money for?” +There was the confused sound of the Hindu’s talking, then Halliday +appeared in the room, smiling also foolishly, and saying: + +“He says he wants money to buy underclothing. Can anybody lend me a +shilling? Oh thanks, a shilling will do to buy all the underclothes he +wants.” He took the money from Gerald and went out into the passage +again, where they heard him saying, “You can’t want more money, you had +three and six yesterday. You mustn’t ask for any more. Bring the tea in +quickly.” + +Gerald looked round the room. It was an ordinary London sitting-room in +a flat, evidently taken furnished, rather common and ugly. But there +were several negro statues, wood-carvings from West Africa, strange and +disturbing, the carved negroes looked almost like the fœtus of a human +being. One was a woman sitting naked in a strange posture, and looking +tortured, her abdomen stuck out. The young Russian explained that she +was sitting in child-birth, clutching the ends of the band that hung +from her neck, one in each hand, so that she could bear down, and help +labour. The strange, transfixed, rudimentary face of the woman again +reminded Gerald of a fœtus, it was also rather wonderful, conveying the +suggestion of the extreme of physical sensation, beyond the limits of +mental consciousness. + +“Aren’t they rather obscene?” he asked, disapproving. + +“I don’t know,” murmured the other rapidly. “I have never defined the +obscene. I think they are very good.” + +Gerald turned away. There were one or two new pictures in the room, in +the Futurist manner; there was a large piano. And these, with some +ordinary London lodging-house furniture of the better sort, completed +the whole. + +The Pussum had taken off her hat and coat, and was seated on the sofa. +She was evidently quite at home in the house, but uncertain, suspended. +She did not quite know her position. Her alliance for the time being +was with Gerald, and she did not know how far this was admitted by any +of the men. She was considering how she should carry off the situation. +She was determined to have her experience. Now, at this eleventh hour, +she was not to be baulked. Her face was flushed as with battle, her eye +was brooding but inevitable. + +The man came in with tea and a bottle of Kümmel. He set the tray on a +little table before the couch. + +“Pussum,” said Halliday, “pour out the tea.” + +She did not move. + +“Won’t you do it?” Halliday repeated, in a state of nervous +apprehension. + +“I’ve not come back here as it was before,” she said. “I only came +because the others wanted me to, not for your sake.” + +“My dear Pussum, you know you are your own mistress. I don’t want you +to do anything but use the flat for your own convenience—you know it, +I’ve told you so many times.” + +She did not reply, but silently, reservedly reached for the tea-pot. +They all sat round and drank tea. Gerald could feel the electric +connection between him and her so strongly, as she sat there quiet and +withheld, that another set of conditions altogether had come to pass. +Her silence and her immutability perplexed him. _How_ was he going to +come to her? And yet he felt it quite inevitable. He trusted completely +to the current that held them. His perplexity was only superficial, new +conditions reigned, the old were surpassed; here one did as one was +possessed to do, no matter what it was. + +Birkin rose. It was nearly one o’clock. + +“I’m going to bed,” he said. “Gerald, I’ll ring you up in the morning +at your place or you ring me up here.” + +“Right,” said Gerald, and Birkin went out. + +When he was well gone, Halliday said in a stimulated voice, to Gerald: + +“I say, won’t you stay here—oh do!” + +“You can’t put everybody up,” said Gerald. + +“Oh but I can, perfectly—there are three more beds besides mine—do +stay, won’t you. Everything is quite ready—there is always somebody +here—I always put people up—I love having the house crowded.” + +“But there are only two rooms,” said the Pussum, in a cold, hostile +voice, “now Rupert’s here.” + +“I know there are only two rooms,” said Halliday, in his odd, high way +of speaking. “But what does that matter?” + +He was smiling rather foolishly, and he spoke eagerly, with an +insinuating determination. + +“Julius and I will share one room,” said the Russian in his discreet, +precise voice. Halliday and he were friends since Eton. + +“It’s very simple,” said Gerald, rising and pressing back his arms, +stretching himself. Then he went again to look at one of the pictures. +Every one of his limbs was turgid with electric force, and his back was +tense like a tiger’s, with slumbering fire. He was very proud. + +The Pussum rose. She gave a black look at Halliday, black and deadly, +which brought the rather foolishly pleased smile to that young man’s +face. Then she went out of the room, with a cold good-night to them all +generally. + +There was a brief interval, they heard a door close, then Maxim said, +in his refined voice: + +“That’s all right.” + +He looked significantly at Gerald, and said again, with a silent nod: + +“That’s all right—you’re all right.” + +Gerald looked at the smooth, ruddy, comely face, and at the strange, +significant eyes, and it seemed as if the voice of the young Russian, +so small and perfect, sounded in the blood rather than in the air. + +“_I’m_ all right then,” said Gerald. + +“Yes! Yes! You’re all right,” said the Russian. + +Halliday continued to smile, and to say nothing. + +Suddenly the Pussum appeared again in the door, her small, childish +face looking sullen and vindictive. + +“I know you want to catch me out,” came her cold, rather resonant +voice. “But I don’t care, I don’t care how much you catch me out.” + +She turned and was gone again. She had been wearing a loose +dressing-gown of purple silk, tied round her waist. She looked so small +and childish and vulnerable, almost pitiful. And yet the black looks of +her eyes made Gerald feel drowned in some potent darkness that almost +frightened him. + +The men lit another cigarette and talked casually. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. +FETISH + + +In the morning Gerald woke late. He had slept heavily. Pussum was still +asleep, sleeping childishly and pathetically. There was something small +and curled up and defenceless about her, that roused an unsatisfied +flame of passion in the young man’s blood, a devouring avid pity. He +looked at her again. But it would be too cruel to wake her. He subdued +himself, and went away. + +Hearing voices coming from the sitting-room, Halliday talking to +Libidnikov, he went to the door and glanced in. He had on a silk wrap +of a beautiful bluish colour, with an amethyst hem. + +To his surprise he saw the two young men by the fire, stark naked. +Halliday looked up, rather pleased. + +“Good-morning,” he said. “Oh—did you want towels?” And stark naked he +went out into the hall, striding a strange, white figure between the +unliving furniture. He came back with the towels, and took his former +position, crouching seated before the fire on the fender. + +“Don’t you love to feel the fire on your skin?” he said. + +“It _is_ rather pleasant,” said Gerald. + +“How perfectly splendid it must be to be in a climate where one could +do without clothing altogether,” said Halliday. + +“Yes,” said Gerald, “if there weren’t so many things that sting and +bite.” + +“That’s a disadvantage,” murmured Maxim. + +Gerald looked at him, and with a slight revulsion saw the human animal, +golden skinned and bare, somehow humiliating. Halliday was different. +He had a rather heavy, slack, broken beauty, white and firm. He was +like a Christ in a Pietà. The animal was not there at all, only the +heavy, broken beauty. And Gerald realised how Halliday’s eyes were +beautiful too, so blue and warm and confused, broken also in their +expression. The fireglow fell on his heavy, rather bowed shoulders, he +sat slackly crouched on the fender, his face was uplifted, weak, +perhaps slightly disintegrate, and yet with a moving beauty of its own. + +“Of course,” said Maxim, “you’ve been in hot countries where the people +go about naked.” + +“Oh really!” exclaimed Halliday. “Where?” + +“South America—Amazon,” said Gerald. + +“Oh but how perfectly splendid! It’s one of the things I want most to +do—to live from day to day without _ever_ putting on any sort of +clothing whatever. If I could do that, I should feel I had lived.” + +“But why?” said Gerald. “I can’t see that it makes so much difference.” + +“Oh, I think it would be perfectly splendid. I’m sure life would be +entirely another thing—entirely different, and perfectly wonderful.” + +“But why?” asked Gerald. “Why should it?” + +“Oh—one would _feel_ things instead of merely looking at them. I should +feel the air move against me, and feel the things I touched, instead of +having only to look at them. I’m sure life is all wrong because it has +become much too visual—we can neither hear nor feel nor understand, we +can only see. I’m sure that is entirely wrong.” + +“Yes, that is true, that is true,” said the Russian. + +Gerald glanced at him, and saw him, his suave, golden coloured body +with the black hair growing fine and freely, like tendrils, and his +limbs like smooth plant-stems. He was so healthy and well-made, why did +he make one ashamed, why did one feel repelled? Why should Gerald even +dislike it, why did it seem to him to detract from his own dignity. Was +that all a human being amounted to? So uninspired! thought Gerald. + +Birkin suddenly appeared in the doorway, in white pyjamas and wet hair, +and a towel over his arm. He was aloof and white, and somehow +evanescent. + +“There’s the bath-room now, if you want it,” he said generally, and was +going away again, when Gerald called: + +“I say, Rupert!” + +“What?” The single white figure appeared again, a presence in the room. + +“What do you think of that figure there? I want to know,” Gerald asked. + +Birkin, white and strangely ghostly, went over to the carved figure of +the negro woman in labour. Her nude, protuberant body crouched in a +strange, clutching posture, her hands gripping the ends of the band, +above her breast. + +“It is art,” said Birkin. + +“Very beautiful, it’s very beautiful,” said the Russian. + +They all drew near to look. Gerald looked at the group of men, the +Russian golden and like a water-plant, Halliday tall and heavily, +brokenly beautiful, Birkin very white and indefinite, not to be +assigned, as he looked closely at the carven woman. Strangely elated, +Gerald also lifted his eyes to the face of the wooden figure. And his +heart contracted. + +He saw vividly with his spirit the grey, forward-stretching face of the +negro woman, African and tense, abstracted in utter physical stress. It +was a terrible face, void, peaked, abstracted almost into +meaninglessness by the weight of sensation beneath. He saw the Pussum +in it. As in a dream, he knew her. + +“Why is it art?” Gerald asked, shocked, resentful. + +“It conveys a complete truth,” said Birkin. “It contains the whole +truth of that state, whatever you feel about it.” + +“But you can’t call it _high_ art,” said Gerald. + +“High! There are centuries and hundreds of centuries of development in +a straight line, behind that carving; it is an awful pitch of culture, +of a definite sort.” + +“What culture?” Gerald asked, in opposition. He hated the sheer African +thing. + +“Pure culture in sensation, culture in the physical consciousness, +really ultimate _physical_ consciousness, mindless, utterly sensual. It +is so sensual as to be final, supreme.” + +But Gerald resented it. He wanted to keep certain illusions, certain +ideas like clothing. + +“You like the wrong things, Rupert,” he said, “things against +yourself.” + +“Oh, I know, this isn’t everything,” Birkin replied, moving away. + +When Gerald went back to his room from the bath, he also carried his +clothes. He was so conventional at home, that when he was really away, +and on the loose, as now, he enjoyed nothing so much as full +outrageousness. So he strode with his blue silk wrap over his arm and +felt defiant. + +The Pussum lay in her bed, motionless, her round, dark eyes like black, +unhappy pools. He could only see the black, bottomless pools of her +eyes. Perhaps she suffered. The sensation of her inchoate suffering +roused the old sharp flame in him, a mordant pity, a passion almost of +cruelty. + +“You are awake now,” he said to her. + +“What time is it?” came her muted voice. + +She seemed to flow back, almost like liquid, from his approach, to sink +helplessly away from him. Her inchoate look of a violated slave, whose +fulfilment lies in her further and further violation, made his nerves +quiver with acutely desirable sensation. After all, his was the only +will, she was the passive substance of his will. He tingled with the +subtle, biting sensation. And then he knew, he must go away from her, +there must be pure separation between them. + +It was a quiet and ordinary breakfast, the four men all looking very +clean and bathed. Gerald and the Russian were both correct and _comme +il faut_ in appearance and manner, Birkin was gaunt and sick, and +looked a failure in his attempt to be a properly dressed man, like +Gerald and Maxim. Halliday wore tweeds and a green flannel shirt, and a +rag of a tie, which was just right for him. The Hindu brought in a +great deal of soft toast, and looked exactly the same as he had looked +the night before, statically the same. + +At the end of the breakfast the Pussum appeared, in a purple silk wrap +with a shimmering sash. She had recovered herself somewhat, but was +mute and lifeless still. It was a torment to her when anybody spoke to +her. Her face was like a small, fine mask, sinister too, masked with +unwilling suffering. It was almost midday. Gerald rose and went away to +his business, glad to get out. But he had not finished. He was coming +back again at evening, they were all dining together, and he had booked +seats for the party, excepting Birkin, at a music-hall. + +At night they came back to the flat very late again, again flushed with +drink. Again the man-servant—who invariably disappeared between the +hours of ten and twelve at night—came in silently and inscrutably with +tea, bending in a slow, strange, leopard-like fashion to put the tray +softly on the table. His face was immutable, aristocratic-looking, +tinged slightly with grey under the skin; he was young and +good-looking. But Birkin felt a slight sickness, looking at him, and +feeling the slight greyness as an ash or a corruption, in the +aristocratic inscrutability of expression a nauseating, bestial +stupidity. + +Again they talked cordially and rousedly together. But already a +certain friability was coming over the party, Birkin was mad with +irritation, Halliday was turning in an insane hatred against Gerald, +the Pussum was becoming hard and cold, like a flint knife, and Halliday +was laying himself out to her. And her intention, ultimately, was to +capture Halliday, to have complete power over him. + +In the morning they all stalked and lounged about again. But Gerald +could feel a strange hostility to himself, in the air. It roused his +obstinacy, and he stood up against it. He hung on for two more days. +The result was a nasty and insane scene with Halliday on the fourth +evening. Halliday turned with absurd animosity upon Gerald, in the +café. There was a row. Gerald was on the point of knocking-in +Halliday’s face; when he was filled with sudden disgust and +indifference, and he went away, leaving Halliday in a foolish state of +gloating triumph, the Pussum hard and established, and Maxim standing +clear. Birkin was absent, he had gone out of town again. + +Gerald was piqued because he had left without giving the Pussum money. +It was true, she did not care whether he gave her money or not, and he +knew it. But she would have been glad of ten pounds, and he would have +been _very_ glad to give them to her. Now he felt in a false position. +He went away chewing his lips to get at the ends of his short clipped +moustache. He knew the Pussum was merely glad to be rid of him. She had +got her Halliday whom she wanted. She wanted him completely in her +power. Then she would marry him. She wanted to marry him. She had set +her will on marrying Halliday. She never wanted to hear of Gerald +again; unless, perhaps, she were in difficulty; because after all, +Gerald was what she called a man, and these others, Halliday, +Libidnikov, Birkin, the whole Bohemian set, they were only half men. +But it was half men she could deal with. She felt sure of herself with +them. The real men, like Gerald, put her in her place too much. + +Still, she respected Gerald, she really respected him. She had managed +to get his address, so that she could appeal to him in time of +distress. She knew he wanted to give her money. She would perhaps write +to him on that inevitable rainy day. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. +BREADALBY + + +Breadalby was a Georgian house with Corinthian pillars, standing among +the softer, greener hills of Derbyshire, not far from Cromford. In +front, it looked over a lawn, over a few trees, down to a string of +fish-ponds in the hollow of the silent park. At the back were trees, +among which were to be found the stables, and the big kitchen garden, +behind which was a wood. + +It was a very quiet place, some miles from the high-road, back from the +Derwent Valley, outside the show scenery. Silent and forsaken, the +golden stucco showed between the trees, the house-front looked down the +park, unchanged and unchanging. + +Of late, however, Hermione had lived a good deal at the house. She had +turned away from London, away from Oxford, towards the silence of the +country. Her father was mostly absent, abroad, she was either alone in +the house, with her visitors, of whom there were always several, or she +had with her her brother, a bachelor, and a Liberal member of +Parliament. He always came down when the House was not sitting, seemed +always to be present in Breadalby, although he was most conscientious +in his attendance to duty. + +The summer was just coming in when Ursula and Gudrun went to stay the +second time with Hermione. Coming along in the car, after they had +entered the park, they looked across the dip, where the fish-ponds lay +in silence, at the pillared front of the house, sunny and small like an +English drawing of the old school, on the brow of the green hill, +against the trees. There were small figures on the green lawn, women in +lavender and yellow moving to the shade of the enormous, beautifully +balanced cedar tree. + +“Isn’t it complete!” said Gudrun. “It is as final as an old aquatint.” +She spoke with some resentment in her voice, as if she were captivated +unwillingly, as if she must admire against her will. + +“Do you love it?” asked Ursula. + +“I don’t _love_ it, but in its way, I think it is quite complete.” + +The motor-car ran down the hill and up again in one breath, and they +were curving to the side door. A parlour-maid appeared, and then +Hermione, coming forward with her pale face lifted, and her hands +outstretched, advancing straight to the newcomers, her voice singing: + +“Here you are—I’m so glad to see you—” she kissed Gudrun—“so glad to +see you—” she kissed Ursula and remained with her arm round her. “Are +you very tired?” + +“Not at all tired,” said Ursula. + +“Are you tired, Gudrun?” + +“Not at all, thanks,” said Gudrun. + +“No—” drawled Hermione. And she stood and looked at them. The two girls +were embarrassed because she would not move into the house, but must +have her little scene of welcome there on the path. The servants +waited. + +“Come in,” said Hermione at last, having fully taken in the pair of +them. Gudrun was the more beautiful and attractive, she had decided +again, Ursula was more physical, more womanly. She admired Gudrun’s +dress more. It was of green poplin, with a loose coat above it, of +broad, dark-green and dark-brown stripes. The hat was of a pale, +greenish straw, the colour of new hay, and it had a plaited ribbon of +black and orange, the stockings were dark green, the shoes black. It +was a good get-up, at once fashionable and individual. Ursula, in dark +blue, was more ordinary, though she also looked well. + +Hermione herself wore a dress of prune-coloured silk, with coral beads +and coral coloured stockings. But her dress was both shabby and soiled, +even rather dirty. + +“You would like to see your rooms now, wouldn’t you! Yes. We will go up +now, shall we?” + +Ursula was glad when she could be left alone in her room. Hermione +lingered so long, made such a stress on one. She stood so near to one, +pressing herself near upon one, in a way that was most embarrassing and +oppressive. She seemed to hinder one’s workings. + +Lunch was served on the lawn, under the great tree, whose thick, +blackish boughs came down close to the grass. There were present a +young Italian woman, slight and fashionable, a young, athletic-looking +Miss Bradley, a learned, dry Baronet of fifty, who was always making +witticisms and laughing at them heartily in a harsh, horse-laugh, there +was Rupert Birkin, and then a woman secretary, a Fräulein März, young +and slim and pretty. + +The food was very good, that was one thing. Gudrun, critical of +everything, gave it her full approval. Ursula loved the situation, the +white table by the cedar tree, the scent of new sunshine, the little +vision of the leafy park, with far-off deer feeding peacefully. There +seemed a magic circle drawn about the place, shutting out the present, +enclosing the delightful, precious past, trees and deer and silence, +like a dream. + +But in spirit she was unhappy. The talk went on like a rattle of small +artillery, always slightly sententious, with a sententiousness that was +only emphasised by the continual crackling of a witticism, the +continual spatter of verbal jest, designed to give a tone of flippancy +to a stream of conversation that was all critical and general, a canal +of conversation rather than a stream. + +The attitude was mental and very wearying. Only the elderly +sociologist, whose mental fibre was so tough as to be insentient, +seemed to be thoroughly happy. Birkin was down in the mouth. Hermione +appeared, with amazing persistence, to wish to ridicule him and make +him look ignominious in the eyes of everybody. And it was surprising +how she seemed to succeed, how helpless he seemed against her. He +looked completely insignificant. Ursula and Gudrun, both very unused, +were mostly silent, listening to the slow, rhapsodic sing-song of +Hermione, or the verbal sallies of Sir Joshua, or the prattle of +Fräulein, or the responses of the other two women. + +Luncheon was over, coffee was brought out on the grass, the party left +the table and sat about in lounge chairs, in the shade or in the +sunshine as they wished. Fräulein departed into the house, Hermione +took up her embroidery, the little Contessa took a book, Miss Bradley +was weaving a basket out of fine grass, and there they all were on the +lawn in the early summer afternoon, working leisurely and spattering +with half-intellectual, deliberate talk. + +Suddenly there was the sound of the brakes and the shutting off of a +motor-car. + +“There’s Salsie!” sang Hermione, in her slow, amusing sing-song. And +laying down her work, she rose slowly, and slowly passed over the lawn, +round the bushes, out of sight. + +“Who is it?” asked Gudrun. + +“Mr Roddice—Miss Roddice’s brother—at least, I suppose it’s he,” said +Sir Joshua. + +“Salsie, yes, it is her brother,” said the little Contessa, lifting her +head for a moment from her book, and speaking as if to give +information, in her slightly deepened, guttural English. + +They all waited. And then round the bushes came the tall form of +Alexander Roddice, striding romantically like a Meredith hero who +remembers Disraeli. He was cordial with everybody, he was at once a +host, with an easy, offhand hospitality that he had learned for +Hermione’s friends. He had just come down from London, from the House. +At once the atmosphere of the House of Commons made itself felt over +the lawn: the Home Secretary had said such and such a thing, and he, +Roddice, on the other hand, thought such and such a thing, and had said +so-and-so to the PM. + +Now Hermione came round the bushes with Gerald Crich. He had come along +with Alexander. Gerald was presented to everybody, was kept by Hermione +for a few moments in full view, then he was led away, still by +Hermione. He was evidently her guest of the moment. + +There had been a split in the Cabinet; the minister for Education had +resigned owing to adverse criticism. This started a conversation on +education. + +“Of course,” said Hermione, lifting her face like a rhapsodist, “there +_can_ be no reason, no _excuse_ for education, except the joy and +beauty of knowledge in itself.” She seemed to rumble and ruminate with +subterranean thoughts for a minute, then she proceeded: “Vocational +education _isn’t_ education, it is the close of education.” + +Gerald, on the brink of discussion, sniffed the air with delight and +prepared for action. + +“Not necessarily,” he said. “But isn’t education really like +gymnastics, isn’t the end of education the production of a +well-trained, vigorous, energetic mind?” + +“Just as athletics produce a healthy body, ready for anything,” cried +Miss Bradley, in hearty accord. + +Gudrun looked at her in silent loathing. + +“Well—” rumbled Hermione, “I don’t know. To me the pleasure of knowing +is so great, so _wonderful_—nothing has meant so much to me in all +life, as certain knowledge—no, I am sure—nothing.” + +“What knowledge, for example, Hermione?” asked Alexander. + +Hermione lifted her face and rumbled— + +“M—m—m—I don’t know . . . But one thing was the stars, when I really +understood something about the stars. One feels so _uplifted_, so +_unbounded_ . . .” + +Birkin looked at her in a white fury. + +“What do you want to feel unbounded for?” he said sarcastically. “You +don’t want to _be_ unbounded.” + +Hermione recoiled in offence. + +“Yes, but one does have that limitless feeling,” said Gerald. “It’s +like getting on top of the mountain and seeing the Pacific.” + +“Silent upon a peak in Dariayn,” murmured the Italian, lifting her face +for a moment from her book. + +“Not necessarily in Dariayn,” said Gerald, while Ursula began to laugh. + +Hermione waited for the dust to settle, and then she said, untouched: + +“Yes, it is the greatest thing in life—_to know_. It is really to be +happy, to be _free_.” + +“Knowledge is, of course, liberty,” said Mattheson. + +“In compressed tabloids,” said Birkin, looking at the dry, stiff little +body of the Baronet. Immediately Gudrun saw the famous sociologist as a +flat bottle, containing tabloids of compressed liberty. That pleased +her. Sir Joshua was labelled and placed forever in her mind. + +“What does that mean, Rupert?” sang Hermione, in a calm snub. + +“You can only have knowledge, strictly,” he replied, “of things +concluded, in the past. It’s like bottling the liberty of last summer +in the bottled gooseberries.” + +“_Can_ one have knowledge only of the past?” asked the Baronet, +pointedly. “Could we call our knowledge of the laws of gravitation for +instance, knowledge of the past?” + +“Yes,” said Birkin. + +“There is a most beautiful thing in my book,” suddenly piped the little +Italian woman. “It says the man came to the door and threw his eyes +down the street.” + +There was a general laugh in the company. Miss Bradley went and looked +over the shoulder of the Contessa. + +“See!” said the Contessa. + +“Bazarov came to the door and threw his eyes hurriedly down the +street,” she read. + +Again there was a loud laugh, the most startling of which was the +Baronet’s, which rattled out like a clatter of falling stones. + +“What is the book?” asked Alexander, promptly. + +“Fathers and Sons, by Turgenev,” said the little foreigner, pronouncing +every syllable distinctly. She looked at the cover, to verify herself. + +“An old American edition,” said Birkin. + +“Ha!—of course—translated from the French,” said Alexander, with a fine +declamatory voice. “_Bazarov ouvra la porte et jeta les yeux dans la +rue._” + +He looked brightly round the company. + +“I wonder what the ‘hurriedly’ was,” said Ursula. + +They all began to guess. + +And then, to the amazement of everybody, the maid came hurrying with a +large tea-tray. The afternoon had passed so swiftly. + +After tea, they were all gathered for a walk. + +“Would you like to come for a walk?” said Hermione to each of them, one +by one. And they all said yes, feeling somehow like prisoners +marshalled for exercise. Birkin only refused. + +“Will you come for a walk, Rupert?” + +“No, Hermione.” + +“But are you _sure?_” + +“Quite sure.” There was a second’s hesitation. + +“And why not?” sang Hermione’s question. It made her blood run sharp, +to be thwarted in even so trifling a matter. She intended them all to +walk with her in the park. + +“Because I don’t like trooping off in a gang,” he said. + +Her voice rumbled in her throat for a moment. Then she said, with a +curious stray calm: + +“Then we’ll leave a little boy behind, if he’s sulky.” + +And she looked really gay, while she insulted him. But it merely made +him stiff. + +She trailed off to the rest of the company, only turning to wave her +handkerchief to him, and to chuckle with laughter, singing out: + +“Good-bye, good-bye, little boy.” + +“Good-bye, impudent hag,” he said to himself. + +They all went through the park. Hermione wanted to show them the wild +daffodils on a little slope. “This way, this way,” sang her leisurely +voice at intervals. And they had all to come this way. The daffodils +were pretty, but who could see them? Ursula was stiff all over with +resentment by this time, resentment of the whole atmosphere. Gudrun, +mocking and objective, watched and registered everything. + +They looked at the shy deer, and Hermione talked to the stag, as if he +too were a boy she wanted to wheedle and fondle. He was male, so she +must exert some kind of power over him. They trailed home by the +fish-ponds, and Hermione told them about the quarrel of two male swans, +who had striven for the love of the one lady. She chuckled and laughed +as she told how the ousted lover had sat with his head buried under his +wing, on the gravel. + +When they arrived back at the house, Hermione stood on the lawn and +sang out, in a strange, small, high voice that carried very far: + +“Rupert! Rupert!” The first syllable was high and slow, the second +dropped down. “Roo-o-opert.” + +But there was no answer. A maid appeared. + +“Where is Mr Birkin, Alice?” asked the mild straying voice of Hermione. +But under the straying voice, what a persistent, almost insane _will!_ + +“I think he’s in his room, madam.” + +“Is he?” + +Hermione went slowly up the stairs, along the corridor, singing out in +her high, small call: + +“Ru-oo-pert! Ru-oo pert!” + +She came to his door, and tapped, still crying: “Roo-pert.” + +“Yes,” sounded his voice at last. + +“What are you doing?” + +The question was mild and curious. + +There was no answer. Then he opened the door. + +“We’ve come back,” said Hermione. “The daffodils are _so_ beautiful.” + +“Yes,” he said, “I’ve seen them.” + +She looked at him with her long, slow, impassive look, along her +cheeks. + +“Have you?” she echoed. And she remained looking at him. She was +stimulated above all things by this conflict with him, when he was like +a sulky boy, helpless, and she had him safe at Breadalby. But +underneath she knew the split was coming, and her hatred of him was +subconscious and intense. + +“What were you doing?” she reiterated, in her mild, indifferent tone. +He did not answer, and she made her way, almost unconsciously into his +room. He had taken a Chinese drawing of geese from the boudoir, and was +copying it, with much skill and vividness. + +“You are copying the drawing,” she said, standing near the table, and +looking down at his work. “Yes. How beautifully you do it! You like it +very much, don’t you?” + +“It’s a marvellous drawing,” he said. + +“Is it? I’m so glad you like it, because I’ve always been fond of it. +The Chinese Ambassador gave it me.” + +“I know,” he said. + +“But why do you copy it?” she asked, casual and sing-song. “Why not do +something original?” + +“I want to know it,” he replied. “One gets more of China, copying this +picture, than reading all the books.” + +“And what do you get?” + +She was at once roused, she laid as it were violent hands on him, to +extract his secrets from him. She _must_ know. It was a dreadful +tyranny, an obsession in her, to know all he knew. For some time he was +silent, hating to answer her. Then, compelled, he began: + +“I know what centres they live from—what they perceive and feel—the +hot, stinging centrality of a goose in the flux of cold water and +mud—the curious bitter stinging heat of a goose’s blood, entering their +own blood like an inoculation of corruptive fire—fire of the +cold-burning mud—the lotus mystery.” + +Hermione looked at him along her narrow, pallid cheeks. Her eyes were +strange and drugged, heavy under their heavy, drooping lids. Her thin +bosom shrugged convulsively. He stared back at her, devilish and +unchanging. With another strange, sick convulsion, she turned away, as +if she were sick, could feel dissolution setting-in in her body. For +with her mind she was unable to attend to his words, he caught her, as +it were, beneath all her defences, and destroyed her with some +insidious occult potency. + +“Yes,” she said, as if she did not know what she were saying. “Yes,” +and she swallowed, and tried to regain her mind. But she could not, she +was witless, decentralised. Use all her will as she might, she could +not recover. She suffered the ghastliness of dissolution, broken and +gone in a horrible corruption. And he stood and looked at her unmoved. +She strayed out, pallid and preyed-upon like a ghost, like one attacked +by the tomb-influences which dog us. And she was gone like a corpse, +that has no presence, no connection. He remained hard and vindictive. + +Hermione came down to dinner strange and sepulchral, her eyes heavy and +full of sepulchral darkness, strength. She had put on a dress of stiff +old greenish brocade, that fitted tight and made her look tall and +rather terrible, ghastly. In the gay light of the drawing-room she was +uncanny and oppressive. But seated in the half-light of the +dining-room, sitting stiffly before the shaded candles on the table, +she seemed a power, a presence. She listened and attended with a +drugged attention. + +The party was gay and extravagant in appearance, everybody had put on +evening dress except Birkin and Joshua Mattheson. The little Italian +Contessa wore a dress of tissue, of orange and gold and black velvet in +soft wide stripes, Gudrun was emerald green with strange net-work, +Ursula was in yellow with dull silver veiling, Miss Bradley was of +grey, crimson and jet, Fräulein März wore pale blue. It gave Hermione a +sudden convulsive sensation of pleasure, to see these rich colours +under the candle-light. She was aware of the talk going on, +ceaselessly, Joshua’s voice dominating; of the ceaseless pitter-patter +of women’s light laughter and responses; of the brilliant colours and +the white table and the shadow above and below; and she seemed in a +swoon of gratification, convulsed with pleasure and yet sick, like a +_revenant_. She took very little part in the conversation, yet she +heard it all, it was all hers. + +They all went together into the drawing-room, as if they were one +family, easily, without any attention to ceremony. Fräulein handed the +coffee, everybody smoked cigarettes, or else long warden pipes of white +clay, of which a sheaf was provided. + +“Will you smoke?—cigarettes or pipe?” asked Fräulein prettily. There +was a circle of people, Sir Joshua with his eighteenth-century +appearance, Gerald the amused, handsome young Englishman, Alexander +tall and the handsome politician, democratic and lucid, Hermione +strange like a long Cassandra, and the women lurid with colour, all +dutifully smoking their long white pipes, and sitting in a half-moon in +the comfortable, soft-lighted drawing-room, round the logs that +flickered on the marble hearth. + +The talk was very often political or sociological, and interesting, +curiously anarchistic. There was an accumulation of powerful force in +the room, powerful and destructive. Everything seemed to be thrown into +the melting pot, and it seemed to Ursula they were all witches, helping +the pot to bubble. There was an elation and a satisfaction in it all, +but it was cruelly exhausting for the newcomers, this ruthless mental +pressure, this powerful, consuming, destructive mentality that emanated +from Joshua and Hermione and Birkin and dominated the rest. + +But a sickness, a fearful nausea gathered possession of Hermione. There +was a lull in the talk, as it was arrested by her unconscious but +all-powerful will. + +“Salsie, won’t you play something?” said Hermione, breaking off +completely. “Won’t somebody dance? Gudrun, you will dance, won’t you? I +wish you would. _Anche tu, Palestra, ballerai?—sì, per piacere._ You +too, Ursula.” + +Hermione rose and slowly pulled the gold-embroidered band that hung by +the mantel, clinging to it for a moment, then releasing it suddenly. +Like a priestess she looked, unconscious, sunk in a heavy half-trance. + +A servant came, and soon reappeared with armfuls of silk robes and +shawls and scarves, mostly oriental, things that Hermione, with her +love for beautiful extravagant dress, had collected gradually. + +“The three women will dance together,” she said. + +“What shall it be?” asked Alexander, rising briskly. + +“_Vergini Delle Rocchette_,” said the Contessa at once. + +“They are so languid,” said Ursula. + +“The three witches from Macbeth,” suggested Fräulein usefully. It was +finally decided to do Naomi and Ruth and Orpah. Ursula was Naomi, +Gudrun was Ruth, the Contessa was Orpah. The idea was to make a little +ballet, in the style of the Russian Ballet of Pavlova and Nijinsky. + +The Contessa was ready first, Alexander went to the piano, a space was +cleared. Orpah, in beautiful oriental clothes, began slowly to dance +the death of her husband. Then Ruth came, and they wept together, and +lamented, then Naomi came to comfort them. It was all done in dumb +show, the women danced their emotion in gesture and motion. The little +drama went on for a quarter of an hour. + +Ursula was beautiful as Naomi. All her men were dead, it remained to +her only to stand alone in indomitable assertion, demanding nothing. +Ruth, woman-loving, loved her. Orpah, a vivid, sensational, subtle +widow, would go back to the former life, a repetition. The interplay +between the women was real and rather frightening. It was strange to +see how Gudrun clung with heavy, desperate passion to Ursula, yet +smiled with subtle malevolence against her, how Ursula accepted +silently, unable to provide any more either for herself or for the +other, but dangerous and indomitable, refuting her grief. + +Hermione loved to watch. She could see the Contessa’s rapid, stoat-like +sensationalism, Gudrun’s ultimate but treacherous cleaving to the woman +in her sister, Ursula’s dangerous helplessness, as if she were +helplessly weighted, and unreleased. + +“That was very beautiful,” everybody cried with one accord. But +Hermione writhed in her soul, knowing what she could not know. She +cried out for more dancing, and it was her will that set the Contessa +and Birkin moving mockingly in Malbrouk. + +Gerald was excited by the desperate cleaving of Gudrun to Naomi. The +essence of that female, subterranean recklessness and mockery +penetrated his blood. He could not forget Gudrun’s lifted, offered, +cleaving, reckless, yet withal mocking weight. And Birkin, watching +like a hermit crab from its hole, had seen the brilliant frustration +and helplessness of Ursula. She was rich, full of dangerous power. She +was like a strange unconscious bud of powerful womanhood. He was +unconsciously drawn to her. She was his future. + +Alexander played some Hungarian music, and they all danced, seized by +the spirit. Gerald was marvellously exhilarated at finding himself in +motion, moving towards Gudrun, dancing with feet that could not yet +escape from the waltz and the two-step, but feeling his force stir +along his limbs and his body, out of captivity. He did not know yet how +to dance their convulsive, rag-time sort of dancing, but he knew how to +begin. Birkin, when he could get free from the weight of the people +present, whom he disliked, danced rapidly and with a real gaiety. And +how Hermione hated him for this irresponsible gaiety. + +“Now I see,” cried the Contessa excitedly, watching his purely gay +motion, which he had all to himself. “Mr Birkin, he is a changer.” + +Hermione looked at her slowly, and shuddered, knowing that only a +foreigner could have seen and have said this. + +“_Cosa vuol’dire, Palestra?_” she asked, sing-song. + +“Look,” said the Contessa, in Italian. “He is not a man, he is a +chameleon, a creature of change.” + +“He is not a man, he is treacherous, not one of us,” said itself over +in Hermione’s consciousness. And her soul writhed in the black +subjugation to him, because of his power to escape, to exist, other +than she did, because he was not consistent, not a man, less than a +man. She hated him in a despair that shattered her and broke her down, +so that she suffered sheer dissolution like a corpse, and was +unconscious of everything save the horrible sickness of dissolution +that was taking place within her, body and soul. + +The house being full, Gerald was given the smaller room, really the +dressing-room, communicating with Birkin’s bedroom. When they all took +their candles and mounted the stairs, where the lamps were burning +subduedly, Hermione captured Ursula and brought her into her own +bedroom, to talk to her. A sort of constraint came over Ursula in the +big, strange bedroom. Hermione seemed to be bearing down on her, awful +and inchoate, making some appeal. They were looking at some Indian silk +shirts, gorgeous and sensual in themselves, their shape, their almost +corrupt gorgeousness. And Hermione came near, and her bosom writhed, +and Ursula was for a moment blank with panic. And for a moment +Hermione’s haggard eyes saw the fear on the face of the other, there +was again a sort of crash, a crashing down. And Ursula picked up a +shirt of rich red and blue silk, made for a young princess of fourteen, +and was crying mechanically: + +“Isn’t it wonderful—who would dare to put those two strong colours +together—” + +Then Hermione’s maid entered silently and Ursula, overcome with dread, +escaped, carried away by powerful impulse. + +Birkin went straight to bed. He was feeling happy, and sleepy. Since he +had danced he was happy. But Gerald would talk to him. Gerald, in +evening dress, sat on Birkin’s bed when the other lay down, and must +talk. + +“Who are those two Brangwens?” Gerald asked. + +“They live in Beldover.” + +“In Beldover! Who are they then?” + +“Teachers in the Grammar School.” + +There was a pause. + +“They are!” exclaimed Gerald at length. “I thought I had seen them +before.” + +“It disappoints you?” said Birkin. + +“Disappoints me! No—but how is it Hermione has them here?” + +“She knew Gudrun in London—that’s the younger one, the one with the +darker hair—she’s an artist—does sculpture and modelling.” + +“She’s not a teacher in the Grammar School, then—only the other?” + +“Both—Gudrun art mistress, Ursula a class mistress.” + +“And what’s the father?” + +“Handicraft instructor in the schools.” + +“Really!” + +“Class-barriers are breaking down!” + +Gerald was always uneasy under the slightly jeering tone of the other. + +“That their father is handicraft instructor in a school! What does it +matter to me?” + +Birkin laughed. Gerald looked at his face, as it lay there laughing and +bitter and indifferent on the pillow, and he could not go away. + +“I don’t suppose you will see very much more of Gudrun, at least. She +is a restless bird, she’ll be gone in a week or two,” said Birkin. + +“Where will she go?” + +“London, Paris, Rome—heaven knows. I always expect her to sheer off to +Damascus or San Francisco; she’s a bird of paradise. God knows what +she’s got to do with Beldover. It goes by contraries, like dreams.” + +Gerald pondered for a few moments. + +“How do you know her so well?” he asked. + +“I knew her in London,” he replied, “in the Algernon Strange set. +She’ll know about Pussum and Libidnikov and the rest—even if she +doesn’t know them personally. She was never quite that set—more +conventional, in a way. I’ve known her for two years, I suppose.” + +“And she makes money, apart from her teaching?” asked Gerald. + +“Some—irregularly. She can sell her models. She has a certain +_réclame_.” + +“How much for?” + +“A guinea, ten guineas.” + +“And are they good? What are they?” + +“I think sometimes they are marvellously good. That is hers, those two +wagtails in Hermione’s boudoir—you’ve seen them—they are carved in wood +and painted.” + +“I thought it was savage carving again.” + +“No, hers. That’s what they are—animals and birds, sometimes odd small +people in everyday dress, really rather wonderful when they come off. +They have a sort of funniness that is quite unconscious and subtle.” + +“She might be a well-known artist one day?” mused Gerald. + +“She might. But I think she won’t. She drops her art if anything else +catches her. Her contrariness prevents her taking it seriously—she must +never be too serious, she feels she might give herself away. And she +won’t give herself away—she’s always on the defensive. That’s what I +can’t stand about her type. By the way, how did things go off with +Pussum after I left you? I haven’t heard anything.” + +“Oh, rather disgusting. Halliday turned objectionable, and I only just +saved myself from jumping in his stomach, in a real old-fashioned row.” + +Birkin was silent. + +“Of course,” he said, “Julius is somewhat insane. On the one hand he’s +had religious mania, and on the other, he is fascinated by obscenity. +Either he is a pure servant, washing the feet of Christ, or else he is +making obscene drawings of Jesus—action and reaction—and between the +two, nothing. He is really insane. He wants a pure lily, another girl, +with a baby face, on the one hand, and on the other, he _must_ have the +Pussum, just to defile himself with her.” + +“That’s what I can’t make out,” said Gerald. “Does he love her, the +Pussum, or doesn’t he?” + +“He neither does nor doesn’t. She is the harlot, the actual harlot of +adultery to him. And he’s got a craving to throw himself into the filth +of her. Then he gets up and calls on the name of the lily of purity, +the baby-faced girl, and so enjoys himself all round. It’s the old +story—action and reaction, and nothing between.” + +“I don’t know,” said Gerald, after a pause, “that he does insult the +Pussum so very much. She strikes me as being rather foul.” + +“But I thought you liked her,” exclaimed Birkin. “I always felt fond of +her. I never had anything to do with her, personally, that’s true.” + +“I liked her all right, for a couple of days,” said Gerald. “But a week +of her would have turned me over. There’s a certain smell about the +skin of those women, that in the end is sickening beyond words—even if +you like it at first.” + +“I know,” said Birkin. Then he added, rather fretfully, “But go to bed, +Gerald. God knows what time it is.” + +Gerald looked at his watch, and at length rose off the bed, and went to +his room. But he returned in a few minutes, in his shirt. + +“One thing,” he said, seating himself on the bed again. “We finished up +rather stormily, and I never had time to give her anything.” + +“Money?” said Birkin. “She’ll get what she wants from Halliday or from +one of her acquaintances.” + +“But then,” said Gerald, “I’d rather give her her dues and settle the +account.” + +“She doesn’t care.” + +“No, perhaps not. But one feels the account is left open, and one would +rather it were closed.” + +“Would you?” said Birkin. He was looking at the white legs of Gerald, +as the latter sat on the side of the bed in his shirt. They were +white-skinned, full, muscular legs, handsome and decided. Yet they +moved Birkin with a sort of pathos, tenderness, as if they were +childish. + +“I think I’d rather close the account,” said Gerald, repeating himself +vaguely. + +“It doesn’t matter one way or another,” said Birkin. + +“You always say it doesn’t matter,” said Gerald, a little puzzled, +looking down at the face of the other man affectionately. + +“Neither does it,” said Birkin. + +“But she was a decent sort, really—” + +“Render unto Cæsarina the things that are Cæsarina’s,” said Birkin, +turning aside. It seemed to him Gerald was talking for the sake of +talking. “Go away, it wearies me—it’s too late at night,” he said. + +“I wish you’d tell me something that _did_ matter,” said Gerald, +looking down all the time at the face of the other man, waiting for +something. But Birkin turned his face aside. + +“All right then, go to sleep,” said Gerald, and he laid his hand +affectionately on the other man’s shoulder, and went away. + +In the morning when Gerald awoke and heard Birkin move, he called out: +“I still think I ought to give the Pussum ten pounds.” + +“Oh God!” said Birkin, “don’t be so matter-of-fact. Close the account +in your own soul, if you like. It is there you can’t close it.” + +“How do you know I can’t?” + +“Knowing you.” + +Gerald meditated for some moments. + +“It seems to me the right thing to do, you know, with the Pussums, is +to pay them.” + +“And the right thing for mistresses: keep them. And the right thing for +wives: live under the same roof with them. _Integer vitae scelerisque +purus_—” said Birkin. + +“There’s no need to be nasty about it,” said Gerald. + +“It bores me. I’m not interested in your peccadilloes.” + +“And I don’t care whether you are or not—I am.” + +The morning was again sunny. The maid had been in and brought the +water, and had drawn the curtains. Birkin, sitting up in bed, looked +lazily and pleasantly out on the park, that was so green and deserted, +romantic, belonging to the past. He was thinking how lovely, how sure, +how formed, how final all the things of the past were—the lovely +accomplished past—this house, so still and golden, the park slumbering +its centuries of peace. And then, what a snare and a delusion, this +beauty of static things—what a horrible, dead prison Breadalby really +was, what an intolerable confinement, the peace! Yet it was better than +the sordid scrambling conflict of the present. If only one might create +the future after one’s own heart—for a little pure truth, a little +unflinching application of simple truth to life, the heart cried out +ceaselessly. + +“I can’t see what you will leave me at all, to be interested in,” came +Gerald’s voice from the lower room. “Neither the Pussums, nor the +mines, nor anything else.” + +“You be interested in what you can, Gerald. Only I’m not interested +myself,” said Birkin. + +“What am I to do at all, then?” came Gerald’s voice. + +“What you like. What am I to do myself?” + +In the silence Birkin could feel Gerald musing this fact. + +“I’m blest if I know,” came the good-humoured answer. + +“You see,” said Birkin, “part of you wants the Pussum, and nothing but +the Pussum, part of you wants the mines, the business, and nothing but +the business—and there you are—all in bits—” + +“And part of me wants something else,” said Gerald, in a queer, quiet, +real voice. + +“What?” said Birkin, rather surprised. + +“That’s what I hoped you could tell me,” said Gerald. + +There was a silence for some time. + +“I can’t tell you—I can’t find my own way, let alone yours. You might +marry,” Birkin replied. + +“Who—the Pussum?” asked Gerald. + +“Perhaps,” said Birkin. And he rose and went to the window. + +“That is your panacea,” said Gerald. “But you haven’t even tried it on +yourself yet, and you are sick enough.” + +“I am,” said Birkin. “Still, I shall come right.” + +“Through marriage?” + +“Yes,” Birkin answered obstinately. + +“And no,” added Gerald. “No, no, no, my boy.” + +There was a silence between them, and a strange tension of hostility. +They always kept a gap, a distance between them, they wanted always to +be free each of the other. Yet there was a curious heart-straining +towards each other. + +“_Salvator femininus_,” said Gerald, satirically. + +“Why not?” said Birkin. + +“No reason at all,” said Gerald, “if it really works. But whom will you +marry?” + +“A woman,” said Birkin. + +“Good,” said Gerald. + +Birkin and Gerald were the last to come down to breakfast. Hermione +liked everybody to be early. She suffered when she felt her day was +diminished, she felt she had missed her life. She seemed to grip the +hours by the throat, to force her life from them. She was rather pale +and ghastly, as if left behind, in the morning. Yet she had her power, +her will was strangely pervasive. With the entrance of the two young +men a sudden tension was felt. + +She lifted her face, and said, in her amused sing-song: + +“Good morning! Did you sleep well? I’m so glad.” + +And she turned away, ignoring them. Birkin, who knew her well, saw that +she intended to discount his existence. + +“Will you take what you want from the sideboard?” said Alexander, in a +voice slightly suggesting disapprobation. “I hope the things aren’t +cold. Oh no! Do you mind putting out the flame under the chafing-dish, +Rupert? Thank you.” + +Even Alexander was rather authoritative where Hermione was cool. He +took his tone from her, inevitably. Birkin sat down and looked at the +table. He was so used to this house, to this room, to this atmosphere, +through years of intimacy, and now he felt in complete opposition to it +all, it had nothing to do with him. How well he knew Hermione, as she +sat there, erect and silent and somewhat bemused, and yet so potent, so +powerful! He knew her statically, so finally, that it was almost like a +madness. It was difficult to believe one was not mad, that one was not +a figure in the hall of kings in some Egyptian tomb, where the dead all +sat immemorial and tremendous. How utterly he knew Joshua Mattheson, +who was talking in his harsh, yet rather mincing voice, endlessly, +endlessly, always with a strong mentality working, always interesting, +and yet always known, everything he said known beforehand, however +novel it was, and clever. Alexander the up-to-date host, so bloodlessly +free-and-easy, Fräulein so prettily chiming in just as she should, the +little Italian Countess taking notice of everybody, only playing her +little game, objective and cold, like a weasel watching everything, and +extracting her own amusement, never giving herself in the slightest; +then Miss Bradley, heavy and rather subservient, treated with cool, +almost amused contempt by Hermione, and therefore slighted by +everybody—how known it all was, like a game with the figures set out, +the same figures, the Queen of chess, the knights, the pawns, the same +now as they were hundreds of years ago, the same figures moving round +in one of the innumerable permutations that make up the game. But the +game is known, its going on is like a madness, it is so exhausted. + +There was Gerald, an amused look on his face; the game pleased him. +There was Gudrun, watching with steady, large, hostile eyes; the game +fascinated her, and she loathed it. There was Ursula, with a slightly +startled look on her face, as if she were hurt, and the pain were just +outside her consciousness. + +Suddenly Birkin got up and went out. + +“That’s enough,” he said to himself involuntarily. + +Hermione knew his motion, though not in her consciousness. She lifted +her heavy eyes and saw him lapse suddenly away, on a sudden, unknown +tide, and the waves broke over her. Only her indomitable will remained +static and mechanical, she sat at the table making her musing, stray +remarks. But the darkness had covered her, she was like a ship that has +gone down. It was finished for her too, she was wrecked in the +darkness. Yet the unfailing mechanism of her will worked on, she had +that activity. + +“Shall we bathe this morning?” she said, suddenly looking at them all. + +“Splendid,” said Joshua. “It is a perfect morning.” + +“Oh, it is beautiful,” said Fräulein. + +“Yes, let us bathe,” said the Italian woman. + +“We have no bathing suits,” said Gerald. + +“Have mine,” said Alexander. “I must go to church and read the lessons. +They expect me.” + +“Are you a Christian?” asked the Italian Countess, with sudden +interest. + +“No,” said Alexander. “I’m not. But I believe in keeping up the old +institutions.” + +“They are so beautiful,” said Fräulein daintily. + +“Oh, they are,” cried Miss Bradley. + +They all trailed out on to the lawn. It was a sunny, soft morning in +early summer, when life ran in the world subtly, like a reminiscence. +The church bells were ringing a little way off, not a cloud was in the +sky, the swans were like lilies on the water below, the peacocks walked +with long, prancing steps across the shadow and into the sunshine of +the grass. One wanted to swoon into the by-gone perfection of it all. + +“Good-bye,” called Alexander, waving his gloves cheerily, and he +disappeared behind the bushes, on his way to church. + +“Now,” said Hermione, “shall we all bathe?” + +“I won’t,” said Ursula. + +“You don’t want to?” said Hermione, looking at her slowly. + +“No. I don’t want to,” said Ursula. + +“Nor I,” said Gudrun. + +“What about my suit?” asked Gerald. + +“I don’t know,” laughed Hermione, with an odd, amused intonation. “Will +a handkerchief do—a large handkerchief?” + +“That will do,” said Gerald. + +“Come along then,” sang Hermione. + +The first to run across the lawn was the little Italian, small and like +a cat, her white legs twinkling as she went, ducking slightly her head, +that was tied in a gold silk kerchief. She tripped through the gate and +down the grass, and stood, like a tiny figure of ivory and bronze, at +the water’s edge, having dropped off her towelling, watching the swans, +which came up in surprise. Then out ran Miss Bradley, like a large, +soft plum in her dark-blue suit. Then Gerald came, a scarlet silk +kerchief round his loins, his towels over his arms. He seemed to flaunt +himself a little in the sun, lingering and laughing, strolling easily, +looking white but natural in his nakedness. Then came Sir Joshua, in an +overcoat, and lastly Hermione, striding with stiff grace from out of a +great mantle of purple silk, her head tied up in purple and gold. +Handsome was her stiff, long body, her straight-stepping white legs, +there was a static magnificence about her as she let the cloak float +loosely away from her striding. She crossed the lawn like some strange +memory, and passed slowly and statelily towards the water. + +There were three ponds, in terraces descending the valley, large and +smooth and beautiful, lying in the sun. The water ran over a little +stone wall, over small rocks, splashing down from one pond to the level +below. The swans had gone out on to the opposite bank, the reeds +smelled sweet, a faint breeze touched the skin. + +Gerald had dived in, after Sir Joshua, and had swum to the end of the +pond. There he climbed out and sat on the wall. There was a dive, and +the little Countess was swimming like a rat, to join him. They both sat +in the sun, laughing and crossing their arms on their breasts. Sir +Joshua swam up to them, and stood near them, up to his arm-pits in the +water. Then Hermione and Miss Bradley swam over, and they sat in a row +on the embankment. + +“Aren’t they terrifying? Aren’t they really terrifying?” said Gudrun. +“Don’t they look saurian? They are just like great lizards. Did you +ever see anything like Sir Joshua? But really, Ursula, he belongs to +the primeval world, when great lizards crawled about.” + +Gudrun looked in dismay on Sir Joshua, who stood up to the breast in +the water, his long, greyish hair washed down into his eyes, his neck +set into thick, crude shoulders. He was talking to Miss Bradley, who, +seated on the bank above, plump and big and wet, looked as if she might +roll and slither in the water almost like one of the slithering +sealions in the Zoo. + +Ursula watched in silence. Gerald was laughing happily, between +Hermione and the Italian. He reminded her of Dionysos, because his hair +was really yellow, his figure so full and laughing. Hermione, in her +large, stiff, sinister grace, leaned near him, frightening, as if she +were not responsible for what she might do. He knew a certain danger in +her, a convulsive madness. But he only laughed the more, turning often +to the little Countess, who was flashing up her face at him. + +They all dropped into the water, and were swimming together like a +shoal of seals. Hermione was powerful and unconscious in the water, +large and slow and powerful. Palestra was quick and silent as a water +rat, Gerald wavered and flickered, a white natural shadow. Then, one +after the other, they waded out, and went up to the house. + +But Gerald lingered a moment to speak to Gudrun. + +“You don’t like the water?” he said. + +She looked at him with a long, slow inscrutable look, as he stood +before her negligently, the water standing in beads all over his skin. + +“I like it very much,” she replied. + +He paused, expecting some sort of explanation. + +“And you swim?” + +“Yes, I swim.” + +Still he would not ask her why she would not go in then. He could feel +something ironic in her. He walked away, piqued for the first time. + +“Why wouldn’t you bathe?” he asked her again, later, when he was once +more the properly-dressed young Englishman. + +She hesitated a moment before answering, opposing his persistence. + +“Because I didn’t like the crowd,” she replied. + +He laughed, her phrase seemed to re-echo in his consciousness. The +flavour of her slang was piquant to him. Whether he would or not, she +signified the real world to him. He wanted to come up to her standards, +fulfil her expectations. He knew that her criterion was the only one +that mattered. The others were all outsiders, instinctively, whatever +they might be socially. And Gerald could not help it, he was bound to +strive to come up to her criterion, fulfil her idea of a man and a +human-being. + +After lunch, when all the others had withdrawn, Hermione and Gerald and +Birkin lingered, finishing their talk. There had been some discussion, +on the whole quite intellectual and artificial, about a new state, a +new world of man. Supposing this old social state _were_ broken and +destroyed, then, out of the chaos, what then? + +The great social idea, said Sir Joshua, was the _social_ equality of +man. No, said Gerald, the idea was, that every man was fit for his own +little bit of a task—let him do that, and then please himself. The +unifying principle was the work in hand. Only work, the business of +production, held men together. It was mechanical, but then society +_was_ a mechanism. Apart from work they were isolated, free to do as +they liked. + +“Oh!” cried Gudrun. “Then we shan’t have names any more—we shall be +like the Germans, nothing but Herr Obermeister and Herr Untermeister. I +can imagine it—‘I am Mrs Colliery-Manager Crich—I am Mrs +Member-of-Parliament Roddice. I am Miss Art-Teacher Brangwen.’ Very +pretty that.” + +“Things would work very much better, Miss Art-Teacher Brangwen,” said +Gerald. + +“What things, Mr Colliery-Manager Crich? The relation between you and +me, _par exemple?_” + +“Yes, for example,” cried the Italian. “That which is between men and +women—!” + +“That is non-social,” said Birkin, sarcastically. + +“Exactly,” said Gerald. “Between me and a woman, the social question +does not enter. It is my own affair.” + +“A ten-pound note on it,” said Birkin. + +“You don’t admit that a woman is a social being?” asked Ursula of +Gerald. + +“She is both,” said Gerald. “She is a social being, as far as society +is concerned. But for her own private self, she is a free agent, it is +her own affair, what she does.” + +“But won’t it be rather difficult to arrange the two halves?” asked +Ursula. + +“Oh no,” replied Gerald. “They arrange themselves naturally—we see it +now, everywhere.” + +“Don’t you laugh so pleasantly till you’re out of the wood,” said +Birkin. + +Gerald knitted his brows in momentary irritation. + +“Was I laughing?” he said. + +“_If_,” said Hermione at last, “we could only realise, that in the +_spirit_ we are all one, all equal in the spirit, all brothers +there—the rest wouldn’t matter, there would be no more of this carping +and envy and this struggle for power, which destroys, only destroys.” + +This speech was received in silence, and almost immediately the party +rose from the table. But when the others had gone, Birkin turned round +in bitter declamation, saying: + +“It is just the opposite, just the contrary, Hermione. We are all +different and unequal in spirit—it is only the _social_ differences +that are based on accidental material conditions. We are all abstractly +or mathematically equal, if you like. Every man has hunger and thirst, +two eyes, one nose and two legs. We’re all the same in point of number. +But spiritually, there is pure difference and neither equality nor +inequality counts. It is upon these two bits of knowledge that you must +found a state. Your democracy is an absolute lie—your brotherhood of +man is a pure falsity, if you apply it further than the mathematical +abstraction. We all drank milk first, we all eat bread and meat, we all +want to ride in motor-cars—therein lies the beginning and the end of +the brotherhood of man. But no equality. + +“But I, myself, who am myself, what have I to do with equality with any +other man or woman? In the spirit, I am as separate as one star is from +another, as different in quality and quantity. Establish a state on +_that_. One man isn’t any better than another, not because they are +equal, but because they are intrinsically _other_, that there is no +term of comparison. The minute you begin to compare, one man is seen to +be far better than another, all the inequality you can imagine is there +by nature. I want every man to have his share in the world’s goods, so +that I am rid of his importunity, so that I can tell him: ‘Now you’ve +got what you want—you’ve got your fair share of the world’s gear. Now, +you one-mouthed fool, mind yourself and don’t obstruct me.’” + +Hermione was looking at him with leering eyes, along her cheeks. He +could feel violent waves of hatred and loathing of all he said, coming +out of her. It was dynamic hatred and loathing, coming strong and black +out of the unconsciousness. She heard his words in her unconscious +self, _consciously_ she was as if deafened, she paid no heed to them. + +“It _sounds_ like megalomania, Rupert,” said Gerald, genially. + +Hermione gave a queer, grunting sound. Birkin stood back. + +“Yes, let it,” he said suddenly, the whole tone gone out of his voice, +that had been so insistent, bearing everybody down. And he went away. + +But he felt, later, a little compunction. He had been violent, cruel +with poor Hermione. He wanted to recompense her, to make it up. He had +hurt her, he had been vindictive. He wanted to be on good terms with +her again. + +He went into her boudoir, a remote and very cushiony place. She was +sitting at her table writing letters. She lifted her face abstractedly +when he entered, watched him go to the sofa, and sit down. Then she +looked down at her paper again. + +He took up a large volume which he had been reading before, and became +minutely attentive to his author. His back was towards Hermione. She +could not go on with her writing. Her whole mind was a chaos, darkness +breaking in upon it, and herself struggling to gain control with her +will, as a swimmer struggles with the swirling water. But in spite of +her efforts she was borne down, darkness seemed to break over her, she +felt as if her heart was bursting. The terrible tension grew stronger +and stronger, it was most fearful agony, like being walled up. + +And then she realised that his presence was the wall, his presence was +destroying her. Unless she could break out, she must die most +fearfully, walled up in horror. And he was the wall. She must break +down the wall—she must break him down before her, the awful obstruction +of him who obstructed her life to the last. It must be done, or she +must perish most horribly. + +Terrible shocks ran over her body, like shocks of electricity, as if +many volts of electricity suddenly struck her down. She was aware of +him sitting silently there, an unthinkable evil obstruction. Only this +blotted out her mind, pressed out her very breathing, his silent, +stooping back, the back of his head. + +A terrible voluptuous thrill ran down her arms—she was going to know +her voluptuous consummation. Her arms quivered and were strong, +immeasurably and irresistibly strong. What delight, what delight in +strength, what delirium of pleasure! She was going to have her +consummation of voluptuous ecstasy at last. It was coming! In utmost +terror and agony, she knew it was upon her now, in extremity of bliss. +Her hand closed on a blue, beautiful ball of lapis lazuli that stood on +her desk for a paper-weight. She rolled it round in her hand as she +rose silently. Her heart was a pure flame in her breast, she was purely +unconscious in ecstasy. She moved towards him and stood behind him for +a moment in ecstasy. He, closed within the spell, remained motionless +and unconscious. + +Then swiftly, in a flame that drenched down her body like fluid +lightning and gave her a perfect, unutterable consummation, unutterable +satisfaction, she brought down the ball of jewel stone with all her +force, crash on his head. But her fingers were in the way and deadened +the blow. Nevertheless, down went his head on the table on which his +book lay, the stone slid aside and over his ear, it was one convulsion +of pure bliss for her, lit up by the crushed pain of her fingers. But +it was not somehow complete. She lifted her arm high to aim once more, +straight down on the head that lay dazed on the table. She must smash +it, it must be smashed before her ecstasy was consummated, fulfilled +for ever. A thousand lives, a thousand deaths mattered nothing now, +only the fulfilment of this perfect ecstasy. + +She was not swift, she could only move slowly. A strong spirit in him +woke him and made him lift his face and twist to look at her. Her arm +was raised, the hand clasping the ball of lapis lazuli. It was her left +hand, he realised again with horror that she was left-handed. +Hurriedly, with a burrowing motion, he covered his head under the thick +volume of Thucydides, and the blow came down, almost breaking his neck, +and shattering his heart. + +He was shattered, but he was not afraid. Twisting round to face her he +pushed the table over and got away from her. He was like a flask that +is smashed to atoms, he seemed to himself that he was all fragments, +smashed to bits. Yet his movements were perfectly coherent and clear, +his soul was entire and unsurprised. + +“No you don’t, Hermione,” he said in a low voice. “I don’t let you.” + +He saw her standing tall and livid and attentive, the stone clenched +tense in her hand. + +“Stand away and let me go,” he said, drawing near to her. + +As if pressed back by some hand, she stood away, watching him all the +time without changing, like a neutralised angel confronting him. + +“It is not good,” he said, when he had gone past her. “It isn’t I who +will die. You hear?” + +He kept his face to her as he went out, lest she should strike again. +While he was on his guard, she dared not move. And he was on his guard, +she was powerless. So he had gone, and left her standing. + +She remained perfectly rigid, standing as she was for a long time. Then +she staggered to the couch and lay down, and went heavily to sleep. +When she awoke, she remembered what she had done, but it seemed to her, +she had only hit him, as any woman might do, because he tortured her. +She was perfectly right. She knew that, spiritually, she was right. In +her own infallible purity, she had done what must be done. She was +right, she was pure. A drugged, almost sinister religious expression +became permanent on her face. + +Birkin, barely conscious, and yet perfectly direct in his motion, went +out of the house and straight across the park, to the open country, to +the hills. The brilliant day had become overcast, spots of rain were +falling. He wandered on to a wild valley-side, where were thickets of +hazel, many flowers, tufts of heather, and little clumps of young +fir-trees, budding with soft paws. It was rather wet everywhere, there +was a stream running down at the bottom of the valley, which was +gloomy, or seemed gloomy. He was aware that he could not regain his +consciousness, that he was moving in a sort of darkness. + +Yet he wanted something. He was happy in the wet hillside, that was +overgrown and obscure with bushes and flowers. He wanted to touch them +all, to saturate himself with the touch of them all. He took off his +clothes, and sat down naked among the primroses, moving his feet softly +among the primroses, his legs, his knees, his arms right up to the +arm-pits, lying down and letting them touch his belly, his breasts. It +was such a fine, cool, subtle touch all over him, he seemed to saturate +himself with their contact. + +But they were too soft. He went through the long grass to a clump of +young fir-trees, that were no higher than a man. The soft sharp boughs +beat upon him, as he moved in keen pangs against them, threw little +cold showers of drops on his belly, and beat his loins with their +clusters of soft-sharp needles. There was a thistle which pricked him +vividly, but not too much, because all his movements were too +discriminate and soft. To lie down and roll in the sticky, cool young +hyacinths, to lie on one’s belly and cover one’s back with handfuls of +fine wet grass, soft as a breath, soft and more delicate and more +beautiful than the touch of any woman; and then to sting one’s thigh +against the living dark bristles of the fir-boughs; and then to feel +the light whip of the hazel on one’s shoulders, stinging, and then to +clasp the silvery birch-trunk against one’s breast, its smoothness, its +hardness, its vital knots and ridges—this was good, this was all very +good, very satisfying. Nothing else would do, nothing else would +satisfy, except this coolness and subtlety of vegetation travelling +into one’s blood. How fortunate he was, that there was this lovely, +subtle, responsive vegetation, waiting for him, as he waited for it; +how fulfilled he was, how happy! + +As he dried himself a little with his handkerchief, he thought about +Hermione and the blow. He could feel a pain on the side of his head. +But after all, what did it matter? What did Hermione matter, what did +people matter altogether? There was this perfect cool loneliness, so +lovely and fresh and unexplored. Really, what a mistake he had made, +thinking he wanted people, thinking he wanted a woman. He did not want +a woman—not in the least. The leaves and the primroses and the trees, +they were really lovely and cool and desirable, they really came into +the blood and were added on to him. He was enrichened now immeasurably, +and so glad. + +It was quite right of Hermione to want to kill him. What had he to do +with her? Why should he pretend to have anything to do with human +beings at all? Here was his world, he wanted nobody and nothing but the +lovely, subtle, responsive vegetation, and himself, his own living +self. + +It was necessary to go back into the world. That was true. But that did +not matter, so one knew where one belonged. He knew now where he +belonged. This was his place, his marriage place. The world was +extraneous. + +He climbed out of the valley, wondering if he were mad. But if so, he +preferred his own madness, to the regular sanity. He rejoiced in his +own madness, he was free. He did not want that old sanity of the world, +which was become so repulsive. He rejoiced in the new-found world of +his madness. It was so fresh and delicate and so satisfying. + +As for the certain grief he felt at the same time, in his soul, that +was only the remains of an old ethic, that bade a human being adhere to +humanity. But he was weary of the old ethic, of the human being, and of +humanity. He loved now the soft, delicate vegetation, that was so cool +and perfect. He would overlook the old grief, he would put away the old +ethic, he would be free in his new state. + +He was aware of the pain in his head becoming more and more difficult +every minute. He was walking now along the road to the nearest station. +It was raining and he had no hat. But then plenty of cranks went out +nowadays without hats, in the rain. + +He wondered again how much of his heaviness of heart, a certain +depression, was due to fear, fear lest anybody should have seen him +naked lying against the vegetation. What a dread he had of mankind, of +other people! It amounted almost to horror, to a sort of dream +terror—his horror of being observed by some other people. If he were on +an island, like Alexander Selkirk, with only the creatures and the +trees, he would be free and glad, there would be none of this +heaviness, this misgiving. He could love the vegetation and be quite +happy and unquestioned, by himself. + +He had better send a note to Hermione: she might trouble about him, and +he did not want the onus of this. So at the station, he wrote saying: + + +I will go on to town—I don’t want to come back to Breadalby for the +present. But it is quite all right—I don’t want you to mind having +biffed me, in the least. Tell the others it is just one of my moods. +You were quite right, to biff me—because I know you wanted to. So +there’s the end of it. + + +In the train, however, he felt ill. Every motion was insufferable pain, +and he was sick. He dragged himself from the station into a cab, +feeling his way step by step, like a blind man, and held up only by a +dim will. + +For a week or two he was ill, but he did not let Hermione know, and she +thought he was sulking; there was a complete estrangement between them. +She became rapt, abstracted in her conviction of exclusive +righteousness. She lived in and by her own self-esteem, conviction of +her own rightness of spirit. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. +COAL-DUST + + +Going home from school in the afternoon, the Brangwen girls descended +the hill between the picturesque cottages of Willey Green till they +came to the railway crossing. There they found the gate shut, because +the colliery train was rumbling nearer. They could hear the small +locomotive panting hoarsely as it advanced with caution between the +embankments. The one-legged man in the little signal-hut by the road +stared out from his security, like a crab from a snail-shell. + +Whilst the two girls waited, Gerald Crich trotted up on a red Arab +mare. He rode well and softly, pleased with the delicate quivering of +the creature between his knees. And he was very picturesque, at least +in Gudrun’s eyes, sitting soft and close on the slender red mare, whose +long tail flowed on the air. He saluted the two girls, and drew up at +the crossing to wait for the gate, looking down the railway for the +approaching train. In spite of her ironic smile at his picturesqueness, +Gudrun liked to look at him. He was well-set and easy, his face with +its warm tan showed up his whitish, coarse moustache, and his blue eyes +were full of sharp light as he watched the distance. + +The locomotive chuffed slowly between the banks, hidden. The mare did +not like it. She began to wince away, as if hurt by the unknown noise. +But Gerald pulled her back and held her head to the gate. The sharp +blasts of the chuffing engine broke with more and more force on her. +The repeated sharp blows of unknown, terrifying noise struck through +her till she was rocking with terror. She recoiled like a spring let +go. But a glistening, half-smiling look came into Gerald’s face. He +brought her back again, inevitably. + +The noise was released, the little locomotive with her clanking steel +connecting-rod emerged on the highroad, clanking sharply. The mare +rebounded like a drop of water from hot iron. Ursula and Gudrun pressed +back into the hedge, in fear. But Gerald was heavy on the mare, and +forced her back. It seemed as if he sank into her magnetically, and +could thrust her back against herself. + +“The fool!” cried Ursula loudly. “Why doesn’t he ride away till it’s +gone by?” + +Gudrun was looking at him with black-dilated, spellbound eyes. But he +sat glistening and obstinate, forcing the wheeling mare, which spun and +swerved like a wind, and yet could not get out of the grasp of his +will, nor escape from the mad clamour of terror that resounded through +her, as the trucks thumped slowly, heavily, horrifying, one after the +other, one pursuing the other, over the rails of the crossing. + +The locomotive, as if wanting to see what could be done, put on the +brakes, and back came the trucks rebounding on the iron buffers, +striking like horrible cymbals, clashing nearer and nearer in frightful +strident concussions. The mare opened her mouth and rose slowly, as if +lifted up on a wind of terror. Then suddenly her fore feet struck out, +as she convulsed herself utterly away from the horror. Back she went, +and the two girls clung to each other, feeling she must fall backwards +on top of him. But he leaned forward, his face shining with fixed +amusement, and at last he brought her down, sank her down, and was +bearing her back to the mark. But as strong as the pressure of his +compulsion was the repulsion of her utter terror, throwing her back +away from the railway, so that she spun round and round, on two legs, +as if she were in the centre of some whirlwind. It made Gudrun faint +with poignant dizziness, which seemed to penetrate to her heart. + +“No—! No—! Let her go! Let her go, you fool, you _fool_—!” cried Ursula +at the top of her voice, completely outside herself. And Gudrun hated +her bitterly for being outside herself. It was unendurable that +Ursula’s voice was so powerful and naked. + +A sharpened look came on Gerald’s face. He bit himself down on the mare +like a keen edge biting home, and _forced_ her round. She roared as she +breathed, her nostrils were two wide, hot holes, her mouth was apart, +her eyes frenzied. It was a repulsive sight. But he held on her +unrelaxed, with an almost mechanical relentlessness, keen as a sword +pressing in to her. Both man and horse were sweating with violence. Yet +he seemed calm as a ray of cold sunshine. + +Meanwhile the eternal trucks were rumbling on, very slowly, treading +one after the other, one after the other, like a disgusting dream that +has no end. The connecting chains were grinding and squeaking as the +tension varied, the mare pawed and struck away mechanically now, her +terror fulfilled in her, for now the man encompassed her; her paws were +blind and pathetic as she beat the air, the man closed round her, and +brought her down, almost as if she were part of his own physique. + +“And she’s bleeding! She’s bleeding!” cried Ursula, frantic with +opposition and hatred of Gerald. She alone understood him perfectly, in +pure opposition. + +Gudrun looked and saw the trickles of blood on the sides of the mare, +and she turned white. And then on the very wound the bright spurs came +down, pressing relentlessly. The world reeled and passed into +nothingness for Gudrun, she could not know any more. + +When she recovered, her soul was calm and cold, without feeling. The +trucks were still rumbling by, and the man and the mare were still +fighting. But she herself was cold and separate, she had no more +feeling for them. She was quite hard and cold and indifferent. + +They could see the top of the hooded guard’s-van approaching, the sound +of the trucks was diminishing, there was hope of relief from the +intolerable noise. The heavy panting of the half-stunned mare sounded +automatically, the man seemed to be relaxing confidently, his will +bright and unstained. The guard’s-van came up, and passed slowly, the +guard staring out in his transition on the spectacle in the road. And, +through the man in the closed wagon, Gudrun could see the whole scene +spectacularly, isolated and momentary, like a vision isolated in +eternity. + +Lovely, grateful silence seemed to trail behind the receding train. How +sweet the silence is! Ursula looked with hatred on the buffers of the +diminishing wagon. The gatekeeper stood ready at the door of his hut, +to proceed to open the gate. But Gudrun sprang suddenly forward, in +front of the struggling horse, threw off the latch and flung the gates +asunder, throwing one-half to the keeper, and running with the other +half, forwards. Gerald suddenly let go the horse and leaped forwards, +almost on to Gudrun. She was not afraid. As he jerked aside the mare’s +head, Gudrun cried, in a strange, high voice, like a gull, or like a +witch screaming out from the side of the road: + +“I should think you’re proud.” + +The words were distinct and formed. The man, twisting aside on his +dancing horse, looked at her in some surprise, some wondering interest. +Then the mare’s hoofs had danced three times on the drum-like sleepers +of the crossing, and man and horse were bounding springily, unequally +up the road. + +The two girls watched them go. The gate-keeper hobbled thudding over +the logs of the crossing, with his wooden leg. He had fastened the +gate. Then he also turned, and called to the girls: + +“A masterful young jockey, that; ’ll have his own road, if ever anybody +would.” + +“Yes,” cried Ursula, in her hot, overbearing voice. “Why couldn’t he +take the horse away, till the trucks had gone by? He’s a fool, and a +bully. Does he think it’s manly, to torture a horse? It’s a living +thing, why should he bully it and torture it?” + +There was a pause, then the gate-keeper shook his head, and replied: + +“Yes, it’s as nice a little mare as you could set eyes on—beautiful +little thing, beautiful. Now you couldn’t see his father treat any +animal like that—not you. They’re as different as they welly can be, +Gerald Crich and his father—two different men, different made.” + +Then there was a pause. + +“But why does he do it?” cried Ursula, “why does he? Does he think he’s +grand, when he’s bullied a sensitive creature, ten times as sensitive +as himself?” + +Again there was a cautious pause. Then again the man shook his head, as +if he would say nothing, but would think the more. + +“I expect he’s got to train the mare to stand to anything,” he replied. +“A pure-bred Harab—not the sort of breed as is used to round +here—different sort from our sort altogether. They say as he got her +from Constantinople.” + +“He would!” said Ursula. “He’d better have left her to the Turks, I’m +sure they would have had more decency towards her.” + +The man went in to drink his can of tea, the girls went on down the +lane, that was deep in soft black dust. Gudrun was as if numbed in her +mind by the sense of indomitable soft weight of the man, bearing down +into the living body of the horse: the strong, indomitable thighs of +the blond man clenching the palpitating body of the mare into pure +control; a sort of soft white magnetic domination from the loins and +thighs and calves, enclosing and encompassing the mare heavily into +unutterable subordination, soft blood-subordination, terrible. + +On the left, as the girls walked silently, the coal-mine lifted its +great mounds and its patterned head-stocks, the black railway with the +trucks at rest looked like a harbour just below, a large bay of +railroad with anchored wagons. + +Near the second level-crossing, that went over many bright rails, was a +farm belonging to the collieries, and a great round globe of iron, a +disused boiler, huge and rusty and perfectly round, stood silently in a +paddock by the road. The hens were pecking round it, some chickens were +balanced on the drinking trough, wagtails flew away in among trucks, +from the water. + +On the other side of the wide crossing, by the road-side, was a heap of +pale-grey stones for mending the roads, and a cart standing, and a +middle-aged man with whiskers round his face was leaning on his shovel, +talking to a young man in gaiters, who stood by the horse’s head. Both +men were facing the crossing. + +They saw the two girls appear, small, brilliant figures in the near +distance, in the strong light of the late afternoon. Both wore light, +gay summer dresses, Ursula had an orange-coloured knitted coat, Gudrun +a pale yellow, Ursula wore canary yellow stockings, Gudrun bright rose, +the figures of the two women seemed to glitter in progress over the +wide bay of the railway crossing, white and orange and yellow and rose +glittering in motion across a hot world silted with coal-dust. + +The two men stood quite still in the heat, watching. The elder was a +short, hard-faced energetic man of middle age, the younger a labourer +of twenty-three or so. They stood in silence watching the advance of +the sisters. They watched whilst the girls drew near, and whilst they +passed, and whilst they receded down the dusty road, that had dwellings +on one side, and dusty young corn on the other. + +Then the elder man, with the whiskers round his face, said in a +prurient manner to the young man: + +“What price that, eh? She’ll do, won’t she?” + +“Which?” asked the young man, eagerly, with a laugh. + +“Her with the red stockings. What d’you say? I’d give my week’s wages +for five minutes; what!—just for five minutes.” + +Again the young man laughed. + +“Your missis ’ud have summat to say to you,” he replied. + +Gudrun had turned round and looked at the two men. They were to her +sinister creatures, standing watching after her, by the heap of pale +grey slag. She loathed the man with whiskers round his face. + +“You’re first class, you are,” the man said to her, and to the +distance. + +“Do you think it would be worth a week’s wages?” said the younger man, +musing. + +“Do I? I’d put ’em bloody-well down this second—” + +The younger man looked after Gudrun and Ursula objectively, as if he +wished to calculate what there might be, that was worth his week’s +wages. He shook his head with fatal misgiving. + +“No,” he said. “It’s not worth that to me.” + +“Isn’t?” said the old man. “By God, if it isn’t to me!” + +And he went on shovelling his stones. + +The girls descended between the houses with slate roofs and blackish +brick walls. The heavy gold glamour of approaching sunset lay over all +the colliery district, and the ugliness overlaid with beauty was like a +narcotic to the senses. On the roads silted with black dust, the rich +light fell more warmly, more heavily, over all the amorphous squalor a +kind of magic was cast, from the glowing close of day. + +“It has a foul kind of beauty, this place,” said Gudrun, evidently +suffering from fascination. “Can’t you feel in some way, a thick, hot +attraction in it? I can. And it quite stupifies me.” + +They were passing between blocks of miners’ dwellings. In the back +yards of several dwellings, a miner could be seen washing himself in +the open on this hot evening, naked down to the loins, his great +trousers of moleskin slipping almost away. Miners already cleaned were +sitting on their heels, with their backs near the walls, talking and +silent in pure physical well-being, tired, and taking physical rest. +Their voices sounded out with strong intonation, and the broad dialect +was curiously caressing to the blood. It seemed to envelop Gudrun in a +labourer’s caress, there was in the whole atmosphere a resonance of +physical men, a glamorous thickness of labour and maleness, surcharged +in the air. But it was universal in the district, and therefore +unnoticed by the inhabitants. + +To Gudrun, however, it was potent and half-repulsive. She could never +tell why Beldover was so utterly different from London and the south, +why one’s whole feelings were different, why one seemed to live in +another sphere. Now she realised that this was the world of powerful, +underworld men who spent most of their time in the darkness. In their +voices she could hear the voluptuous resonance of darkness, the strong, +dangerous underworld, mindless, inhuman. They sounded also like strange +machines, heavy, oiled. The voluptuousness was like that of machinery, +cold and iron. + +It was the same every evening when she came home, she seemed to move +through a wave of disruptive force, that was given off from the +presence of thousands of vigorous, underworld, half-automatised +colliers, and which went to the brain and the heart, awaking a fatal +desire, and a fatal callousness. + +There came over her a nostalgia for the place. She hated it, she knew +how utterly cut off it was, how hideous and how sickeningly mindless. +Sometimes she beat her wings like a new Daphne, turning not into a tree +but a machine. And yet, she was overcome by the nostalgia. She +struggled to get more and more into accord with the atmosphere of the +place, she craved to get her satisfaction of it. + +She felt herself drawn out at evening into the main street of the town, +that was uncreated and ugly, and yet surcharged with this same potent +atmosphere of intense, dark callousness. There were always miners +about. They moved with their strange, distorted dignity, a certain +beauty, and unnatural stillness in their bearing, a look of abstraction +and half resignation in their pale, often gaunt faces. They belonged to +another world, they had a strange glamour, their voices were full of an +intolerable deep resonance, like a machine’s burring, a music more +maddening than the siren’s long ago. + +She found herself, with the rest of the common women, drawn out on +Friday evenings to the little market. Friday was pay-day for the +colliers, and Friday night was market night. Every woman was abroad, +every man was out, shopping with his wife, or gathering with his pals. +The pavements were dark for miles around with people coming in, the +little market-place on the crown of the hill, and the main street of +Beldover were black with thickly-crowded men and women. + +It was dark, the market-place was hot with kerosene flares, which threw +a ruddy light on the grave faces of the purchasing wives, and on the +pale abstract faces of the men. The air was full of the sound of criers +and of people talking, thick streams of people moved on the pavements +towards the solid crowd of the market. The shops were blazing and +packed with women, in the streets were men, mostly men, miners of all +ages. Money was spent with almost lavish freedom. + +The carts that came could not pass through. They had to wait, the +driver calling and shouting, till the dense crowd would make way. +Everywhere, young fellows from the outlying districts were making +conversation with the girls, standing in the road and at the corners. +The doors of the public-houses were open and full of light, men passed +in and out in a continual stream, everywhere men were calling out to +one another, or crossing to meet one another, or standing in little +gangs and circles, discussing, endlessly discussing. The sense of talk, +buzzing, jarring, half-secret, the endless mining and political +wrangling, vibrated in the air like discordant machinery. And it was +their voices which affected Gudrun almost to swooning. They aroused a +strange, nostalgic ache of desire, something almost demoniacal, never +to be fulfilled. + +Like any other common girl of the district, Gudrun strolled up and +down, up and down the length of the brilliant two-hundred paces of the +pavement nearest the market-place. She knew it was a vulgar thing to +do; her father and mother could not bear it; but the nostalgia came +over her, she must be among the people. Sometimes she sat among the +louts in the cinema: rakish-looking, unattractive louts they were. Yet +she must be among them. + +And, like any other common lass, she found her ‘boy.’ It was an +electrician, one of the electricians introduced according to Gerald’s +new scheme. He was an earnest, clever man, a scientist with a passion +for sociology. He lived alone in a cottage, in lodgings, in Willey +Green. He was a gentleman, and sufficiently well-to-do. His landlady +spread the reports about him; he _would_ have a large wooden tub in his +bedroom, and every time he came in from work, he _would_ have pails and +pails of water brought up, to bathe in, then he put on clean shirt and +under-clothing _every_ day, and clean silk socks; fastidious and +exacting he was in these respects, but in every other way, most +ordinary and unassuming. + +Gudrun knew all these things. The Brangwen’s house was one to which the +gossip came naturally and inevitably. Palmer was in the first place a +friend of Ursula’s. But in his pale, elegant, serious face there showed +the same nostalgia that Gudrun felt. He too must walk up and down the +street on Friday evening. So he walked with Gudrun, and a friendship +was struck up between them. But he was not in love with Gudrun; he +_really_ wanted Ursula, but for some strange reason, nothing could +happen between her and him. He liked to have Gudrun about, as a +fellow-mind—but that was all. And she had no real feeling for him. He +was a scientist, he had to have a woman to back him. But he was really +impersonal, he had the fineness of an elegant piece of machinery. He +was too cold, too destructive to care really for women, too great an +egoist. He was polarised by the men. Individually he detested and +despised them. In the mass they fascinated him, as machinery fascinated +him. They were a new sort of machinery to him—but incalculable, +incalculable. + +So Gudrun strolled the streets with Palmer, or went to the cinema with +him. And his long, pale, rather elegant face flickered as he made his +sarcastic remarks. There they were, the two of them: two elegants in +one sense: in the other sense, two units, absolutely adhering to the +people, teeming with the distorted colliers. The same secret seemed to +be working in the souls of all alike, Gudrun, Palmer, the rakish young +bloods, the gaunt, middle-aged men. All had a secret sense of power, +and of inexpressible destructiveness, and of fatal half-heartedness, a +sort of rottenness in the will. + +Sometimes Gudrun would start aside, see it all, see how she was sinking +in. And then she was filled with a fury of contempt and anger. She felt +she was sinking into one mass with the rest—all so close and +intermingled and breathless. It was horrible. She stifled. She prepared +for flight, feverishly she flew to her work. But soon she let go. She +started off into the country—the darkish, glamorous country. The spell +was beginning to work again. + + + + +CHAPTER X. +SKETCH-BOOK + + +One morning the sisters were sketching by the side of Willey Water, at +the remote end of the lake. Gudrun had waded out to a gravelly shoal, +and was seated like a Buddhist, staring fixedly at the water-plants +that rose succulent from the mud of the low shores. What she could see +was mud, soft, oozy, watery mud, and from its festering chill, +water-plants rose up, thick and cool and fleshy, very straight and +turgid, thrusting out their leaves at right angles, and having dark +lurid colours, dark green and blotches of black-purple and bronze. But +she could feel their turgid fleshy structure as in a sensuous vision, +she _knew_ how they rose out of the mud, she _knew_ how they thrust out +from themselves, how they stood stiff and succulent against the air. + +Ursula was watching the butterflies, of which there were dozens near +the water, little blue ones suddenly snapping out of nothingness into a +jewel-life, a large black-and-red one standing upon a flower and +breathing with his soft wings, intoxicatingly, breathing pure, ethereal +sunshine; two white ones wrestling in the low air; there was a halo +round them; ah, when they came tumbling nearer they were orangetips, +and it was the orange that had made the halo. Ursula rose and drifted +away, unconscious like the butterflies. + +Gudrun, absorbed in a stupor of apprehension of surging water-plants, +sat crouched on the shoal, drawing, not looking up for a long time, and +then staring unconsciously, absorbedly at the rigid, naked, succulent +stems. Her feet were bare, her hat lay on the bank opposite. + +She started out of her trance, hearing the knocking of oars. She looked +round. There was a boat with a gaudy Japanese parasol, and a man in +white, rowing. The woman was Hermione, and the man was Gerald. She knew +it instantly. And instantly she perished in the keen _frisson_ of +anticipation, an electric vibration in her veins, intense, much more +intense than that which was always humming low in the atmosphere of +Beldover. + +Gerald was her escape from the heavy slough of the pale, underworld, +automatic colliers. He started out of the mud. He was master. She saw +his back, the movement of his white loins. But not that—it was the +whiteness he seemed to enclose as he bent forwards, rowing. He seemed +to stoop to something. His glistening, whitish hair seemed like the +electricity of the sky. + +“There’s Gudrun,” came Hermione’s voice floating distinct over the +water. “We will go and speak to her. Do you mind?” + +Gerald looked round and saw the girl standing by the water’s edge, +looking at him. He pulled the boat towards her, magnetically, without +thinking of her. In his world, his conscious world, she was still +nobody. He knew that Hermione had a curious pleasure in treading down +all the social differences, at least apparently, and he left it to her. + +“How do you do, Gudrun?” sang Hermione, using the Christian name in the +fashionable manner. “What are you doing?” + +“How do you do, Hermione? I _was_ sketching.” + +“Were you?” The boat drifted nearer, till the keel ground on the bank. +“May we see? I should like to _so_ much.” + +It was no use resisting Hermione’s deliberate intention. + +“Well—” said Gudrun reluctantly, for she always hated to have her +unfinished work exposed—“there’s nothing in the least interesting.” + +“Isn’t there? But let me see, will you?” + +Gudrun reached out the sketch-book, Gerald stretched from the boat to +take it. And as he did so, he remembered Gudrun’s last words to him, +and her face lifted up to him as he sat on the swerving horse. An +intensification of pride went over his nerves, because he felt, in some +way she was compelled by him. The exchange of feeling between them was +strong and apart from their consciousness. + +And as if in a spell, Gudrun was aware of his body, stretching and +surging like the marsh-fire, stretching towards her, his hand coming +straight forward like a stem. Her voluptuous, acute apprehension of him +made the blood faint in her veins, her mind went dim and unconscious. +And he rocked on the water perfectly, like the rocking of +phosphorescence. He looked round at the boat. It was drifting off a +little. He lifted the oar to bring it back. And the exquisite pleasure +of slowly arresting the boat, in the heavy-soft water, was complete as +a swoon. + +“_That’s_ what you have done,” said Hermione, looking searchingly at +the plants on the shore, and comparing with Gudrun’s drawing. Gudrun +looked round in the direction of Hermione’s long, pointing finger. +“That is it, isn’t it?” repeated Hermione, needing confirmation. + +“Yes,” said Gudrun automatically, taking no real heed. + +“Let me look,” said Gerald, reaching forward for the book. But Hermione +ignored him, he must not presume, before she had finished. But he, his +will as unthwarted and as unflinching as hers, stretched forward till +he touched the book. A little shock, a storm of revulsion against him, +shook Hermione unconsciously. She released the book when he had not +properly got it, and it tumbled against the side of the boat and +bounced into the water. + +“There!” sang Hermione, with a strange ring of malevolent victory. “I’m +so sorry, so awfully sorry. Can’t you get it, Gerald?” + +This last was said in a note of anxious sneering that made Gerald’s +veins tingle with fine hate for her. He leaned far out of the boat, +reaching down into the water. He could feel his position was +ridiculous, his loins exposed behind him. + +“It is of no importance,” came the strong, clanging voice of Gudrun. +She seemed to touch him. But he reached further, the boat swayed +violently. Hermione, however, remained unperturbed. He grasped the +book, under the water, and brought it up, dripping. + +“I’m so dreadfully sorry—dreadfully sorry,” repeated Hermione. “I’m +afraid it was all my fault.” + +“It’s of no importance—really, I assure you—it doesn’t matter in the +least,” said Gudrun loudly, with emphasis, her face flushed scarlet. +And she held out her hand impatiently for the wet book, to have done +with the scene. Gerald gave it to her. He was not quite himself. + +“I’m so dreadfully sorry,” repeated Hermione, till both Gerald and +Gudrun were exasperated. “Is there nothing that can be done?” + +“In what way?” asked Gudrun, with cool irony. + +“Can’t we save the drawings?” + +There was a moment’s pause, wherein Gudrun made evident all her +refutation of Hermione’s persistence. + +“I assure you,” said Gudrun, with cutting distinctness, “the drawings +are quite as good as ever they were, for my purpose. I want them only +for reference.” + +“But can’t I give you a new book? I wish you’d let me do that. I feel +so truly sorry. I feel it was all my fault.” + +“As far as I saw,” said Gudrun, “it wasn’t your fault at all. If there +was any _fault_, it was Mr Crich’s. But the whole thing is _entirely_ +trivial, and it really is ridiculous to take any notice of it.” + +Gerald watched Gudrun closely, whilst she repulsed Hermione. There was +a body of cold power in her. He watched her with an insight that +amounted to clairvoyance. He saw her a dangerous, hostile spirit, that +could stand undiminished and unabated. It was so finished, and of such +perfect gesture, moreover. + +“I’m awfully glad if it doesn’t matter,” he said; “if there’s no real +harm done.” + +She looked back at him, with her fine blue eyes, and signalled full +into his spirit, as she said, her voice ringing with intimacy almost +caressive now it was addressed to him: + +“Of course, it doesn’t matter in the _least_.” + +The bond was established between them, in that look, in her tone. In +her tone, she made the understanding clear—they were of the same kind, +he and she, a sort of diabolic freemasonry subsisted between them. +Henceforward, she knew, she had her power over him. Wherever they met, +they would be secretly associated. And he would be helpless in the +association with her. Her soul exulted. + +“Good-bye! I’m so glad you forgive me. Gooood-bye!” + +Hermione sang her farewell, and waved her hand. Gerald automatically +took the oar and pushed off. But he was looking all the time, with a +glimmering, subtly-smiling admiration in his eyes, at Gudrun, who stood +on the shoal shaking the wet book in her hand. She turned away and +ignored the receding boat. But Gerald looked back as he rowed, +beholding her, forgetting what he was doing. + +“Aren’t we going too much to the left?” sang Hermione, as she sat +ignored under her coloured parasol. + +Gerald looked round without replying, the oars balanced and glancing in +the sun. + +“I think it’s all right,” he said good-humouredly, beginning to row +again without thinking of what he was doing. And Hermione disliked him +extremely for his good-humoured obliviousness, she was nullified, she +could not regain ascendancy. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. +AN ISLAND + + +Meanwhile Ursula had wandered on from Willey Water along the course of +the bright little stream. The afternoon was full of larks’ singing. On +the bright hill-sides was a subdued smoulder of gorse. A few +forget-me-nots flowered by the water. There was a rousedness and a +glancing everywhere. + +She strayed absorbedly on, over the brooks. She wanted to go to the +mill-pond above. The big mill-house was deserted, save for a labourer +and his wife who lived in the kitchen. So she passed through the empty +farm-yard and through the wilderness of a garden, and mounted the bank +by the sluice. When she got to the top, to see the old, velvety surface +of the pond before her, she noticed a man on the bank, tinkering with a +punt. It was Birkin sawing and hammering away. + +She stood at the head of the sluice, looking at him. He was unaware of +anybody’s presence. He looked very busy, like a wild animal, active and +intent. She felt she ought to go away, he would not want her. He seemed +to be so much occupied. But she did not want to go away. Therefore she +moved along the bank till he would look up. + +Which he soon did. The moment he saw her, he dropped his tools and came +forward, saying: + +“How do you do? I’m making the punt water-tight. Tell me if you think +it is right.” + +She went along with him. + +“You are your father’s daughter, so you can tell me if it will do,” he +said. + +She bent to look at the patched punt. + +“I am sure I am my father’s daughter,” she said, fearful of having to +judge. “But I don’t know anything about carpentry. It _looks_ right, +don’t you think?” + +“Yes, I think. I hope it won’t let me to the bottom, that’s all. Though +even so, it isn’t a great matter, I should come up again. Help me to +get it into the water, will you?” + +With combined efforts they turned over the heavy punt and set it +afloat. + +“Now,” he said, “I’ll try it and you can watch what happens. Then if it +carries, I’ll take you over to the island.” + +“Do,” she cried, watching anxiously. + +The pond was large, and had that perfect stillness and the dark lustre +of very deep water. There were two small islands overgrown with bushes +and a few trees, towards the middle. Birkin pushed himself off, and +veered clumsily in the pond. Luckily the punt drifted so that he could +catch hold of a willow bough, and pull it to the island. + +“Rather overgrown,” he said, looking into the interior, “but very nice. +I’ll come and fetch you. The boat leaks a little.” + +In a moment he was with her again, and she stepped into the wet punt. + +“It’ll float us all right,” he said, and manœuvred again to the island. + +They landed under a willow tree. She shrank from the little jungle of +rank plants before her, evil-smelling figwort and hemlock. But he +explored into it. + +“I shall mow this down,” he said, “and then it will be romantic—like +Paul et Virginie.” + +“Yes, one could have lovely Watteau picnics here,” cried Ursula with +enthusiasm. + +His face darkened. + +“I don’t want Watteau picnics here,” he said. + +“Only your Virginie,” she laughed. + +“Virginie enough,” he smiled wryly. “No, I don’t want her either.” + +Ursula looked at him closely. She had not seen him since Breadalby. He +was very thin and hollow, with a ghastly look in his face. + +“You have been ill; haven’t you?” she asked, rather repulsed. + +“Yes,” he replied coldly. + +They had sat down under the willow tree, and were looking at the pond, +from their retreat on the island. + +“Has it made you frightened?” she asked. + +“What of?” he asked, turning his eyes to look at her. Something in him, +inhuman and unmitigated, disturbed her, and shook her out of her +ordinary self. + +“It _is_ frightening to be very ill, isn’t it?” she said. + +“It isn’t pleasant,” he said. “Whether one is really afraid of death, +or not, I have never decided. In one mood, not a bit, in another, very +much.” + +“But doesn’t it make you feel ashamed? I think it makes one so ashamed, +to be ill—illness is so terribly humiliating, don’t you think?” + +He considered for some minutes. + +“Maybe,” he said. “Though one knows all the time one’s life isn’t +really right, at the source. That’s the humiliation. I don’t see that +the illness counts so much, after that. One is ill because one doesn’t +live properly—can’t. It’s the failure to live that makes one ill, and +humiliates one.” + +“But do you fail to live?” she asked, almost jeering. + +“Why yes—I don’t make much of a success of my days. One seems always to +be bumping one’s nose against the blank wall ahead.” + +Ursula laughed. She was frightened, and when she was frightened she +always laughed and pretended to be jaunty. + +“Your poor nose!” she said, looking at that feature of his face. + +“No wonder it’s ugly,” he replied. + +She was silent for some minutes, struggling with her own +self-deception. It was an instinct in her, to deceive herself. + +“But _I’m_ happy—I think life is _awfully_ jolly,” she said. + +“Good,” he answered, with a certain cold indifference. + +She reached for a bit of paper which had wrapped a small piece of +chocolate she had found in her pocket, and began making a boat. He +watched her without heeding her. There was something strangely pathetic +and tender in her moving, unconscious finger-tips, that were agitated +and hurt, really. + +“I _do_ enjoy things—don’t you?” she asked. + +“Oh yes! But it infuriates me that I can’t get right, at the really +growing part of me. I feel all tangled and messed up, and I _can’t_ get +straight anyhow. I don’t know what really to _do_. One must do +something somewhere.” + +“Why should you always be _doing?_” she retorted. “It is so plebeian. I +think it is much better to be really patrician, and to do nothing but +just be oneself, like a walking flower.” + +“I quite agree,” he said, “if one has burst into blossom. But I can’t +get my flower to blossom anyhow. Either it is blighted in the bud, or +has got the smother-fly, or it isn’t nourished. Curse it, it isn’t even +a bud. It is a contravened knot.” + +Again she laughed. He was so very fretful and exasperated. But she was +anxious and puzzled. How was one to get out, anyhow. There must be a +way out somewhere. + +There was a silence, wherein she wanted to cry. She reached for another +bit of chocolate paper, and began to fold another boat. + +“And why is it,” she asked at length, “that there is no flowering, no +dignity of human life now?” + +“The whole idea is dead. Humanity itself is dry-rotten, really. There +are myriads of human beings hanging on the bush—and they look very nice +and rosy, your healthy young men and women. But they are apples of +Sodom, as a matter of fact, Dead Sea Fruit, gall-apples. It isn’t true +that they have any significance—their insides are full of bitter, +corrupt ash.” + +“But there _are_ good people,” protested Ursula. + +“Good enough for the life of today. But mankind is a dead tree, covered +with fine brilliant galls of people.” + +Ursula could not help stiffening herself against this, it was too +picturesque and final. But neither could she help making him go on. + +“And if it is so, _why_ is it?” she asked, hostile. They were rousing +each other to a fine passion of opposition. + +“Why, why are people all balls of bitter dust? Because they won’t fall +off the tree when they’re ripe. They hang on to their old positions +when the position is over-past, till they become infested with little +worms and dry-rot.” + +There was a long pause. His voice had become hot and very sarcastic. +Ursula was troubled and bewildered, they were both oblivious of +everything but their own immersion. + +“But even if everybody is wrong—where are _you_ right?” she cried, +“where are you any better?” + +“I?—I’m not right,” he cried back. “At least my only rightness lies in +the fact that I know it. I detest what I am, outwardly. I loathe myself +as a human being. Humanity is a huge aggregate lie, and a huge lie is +less than a small truth. Humanity is less, far less than the +individual, because the individual may sometimes be capable of truth, +and humanity is a tree of lies. And they say that love is the greatest +thing; they persist in _saying_ this, the foul liars, and just look at +what they do! Look at all the millions of people who repeat every +minute that love is the greatest, and charity is the greatest—and see +what they are doing all the time. By their works ye shall know them, +for dirty liars and cowards, who daren’t stand by their own actions, +much less by their own words.” + +“But,” said Ursula sadly, “that doesn’t alter the fact that love is the +greatest, does it? What they _do_ doesn’t alter the truth of what they +say, does it?” + +“Completely, because if what they say _were_ true, then they couldn’t +help fulfilling it. But they maintain a lie, and so they run amok at +last. It’s a lie to say that love is the greatest. You might as well +say that hate is the greatest, since the opposite of everything +balances. What people want is hate—hate and nothing but hate. And in +the name of righteousness and love, they get it. They distil themselves +with nitroglycerine, all the lot of them, out of very love. It’s the +lie that kills. If we want hate, let us have it—death, murder, torture, +violent destruction—let us have it: but not in the name of love. But I +abhor humanity, I wish it was swept away. It could go, and there would +be no _absolute_ loss, if every human being perished tomorrow. The +reality would be untouched. Nay, it would be better. The real tree of +life would then be rid of the most ghastly, heavy crop of Dead Sea +Fruit, the intolerable burden of myriad simulacra of people, an +infinite weight of mortal lies.” + +“So you’d like everybody in the world destroyed?” said Ursula. + +“I should indeed.” + +“And the world empty of people?” + +“Yes truly. You yourself, don’t you find it a beautiful clean thought, +a world empty of people, just uninterrupted grass, and a hare sitting +up?” + +The pleasant sincerity of his voice made Ursula pause to consider her +own proposition. And really it _was_ attractive: a clean, lovely, +humanless world. It was the _really_ desirable. Her heart hesitated, +and exulted. But still, she was dissatisfied with _him_. + +“But,” she objected, “you’d be dead yourself, so what good would it do +you?” + +“I would die like a shot, to know that the earth would really be +cleaned of all the people. It is the most beautiful and freeing +thought. Then there would _never_ be another foul humanity created, for +a universal defilement.” + +“No,” said Ursula, “there would be nothing.” + +“What! Nothing? Just because humanity was wiped out? You flatter +yourself. There’d be everything.” + +“But how, if there were no people?” + +“Do you think that creation depends on _man!_ It merely doesn’t. There +are the trees and the grass and birds. I much prefer to think of the +lark rising up in the morning upon a humanless world. Man is a mistake, +he must go. There is the grass, and hares and adders, and the unseen +hosts, actual angels that go about freely when a dirty humanity doesn’t +interrupt them—and good pure-tissued demons: very nice.” + +It pleased Ursula, what he said, pleased her very much, as a phantasy. +Of course it was only a pleasant fancy. She herself knew too well the +actuality of humanity, its hideous actuality. She knew it could not +disappear so cleanly and conveniently. It had a long way to go yet, a +long and hideous way. Her subtle, feminine, demoniacal soul knew it +well. + +“If only man was swept off the face of the earth, creation would go on +so marvellously, with a new start, non-human. Man is one of the +mistakes of creation—like the ichthyosauri. If only he were gone again, +think what lovely things would come out of the liberated days;—things +straight out of the fire.” + +“But man will never be gone,” she said, with insidious, diabolical +knowledge of the horrors of persistence. “The world will go with him.” + +“Ah no,” he answered, “not so. I believe in the proud angels and the +demons that are our fore-runners. They will destroy us, because we are +not proud enough. The ichthyosauri were not proud: they crawled and +floundered as we do. And besides, look at elder-flowers and +bluebells—they are a sign that pure creation takes place—even the +butterfly. But humanity never gets beyond the caterpillar stage—it rots +in the chrysalis, it never will have wings. It is anti-creation, like +monkeys and baboons.” + +Ursula watched him as he talked. There seemed a certain impatient fury +in him, all the while, and at the same time a great amusement in +everything, and a final tolerance. And it was this tolerance she +mistrusted, not the fury. She saw that, all the while, in spite of +himself, he would have to be trying to save the world. And this +knowledge, whilst it comforted her heart somewhere with a little +self-satisfaction, stability, yet filled her with a certain sharp +contempt and hate of him. She wanted him to herself, she hated the +Salvator Mundi touch. It was something diffuse and generalised about +him, which she could not stand. He would behave in the same way, say +the same things, give himself as completely to anybody who came along, +anybody and everybody who liked to appeal to him. It was despicable, a +very insidious form of prostitution. + +“But,” she said, “you believe in individual love, even if you don’t +believe in loving humanity—?” + +“I don’t believe in love at all—that is, any more than I believe in +hate, or in grief. Love is one of the emotions like all the others—and +so it is all right whilst you feel it. But I can’t see how it becomes +an absolute. It is just part of human relationships, no more. And it is +only part of _any_ human relationship. And why one should be required +_always_ to feel it, any more than one always feels sorrow or distant +joy, I cannot conceive. Love isn’t a desideratum—it is an emotion you +feel or you don’t feel, according to circumstance.” + +“Then why do you care about people at all?” she asked, “if you don’t +believe in love? Why do you bother about humanity?” + +“Why do I? Because I can’t get away from it.” + +“Because you love it,” she persisted. + +It irritated him. + +“If I do love it,” he said, “it is my disease.” + +“But it is a disease you don’t want to be cured of,” she said, with +some cold sneering. + +He was silent now, feeling she wanted to insult him. + +“And if you don’t believe in love, what _do_ you believe in?” she asked +mocking. “Simply in the end of the world, and grass?” + +He was beginning to feel a fool. + +“I believe in the unseen hosts,” he said. + +“And nothing else? You believe in nothing visible, except grass and +birds? Your world is a poor show.” + +“Perhaps it is,” he said, cool and superior now he was offended, +assuming a certain insufferable aloof superiority, and withdrawing into +his distance. + +Ursula disliked him. But also she felt she had lost something. She +looked at him as he sat crouched on the bank. There was a certain +priggish Sunday-school stiffness over him, priggish and detestable. And +yet, at the same time, the moulding of him was so quick and attractive, +it gave such a great sense of freedom: the moulding of his brows, his +chin, his whole physique, something so alive, somewhere, in spite of +the look of sickness. + +And it was this duality in feeling which he created in her, that made a +fine hate of him quicken in her bowels. There was his wonderful, +desirable life-rapidity, the rare quality of an utterly desirable man: +and there was at the same time this ridiculous, mean effacement into a +Salvator Mundi and a Sunday-school teacher, a prig of the stiffest +type. + +He looked up at her. He saw her face strangely enkindled, as if +suffused from within by a powerful sweet fire. His soul was arrested in +wonder. She was enkindled in her own living fire. Arrested in wonder +and in pure, perfect attraction, he moved towards her. She sat like a +strange queen, almost supernatural in her glowing smiling richness. + +“The point about love,” he said, his consciousness quickly adjusting +itself, “is that we hate the word because we have vulgarised it. It +ought to be prescribed, tabooed from utterance, for many years, till we +get a new, better idea.” + +There was a beam of understanding between them. + +“But it always means the same thing,” she said. + +“Ah God, no, let it not mean that any more,” he cried. “Let the old +meanings go.” + +“But still it is love,” she persisted. A strange, wicked yellow light +shone at him in her eyes. + +He hesitated, baffled, withdrawing. + +“No,” he said, “it isn’t. Spoken like that, never in the world. You’ve +no business to utter the word.” + +“I must leave it to you, to take it out of the Ark of the Covenant at +the right moment,” she mocked. + +Again they looked at each other. She suddenly sprang up, turned her +back to him, and walked away. He too rose slowly and went to the +water’s edge, where, crouching, he began to amuse himself +unconsciously. Picking a daisy he dropped it on the pond, so that the +stem was a keel, the flower floated like a little water lily, staring +with its open face up to the sky. It turned slowly round, in a slow, +slow Dervish dance, as it veered away. + +He watched it, then dropped another daisy into the water, and after +that another, and sat watching them with bright, absolved eyes, +crouching near on the bank. Ursula turned to look. A strange feeling +possessed her, as if something were taking place. But it was all +intangible. And some sort of control was being put on her. She could +not know. She could only watch the brilliant little discs of the +daisies veering slowly in travel on the dark, lustrous water. The +little flotilla was drifting into the light, a company of white specks +in the distance. + +“Do let us go to the shore, to follow them,” she said, afraid of being +any longer imprisoned on the island. And they pushed off in the punt. + +She was glad to be on the free land again. She went along the bank +towards the sluice. The daisies were scattered broadcast on the pond, +tiny radiant things, like an exaltation, points of exaltation here and +there. Why did they move her so strongly and mystically? + +“Look,” he said, “your boat of purple paper is escorting them, and they +are a convoy of rafts.” + +Some of the daisies came slowly towards her, hesitating, making a shy +bright little cotillion on the dark clear water. Their gay bright +candour moved her so much as they came near, that she was almost in +tears. + +“Why are they so lovely,” she cried. “Why do I think them so lovely?” + +“They are nice flowers,” he said, her emotional tones putting a +constraint on him. + +“You know that a daisy is a company of florets, a concourse, become +individual. Don’t the botanists put it highest in the line of +development? I believe they do.” + +“The compositæ, yes, I think so,” said Ursula, who was never very sure +of anything. Things she knew perfectly well, at one moment, seemed to +become doubtful the next. + +“Explain it so, then,” he said. “The daisy is a perfect little +democracy, so it’s the highest of flowers, hence its charm.” + +“No,” she cried, “no—never. It isn’t democratic.” + +“No,” he admitted. “It’s the golden mob of the proletariat, surrounded +by a showy white fence of the idle rich.” + +“How hateful—your hateful social orders!” she cried. + +“Quite! It’s a daisy—we’ll leave it alone.” + +“Do. Let it be a dark horse for once,” she said: “if anything can be a +dark horse to you,” she added satirically. + +They stood aside, forgetful. As if a little stunned, they both were +motionless, barely conscious. The little conflict into which they had +fallen had torn their consciousness and left them like two impersonal +forces, there in contact. + +He became aware of the lapse. He wanted to say something, to get on to +a new more ordinary footing. + +“You know,” he said, “that I am having rooms here at the mill? Don’t +you think we can have some good times?” + +“Oh are you?” she said, ignoring all his implication of admitted +intimacy. + +He adjusted himself at once, became normally distant. + +“If I find I can live sufficiently by myself,” he continued, “I shall +give up my work altogether. It has become dead to me. I don’t believe +in the humanity I pretend to be part of, I don’t care a straw for the +social ideals I live by, I hate the dying organic form of social +mankind—so it can’t be anything but trumpery, to work at education. I +shall drop it as soon as I am clear enough—tomorrow perhaps—and be by +myself.” + +“Have you enough to live on?” asked Ursula. + +“Yes—I’ve about four hundred a year. That makes it easy for me.” + +There was a pause. + +“And what about Hermione?” asked Ursula. + +“That’s over, finally—a pure failure, and never could have been +anything else.” + +“But you still know each other?” + +“We could hardly pretend to be strangers, could we?” + +There was a stubborn pause. + +“But isn’t that a half-measure?” asked Ursula at length. + +“I don’t think so,” he said. “You’ll be able to tell me if it is.” + +Again there was a pause of some minutes’ duration. He was thinking. + +“One must throw everything away, everything—let everything go, to get +the one last thing one wants,” he said. + +“What thing?” she asked in challenge. + +“I don’t know—freedom together,” he said. + +She had wanted him to say ‘love.’ + +There was heard a loud barking of the dogs below. He seemed disturbed +by it. She did not notice. Only she thought he seemed uneasy. + +“As a matter of fact,” he said, in rather a small voice, “I believe +that is Hermione come now, with Gerald Crich. She wanted to see the +rooms before they are furnished.” + +“I know,” said Ursula. “She will superintend the furnishing for you.” + +“Probably. Does it matter?” + +“Oh no, I should think not,” said Ursula. “Though personally, I can’t +bear her. I think she is a lie, if you like, you who are always talking +about lies.” Then she ruminated for a moment, when she broke out: “Yes, +and I do mind if she furnishes your rooms—I do mind. I mind that you +keep her hanging on at all.” + +He was silent now, frowning. + +“Perhaps,” he said. “I don’t _want_ her to furnish the rooms here—and I +don’t keep her hanging on. Only, I needn’t be churlish to her, need I? +At any rate, I shall have to go down and see them now. You’ll come, +won’t you?” + +“I don’t think so,” she said coldly and irresolutely. + +“Won’t you? Yes do. Come and see the rooms as well. Do come.” + + + + +CHAPTER XII. +CARPETING + + +He set off down the bank, and she went unwillingly with him. Yet she +would not have stayed away, either. + +“We know each other well, you and I, already,” he said. She did not +answer. + +In the large darkish kitchen of the mill, the labourer’s wife was +talking shrilly to Hermione and Gerald, who stood, he in white and she +in a glistening bluish foulard, strangely luminous in the dusk of the +room; whilst from the cages on the walls, a dozen or more canaries sang +at the top of their voices. The cages were all placed round a small +square window at the back, where the sunshine came in, a beautiful +beam, filtering through green leaves of a tree. The voice of Mrs Salmon +shrilled against the noise of the birds, which rose ever more wild and +triumphant, and the woman’s voice went up and up against them, and the +birds replied with wild animation. + +“Here’s Rupert!” shouted Gerald in the midst of the din. He was +suffering badly, being very sensitive in the ear. + +“O-o-h them birds, they won’t let you speak—!” shrilled the labourer’s +wife in disgust. “I’ll cover them up.” + +And she darted here and there, throwing a duster, an apron, a towel, a +table-cloth over the cages of the birds. + +“Now will you stop it, and let a body speak for your row,” she said, +still in a voice that was too high. + +The party watched her. Soon the cages were covered, they had a strange +funereal look. But from under the towels odd defiant trills and +bubblings still shook out. + +“Oh, they won’t go on,” said Mrs Salmon reassuringly. “They’ll go to +sleep now.” + +“Really,” said Hermione, politely. + +“They will,” said Gerald. “They will go to sleep automatically, now the +impression of evening is produced.” + +“Are they so easily deceived?” cried Ursula. + +“Oh, yes,” replied Gerald. “Don’t you know the story of Fabre, who, +when he was a boy, put a hen’s head under her wing, and she straight +away went to sleep? It’s quite true.” + +“And did that make him a naturalist?” asked Birkin. + +“Probably,” said Gerald. + +Meanwhile Ursula was peeping under one of the cloths. There sat the +canary in a corner, bunched and fluffed up for sleep. + +“How ridiculous!” she cried. “It really thinks the night has come! How +absurd! Really, how can one have any respect for a creature that is so +easily taken in!” + +“Yes,” sang Hermione, coming also to look. She put her hand on Ursula’s +arm and chuckled a low laugh. “Yes, doesn’t he look comical?” she +chuckled. “Like a stupid husband.” + +Then, with her hand still on Ursula’s arm, she drew her away, saying, +in her mild sing-song: + +“How did you come here? We saw Gudrun too.” + +“I came to look at the pond,” said Ursula, “and I found Mr Birkin +there.” + +“Did you? This is quite a Brangwen land, isn’t it!” + +“I’m afraid I hoped so,” said Ursula. “I ran here for refuge, when I +saw you down the lake, just putting off.” + +“Did you! And now we’ve run you to earth.” + +Hermione’s eyelids lifted with an uncanny movement, amused but +overwrought. She had always her strange, rapt look, unnatural and +irresponsible. + +“I was going on,” said Ursula. “Mr Birkin wanted me to see the rooms. +Isn’t it delightful to live here? It is perfect.” + +“Yes,” said Hermione, abstractedly. Then she turned right away from +Ursula, ceased to know her existence. + +“How do you feel, Rupert?” she sang in a new, affectionate tone, to +Birkin. + +“Very well,” he replied. + +“Were you quite comfortable?” The curious, sinister, rapt look was on +Hermione’s face, she shrugged her bosom in a convulsed movement, and +seemed like one half in a trance. + +“Quite comfortable,” he replied. + +There was a long pause, whilst Hermione looked at him for a long time, +from under her heavy, drugged eyelids. + +“And you think you’ll be happy here?” she said at last. + +“I’m sure I shall.” + +“I’m sure I shall do anything for him as I can,” said the labourer’s +wife. “And I’m sure our master will; so I _hope_ he’ll find himself +comfortable.” + +Hermione turned and looked at her slowly. + +“Thank you so much,” she said, and then she turned completely away +again. She recovered her position, and lifting her face towards him, +and addressing him exclusively, she said: + +“Have you measured the rooms?” + +“No,” he said, “I’ve been mending the punt.” + +“Shall we do it now?” she said slowly, balanced and dispassionate. + +“Have you got a tape measure, Mrs Salmon?” he said, turning to the +woman. + +“Yes sir, I think I can find one,” replied the woman, bustling +immediately to a basket. “This is the only one I’ve got, if it will +do.” + +Hermione took it, though it was offered to him. + +“Thank you so much,” she said. “It will do very nicely. Thank you so +much.” Then she turned to Birkin, saying with a little gay movement: +“Shall we do it now, Rupert?” + +“What about the others, they’ll be bored,” he said reluctantly. + +“Do you mind?” said Hermione, turning to Ursula and Gerald vaguely. + +“Not in the least,” they replied. + +“Which room shall we do first?” she said, turning again to Birkin, with +the same gaiety, now she was going to _do_ something with him. + +“We’ll take them as they come,” he said. + +“Should I be getting your teas ready, while you do that?” said the +labourer’s wife, also gay because _she_ had something to do. + +“Would you?” said Hermione, turning to her with the curious motion of +intimacy that seemed to envelop the woman, draw her almost to +Hermione’s breast, and which left the others standing apart. “I should +be so glad. Where shall we have it?” + +“Where would you like it? Shall it be in here, or out on the grass?” + +“Where shall we have tea?” sang Hermione to the company at large. + +“On the bank by the pond. And _we’ll_ carry the things up, if you’ll +just get them ready, Mrs Salmon,” said Birkin. + +“All right,” said the pleased woman. + +The party moved down the passage into the front room. It was empty, but +clean and sunny. There was a window looking on to the tangled front +garden. + +“This is the dining-room,” said Hermione. “We’ll measure it this way, +Rupert—you go down there—” + +“Can’t I do it for you,” said Gerald, coming to take the end of the +tape. + +“No, thank you,” cried Hermione, stooping to the ground in her bluish, +brilliant foulard. It was a great joy to her to _do_ things, and to +have the ordering of the job, with Birkin. He obeyed her subduedly. +Ursula and Gerald looked on. It was a peculiarity of Hermione’s, that +at every moment, she had one intimate, and turned all the rest of those +present into onlookers. This raised her into a state of triumph. + +They measured and discussed in the dining-room, and Hermione decided +what the floor coverings must be. It sent her into a strange, convulsed +anger, to be thwarted. Birkin always let her have her way, for the +moment. + +Then they moved across, through the hall, to the other front room, that +was a little smaller than the first. + +“This is the study,” said Hermione. “Rupert, I have a rug that I want +you to have for here. Will you let me give it to you? Do—I want to give +it you.” + +“What is it like?” he asked ungraciously. + +“You haven’t seen it. It is chiefly rose red, then blue, a metallic, +mid-blue, and a very soft dark blue. I think you would like it. Do you +think you would?” + +“It sounds very nice,” he replied. “What is it? Oriental? With a pile?” + +“Yes. Persian! It is made of camel’s hair, silky. I think it is called +Bergamos—twelve feet by seven—. Do you think it will do?” + +“It would _do_,” he said. “But why should you give me an expensive rug? +I can manage perfectly well with my old Oxford Turkish.” + +“But may I give it to you? Do let me.” + +“How much did it cost?” + +She looked at him, and said: + +“I don’t remember. It was quite cheap.” + +He looked at her, his face set. + +“I don’t want to take it, Hermione,” he said. + +“Do let me give it to the rooms,” she said, going up to him and putting +her hand on his arm lightly, pleadingly. “I shall be so disappointed.” + +“You know I don’t want you to give me things,” he repeated helplessly. + +“I don’t want to give you _things_,” she said teasingly. “But will you +have this?” + +“All right,” he said, defeated, and she triumphed. + +They went upstairs. There were two bedrooms to correspond with the +rooms downstairs. One of them was half furnished, and Birkin had +evidently slept there. Hermione went round the room carefully, taking +in every detail, as if absorbing the evidence of his presence, in all +the inanimate things. She felt the bed and examined the coverings. + +“Are you _sure_ you were quite comfortable?” she said, pressing the +pillow. + +“Perfectly,” he replied coldly. + +“And were you warm? There is no down quilt. I am sure you need one. You +mustn’t have a great pressure of clothes.” + +“I’ve got one,” he said. “It is coming down.” + +They measured the rooms, and lingered over every consideration. Ursula +stood at the window and watched the woman carrying the tea up the bank +to the pond. She hated the palaver Hermione made, she wanted to drink +tea, she wanted anything but this fuss and business. + +At last they all mounted the grassy bank, to the picnic. Hermione +poured out tea. She ignored now Ursula’s presence. And Ursula, +recovering from her ill-humour, turned to Gerald saying: + +“Oh, I hated you so much the other day, Mr Crich,” + +“What for?” said Gerald, wincing slightly away. + +“For treating your horse so badly. Oh, I hated you so much!” + +“What did he do?” sang Hermione. + +“He made his lovely sensitive Arab horse stand with him at the +railway-crossing whilst a horrible lot of trucks went by; and the poor +thing, she was in a perfect frenzy, a perfect agony. It was the most +horrible sight you can imagine.” + +“Why did you do it, Gerald?” asked Hermione, calm and interrogative. + +“She must learn to stand—what use is she to me in this country, if she +shies and goes off every time an engine whistles.” + +“But why inflict unnecessary torture?” said Ursula. “Why make her stand +all that time at the crossing? You might just as well have ridden back +up the road, and saved all that horror. Her sides were bleeding where +you had spurred her. It was too horrible—!” + +Gerald stiffened. + +“I have to use her,” he replied. “And if I’m going to be sure of her at +_all_, she’ll have to learn to stand noises.” + +“Why should she?” cried Ursula in a passion. “She is a living creature, +why should she stand anything, just because you choose to make her? She +has as much right to her own being, as you have to yours.” + +“There I disagree,” said Gerald. “I consider that mare is there for my +use. Not because I bought her, but because that is the natural order. +It is more natural for a man to take a horse and use it as he likes, +than for him to go down on his knees to it, begging it to do as it +wishes, and to fulfil its own marvellous nature.” + +Ursula was just breaking out, when Hermione lifted her face and began, +in her musing sing-song: + +“I do think—I do really think we must have the _courage_ to use the +lower animal life for our needs. I do think there is something wrong, +when we look on every living creature as if it were ourselves. I do +feel, that it is false to project our own feelings on every animate +creature. It is a lack of discrimination, a lack of criticism.” + +“Quite,” said Birkin sharply. “Nothing is so detestable as the maudlin +attributing of human feelings and consciousness to animals.” + +“Yes,” said Hermione, wearily, “we must really take a position. Either +we are going to use the animals, or they will use us.” + +“That’s a fact,” said Gerald. “A horse has got a will like a man, +though it has no _mind_ strictly. And if your will isn’t master, then +the horse is master of you. And this is a thing I can’t help. I can’t +help being master of the horse.” + +“If only we could learn how to use our will,” said Hermione, “we could +do anything. The will can cure anything, and put anything right. That I +am convinced of—if only we use the will properly, intelligibly.” + +“What do you mean by using the will properly?” said Birkin. + +“A very great doctor taught me,” she said, addressing Ursula and Gerald +vaguely. “He told me for instance, that to cure oneself of a bad habit, +one should _force_ oneself to do it, when one would not do it—make +oneself do it—and then the habit would disappear.” + +“How do you mean?” said Gerald. + +“If you bite your nails, for example. Then, when you don’t want to bite +your nails, bite them, make yourself bite them. And you would find the +habit was broken.” + +“Is that so?” said Gerald. + +“Yes. And in so many things, I have _made_ myself well. I was a very +queer and nervous girl. And by learning to use my will, simply by using +my will, I _made_ myself right.” + +Ursula looked all the while at Hermione, as she spoke in her slow, +dispassionate, and yet strangely tense voice. A curious thrill went +over the younger woman. Some strange, dark, convulsive power was in +Hermione, fascinating and repelling. + +“It is fatal to use the will like that,” cried Birkin harshly, +“disgusting. Such a will is an obscenity.” + +Hermione looked at him for a long time, with her shadowed, heavy eyes. +Her face was soft and pale and thin, almost phosphorescent, her jaw was +lean. + +“I’m sure it isn’t,” she said at length. There always seemed an +interval, a strange split between what she seemed to feel and +experience, and what she actually said and thought. She seemed to catch +her thoughts at length from off the surface of a maelstrom of chaotic +black emotions and reactions, and Birkin was always filled with +repulsion, she caught so infallibly, her will never failed her. Her +voice was always dispassionate and tense, and perfectly confident. Yet +she shuddered with a sense of nausea, a sort of seasickness that always +threatened to overwhelm her mind. But her mind remained unbroken, her +will was still perfect. It almost sent Birkin mad. But he would never, +never dare to break her will, and let loose the maelstrom of her +subconsciousness, and see her in her ultimate madness. Yet he was +always striking at her. + +“And of course,” he said to Gerald, “horses _haven’t_ got a complete +will, like human beings. A horse has no _one_ will. Every horse, +strictly, has two wills. With one will, it wants to put itself in the +human power completely—and with the other, it wants to be free, wild. +The two wills sometimes lock—you know that, if ever you’ve felt a horse +bolt, while you’ve been driving it.” + +“I have felt a horse bolt while I was driving it,” said Gerald, “but it +didn’t make me know it had two wills. I only knew it was frightened.” + +Hermione had ceased to listen. She simply became oblivious when these +subjects were started. + +“Why should a horse want to put itself in the human power?” asked +Ursula. “That is quite incomprehensible to me. I don’t believe it ever +wanted it.” + +“Yes it did. It’s the last, perhaps highest, love-impulse: resign your +will to the higher being,” said Birkin. + +“What curious notions you have of love,” jeered Ursula. + +“And woman is the same as horses: two wills act in opposition inside +her. With one will, she wants to subject herself utterly. With the +other she wants to bolt, and pitch her rider to perdition.” + +“Then I’m a bolter,” said Ursula, with a burst of laughter. + +“It’s a dangerous thing to domesticate even horses, let alone women,” +said Birkin. “The dominant principle has some rare antagonists.” + +“Good thing too,” said Ursula. + +“Quite,” said Gerald, with a faint smile. “There’s more fun.” + +Hermione could bear no more. She rose, saying in her easy sing-song: + +“Isn’t the evening beautiful! I get filled sometimes with such a great +sense of beauty, that I feel I can hardly bear it.” + +Ursula, to whom she had appealed, rose with her, moved to the last +impersonal depths. And Birkin seemed to her almost a monster of hateful +arrogance. She went with Hermione along the bank of the pond, talking +of beautiful, soothing things, picking the gentle cowslips. + +“Wouldn’t you like a dress,” said Ursula to Hermione, “of this yellow +spotted with orange—a cotton dress?” + +“Yes,” said Hermione, stopping and looking at the flower, letting the +thought come home to her and soothe her. “Wouldn’t it be pretty? I +should _love_ it.” + +And she turned smiling to Ursula, in a feeling of real affection. + +But Gerald remained with Birkin, wanting to probe him to the bottom, to +know what he meant by the dual will in horses. A flicker of excitement +danced on Gerald’s face. + +Hermione and Ursula strayed on together, united in a sudden bond of +deep affection and closeness. + +“I really do not want to be forced into all this criticism and analysis +of life. I really _do_ want to see things in their entirety, with their +beauty left to them, and their wholeness, their natural holiness. Don’t +you feel it, don’t you feel you _can’t_ be tortured into any more +knowledge?” said Hermione, stopping in front of Ursula, and turning to +her with clenched fists thrust downwards. + +“Yes,” said Ursula. “I do. I am sick of all this poking and prying.” + +“I’m so glad you are. Sometimes,” said Hermione, again stopping +arrested in her progress and turning to Ursula, “sometimes I wonder if +I _ought_ to submit to all this realisation, if I am not being weak in +rejecting it. But I feel I _can’t_—I _can’t_. It seems to destroy +_everything_. All the beauty and the—and the true holiness is +destroyed—and I feel I can’t live without them.” + +“And it would be simply wrong to live without them,” cried Ursula. “No, +it is so _irreverent_ to think that everything must be realised in the +head. Really, something must be left to the Lord, there always is and +always will be.” + +“Yes,” said Hermione, reassured like a child, “it should, shouldn’t it? +And Rupert—” she lifted her face to the sky, in a muse—“he _can_ only +tear things to pieces. He really _is_ like a boy who must pull +everything to pieces to see how it is made. And I can’t think it is +right—it does seem so irreverent, as you say.” + +“Like tearing open a bud to see what the flower will be like,” said +Ursula. + +“Yes. And that kills everything, doesn’t it? It doesn’t allow any +possibility of flowering.” + +“Of course not,” said Ursula. “It is purely destructive.” + +“It is, isn’t it!” + +Hermione looked long and slow at Ursula, seeming to accept confirmation +from her. Then the two women were silent. As soon as they were in +accord, they began mutually to mistrust each other. In spite of +herself, Ursula felt herself recoiling from Hermione. It was all she +could do to restrain her revulsion. + +They returned to the men, like two conspirators who have withdrawn to +come to an agreement. Birkin looked up at them. Ursula hated him for +his cold watchfulness. But he said nothing. + +“Shall we be going?” said Hermione. “Rupert, you are coming to +Shortlands to dinner? Will you come at once, will you come now, with +us?” + +“I’m not dressed,” replied Birkin. “And you know Gerald stickles for +convention.” + +“I don’t stickle for it,” said Gerald. “But if you’d got as sick as I +have of rowdy go-as-you-please in the house, you’d prefer it if people +were peaceful and conventional, at least at meals.” + +“All right,” said Birkin. + +“But can’t we wait for you while you dress?” persisted Hermione. + +“If you like.” + +He rose to go indoors. Ursula said she would take her leave. + +“Only,” she said, turning to Gerald, “I must say that, however man is +lord of the beast and the fowl, I still don’t think he has any right to +violate the feelings of the inferior creation. I still think it would +have been much more sensible and nice of you if you’d trotted back up +the road while the train went by, and been considerate.” + +“I see,” said Gerald, smiling, but somewhat annoyed. “I must remember +another time.” + +“They all think I’m an interfering female,” thought Ursula to herself, +as she went away. But she was in arms against them. + +She ran home plunged in thought. She had been very much moved by +Hermione, she had really come into contact with her, so that there was +a sort of league between the two women. And yet she could not bear her. +But she put the thought away. “She’s really good,” she said to herself. +“She really wants what is right.” And she tried to feel at one with +Hermione, and to shut off from Birkin. She was strictly hostile to him. +But she was held to him by some bond, some deep principle. This at once +irritated her and saved her. + +Only now and again, violent little shudders would come over her, out of +her subconsciousness, and she knew it was the fact that she had stated +her challenge to Birkin, and he had, consciously or unconsciously, +accepted. It was a fight to the death between them—or to new life: +though in what the conflict lay, no one could say. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. +MINO + + +The days went by, and she received no sign. Was he going to ignore her, +was he going to take no further notice of her secret? A dreary weight +of anxiety and acrid bitterness settled on her. And yet Ursula knew she +was only deceiving herself, and that he _would_ proceed. She said no +word to anybody. + +Then, sure enough, there came a note from him, asking if she would come +to tea with Gudrun, to his rooms in town. + +“Why does he ask Gudrun as well?” she asked herself at once. “Does he +want to protect himself, or does he think I would not go alone?” She +was tormented by the thought that he wanted to protect himself. But at +the end of all, she only said to herself: + +“I don’t want Gudrun to be there, because I want him to say something +more to me. So I shan’t tell Gudrun anything about it, and I shall go +alone. Then I shall know.” + +She found herself sitting on the tram-car, mounting up the hill going +out of the town, to the place where he had his lodging. She seemed to +have passed into a kind of dream world, absolved from the conditions of +actuality. She watched the sordid streets of the town go by beneath +her, as if she were a spirit disconnected from the material universe. +What had it all to do with her? She was palpitating and formless within +the flux of the ghost life. She could not consider any more, what +anybody would say of her or think about her. People had passed out of +her range, she was absolved. She had fallen strange and dim, out of the +sheath of the material life, as a berry falls from the only world it +has ever known, down out of the sheath on to the real unknown. + +Birkin was standing in the middle of the room, when she was shown in by +the landlady. He too was moved outside himself. She saw him agitated +and shaken, a frail, unsubstantial body silent like the node of some +violent force, that came out from him and shook her almost into a +swoon. + +“You are alone?” he said. + +“Yes—Gudrun could not come.” + +He instantly guessed why. + +And they were both seated in silence, in the terrible tension of the +room. She was aware that it was a pleasant room, full of light and very +restful in its form—aware also of a fuchsia tree, with dangling scarlet +and purple flowers. + +“How nice the fuchsias are!” she said, to break the silence. + +“Aren’t they! Did you think I had forgotten what I said?” + +A swoon went over Ursula’s mind. + +“I don’t want you to remember it—if you don’t want to,” she struggled +to say, through the dark mist that covered her. + +There was silence for some moments. + +“No,” he said. “It isn’t that. Only—if we are going to know each other, +we must pledge ourselves for ever. If we are going to make a +relationship, even of friendship, there must be something final and +infallible about it.” + +There was a clang of mistrust and almost anger in his voice. She did +not answer. Her heart was too much contracted. She could not have +spoken. + +Seeing she was not going to reply, he continued, almost bitterly, +giving himself away: + +“I can’t say it is love I have to offer—and it isn’t love I want. It is +something much more impersonal and harder—and rarer.” + +There was a silence, out of which she said: + +“You mean you don’t love me?” + +She suffered furiously, saying that. + +“Yes, if you like to put it like that. Though perhaps that isn’t true. +I don’t know. At any rate, I don’t feel the emotion of love for you—no, +and I don’t want to. Because it gives out in the last issues.” + +“Love gives out in the last issues?” she asked, feeling numb to the +lips. + +“Yes, it does. At the very last, one is alone, beyond the influence of +love. There is a real impersonal me, that is beyond love, beyond any +emotional relationship. So it is with you. But we want to delude +ourselves that love is the root. It isn’t. It is only the branches. The +root is beyond love, a naked kind of isolation, an isolated me, that +does _not_ meet and mingle, and never can.” + +She watched him with wide, troubled eyes. His face was incandescent in +its abstract earnestness. + +“And you mean you can’t love?” she asked, in trepidation. + +“Yes, if you like. I have loved. But there is a beyond, where there is +not love.” + +She could not submit to this. She felt it swooning over her. But she +could not submit. + +“But how do you know—if you have never _really_ loved?” she asked. + +“It is true, what I say; there is a beyond, in you, in me, which is +further than love, beyond the scope, as stars are beyond the scope of +vision, some of them.” + +“Then there is no love,” cried Ursula. + +“Ultimately, no, there is something else. But, ultimately, there _is_ +no love.” + +Ursula was given over to this statement for some moments. Then she half +rose from her chair, saying, in a final, repellent voice: + +“Then let me go home—what am I doing here?” + +“There is the door,” he said. “You are a free agent.” + +He was suspended finely and perfectly in this extremity. She hung +motionless for some seconds, then she sat down again. + +“If there is no love, what is there?” she cried, almost jeering. + +“Something,” he said, looking at her, battling with his soul, with all +his might. + +“What?” + +He was silent for a long time, unable to be in communication with her +while she was in this state of opposition. + +“There is,” he said, in a voice of pure abstraction; “a final me which +is stark and impersonal and beyond responsibility. So there is a final +you. And it is there I would want to meet you—not in the emotional, +loving plane—but there beyond, where there is no speech and no terms of +agreement. There we are two stark, unknown beings, two utterly strange +creatures, I would want to approach you, and you me. And there could be +no obligation, because there is no standard for action there, because +no understanding has been reaped from that plane. It is quite +inhuman,—so there can be no calling to book, in any form +whatsoever—because one is outside the pale of all that is accepted, and +nothing known applies. One can only follow the impulse, taking that +which lies in front, and responsible for nothing, asked for nothing, +giving nothing, only each taking according to the primal desire.” + +Ursula listened to this speech, her mind dumb and almost senseless, +what he said was so unexpected and so untoward. + +“It is just purely selfish,” she said. + +“If it is pure, yes. But it isn’t selfish at all. Because I don’t +_know_ what I want of you. I deliver _myself_ over to the unknown, in +coming to you, I am without reserves or defences, stripped entirely, +into the unknown. Only there needs the pledge between us, that we will +both cast off everything, cast off ourselves even, and cease to be, so +that that which is perfectly ourselves can take place in us.” + +She pondered along her own line of thought. + +“But it is because you love me, that you want me?” she persisted. + +“No it isn’t. It is because I believe in you—if I _do_ believe in you.” + +“Aren’t you sure?” she laughed, suddenly hurt. + +He was looking at her steadfastly, scarcely heeding what she said. + +“Yes, I must believe in you, or else I shouldn’t be here saying this,” +he replied. “But that is all the proof I have. I don’t feel any very +strong belief at this particular moment.” + +She disliked him for this sudden relapse into weariness and +faithlessness. + +“But don’t you think me good-looking?” she persisted, in a mocking +voice. + +He looked at her, to see if he felt that she was good-looking. + +“I don’t _feel_ that you’re good-looking,” he said. + +“Not even attractive?” she mocked, bitingly. + +He knitted his brows in sudden exasperation. + +“Don’t you see that it’s not a question of visual appreciation in the +least,” he cried. “I don’t _want_ to see you. I’ve seen plenty of +women, I’m sick and weary of seeing them. I want a woman I don’t see.” + +“I’m sorry I can’t oblige you by being invisible,” she laughed. + +“Yes,” he said, “you are invisible to me, if you don’t force me to be +visually aware of you. But I don’t want to see you or hear you.” + +“What did you ask me to tea for, then?” she mocked. + +But he would take no notice of her. He was talking to himself. + +“I want to find you, where you don’t know your own existence, the you +that your common self denies utterly. But I don’t want your good looks, +and I don’t want your womanly feelings, and I don’t want your thoughts +nor opinions nor your ideas—they are all bagatelles to me.” + +“You are very conceited, Monsieur,” she mocked. “How do you know what +my womanly feelings are, or my thoughts or my ideas? You don’t even +know what I think of you now.” + +“Nor do I care in the slightest.” + +“I think you are very silly. I think you want to tell me you love me, +and you go all this way round to do it.” + +“All right,” he said, looking up with sudden exasperation. “Now go away +then, and leave me alone. I don’t want any more of your meretricious +persiflage.” + +“Is it really persiflage?” she mocked, her face really relaxing into +laughter. She interpreted it, that he had made a deep confession of +love to her. But he was so absurd in his words, also. + +They were silent for many minutes, she was pleased and elated like a +child. His concentration broke, he began to look at her simply and +naturally. + +“What I want is a strange conjunction with you—” he said quietly; “not +meeting and mingling—you are quite right—but an equilibrium, a pure +balance of two single beings—as the stars balance each other.” + +She looked at him. He was very earnest, and earnestness was always +rather ridiculous, commonplace, to her. It made her feel unfree and +uncomfortable. Yet she liked him so much. But why drag in the stars. + +“Isn’t this rather sudden?” she mocked. + +He began to laugh. + +“Best to read the terms of the contract, before we sign,” he said. + +A young grey cat that had been sleeping on the sofa jumped down and +stretched, rising on its long legs, and arching its slim back. Then it +sat considering for a moment, erect and kingly. And then, like a dart, +it had shot out of the room, through the open window-doors, and into +the garden. + +“What’s he after?” said Birkin, rising. + +The young cat trotted lordly down the path, waving his tail. He was an +ordinary tabby with white paws, a slender young gentleman. A crouching, +fluffy, brownish-grey cat was stealing up the side of the fence. The +Mino walked statelily up to her, with manly nonchalance. She crouched +before him and pressed herself on the ground in humility, a fluffy soft +outcast, looking up at him with wild eyes that were green and lovely as +great jewels. He looked casually down on her. So she crept a few inches +further, proceeding on her way to the back door, crouching in a +wonderful, soft, self-obliterating manner, and moving like a shadow. + +He, going statelily on his slim legs, walked after her, then suddenly, +for pure excess, he gave her a light cuff with his paw on the side of +her face. She ran off a few steps, like a blown leaf along the ground, +then crouched unobtrusively, in submissive, wild patience. The Mino +pretended to take no notice of her. He blinked his eyes superbly at the +landscape. In a minute she drew herself together and moved softly, a +fleecy brown-grey shadow, a few paces forward. She began to quicken her +pace, in a moment she would be gone like a dream, when the young grey +lord sprang before her, and gave her a light handsome cuff. She +subsided at once, submissively. + +“She is a wild cat,” said Birkin. “She has come in from the woods.” + +The eyes of the stray cat flared round for a moment, like great green +fires staring at Birkin. Then she had rushed in a soft swift rush, half +way down the garden. There she paused to look round. The Mino turned +his face in pure superiority to his master, and slowly closed his eyes, +standing in statuesque young perfection. The wild cat’s round, green, +wondering eyes were staring all the while like uncanny fires. Then +again, like a shadow, she slid towards the kitchen. + +In a lovely springing leap, like a wind, the Mino was upon her, and had +boxed her twice, very definitely, with a white, delicate fist. She sank +and slid back, unquestioning. He walked after her, and cuffed her once +or twice, leisurely, with sudden little blows of his magic white paws. + +“Now why does he do that?” cried Ursula in indignation. + +“They are on intimate terms,” said Birkin. + +“And is that why he hits her?” + +“Yes,” laughed Birkin, “I think he wants to make it quite obvious to +her.” + +“Isn’t it horrid of him!” she cried; and going out into the garden she +called to the Mino: + +“Stop it, don’t bully. Stop hitting her.” + +The stray cat vanished like a swift, invisible shadow. The Mino glanced +at Ursula, then looked from her disdainfully to his master. + +“Are you a bully, Mino?” Birkin asked. + +The young slim cat looked at him, and slowly narrowed its eyes. Then it +glanced away at the landscape, looking into the distance as if +completely oblivious of the two human beings. + +“Mino,” said Ursula, “I don’t like you. You are a bully like all +males.” + +“No,” said Birkin, “he is justified. He is not a bully. He is only +insisting to the poor stray that she shall acknowledge him as a sort of +fate, her own fate: because you can see she is fluffy and promiscuous +as the wind. I am with him entirely. He wants superfine stability.” + +“Yes, I know!” cried Ursula. “He wants his own way—I know what your +fine words work down to—bossiness, I call it, bossiness.” + +The young cat again glanced at Birkin in disdain of the noisy woman. + +“I quite agree with you, Miciotto,” said Birkin to the cat. “Keep your +male dignity, and your higher understanding.” + +Again the Mino narrowed his eyes as if he were looking at the sun. +Then, suddenly affecting to have no connection at all with the two +people, he went trotting off, with assumed spontaneity and gaiety, his +tail erect, his white feet blithe. + +“Now he will find the belle sauvage once more, and entertain her with +his superior wisdom,” laughed Birkin. + +Ursula looked at the man who stood in the garden with his hair blowing +and his eyes smiling ironically, and she cried: + +“Oh it makes me so cross, this assumption of male superiority! And it +is such a lie! One wouldn’t mind if there were any justification for +it.” + +“The wild cat,” said Birkin, “doesn’t mind. She perceives that it is +justified.” + +“Does she!” cried Ursula. “And tell it to the Horse Marines.” + +“To them also.” + +“It is just like Gerald Crich with his horse—a lust for bullying—a real +_Wille zur Macht_—so base, so petty.” + +“I agree that the _Wille zur Macht_ is a base and petty thing. But with +the Mino, it is the desire to bring this female cat into a pure stable +equilibrium, a transcendent and abiding _rapport_ with the single male. +Whereas without him, as you see, she is a mere stray, a fluffy sporadic +bit of chaos. It is a _volonté de pouvoir_, if you like, a will to +ability, taking _pouvoir_ as a verb.” + +“Ah—! Sophistries! It’s the old Adam.” + +“Oh yes. Adam kept Eve in the indestructible paradise, when he kept her +single with himself, like a star in its orbit.” + +“Yes—yes—” cried Ursula, pointing her finger at him. “There you are—a +star in its orbit! A satellite—a satellite of Mars—that’s what she is +to be! There—there—you’ve given yourself away! You want a satellite, +Mars and his satellite! You’ve said it—you’ve said it—you’ve dished +yourself!” + +He stood smiling in frustration and amusement and irritation and +admiration and love. She was so quick, and so lambent, like discernible +fire, and so vindictive, and so rich in her dangerous flamy +sensitiveness. + +“I’ve not said it at all,” he replied, “if you will give me a chance to +speak.” + +“No, no!” she cried. “I won’t let you speak. You’ve said it, a +satellite, you’re not going to wriggle out of it. You’ve said it.” + +“You’ll never believe now that I _haven’t_ said it,” he answered. “I +neither implied nor indicated nor mentioned a satellite, nor intended a +satellite, never.” + +“_You prevaricator!_” she cried, in real indignation. + +“Tea is ready, sir,” said the landlady from the doorway. + +They both looked at her, very much as the cats had looked at them, a +little while before. + +“Thank you, Mrs Daykin.” + +An interrupted silence fell over the two of them, a moment of breach. + +“Come and have tea,” he said. + +“Yes, I should love it,” she replied, gathering herself together. + +They sat facing each other across the tea table. + +“I did not say, nor imply, a satellite. I meant two single equal stars +balanced in conjunction—” + +“You gave yourself away, you gave away your little game completely,” +she cried, beginning at once to eat. He saw that she would take no +further heed of his expostulation, so he began to pour the tea. + +“What _good_ things to eat!” she cried. + +“Take your own sugar,” he said. + +He handed her her cup. He had everything so nice, such pretty cups and +plates, painted with mauve-lustre and green, also shapely bowls and +glass plates, and old spoons, on a woven cloth of pale grey and black +and purple. It was very rich and fine. But Ursula could see Hermione’s +influence. + +“Your things are so lovely!” she said, almost angrily. + +“_I_ like them. It gives me real pleasure to use things that are +attractive in themselves—pleasant things. And Mrs Daykin is good. She +thinks everything is wonderful, for my sake.” + +“Really,” said Ursula, “landladies are better than wives, nowadays. +They certainly _care_ a great deal more. It is much more beautiful and +complete here now, than if you were married.” + +“But think of the emptiness within,” he laughed. + +“No,” she said. “I am jealous that men have such perfect landladies and +such beautiful lodgings. There is nothing left them to desire.” + +“In the house-keeping way, we’ll hope not. It is disgusting, people +marrying for a home.” + +“Still,” said Ursula, “a man has very little need for a woman now, has +he?” + +“In outer things, maybe—except to share his bed and bear his children. +But essentially, there is just the same need as there ever was. Only +nobody takes the trouble to be essential.” + +“How essential?” she said. + +“I do think,” he said, “that the world is only held together by the +mystic conjunction, the ultimate unison between people—a bond. And the +immediate bond is between man and woman.” + +“But it’s such old hat,” said Ursula. “Why should love be a bond? No, +I’m not having any.” + +“If you are walking westward,” he said, “you forfeit the northern and +eastward and southern direction. If you admit a unison, you forfeit all +the possibilities of chaos.” + +“But love is freedom,” she declared. + +“Don’t cant to me,” he replied. “Love is a direction which excludes all +other directions. It’s a freedom _together_, if you like.” + +“No,” she said, “love includes everything.” + +“Sentimental cant,” he replied. “You want the state of chaos, that’s +all. It is ultimate nihilism, this freedom-in-love business, this +freedom which is love and love which is freedom. As a matter of fact, +if you enter into a pure unison, it is irrevocable, and it is never +pure till it is irrevocable. And when it is irrevocable, it is one way, +like the path of a star.” + +“Ha!” she cried bitterly. “It is the old dead morality.” + +“No,” he said, “it is the law of creation. One is committed. One must +commit oneself to a conjunction with the other—for ever. But it is not +selfless—it is a maintaining of the self in mystic balance and +integrity—like a star balanced with another star.” + +“I don’t trust you when you drag in the stars,” she said. “If you were +quite true, it wouldn’t be necessary to be so far-fetched.” + +“Don’t trust me then,” he said, angry. “It is enough that I trust +myself.” + +“And that is where you make another mistake,” she replied. “You _don’t_ +trust yourself. You don’t fully believe yourself what you are saying. +You don’t really want this conjunction, otherwise you wouldn’t talk so +much about it, you’d get it.” + +He was suspended for a moment, arrested. + +“How?” he said. + +“By just loving,” she retorted in defiance. + +He was still a moment, in anger. Then he said: + +“I tell you, I don’t believe in love like that. I tell you, you want +love to administer to your egoism, to subserve you. Love is a process +of subservience with you—and with everybody. I hate it.” + +“No,” she cried, pressing back her head like a cobra, her eyes +flashing. “It is a process of pride—I want to be proud—” + +“Proud and subservient, proud and subservient, I know you,” he retorted +dryly. “Proud and subservient, then subservient to the proud—I know you +and your love. It is a tick-tack, tick-tack, a dance of opposites.” + +“Are you sure?” she mocked wickedly, “what my love is?” + +“Yes, I am,” he retorted. + +“So cocksure!” she said. “How can anybody ever be right, who is so +cocksure? It shows you are wrong.” + +He was silent in chagrin. + +They had talked and struggled till they were both wearied out. + +“Tell me about yourself and your people,” he said. + +And she told him about the Brangwens, and about her mother, and about +Skrebensky, her first love, and about her later experiences. He sat +very still, watching her as she talked. And he seemed to listen with +reverence. Her face was beautiful and full of baffled light as she told +him all the things that had hurt her or perplexed her so deeply. He +seemed to warm and comfort his soul at the beautiful light of her +nature. + +“If she _really_ could pledge herself,” he thought to himself, with +passionate insistence but hardly any hope. Yet a curious little +irresponsible laughter appeared in his heart. + +“We have all suffered so much,” he mocked, ironically. + +She looked up at him, and a flash of wild gaiety went over her face, a +strange flash of yellow light coming from her eyes. + +“Haven’t we!” she cried, in a high, reckless cry. “It is almost absurd, +isn’t it?” + +“Quite absurd,” he said. “Suffering bores me, any more.” + +“So it does me.” + +He was almost afraid of the mocking recklessness of her splendid face. +Here was one who would go to the whole lengths of heaven or hell, +whichever she had to go. And he mistrusted her, he was afraid of a +woman capable of such abandon, such dangerous thoroughness of +destructivity. Yet he chuckled within himself also. + +She came over to him and put her hand on his shoulder, looking down at +him with strange golden-lighted eyes, very tender, but with a curious +devilish look lurking underneath. + +“Say you love me, say ‘my love’ to me,” she pleaded. + +He looked back into her eyes, and saw. His face flickered with sardonic +comprehension. + +“I love you right enough,” he said, grimly. “But I want it to be +something else.” + +“But why? But why?” she insisted, bending her wonderful luminous face +to him. “Why isn’t it enough?” + +“Because we can go one better,” he said, putting his arms round her. + +“No, we can’t,” she said, in a strong, voluptuous voice of yielding. +“We can only love each other. Say ‘my love’ to me, say it, say it.” + +She put her arms round his neck. He enfolded her, and kissed her +subtly, murmuring in a subtle voice of love, and irony, and submission: + +“Yes,—my love, yes,—my love. Let love be enough then. I love you then—I +love you. I’m bored by the rest.” + +“Yes,” she murmured, nestling very sweet and close to him. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. +WATER-PARTY + + +Every year Mr Crich gave a more or less public water-party on the lake. +There was a little pleasure-launch on Willey Water and several rowing +boats, and guests could take tea either in the marquee that was set up +in the grounds of the house, or they could picnic in the shade of the +great walnut tree at the boat-house by the lake. This year the staff of +the Grammar-School was invited, along with the chief officials of the +firm. Gerald and the younger Criches did not care for this party, but +it had become customary now, and it pleased the father, as being the +only occasion when he could gather some people of the district together +in festivity with him. For he loved to give pleasures to his dependents +and to those poorer than himself. But his children preferred the +company of their own equals in wealth. They hated their inferiors’ +humility or gratitude or awkwardness. + +Nevertheless they were willing to attend at this festival, as they had +done almost since they were children, the more so, as they all felt a +little guilty now, and unwilling to thwart their father any more, since +he was so ill in health. Therefore, quite cheerfully Laura prepared to +take her mother’s place as hostess, and Gerald assumed responsibility +for the amusements on the water. + +Birkin had written to Ursula saying he expected to see her at the +party, and Gudrun, although she scorned the patronage of the Criches, +would nevertheless accompany her mother and father if the weather were +fine. + +The day came blue and full of sunshine, with little wafts of wind. The +sisters both wore dresses of white crêpe, and hats of soft grass. But +Gudrun had a sash of brilliant black and pink and yellow colour wound +broadly round her waist, and she had pink silk stockings, and black and +pink and yellow decoration on the brim of her hat, weighing it down a +little. She carried also a yellow silk coat over her arm, so that she +looked remarkable, like a painting from the Salon. Her appearance was a +sore trial to her father, who said angrily: + +“Don’t you think you might as well get yourself up for a Christmas +cracker, an’ ha’ done with it?” + +But Gudrun looked handsome and brilliant, and she wore her clothes in +pure defiance. When people stared at her, and giggled after her, she +made a point of saying loudly, to Ursula: + +“_Regarde, regarde ces gens-là! Ne sont-ils pas des hiboux +incroyables?_” And with the words of French in her mouth, she would +look over her shoulder at the giggling party. + +“No, really, it’s impossible!” Ursula would reply distinctly. And so +the two girls took it out of their universal enemy. But their father +became more and more enraged. + +Ursula was all snowy white, save that her hat was pink, and entirely +without trimming, and her shoes were dark red, and she carried an +orange-coloured coat. And in this guise they were walking all the way +to Shortlands, their father and mother going in front. + +They were laughing at their mother, who, dressed in a summer material +of black and purple stripes, and wearing a hat of purple straw, was +setting forth with much more of the shyness and trepidation of a young +girl than her daughters ever felt, walking demurely beside her husband, +who, as usual, looked rather crumpled in his best suit, as if he were +the father of a young family and had been holding the baby whilst his +wife got dressed. + +“Look at the young couple in front,” said Gudrun calmly. Ursula looked +at her mother and father, and was suddenly seized with uncontrollable +laughter. The two girls stood in the road and laughed till the tears +ran down their faces, as they caught sight again of the shy, unworldly +couple of their parents going on ahead. + +“We are roaring at you, mother,” called Ursula, helplessly following +after her parents. + +Mrs Brangwen turned round with a slightly puzzled, exasperated look. +“Oh indeed!” she said. “What is there so very funny about _me_, I +should like to know?” + +She could not understand that there could be anything amiss with her +appearance. She had a perfect calm sufficiency, an easy indifference to +any criticism whatsoever, as if she were beyond it. Her clothes were +always rather odd, and as a rule slip-shod, yet she wore them with a +perfect ease and satisfaction. Whatever she had on, so long as she was +barely tidy, she was right, beyond remark; such an aristocrat she was +by instinct. + +“You look so stately, like a country Baroness,” said Ursula, laughing +with a little tenderness at her mother’s naive puzzled air. + +“_Just_ like a country Baroness!” chimed in Gudrun. Now the mother’s +natural hauteur became self-conscious, and the girls shrieked again. + +“Go home, you pair of idiots, great giggling idiots!” cried the father +inflamed with irritation. + +“Mm-m-er!” booed Ursula, pulling a face at his crossness. + +The yellow lights danced in his eyes, he leaned forward in real rage. + +“Don’t be so silly as to take any notice of the great gabies,” said Mrs +Brangwen, turning on her way. + +“I’ll see if I’m going to be followed by a pair of giggling yelling +jackanapes—” he cried vengefully. + +The girls stood still, laughing helplessly at his fury, upon the path +beside the hedge. + +“Why you’re as silly as they are, to take any notice,” said Mrs +Brangwen also becoming angry now he was really enraged. + +“There are some people coming, father,” cried Ursula, with mocking +warning. He glanced round quickly, and went on to join his wife, +walking stiff with rage. And the girls followed, weak with laughter. + +When the people had passed by, Brangwen cried in a loud, stupid voice: + +“I’m going back home if there’s any more of this. I’m damned if I’m +going to be made a fool of in this fashion, in the public road.” + +He was really out of temper. At the sound of his blind, vindictive +voice, the laughter suddenly left the girls, and their hearts +contracted with contempt. They hated his words “in the public road.” +What did they care for the public road? But Gudrun was conciliatory. + +“But we weren’t laughing to _hurt_ you,” she cried, with an uncouth +gentleness which made her parents uncomfortable. “We were laughing +because we’re fond of you.” + +“We’ll walk on in front, if they are _so_ touchy,” said Ursula, angry. +And in this wise they arrived at Willey Water. The lake was blue and +fair, the meadows sloped down in sunshine on one side, the thick dark +woods dropped steeply on the other. The little pleasure-launch was +fussing out from the shore, twanging its music, crowded with people, +flapping its paddles. Near the boat-house was a throng of gaily-dressed +persons, small in the distance. And on the high-road, some of the +common people were standing along the hedge, looking at the festivity +beyond, enviously, like souls not admitted to paradise. + +“My eye!” said Gudrun, _sotto voce_, looking at the motley of guests, +“there’s a pretty crowd if you like! Imagine yourself in the midst of +that, my dear.” + +Gudrun’s apprehensive horror of people in the mass unnerved Ursula. “It +looks rather awful,” she said anxiously. + +“And imagine what they’ll be like—_imagine!_” said Gudrun, still in +that unnerving, subdued voice. Yet she advanced determinedly. + +“I suppose we can get away from them,” said Ursula anxiously. + +“We’re in a pretty fix if we can’t,” said Gudrun. Her extreme ironic +loathing and apprehension was very trying to Ursula. + +“We needn’t stay,” she said. + +“I certainly shan’t stay five minutes among that little lot,” said +Gudrun. They advanced nearer, till they saw policemen at the gates. + +“Policemen to keep you in, too!” said Gudrun. “My word, this is a +beautiful affair.” + +“We’d better look after father and mother,” said Ursula anxiously. + +“Mother’s _perfectly_ capable of getting through this little +celebration,” said Gudrun with some contempt. + +But Ursula knew that her father felt uncouth and angry and unhappy, so +she was far from her ease. They waited outside the gate till their +parents came up. The tall, thin man in his crumpled clothes was +unnerved and irritable as a boy, finding himself on the brink of this +social function. He did not feel a gentleman, he did not feel anything +except pure exasperation. + +Ursula took her place at his side, they gave their tickets to the +policeman, and passed in on to the grass, four abreast; the tall, hot, +ruddy-dark man with his narrow boyish brow drawn with irritation, the +fresh-faced, easy woman, perfectly collected though her hair was +slipping on one side, then Gudrun, her eyes round and dark and staring, +her full soft face impassive, almost sulky, so that she seemed to be +backing away in antagonism even whilst she was advancing; and then +Ursula, with the odd, brilliant, dazzled look on her face, that always +came when she was in some false situation. + +Birkin was the good angel. He came smiling to them with his affected +social grace, that somehow was never _quite_ right. But he took off his +hat and smiled at them with a real smile in his eyes, so that Brangwen +cried out heartily in relief: + +“How do you do? You’re better, are you?” + +“Yes, I’m better. How do you do, Mrs Brangwen? I know Gudrun and Ursula +very well.” + +His eyes smiled full of natural warmth. He had a soft, flattering +manner with women, particularly with women who were not young. + +“Yes,” said Mrs Brangwen, cool but yet gratified. “I have heard them +speak of you often enough.” + +He laughed. Gudrun looked aside, feeling she was being belittled. +People were standing about in groups, some women were sitting in the +shade of the walnut tree, with cups of tea in their hands, a waiter in +evening dress was hurrying round, some girls were simpering with +parasols, some young men, who had just come in from rowing, were +sitting cross-legged on the grass, coatless, their shirt-sleeves rolled +up in manly fashion, their hands resting on their white flannel +trousers, their gaudy ties floating about, as they laughed and tried to +be witty with the young damsels. + +“Why,” thought Gudrun churlishly, “don’t they have the manners to put +their coats on, and not to assume such intimacy in their appearance.” + +She abhorred the ordinary young man, with his hair plastered back, and +his easy-going chumminess. + +Hermione Roddice came up, in a handsome gown of white lace, trailing an +enormous silk shawl blotched with great embroidered flowers, and +balancing an enormous plain hat on her head. She looked striking, +astonishing, almost macabre, so tall, with the fringe of her great +cream-coloured vividly-blotched shawl trailing on the ground after her, +her thick hair coming low over her eyes, her face strange and long and +pale, and the blotches of brilliant colour drawn round her. + +“Doesn’t she look _weird!_” Gudrun heard some girls titter behind her. +And she could have killed them. + +“How do you do!” sang Hermione, coming up very kindly, and glancing +slowly over Gudrun’s father and mother. It was a trying moment, +exasperating for Gudrun. Hermione was really so strongly entrenched in +her class superiority, she could come up and know people out of simple +curiosity, as if they were creatures on exhibition. Gudrun would do the +same herself. But she resented being in the position when somebody +might do it to her. + +Hermione, very remarkable, and distinguishing the Brangwens very much, +led them along to where Laura Crich stood receiving the guests. + +“This is Mrs Brangwen,” sang Hermione, and Laura, who wore a stiff +embroidered linen dress, shook hands and said she was glad to see her. +Then Gerald came up, dressed in white, with a black and brown blazer, +and looking handsome. He too was introduced to the Brangwen parents, +and immediately he spoke to Mrs Brangwen as if she were a lady, and to +Brangwen as if he were _not_ a gentleman. Gerald was so obvious in his +demeanour. He had to shake hands with his left hand, because he had +hurt his right, and carried it, bandaged up, in the pocket of his +jacket. Gudrun was _very_ thankful that none of her party asked him +what was the matter with the hand. + +The steam launch was fussing in, all its music jingling, people calling +excitedly from on board. Gerald went to see to the debarkation, Birkin +was getting tea for Mrs Brangwen, Brangwen had joined a Grammar-School +group, Hermione was sitting down by their mother, the girls went to the +landing-stage to watch the launch come in. + +She hooted and tooted gaily, then her paddles were silent, the ropes +were thrown ashore, she drifted in with a little bump. Immediately the +passengers crowded excitedly to come ashore. + +“Wait a minute, wait a minute,” shouted Gerald in sharp command. + +They must wait till the boat was tight on the ropes, till the small +gangway was put out. Then they streamed ashore, clamouring as if they +had come from America. + +“Oh it’s _so_ nice!” the young girls were crying. “It’s quite lovely.” + +The waiters from on board ran out to the boat-house with baskets, the +captain lounged on the little bridge. Seeing all safe, Gerald came to +Gudrun and Ursula. + +“You wouldn’t care to go on board for the next trip, and have tea +there?” he asked. + +“No thanks,” said Gudrun coldly. + +“You don’t care for the water?” + +“For the water? Yes, I like it very much.” + +He looked at her, his eyes searching. + +“You don’t care for going on a launch, then?” + +She was slow in answering, and then she spoke slowly. + +“No,” she said. “I can’t say that I do.” Her colour was high, she +seemed angry about something. + +“_Un peu trop de monde_,” said Ursula, explaining. + +“Eh? _Trop de monde!_” He laughed shortly. “Yes there’s a fair number +of ’em.” + +Gudrun turned on him brilliantly. + +“Have you ever been from Westminster Bridge to Richmond on one of the +Thames steamers?” she cried. + +“No,” he said, “I can’t say I have.” + +“Well, it’s one of the most _vile_ experiences I’ve ever had.” She +spoke rapidly and excitedly, the colour high in her cheeks. “There was +absolutely nowhere to sit down, nowhere, a man just above sang ‘Rocked +in the Cradle of the Deep’ the _whole_ way; he was blind and he had a +small organ, one of those portable organs, and he expected money; so +you can imagine what _that_ was like; there came a constant smell of +luncheon from below, and puffs of hot oily machinery; the journey took +hours and hours and hours; and for miles, literally for miles, dreadful +boys ran with us on the shore, in that _awful_ Thames mud, going in _up +to the waist_—they had their trousers turned back, and they went up to +their hips in that indescribable Thames mud, their faces always turned +to us, and screaming, exactly like carrion creatures, screaming ‘’Ere +y’are sir, ’ere y’are sir, ’ere y’are sir,’ exactly like some foul +carrion objects, perfectly obscene; and paterfamilias on board, +laughing when the boys went right down in that awful mud, occasionally +throwing them a ha’penny. And if you’d seen the intent look on the +faces of these boys, and the way they darted in the filth when a coin +was flung—really, no vulture or jackal could dream of approaching them, +for foulness. I _never_ would go on a pleasure boat again—never.” + +Gerald watched her all the time she spoke, his eyes glittering with +faint rousedness. It was not so much what she said; it was she herself +who roused him, roused him with a small, vivid pricking. + +“Of course,” he said, “every civilised body is bound to have its +vermin.” + +“Why?” cried Ursula. “I don’t have vermin.” + +“And it’s not that—it’s the _quality_ of the whole thing—paterfamilias +laughing and thinking it sport, and throwing the ha’pennies, and +materfamilias spreading her fat little knees and eating, continually +eating—” replied Gudrun. + +“Yes,” said Ursula. “It isn’t the boys so much who are vermin; it’s the +people themselves, the whole body politic, as you call it.” + +Gerald laughed. + +“Never mind,” he said. “You shan’t go on the launch.” + +Gudrun flushed quickly at his rebuke. + +There were a few moments of silence. Gerald, like a sentinel, was +watching the people who were going on to the boat. He was very +good-looking and self-contained, but his air of soldierly alertness was +rather irritating. + +“Will you have tea here then, or go across to the house, where there’s +a tent on the lawn?” he asked. + +“Can’t we have a rowing boat, and get out?” asked Ursula, who was +always rushing in too fast. + +“To get out?” smiled Gerald. + +“You see,” cried Gudrun, flushing at Ursula’s outspoken rudeness, “we +don’t know the people, we are almost _complete_ strangers here.” + +“Oh, I can soon set you up with a few acquaintances,” he said easily. + +Gudrun looked at him, to see if it were ill-meant. Then she smiled at +him. + +“Ah,” she said, “you know what we mean. Can’t we go up there, and +explore that coast?” She pointed to a grove on the hillock of the +meadow-side, near the shore half way down the lake. “That looks +perfectly lovely. We might even bathe. Isn’t it beautiful in this +light. Really, it’s like one of the reaches of the Nile—as one imagines +the Nile.” + +Gerald smiled at her factitious enthusiasm for the distant spot. + +“You’re sure it’s far enough off?” he asked ironically, adding at once: +“Yes, you might go there, if we could get a boat. They seem to be all +out.” + +He looked round the lake and counted the rowing boats on its surface. + +“How lovely it would be!” cried Ursula wistfully. + +“And don’t you want tea?” he said. + +“Oh,” said Gudrun, “we could just drink a cup, and be off.” + +He looked from one to the other, smiling. He was somewhat offended—yet +sporting. + +“Can you manage a boat pretty well?” he asked. + +“Yes,” replied Gudrun, coldly, “pretty well.” + +“Oh yes,” cried Ursula. “We can both of us row like water-spiders.” + +“You can? There’s a light little canoe of mine, that I didn’t take out +for fear somebody should drown themselves. Do you think you’d be safe +in that?” + +“Oh perfectly,” said Gudrun. + +“What an angel!” cried Ursula. + +“Don’t, for _my_ sake, have an accident—because I’m responsible for the +water.” + +“Sure,” pledged Gudrun. + +“Besides, we can both swim quite well,” said Ursula. + +“Well—then I’ll get them to put you up a tea-basket, and you can picnic +all to yourselves,—that’s the idea, isn’t it?” + +“How fearfully good! How frightfully nice if you could!” cried Gudrun +warmly, her colour flushing up again. It made the blood stir in his +veins, the subtle way she turned to him and infused her gratitude into +his body. + +“Where’s Birkin?” he said, his eyes twinkling. “He might help me to get +it down.” + +“But what about your hand? Isn’t it hurt?” asked Gudrun, rather muted, +as if avoiding the intimacy. This was the first time the hurt had been +mentioned. The curious way she skirted round the subject sent a new, +subtle caress through his veins. He took his hand out of his pocket. It +was bandaged. He looked at it, then put it in his pocket again. Gudrun +quivered at the sight of the wrapped up paw. + +“Oh I can manage with one hand. The canoe is as light as a feather,” he +said. “There’s Rupert!—Rupert!” + +Birkin turned from his social duties and came towards them. + +“What have you done to it?” asked Ursula, who had been aching to put +the question for the last half hour. + +“To my hand?” said Gerald. “I trapped it in some machinery.” + +“Ugh!” said Ursula. “And did it hurt much?” + +“Yes,” he said. “It did at the time. It’s getting better now. It +crushed the fingers.” + +“Oh,” cried Ursula, as if in pain, “I hate people who hurt themselves. +I can _feel_ it.” And she shook her hand. + +“What do you want?” said Birkin. + +The two men carried down the slim brown boat, and set it on the water. + +“You’re quite sure you’ll be safe in it?” Gerald asked. + +“Quite sure,” said Gudrun. “I wouldn’t be so mean as to take it, if +there was the slightest doubt. But I’ve had a canoe at Arundel, and I +assure you I’m perfectly safe.” + +So saying, having given her word like a man, she and Ursula entered the +frail craft, and pushed gently off. The two men stood watching them. +Gudrun was paddling. She knew the men were watching her, and it made +her slow and rather clumsy. The colour flew in her face like a flag. + +“Thanks awfully,” she called back to him, from the water, as the boat +slid away. “It’s lovely—like sitting in a leaf.” + +He laughed at the fancy. Her voice was shrill and strange, calling from +the distance. He watched her as she paddled away. There was something +childlike about her, trustful and deferential, like a child. He watched +her all the while, as she rowed. And to Gudrun it was a real delight, +in make-belief, to be the childlike, clinging woman to the man who +stood there on the quay, so good-looking and efficient in his white +clothes, and moreover the most important man she knew at the moment. +She did not take any notice of the wavering, indistinct, lambent +Birkin, who stood at his side. One figure at a time occupied the field +of her attention. + +The boat rustled lightly along the water. They passed the bathers whose +striped tents stood between the willows of the meadow’s edge, and drew +along the open shore, past the meadows that sloped golden in the light +of the already late afternoon. Other boats were stealing under the +wooded shore opposite, they could hear people’s laughter and voices. +But Gudrun rowed on towards the clump of trees that balanced perfect in +the distance, in the golden light. + +The sisters found a little place where a tiny stream flowed into the +lake, with reeds and flowery marsh of pink willow herb, and a gravelly +bank to the side. Here they ran delicately ashore, with their frail +boat, the two girls took off their shoes and stockings and went through +the water’s edge to the grass. The tiny ripples of the lake were warm +and clear, they lifted their boat on to the bank, and looked round with +joy. They were quite alone in a forsaken little stream-mouth, and on +the knoll just behind was the clump of trees. + +“We will bathe just for a moment,” said Ursula, “and then we’ll have +tea.” + +They looked round. Nobody could notice them, or could come up in time +to see them. In less than a minute Ursula had thrown off her clothes +and had slipped naked into the water, and was swimming out. Quickly, +Gudrun joined her. They swam silently and blissfully for a few minutes, +circling round their little stream-mouth. Then they slipped ashore and +ran into the grove again, like nymphs. + +“How lovely it is to be free,” said Ursula, running swiftly here and +there between the tree trunks, quite naked, her hair blowing loose. The +grove was of beech-trees, big and splendid, a steel-grey scaffolding of +trunks and boughs, with level sprays of strong green here and there, +whilst through the northern side the distance glimmered open as through +a window. + +When they had run and danced themselves dry, the girls quickly dressed +and sat down to the fragrant tea. They sat on the northern side of the +grove, in the yellow sunshine facing the slope of the grassy hill, +alone in a little wild world of their own. The tea was hot and +aromatic, there were delicious little sandwiches of cucumber and of +caviare, and winy cakes. + +“Are you happy, Prune?” cried Ursula in delight, looking at her sister. + +“Ursula, I’m perfectly happy,” replied Gudrun gravely, looking at the +westering sun. + +“So am I.” + +When they were together, doing the things they enjoyed, the two sisters +were quite complete in a perfect world of their own. And this was one +of the perfect moments of freedom and delight, such as children alone +know, when all seems a perfect and blissful adventure. + +When they had finished tea, the two girls sat on, silent and serene. +Then Ursula, who had a beautiful strong voice, began to sing to +herself, softly: “Ännchen von Tharau.” Gudrun listened, as she sat +beneath the trees, and the yearning came into her heart. Ursula seemed +so peaceful and sufficient unto herself, sitting there unconsciously +crooning her song, strong and unquestioned at the centre of her own +universe. And Gudrun felt herself outside. Always this desolating, +agonised feeling, that she was outside of life, an onlooker, whilst +Ursula was a partaker, caused Gudrun to suffer from a sense of her own +negation, and made her, that she must always demand the other to be +aware of her, to be in connection with her. + +“Do you mind if I do Dalcroze to that tune, Hurtler?” she asked in a +curious muted tone, scarce moving her lips. + +“What did you say?” asked Ursula, looking up in peaceful surprise. + +“Will you sing while I do Dalcroze?” said Gudrun, suffering at having +to repeat herself. + +Ursula thought a moment, gathering her straying wits together. + +“While you do—?” she asked vaguely. + +“Dalcroze movements,” said Gudrun, suffering tortures of +self-consciousness, even because of her sister. + +“Oh Dalcroze! I couldn’t catch the name. _Do_—I should love to see +you,” cried Ursula, with childish surprised brightness. “What shall I +sing?” + +“Sing anything you like, and I’ll take the rhythm from it.” + +But Ursula could not for her life think of anything to sing. However, +she suddenly began, in a laughing, teasing voice: + +“My love—is a high-born lady—” + +Gudrun, looking as if some invisible chain weighed on her hands and +feet, began slowly to dance in the eurythmic manner, pulsing and +fluttering rhythmically with her feet, making slower, regular gestures +with her hands and arms, now spreading her arms wide, now raising them +above her head, now flinging them softly apart, and lifting her face, +her feet all the time beating and running to the measure of the song, +as if it were some strange incantation, her white, rapt form drifting +here and there in a strange impulsive rhapsody, seeming to be lifted on +a breeze of incantation, shuddering with strange little runs. Ursula +sat on the grass, her mouth open in her singing, her eyes laughing as +if she thought it was a great joke, but a yellow light flashing up in +them, as she caught some of the unconscious ritualistic suggestion of +the complex shuddering and waving and drifting of her sister’s white +form, that was clutched in pure, mindless, tossing rhythm, and a will +set powerful in a kind of hypnotic influence. + +“My love is a high-born lady—She is-s-s—rather dark than shady—” rang +out Ursula’s laughing, satiric song, and quicker, fiercer went Gudrun +in the dance, stamping as if she were trying to throw off some bond, +flinging her hands suddenly and stamping again, then rushing with face +uplifted and throat full and beautiful, and eyes half closed, +sightless. The sun was low and yellow, sinking down, and in the sky +floated a thin, ineffectual moon. + +Ursula was quite absorbed in her song, when suddenly Gudrun stopped and +said mildly, ironically: + +“Ursula!” + +“Yes?” said Ursula, opening her eyes out of the trance. + +Gudrun was standing still and pointing, a mocking smile on her face, +towards the side. + +“Ugh!” cried Ursula in sudden panic, starting to her feet. + +“They’re quite all right,” rang out Gudrun’s sardonic voice. + +On the left stood a little cluster of Highland cattle, vividly coloured +and fleecy in the evening light, their horns branching into the sky, +pushing forward their muzzles inquisitively, to know what it was all +about. Their eyes glittered through their tangle of hair, their naked +nostrils were full of shadow. + +“Won’t they do anything?” cried Ursula in fear. + +Gudrun, who was usually frightened of cattle, now shook her head in a +queer, half-doubtful, half-sardonic motion, a faint smile round her +mouth. + +“Don’t they look charming, Ursula?” cried Gudrun, in a high, strident +voice, something like the scream of a seagull. + +“Charming,” cried Ursula in trepidation. “But won’t they do anything to +us?” + +Again Gudrun looked back at her sister with an enigmatic smile, and +shook her head. + +“I’m sure they won’t,” she said, as if she had to convince herself +also, and yet, as if she were confident of some secret power in +herself, and had to put it to the test. “Sit down and sing again,” she +called in her high, strident voice. + +“I’m frightened,” cried Ursula, in a pathetic voice, watching the group +of sturdy short cattle, that stood with their knees planted, and +watched with their dark, wicked eyes, through the matted fringe of +their hair. Nevertheless, she sank down again, in her former posture. + +“They are quite safe,” came Gudrun’s high call. “Sing something, you’ve +only to sing something.” + +It was evident she had a strange passion to dance before the sturdy, +handsome cattle. + +Ursula began to sing, in a false quavering voice: + +“Way down in Tennessee—” + +She sounded purely anxious. Nevertheless, Gudrun, with her arms +outspread and her face uplifted, went in a strange palpitating dance +towards the cattle, lifting her body towards them as if in a spell, her +feet pulsing as if in some little frenzy of unconscious sensation, her +arms, her wrists, her hands stretching and heaving and falling and +reaching and reaching and falling, her breasts lifted and shaken +towards the cattle, her throat exposed as in some voluptuous ecstasy +towards them, whilst she drifted imperceptibly nearer, an uncanny white +figure, towards them, carried away in its own rapt trance, ebbing in +strange fluctuations upon the cattle, that waited, and ducked their +heads a little in sudden contraction from her, watching all the time as +if hypnotised, their bare horns branching in the clear light, as the +white figure of the woman ebbed upon them, in the slow, hypnotising +convulsion of the dance. She could feel them just in front of her, it +was as if she had the electric pulse from their breasts running into +her hands. Soon she would touch them, actually touch them. A terrible +shiver of fear and pleasure went through her. And all the while, +Ursula, spell-bound, kept up her high-pitched thin, irrelevant song, +which pierced the fading evening like an incantation. + +Gudrun could hear the cattle breathing heavily with helpless fear and +fascination. Oh, they were brave little beasts, these wild Scotch +bullocks, wild and fleecy. Suddenly one of them snorted, ducked its +head, and backed. + +“Hue! Hi-eee!” came a sudden loud shout from the edge of the grove. The +cattle broke and fell back quite spontaneously, went running up the +hill, their fleece waving like fire to their motion. Gudrun stood +suspended out on the grass, Ursula rose to her feet. + +It was Gerald and Birkin come to find them, and Gerald had cried out to +frighten off the cattle. + +“What do you think you’re doing?” he now called, in a high, wondering +vexed tone. + +“Why have you come?” came back Gudrun’s strident cry of anger. + +“What do you think you were doing?” Gerald repeated, automatically. + +“We were doing eurythmics,” laughed Ursula, in a shaken voice. + +Gudrun stood aloof looking at them with large dark eyes of resentment, +suspended for a few moments. Then she walked away up the hill, after +the cattle, which had gathered in a little, spell-bound cluster higher +up. + +“Where are you going?” Gerald called after her. And he followed her up +the hill-side. The sun had gone behind the hill, and shadows were +clinging to the earth, the sky above was full of travelling light. + +“A poor song for a dance,” said Birkin to Ursula, standing before her +with a sardonic, flickering laugh on his face. And in another second, +he was singing softly to himself, and dancing a grotesque step-dance in +front of her, his limbs and body shaking loose, his face flickering +palely, a constant thing, whilst his feet beat a rapid mocking tattoo, +and his body seemed to hang all loose and quaking in between, like a +shadow. + +“I think we’ve all gone mad,” she said, laughing rather frightened. + +“Pity we aren’t madder,” he answered, as he kept up the incessant +shaking dance. Then suddenly he leaned up to her and kissed her fingers +lightly, putting his face to hers and looking into her eyes with a pale +grin. She stepped back, affronted. + +“Offended—?” he asked ironically, suddenly going quite still and +reserved again. “I thought you liked the light fantastic.” + +“Not like that,” she said, confused and bewildered, almost affronted. +Yet somewhere inside her she was fascinated by the sight of his loose, +vibrating body, perfectly abandoned to its own dropping and swinging, +and by the pallid, sardonic-smiling face above. Yet automatically she +stiffened herself away, and disapproved. It seemed almost an obscenity, +in a man who talked as a rule so very seriously. + +“Why not like that?” he mocked. And immediately he dropped again into +the incredibly rapid, slack-waggling dance, watching her malevolently. +And moving in the rapid, stationary dance, he came a little nearer, and +reached forward with an incredibly mocking, satiric gleam on his face, +and would have kissed her again, had she not started back. + +“No, don’t!” she cried, really afraid. + +“Cordelia after all,” he said satirically. She was stung, as if this +were an insult. She knew he intended it as such, and it bewildered her. + +“And you,” she cried in retort, “why do you always take your soul in +your mouth, so frightfully full?” + +“So that I can spit it out the more readily,” he said, pleased by his +own retort. + +Gerald Crich, his face narrowing to an intent gleam, followed up the +hill with quick strides, straight after Gudrun. The cattle stood with +their noses together on the brow of a slope, watching the scene below, +the men in white hovering about the white forms of the women, watching +above all Gudrun, who was advancing slowly towards them. She stood a +moment, glancing back at Gerald, and then at the cattle. + +Then in a sudden motion, she lifted her arms and rushed sheer upon the +long-horned bullocks, in shuddering irregular runs, pausing for a +second and looking at them, then lifting her hands and running forward +with a flash, till they ceased pawing the ground, and gave way, +snorting with terror, lifting their heads from the ground and flinging +themselves away, galloping off into the evening, becoming tiny in the +distance, and still not stopping. + +Gudrun remained staring after them, with a mask-like defiant face. + +“Why do you want to drive them mad?” asked Gerald, coming up with her. + +She took no notice of him, only averted her face from him. “It’s not +safe, you know,” he persisted. “They’re nasty, when they do turn.” + +“Turn where? Turn away?” she mocked loudly. + +“No,” he said, “turn against you.” + +“Turn against _me?_” she mocked. + +He could make nothing of this. + +“Anyway, they gored one of the farmer’s cows to death, the other day,” +he said. + +“What do I care?” she said. + +“_I_ cared though,” he replied, “seeing that they’re my cattle.” + +“How are they yours! You haven’t swallowed them. Give me one of them +now,” she said, holding out her hand. + +“You know where they are,” he said, pointing over the hill. “You can +have one if you’d like it sent to you later on.” + +She looked at him inscrutably. + +“You think I’m afraid of you and your cattle, don’t you?” she asked. + +His eyes narrowed dangerously. There was a faint domineering smile on +his face. + +“Why should I think that?” he said. + +She was watching him all the time with her dark, dilated, inchoate +eyes. She leaned forward and swung round her arm, catching him a light +blow on the face with the back of her hand. + +“That’s why,” she said, mocking. + +And she felt in her soul an unconquerable desire for deep violence +against him. She shut off the fear and dismay that filled her conscious +mind. She wanted to do as she did, she was not going to be afraid. + +He recoiled from the slight blow on his face. He became deadly pale, +and a dangerous flame darkened his eyes. For some seconds he could not +speak, his lungs were so suffused with blood, his heart stretched +almost to bursting with a great gush of ungovernable emotion. It was as +if some reservoir of black emotion had burst within him, and swamped +him. + +“You have struck the first blow,” he said at last, forcing the words +from his lungs, in a voice so soft and low, it sounded like a dream +within her, not spoken in the outer air. + +“And I shall strike the last,” she retorted involuntarily, with +confident assurance. He was silent, he did not contradict her. + +She stood negligently, staring away from him, into the distance. On the +edge of her consciousness the question was asking itself, +automatically: + +“Why _are_ you behaving in this _impossible_ and ridiculous fashion.” +But she was sullen, she half shoved the question out of herself. She +could not get it clean away, so she felt self-conscious. + +Gerald, very pale, was watching her closely. His eyes were lit up with +intent lights, absorbed and gleaming. She turned suddenly on him. + +“It’s you who make me behave like this, you know,” she said, almost +suggestive. + +“I? How?” he said. + +But she turned away, and set off towards the lake. Below, on the water, +lanterns were coming alight, faint ghosts of warm flame floating in the +pallor of the first twilight. The earth was spread with darkness, like +lacquer, overhead was a pale sky, all primrose, and the lake was pale +as milk in one part. Away at the landing stage, tiniest points of +coloured rays were stringing themselves in the dusk. The launch was +being illuminated. All round, shadow was gathering from the trees. + +Gerald, white like a presence in his summer clothes, was following down +the open grassy slope. Gudrun waited for him to come up. Then she +softly put out her hand and touched him, saying softly: + +“Don’t be angry with me.” + +A flame flew over him, and he was unconscious. Yet he stammered: + +“I’m not angry with you. I’m in love with you.” + +His mind was gone, he grasped for sufficient mechanical control, to +save himself. She laughed a silvery little mockery, yet intolerably +caressive. + +“That’s one way of putting it,” she said. + +The terrible swooning burden on his mind, the awful swooning, the loss +of all his control, was too much for him. He grasped her arm in his one +hand, as if his hand were iron. + +“It’s all right, then, is it?” he said, holding her arrested. + +She looked at the face with the fixed eyes, set before her, and her +blood ran cold. + +“Yes, it’s all right,” she said softly, as if drugged, her voice +crooning and witch-like. + +He walked on beside her, a striding, mindless body. But he recovered a +little as he went. He suffered badly. He had killed his brother when a +boy, and was set apart, like Cain. + +They found Birkin and Ursula sitting together by the boats, talking and +laughing. Birkin had been teasing Ursula. + +“Do you smell this little marsh?” he said, sniffing the air. He was +very sensitive to scents, and quick in understanding them. + +“It’s rather nice,” she said. + +“No,” he replied, “alarming.” + +“Why alarming?” she laughed. + +“It seethes and seethes, a river of darkness,” he said, “putting forth +lilies and snakes, and the _ignis fatuus_, and rolling all the time +onward. That’s what we never take into count—that it rolls onwards.” + +“What does?” + +“The other river, the black river. We always consider the silver river +of life, rolling on and quickening all the world to a brightness, on +and on to heaven, flowing into a bright eternal sea, a heaven of angels +thronging. But the other is our real reality—” + +“But what other? I don’t see any other,” said Ursula. + +“It is your reality, nevertheless,” he said; “that dark river of +dissolution. You see it rolls in us just as the other rolls—the black +river of corruption. And our flowers are of this—our sea-born +Aphrodite, all our white phosphorescent flowers of sensuous perfection, +all our reality, nowadays.” + +“You mean that Aphrodite is really deathly?” asked Ursula. + +“I mean she is the flowering mystery of the death-process, yes,” he +replied. “When the stream of synthetic creation lapses, we find +ourselves part of the inverse process, the blood of destructive +creation. Aphrodite is born in the first spasm of universal +dissolution—then the snakes and swans and lotus—marsh-flowers—and +Gudrun and Gerald—born in the process of destructive creation.” + +“And you and me—?” she asked. + +“Probably,” he replied. “In part, certainly. Whether we are that, _in +toto_, I don’t yet know.” + +“You mean we are flowers of dissolution—_fleurs du mal?_ I don’t feel +as if I were,” she protested. + +He was silent for a time. + +“I don’t feel as if we were, _altogether_,” he replied. “Some people +are pure flowers of dark corruption—lilies. But there ought to be some +roses, warm and flamy. You know Herakleitos says ‘a dry soul is best.’ +I know so well what that means. Do you?” + +“I’m not sure,” Ursula replied. “But what if people _are_ all flowers +of dissolution—when they’re flowers at all—what difference does it +make?” + +“No difference—and all the difference. Dissolution rolls on, just as +production does,” he said. “It is a progressive process—and it ends in +universal nothing—the end of the world, if you like. But why isn’t the +end of the world as good as the beginning?” + +“I suppose it isn’t,” said Ursula, rather angry. + +“Oh yes, ultimately,” he said. “It means a new cycle of creation +after—but not for us. If it is the end, then we are of the end—_fleurs +du mal_ if you like. If we are _fleurs du mal_, we are not roses of +happiness, and there you are.” + +“But I think I am,” said Ursula. “I think I am a rose of happiness.” + +“Ready-made?” he asked ironically. + +“No—real,” she said, hurt. + +“If we are the end, we are not the beginning,” he said. + +“Yes we are,” she said. “The beginning comes out of the end.” + +“After it, not out of it. After us, not out of us.” + +“You are a devil, you know, really,” she said. “You want to destroy our +hope. You _want_ us to be deathly.” + +“No,” he said, “I only want us to _know_ what we are.” + +“Ha!” she cried in anger. “You only want us to know death.” + +“You’re quite right,” said the soft voice of Gerald, out of the dusk +behind. + +Birkin rose. Gerald and Gudrun came up. They all began to smoke, in the +moments of silence. One after another, Birkin lighted their cigarettes. +The match flickered in the twilight, and they were all smoking +peacefully by the water-side. The lake was dim, the light dying from +off it, in the midst of the dark land. The air all round was +intangible, neither here nor there, and there was an unreal noise of +banjoes, or suchlike music. + +As the golden swim of light overhead died out, the moon gained +brightness, and seemed to begin to smile forth her ascendancy. The dark +woods on the opposite shore melted into universal shadow. And amid this +universal under-shadow, there was a scattered intrusion of lights. Far +down the lake were fantastic pale strings of colour, like beads of wan +fire, green and red and yellow. The music came out in a little puff, as +the launch, all illuminated, veered into the great shadow, stirring her +outlines of half-living lights, puffing out her music in little drifts. + +All were lighting up. Here and there, close against the faint water, +and at the far end of the lake, where the water lay milky in the last +whiteness of the sky, and there was no shadow, solitary, frail flames +of lanterns floated from the unseen boats. There was a sound of oars, +and a boat passed from the pallor into the darkness under the wood, +where her lanterns seemed to kindle into fire, hanging in ruddy lovely +globes. And again, in the lake, shadowy red gleams hovered in +reflection about the boat. Everywhere were these noiseless ruddy +creatures of fire drifting near the surface of the water, caught at by +the rarest, scarce visible reflections. + +Birkin brought the lanterns from the bigger boat, and the four shadowy +white figures gathered round, to light them. Ursula held up the first, +Birkin lowered the light from the rosy, glowing cup of his hands, into +the depths of the lantern. It was kindled, and they all stood back to +look at the great blue moon of light that hung from Ursula’s hand, +casting a strange gleam on her face. It flickered, and Birkin went +bending over the well of light. His face shone out like an apparition, +so unconscious, and again, something demoniacal. Ursula was dim and +veiled, looming over him. + +“That is all right,” said his voice softly. + +She held up the lantern. It had a flight of storks streaming through a +turquoise sky of light, over a dark earth. + +“This is beautiful,” she said. + +“Lovely,” echoed Gudrun, who wanted to hold one also, and lift it up +full of beauty. + +“Light one for me,” she said. Gerald stood by her, incapacitated. +Birkin lit the lantern she held up. Her heart beat with anxiety, to see +how beautiful it would be. It was primrose yellow, with tall straight +flowers growing darkly from their dark leaves, lifting their heads into +the primrose day, while butterflies hovered about them, in the pure +clear light. + +Gudrun gave a little cry of excitement, as if pierced with delight. + +“Isn’t it beautiful, oh, isn’t it beautiful!” + +Her soul was really pierced with beauty, she was translated beyond +herself. Gerald leaned near to her, into her zone of light, as if to +see. He came close to her, and stood touching her, looking with her at +the primrose-shining globe. And she turned her face to his, that was +faintly bright in the light of the lantern, and they stood together in +one luminous union, close together and ringed round with light, all the +rest excluded. + +Birkin looked away, and went to light Ursula’s second lantern. It had a +pale ruddy sea-bottom, with black crabs and sea-weed moving sinuously +under a transparent sea, that passed into flamy ruddiness above. + +“You’ve got the heavens above, and the waters under the earth,” said +Birkin to her. + +“Anything but the earth itself,” she laughed, watching his live hands +that hovered to attend to the light. + +“I’m dying to see what my second one is,” cried Gudrun, in a vibrating +rather strident voice, that seemed to repel the others from her. + +Birkin went and kindled it. It was of a lovely deep blue colour, with a +red floor, and a great white cuttle-fish flowing in white soft streams +all over it. The cuttle-fish had a face that stared straight from the +heart of the light, very fixed and coldly intent. + +“How truly terrifying!” exclaimed Gudrun, in a voice of horror. Gerald, +at her side, gave a low laugh. + +“But isn’t it really fearful!” she cried in dismay. + +Again he laughed, and said: + +“Change it with Ursula, for the crabs.” + +Gudrun was silent for a moment. + +“Ursula,” she said, “could you bear to have this fearful thing?” + +“I think the colouring is _lovely_,” said Ursula. + +“So do I,” said Gudrun. “But could you _bear_ to have it swinging to +your boat? Don’t you want to destroy it _at once?_” + +“Oh no,” said Ursula. “I don’t want to destroy it.” + +“Well do you mind having it instead of the crabs? Are you sure you +don’t mind?” + +Gudrun came forward to exchange lanterns. + +“No,” said Ursula, yielding up the crabs and receiving the cuttle-fish. + +Yet she could not help feeling rather resentful at the way in which +Gudrun and Gerald should assume a right over her, a precedence. + +“Come then,” said Birkin. “I’ll put them on the boats.” + +He and Ursula were moving away to the big boat. + +“I suppose you’ll row me back, Rupert,” said Gerald, out of the pale +shadow of the evening. + +“Won’t you go with Gudrun in the canoe?” said Birkin. “It’ll be more +interesting.” + +There was a moment’s pause. Birkin and Ursula stood dimly, with their +swinging lanterns, by the water’s edge. The world was all illusive. + +“Is that all right?” said Gudrun to him. + +“It’ll suit _me_ very well,” he said. “But what about you, and the +rowing? I don’t see why you should pull me.” + +“Why not?” she said. “I can pull you as well as I could pull Ursula.” + +By her tone he could tell she wanted to have him in the boat to +herself, and that she was subtly gratified that she should have power +over them both. He gave himself, in a strange, electric submission. + +She handed him the lanterns, whilst she went to fix the cane at the end +of the canoe. He followed after her, and stood with the lanterns +dangling against his white-flannelled thighs, emphasising the shadow +around. + +“Kiss me before we go,” came his voice softly from out of the shadow +above. + +She stopped her work in real, momentary astonishment. + +“But why?” she exclaimed, in pure surprise. + +“Why?” he echoed, ironically. + +And she looked at him fixedly for some moments. Then she leaned forward +and kissed him, with a slow, luxurious kiss, lingering on the mouth. +And then she took the lanterns from him, while he stood swooning with +the perfect fire that burned in all his joints. + +They lifted the canoe into the water, Gudrun took her place, and Gerald +pushed off. + +“Are you sure you don’t hurt your hand, doing that?” she asked, +solicitous. “Because I could have done it _perfectly_.” + +“I don’t hurt myself,” he said in a low, soft voice, that caressed her +with inexpressible beauty. + +And she watched him as he sat near her, very near to her, in the stern +of the canoe, his legs coming towards hers, his feet touching hers. And +she paddled softly, lingeringly, longing for him to say something +meaningful to her. But he remained silent. + +“You like this, do you?” she said, in a gentle, solicitous voice. + +He laughed shortly. + +“There is a space between us,” he said, in the same low, unconscious +voice, as if something were speaking out of him. And she was as if +magically aware of their being balanced in separation, in the boat. She +swooned with acute comprehension and pleasure. + +“But I’m very near,” she said caressively, gaily. + +“Yet distant, distant,” he said. + +Again she was silent with pleasure, before she answered, speaking with +a reedy, thrilled voice: + +“Yet we cannot very well change, whilst we are on the water.” She +caressed him subtly and strangely, having him completely at her mercy. + +A dozen or more boats on the lake swung their rosy and moon-like +lanterns low on the water, that reflected as from a fire. In the +distance, the steamer twanged and thrummed and washed with her +faintly-splashing paddles, trailing her strings of coloured lights, and +occasionally lighting up the whole scene luridly with an effusion of +fireworks, Roman candles and sheafs of stars and other simple effects, +illuminating the surface of the water, and showing the boats creeping +round, low down. Then the lovely darkness fell again, the lanterns and +the little threaded lights glimmered softly, there was a muffled +knocking of oars and a waving of music. + +Gudrun paddled almost imperceptibly. Gerald could see, not far ahead, +the rich blue and the rose globes of Ursula’s lanterns swaying softly +cheek to cheek as Birkin rowed, and iridescent, evanescent gleams +chasing in the wake. He was aware, too, of his own delicately coloured +lights casting their softness behind him. + +Gudrun rested her paddle and looked round. The canoe lifted with the +lightest ebbing of the water. Gerald’s white knees were very near to +her. + +“Isn’t it beautiful!” she said softly, as if reverently. + +She looked at him, as he leaned back against the faint crystal of the +lantern-light. She could see his face, although it was a pure shadow. +But it was a piece of twilight. And her breast was keen with passion +for him, he was so beautiful in his male stillness and mystery. It was +a certain pure effluence of maleness, like an aroma from his softly, +firmly moulded contours, a certain rich perfection of his presence, +that touched her with an ecstasy, a thrill of pure intoxication. She +loved to look at him. For the present she did not want to touch him, to +know the further, satisfying substance of his living body. He was +purely intangible, yet so near. Her hands lay on the paddle like +slumber, she only wanted to see him, like a crystal shadow, to feel his +essential presence. + +“Yes,” he said vaguely. “It is very beautiful.” + +He was listening to the faint near sounds, the dropping of water-drops +from the oar-blades, the slight drumming of the lanterns behind him, as +they rubbed against one another, the occasional rustling of Gudrun’s +full skirt, an alien land noise. His mind was almost submerged, he was +almost transfused, lapsed out for the first time in his life, into the +things about him. For he always kept such a keen attentiveness, +concentrated and unyielding in himself. Now he had let go, +imperceptibly he was melting into oneness with the whole. It was like +pure, perfect sleep, his first great sleep of life. He had been so +insistent, so guarded, all his life. But here was sleep, and peace, and +perfect lapsing out. + +“Shall I row to the landing-stage?” asked Gudrun wistfully. + +“Anywhere,” he answered. “Let it drift.” + +“Tell me then, if we are running into anything,” she replied, in that +very quiet, toneless voice of sheer intimacy. + +“The lights will show,” he said. + +So they drifted almost motionless, in silence. He wanted silence, pure +and whole. But she was uneasy yet for some word, for some assurance. + +“Nobody will miss you?” she asked, anxious for some communication. + +“Miss me?” he echoed. “No! Why?” + +“I wondered if anybody would be looking for you.” + +“Why should they look for me?” And then he remembered his manners. “But +perhaps you want to get back,” he said, in a changed voice. + +“No, I don’t want to get back,” she replied. “No, I assure you.” + +“You’re quite sure it’s all right for you?” + +“Perfectly all right.” + +And again they were still. The launch twanged and hooted, somebody was +singing. Then as if the night smashed, suddenly there was a great +shout, a confusion of shouting, warring on the water, then the horrid +noise of paddles reversed and churned violently. + +Gerald sat up, and Gudrun looked at him in fear. + +“Somebody in the water,” he said, angrily, and desperately, looking +keenly across the dusk. “Can you row up?” + +“Where, to the launch?” asked Gudrun, in nervous panic. + +“Yes.” + +“You’ll tell me if I don’t steer straight,” she said, in nervous +apprehension. + +“You keep pretty level,” he said, and the canoe hastened forward. + +The shouting and the noise continued, sounding horrid through the dusk, +over the surface of the water. + +“Wasn’t this _bound_ to happen?” said Gudrun, with heavy hateful irony. +But he hardly heard, and she glanced over her shoulder to see her way. +The half-dark waters were sprinkled with lovely bubbles of swaying +lights, the launch did not look far off. She was rocking her lights in +the early night. Gudrun rowed as hard as she could. But now that it was +a serious matter, she seemed uncertain and clumsy in her stroke, it was +difficult to paddle swiftly. She glanced at his face. He was looking +fixedly into the darkness, very keen and alert and single in himself, +instrumental. Her heart sank, she seemed to die a death. “Of course,” +she said to herself, “nobody will be drowned. Of course they won’t. It +would be too extravagant and sensational.” But her heart was cold, +because of his sharp impersonal face. It was as if he belonged +naturally to dread and catastrophe, as if he were himself again. + +Then there came a child’s voice, a girl’s high, piercing shriek: + +“Di—Di—Di—Di—Oh Di—Oh Di—Oh Di!” + +The blood ran cold in Gudrun’s veins. + +“It’s Diana, is it,” muttered Gerald. “The young monkey, she’d have to +be up to some of her tricks.” + +And he glanced again at the paddle, the boat was not going quickly +enough for him. It made Gudrun almost helpless at the rowing, this +nervous stress. She kept up with all her might. Still the voices were +calling and answering. + +“Where, where? There you are—that’s it. Which? No—No-o-o. Damn it all, +here, _here_—” Boats were hurrying from all directions to the scene, +coloured lanterns could be seen waving close to the surface of the +lake, reflections swaying after them in uneven haste. The steamer +hooted again, for some unknown reason. Gudrun’s boat was travelling +quickly, the lanterns were swinging behind Gerald. + +And then again came the child’s high, screaming voice, with a note of +weeping and impatience in it now: + +“Di—Oh Di—Oh Di—Di—!” + +It was a terrible sound, coming through the obscure air of the evening. + +“You’d be better if you were in bed, Winnie,” Gerald muttered to +himself. + +He was stooping unlacing his shoes, pushing them off with the foot. +Then he threw his soft hat into the bottom of the boat. + +“You can’t go into the water with your hurt hand,” said Gudrun, +panting, in a low voice of horror. + +“What? It won’t hurt.” + +He had struggled out of his jacket, and had dropped it between his +feet. He sat bare-headed, all in white now. He felt the belt at his +waist. They were nearing the launch, which stood still big above them, +her myriad lamps making lovely darts, and sinuous running tongues of +ugly red and green and yellow light on the lustrous dark water, under +the shadow. + +“Oh get her out! Oh Di, _darling!_ Oh get her out! Oh Daddy, Oh Daddy!” +moaned the child’s voice, in distraction. Somebody was in the water, +with a life belt. Two boats paddled near, their lanterns swinging +ineffectually, the boats nosing round. + +“Hi there—Rockley!—hi there!” + +“Mr Gerald!” came the captain’s terrified voice. “Miss Diana’s in the +water.” + +“Anybody gone in for her?” came Gerald’s sharp voice. + +“Young Doctor Brindell, sir.” + +“Where?” + +“Can’t see no signs of them, sir. Everybody’s looking, but there’s +nothing so far.” + +There was a moment’s ominous pause. + +“Where did she go in?” + +“I think—about where that boat is,” came the uncertain answer, “that +one with red and green lights.” + +“Row there,” said Gerald quietly to Gudrun. + +“Get her out, Gerald, oh get her out,” the child’s voice was crying +anxiously. He took no heed. + +“Lean back that way,” said Gerald to Gudrun, as he stood up in the +frail boat. “She won’t upset.” + +In another moment, he had dropped clean down, soft and plumb, into the +water. Gudrun was swaying violently in her boat, the agitated water +shook with transient lights, she realised that it was faintly +moonlight, and that he was gone. So it was possible to be gone. A +terrible sense of fatality robbed her of all feeling and thought. She +knew he was gone out of the world, there was merely the same world, and +absence, his absence. The night seemed large and vacuous. Lanterns +swayed here and there, people were talking in an undertone on the +launch and in the boats. She could hear Winifred moaning: “_Oh do find +her Gerald, do find her_,” and someone trying to comfort the child. +Gudrun paddled aimlessly here and there. The terrible, massive, cold, +boundless surface of the water terrified her beyond words. Would he +never come back? She felt she must jump into the water too, to know the +horror also. + +She started, hearing someone say: “There he is.” She saw the movement +of his swimming, like a water-rat. And she rowed involuntarily to him. +But he was near another boat, a bigger one. Still she rowed towards +him. She must be very near. She saw him—he looked like a seal. He +looked like a seal as he took hold of the side of the boat. His fair +hair was washed down on his round head, his face seemed to glisten +suavely. She could hear him panting. + +Then he clambered into the boat. Oh, and the beauty of the subjection +of his loins, white and dimly luminous as he climbed over the side of +the boat, made her want to die, to die. The beauty of his dim and +luminous loins as he climbed into the boat, his back rounded and +soft—ah, this was too much for her, too final a vision. She knew it, +and it was fatal. The terrible hopelessness of fate, and of beauty, +such beauty! + +He was not like a man to her, he was an incarnation, a great phase of +life. She saw him press the water out of his face, and look at the +bandage on his hand. And she knew it was all no good, and that she +would never go beyond him, he was the final approximation of life to +her. + +“Put the lights out, we shall see better,” came his voice, sudden and +mechanical and belonging to the world of man. She could scarcely +believe there was a world of man. She leaned round and blew out her +lanterns. They were difficult to blow out. Everywhere the lights were +gone save the coloured points on the sides of the launch. The +bluey-grey, early night spread level around, the moon was overhead, +there were shadows of boats here and there. + +Again there was a splash, and he was gone under. Gudrun sat, sick at +heart, frightened of the great, level surface of the water, so heavy +and deadly. She was so alone, with the level, unliving field of the +water stretching beneath her. It was not a good isolation, it was a +terrible, cold separation of suspense. She was suspended upon the +surface of the insidious reality until such time as she also should +disappear beneath it. + +Then she knew, by a stirring of voices, that he had climbed out again, +into a boat. She sat wanting connection with him. Strenuously she +claimed her connection with him, across the invisible space of the +water. But round her heart was an isolation unbearable, through which +nothing would penetrate. + +“Take the launch in. It’s no use keeping her there. Get lines for the +dragging,” came the decisive, instrumental voice, that was full of the +sound of the world. + +The launch began gradually to beat the waters. + +“Gerald! Gerald!” came the wild crying voice of Winifred. He did not +answer. Slowly the launch drifted round in a pathetic, clumsy circle, +and slunk away to the land, retreating into the dimness. The wash of +her paddles grew duller. Gudrun rocked in her light boat, and dipped +the paddle automatically to steady herself. + +“Gudrun?” called Ursula’s voice. + +“Ursula!” + +The boats of the two sisters pulled together. + +“Where is Gerald?” said Gudrun. + +“He’s dived again,” said Ursula plaintively. “And I know he ought not, +with his hurt hand and everything.” + +“I’ll take him in home this time,” said Birkin. + +The boats swayed again from the wash of steamer. Gudrun and Ursula kept +a look-out for Gerald. + +“There he is!” cried Ursula, who had the sharpest eyes. He had not been +long under. Birkin pulled towards him, Gudrun following. He swam +slowly, and caught hold of the boat with his wounded hand. It slipped, +and he sank back. + +“Why don’t you help him?” cried Ursula sharply. + +He came again, and Birkin leaned to help him in to the boat. Gudrun +again watched Gerald climb out of the water, but this time slowly, +heavily, with the blind clambering motions of an amphibious beast, +clumsy. Again the moon shone with faint luminosity on his white wet +figure, on the stooping back and the rounded loins. But it looked +defeated now, his body, it clambered and fell with slow clumsiness. He +was breathing hoarsely too, like an animal that is suffering. He sat +slack and motionless in the boat, his head blunt and blind like a +seal’s, his whole appearance inhuman, unknowing. Gudrun shuddered as +she mechanically followed his boat. Birkin rowed without speaking to +the landing-stage. + +“Where are you going?” Gerald asked suddenly, as if just waking up. + +“Home,” said Birkin. + +“Oh no!” said Gerald imperiously. “We can’t go home while they’re in +the water. Turn back again, I’m going to find them.” The women were +frightened, his voice was so imperative and dangerous, almost mad, not +to be opposed. + +“No!” said Birkin. “You can’t.” There was a strange fluid compulsion in +his voice. Gerald was silent in a battle of wills. It was as if he +would kill the other man. But Birkin rowed evenly and unswerving, with +an inhuman inevitability. + +“Why should you interfere?” said Gerald, in hate. + +Birkin did not answer. He rowed towards the land. And Gerald sat mute, +like a dumb beast, panting, his teeth chattering, his arms inert, his +head like a seal’s head. + +They came to the landing-stage. Wet and naked-looking, Gerald climbed +up the few steps. There stood his father, in the night. + +“Father!” he said. + +“Yes my boy? Go home and get those things off.” + +“We shan’t save them, father,” said Gerald. + +“There’s hope yet, my boy.” + +“I’m afraid not. There’s no knowing where they are. You can’t find +them. And there’s a current, as cold as hell.” + +“We’ll let the water out,” said the father. “Go home you and look to +yourself. See that he’s looked after, Rupert,” he added in a neutral +voice. + +“Well father, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m afraid it’s my fault. But it +can’t be helped; I’ve done what I could for the moment. I could go on +diving, of course—not much, though—and not much use—” + +He moved away barefoot, on the planks of the platform. Then he trod on +something sharp. + +“Of course, you’ve got no shoes on,” said Birkin. + +“His shoes are here!” cried Gudrun from below. She was making fast her +boat. + +Gerald waited for them to be brought to him. Gudrun came with them. He +pulled them on his feet. + +“If you once die,” he said, “then when it’s over, it’s finished. Why +come to life again? There’s room under that water there for thousands.” + +“Two is enough,” she said murmuring. + +He dragged on his second shoe. He was shivering violently, and his jaw +shook as he spoke. + +“That’s true,” he said, “maybe. But it’s curious how much room there +seems, a whole universe under there; and as cold as hell, you’re as +helpless as if your head was cut off.” He could scarcely speak, he +shook so violently. “There’s one thing about our family, you know,” he +continued. “Once anything goes wrong, it can never be put right +again—not with us. I’ve noticed it all my life—you can’t put a thing +right, once it has gone wrong.” + +They were walking across the high-road to the house. + +“And do you know, when you are down there, it is so cold, actually, and +so endless, so different really from what it is on top, so endless—you +wonder how it is so many are alive, why we’re up here. Are you going? I +shall see you again, shan’t I? Good-night, and thank you. Thank you +very much!” + +The two girls waited a while, to see if there were any hope. The moon +shone clearly overhead, with almost impertinent brightness, the small +dark boats clustered on the water, there were voices and subdued +shouts. But it was all to no purpose. Gudrun went home when Birkin +returned. + +He was commissioned to open the sluice that let out the water from the +lake, which was pierced at one end, near the high-road, thus serving as +a reservoir to supply with water the distant mines, in case of +necessity. “Come with me,” he said to Ursula, “and then I will walk +home with you, when I’ve done this.” + +He called at the water-keeper’s cottage and took the key of the sluice. +They went through a little gate from the high-road, to the head of the +water, where was a great stone basin which received the overflow, and a +flight of stone steps descended into the depths of the water itself. At +the head of the steps was the lock of the sluice-gate. + +The night was silver-grey and perfect, save for the scattered restless +sound of voices. The grey sheen of the moonlight caught the stretch of +water, dark boats plashed and moved. But Ursula’s mind ceased to be +receptive, everything was unimportant and unreal. + +Birkin fixed the iron handle of the sluice, and turned it with a +wrench. The cogs began slowly to rise. He turned and turned, like a +slave, his white figure became distinct. Ursula looked away. She could +not bear to see him winding heavily and laboriously, bending and rising +mechanically like a slave, turning the handle. + +Then, a real shock to her, there came a loud splashing of water from +out of the dark, tree-filled hollow beyond the road, a splashing that +deepened rapidly to a harsh roar, and then became a heavy, booming +noise of a great body of water falling solidly all the time. It +occupied the whole of the night, this great steady booming of water, +everything was drowned within it, drowned and lost. Ursula seemed to +have to struggle for her life. She put her hands over her ears, and +looked at the high bland moon. + +“Can’t we go now?” she cried to Birkin, who was watching the water on +the steps, to see if it would get any lower. It seemed to fascinate +him. He looked at her and nodded. + +The little dark boats had moved nearer, people were crowding curiously +along the hedge by the high-road, to see what was to be seen. Birkin +and Ursula went to the cottage with the key, then turned their backs on +the lake. She was in great haste. She could not bear the terrible +crushing boom of the escaping water. + +“Do you think they are dead?” she cried in a high voice, to make +herself heard. + +“Yes,” he replied. + +“Isn’t it horrible!” + +He paid no heed. They walked up the hill, further and further away from +the noise. + +“Do you mind very much?” she asked him. + +“I don’t mind about the dead,” he said, “once they are dead. The worst +of it is, they cling on to the living, and won’t let go.” + +She pondered for a time. + +“Yes,” she said. “The _fact_ of death doesn’t really seem to matter +much, does it?” + +“No,” he said. “What does it matter if Diana Crich is alive or dead?” + +“Doesn’t it?” she said, shocked. + +“No, why should it? Better she were dead—she’ll be much more real. +She’ll be positive in death. In life she was a fretting, negated +thing.” + +“You are rather horrible,” murmured Ursula. + +“No! I’d rather Diana Crich were dead. Her living somehow, was all +wrong. As for the young man, poor devil—he’ll find his way out quickly +instead of slowly. Death is all right—nothing better.” + +“Yet you don’t want to die,” she challenged him. + +He was silent for a time. Then he said, in a voice that was frightening +to her in its change: + +“I should like to be through with it—I should like to be through with +the death process.” + +“And aren’t you?” asked Ursula nervously. + +They walked on for some way in silence, under the trees. Then he said, +slowly, as if afraid: + +“There is life which belongs to death, and there is life which isn’t +death. One is tired of the life that belongs to death—our kind of life. +But whether it is finished, God knows. I want love that is like sleep, +like being born again, vulnerable as a baby that just comes into the +world.” + +Ursula listened, half attentive, half avoiding what he said. She seemed +to catch the drift of his statement, and then she drew away. She wanted +to hear, but she did not want to be implicated. She was reluctant to +yield there, where he wanted her, to yield as it were her very +identity. + +“Why should love be like sleep?” she asked sadly. + +“I don’t know. So that it is like death—I _do_ want to die from this +life—and yet it is more than life itself. One is delivered over like a +naked infant from the womb, all the old defences and the old body gone, +and new air around one, that has never been breathed before.” + +She listened, making out what he said. She knew, as well as he knew, +that words themselves do not convey meaning, that they are but a +gesture we make, a dumb show like any other. And she seemed to feel his +gesture through her blood, and she drew back, even though her desire +sent her forward. + +“But,” she said gravely, “didn’t you say you wanted something that was +_not_ love—something beyond love?” + +He turned in confusion. There was always confusion in speech. Yet it +must be spoken. Whichever way one moved, if one were to move forwards, +one must break a way through. And to know, to give utterance, was to +break a way through the walls of the prison as the infant in labour +strives through the walls of the womb. There is no new movement now, +without the breaking through of the old body, deliberately, in +knowledge, in the struggle to get out. + +“I don’t want love,” he said. “I don’t want to know you. I want to be +gone out of myself, and you to be lost to yourself, so we are found +different. One shouldn’t talk when one is tired and wretched. One +Hamletises, and it seems a lie. Only believe me when I show you a bit +of healthy pride and insouciance. I hate myself serious.” + +“Why shouldn’t you be serious?” she said. + +He thought for a minute, then he said, sulkily: + +“I don’t know.” Then they walked on in silence, at outs. He was vague +and lost. + +“Isn’t it strange,” she said, suddenly putting her hand on his arm, +with a loving impulse, “how we always talk like this! I suppose we do +love each other, in some way.” + +“Oh yes,” he said; “too much.” + +She laughed almost gaily. + +“You’d have to have it your own way, wouldn’t you?” she teased. “You +could never take it on trust.” + +He changed, laughed softly, and turned and took her in his arms, in the +middle of the road. + +“Yes,” he said softly. + +And he kissed her face and brow, slowly, gently, with a sort of +delicate happiness which surprised her extremely, and to which she +could not respond. They were soft, blind kisses, perfect in their +stillness. Yet she held back from them. It was like strange moths, very +soft and silent, settling on her from the darkness of her soul. She was +uneasy. She drew away. + +“Isn’t somebody coming?” she said. + +So they looked down the dark road, then set off again walking towards +Beldover. Then suddenly, to show him she was no shallow prude, she +stopped and held him tight, hard against her, and covered his face with +hard, fierce kisses of passion. In spite of his otherness, the old +blood beat up in him. + +“Not this, not this,” he whimpered to himself, as the first perfect +mood of softness and sleep-loveliness ebbed back away from the rushing +of passion that came up to his limbs and over his face as she drew him. +And soon he was a perfect hard flame of passionate desire for her. Yet +in the small core of the flame was an unyielding anguish of another +thing. But this also was lost; he only wanted her, with an extreme +desire that seemed inevitable as death, beyond question. + +Then, satisfied and shattered, fulfilled and destroyed, he went home +away from her, drifting vaguely through the darkness, lapsed into the +old fire of burning passion. Far away, far away, there seemed to be a +small lament in the darkness. But what did it matter? What did it +matter, what did anything matter save this ultimate and triumphant +experience of physical passion, that had blazed up anew like a new +spell of life. “I was becoming quite dead-alive, nothing but a +word-bag,” he said in triumph, scorning his other self. Yet somewhere +far off and small, the other hovered. + +The men were still dragging the lake when he got back. He stood on the +bank and heard Gerald’s voice. The water was still booming in the +night, the moon was fair, the hills beyond were elusive. The lake was +sinking. There came the raw smell of the banks, in the night air. + +Up at Shortlands there were lights in the windows, as if nobody had +gone to bed. On the landing-stage was the old doctor, the father of the +young man who was lost. He stood quite silent, waiting. Birkin also +stood and watched, Gerald came up in a boat. + +“You still here, Rupert?” he said. “We can’t get them. The bottom +slopes, you know, very steep. The water lies between two very sharp +slopes, with little branch valleys, and God knows where the drift will +take you. It isn’t as if it was a level bottom. You never know where +you are, with the dragging.” + +“Is there any need for you to be working?” said Birkin. “Wouldn’t it be +much better if you went to bed?” + +“To bed! Good God, do you think I should sleep? We’ll find ’em, before +I go away from here.” + +“But the men would find them just the same without you—why should you +insist?” + +Gerald looked up at him. Then he put his hand affectionately on +Birkin’s shoulder, saying: + +“Don’t you bother about me, Rupert. If there’s anybody’s health to +think about, it’s yours, not mine. How do you feel yourself?” + +“Very well. But you, you spoil your own chance of life—you waste your +best self.” + +Gerald was silent for a moment. Then he said: + +“Waste it? What else is there to do with it?” + +“But leave this, won’t you? You force yourself into horrors, and put a +mill-stone of beastly memories round your neck. Come away now.” + +“A mill-stone of beastly memories!” Gerald repeated. Then he put his +hand again affectionately on Birkin’s shoulder. “God, you’ve got such a +telling way of putting things, Rupert, you have.” + +Birkin’s heart sank. He was irritated and weary of having a telling way +of putting things. + +“Won’t you leave it? Come over to my place”—he urged as one urges a +drunken man. + +“No,” said Gerald coaxingly, his arm across the other man’s shoulder. +“Thanks very much, Rupert—I shall be glad to come tomorrow, if that’ll +do. You understand, don’t you? I want to see this job through. But I’ll +come tomorrow, right enough. Oh, I’d rather come and have a chat with +you than—than do anything else, I verily believe. Yes, I would. You +mean a lot to me, Rupert, more than you know.” + +“What do I mean, more than I know?” asked Birkin irritably. He was +acutely aware of Gerald’s hand on his shoulder. And he did not want +this altercation. He wanted the other man to come out of the ugly +misery. + +“I’ll tell you another time,” said Gerald coaxingly. + +“Come along with me now—I want you to come,” said Birkin. + +There was a pause, intense and real. Birkin wondered why his own heart +beat so heavily. Then Gerald’s fingers gripped hard and communicative +into Birkin’s shoulder, as he said: + +“No, I’ll see this job through, Rupert. Thank you—I know what you mean. +We’re all right, you know, you and me.” + +“I may be all right, but I’m sure you’re not, mucking about here,” said +Birkin. And he went away. + +The bodies of the dead were not recovered till towards dawn. Diana had +her arms tight round the neck of the young man, choking him. + +“She killed him,” said Gerald. + +The moon sloped down the sky and sank at last. The lake was sunk to +quarter size, it had horrible raw banks of clay, that smelled of raw +rottenish water. Dawn roused faintly behind the eastern hill. The water +still boomed through the sluice. + +As the birds were whistling for the first morning, and the hills at the +back of the desolate lake stood radiant with the new mists, there was a +straggling procession up to Shortlands, men bearing the bodies on a +stretcher, Gerald going beside them, the two grey-bearded fathers +following in silence. Indoors the family was all sitting up, waiting. +Somebody must go to tell the mother, in her room. The doctor in secret +struggled to bring back his son, till he himself was exhausted. + +Over all the outlying district was a hush of dreadful excitement on +that Sunday morning. The colliery people felt as if this catastrophe +had happened directly to themselves, indeed they were more shocked and +frightened than if their own men had been killed. Such a tragedy in +Shortlands, the high home of the district! One of the young mistresses, +persisting in dancing on the cabin roof of the launch, wilful young +madam, drowned in the midst of the festival, with the young doctor! +Everywhere on the Sunday morning, the colliers wandered about, +discussing the calamity. At all the Sunday dinners of the people, there +seemed a strange presence. It was as if the angel of death were very +near, there was a sense of the supernatural in the air. The men had +excited, startled faces, the women looked solemn, some of them had been +crying. The children enjoyed the excitement at first. There was an +intensity in the air, almost magical. Did all enjoy it? Did all enjoy +the thrill? + +Gudrun had wild ideas of rushing to comfort Gerald. She was thinking +all the time of the perfect comforting, reassuring thing to say to him. +She was shocked and frightened, but she put that away, thinking of how +she should deport herself with Gerald: act her part. That was the real +thrill: how she should act her part. + +Ursula was deeply and passionately in love with Birkin, and she was +capable of nothing. She was perfectly callous about all the talk of the +accident, but her estranged air looked like trouble. She merely sat by +herself, whenever she could, and longed to see him again. She wanted +him to come to the house,—she would not have it otherwise, he must come +at once. She was waiting for him. She stayed indoors all day, waiting +for him to knock at the door. Every minute, she glanced automatically +at the window. He would be there. + + + + +CHAPTER XV. +SUNDAY EVENING + + +As the day wore on, the life-blood seemed to ebb away from Ursula, and +within the emptiness a heavy despair gathered. Her passion seemed to +bleed to death, and there was nothing. She sat suspended in a state of +complete nullity, harder to bear than death. + +“Unless something happens,” she said to herself, in the perfect +lucidity of final suffering, “I shall die. I am at the end of my line +of life.” + +She sat crushed and obliterated in a darkness that was the border of +death. She realised how all her life she had been drawing nearer and +nearer to this brink, where there was no beyond, from which one had to +leap like Sappho into the unknown. The knowledge of the imminence of +death was like a drug. Darkly, without thinking at all, she knew that +she was near to death. She had travelled all her life along the line of +fulfilment, and it was nearly concluded. She knew all she had to know, +she had experienced all she had to experience, she was fulfilled in a +kind of bitter ripeness, there remained only to fall from the tree into +death. And one must fulfil one’s development to the end, must carry the +adventure to its conclusion. And the next step was over the border into +death. So it was then! There was a certain peace in the knowledge. + +After all, when one was fulfilled, one was happiest in falling into +death, as a bitter fruit plunges in its ripeness downwards. Death is a +great consummation, a consummating experience. It is a development from +life. That we know, while we are yet living. What then need we think +for further? One can never see beyond the consummation. It is enough +that death is a great and conclusive experience. Why should we ask what +comes after the experience, when the experience is still unknown to us? +Let us die, since the great experience is the one that follows now upon +all the rest, death, which is the next great crisis in front of which +we have arrived. If we wait, if we baulk the issue, we do but hang +about the gates in undignified uneasiness. There it is, in front of us, +as in front of Sappho, the illimitable space. Thereinto goes the +journey. Have we not the courage to go on with our journey, must we cry +‘I daren’t’? On ahead we will go, into death, and whatever death may +mean. If a man can see the next step to be taken, why should he fear +the next but one? Why ask about the next but one? Of the next step we +are certain. It is the step into death. + +“I shall die—I shall quickly die,” said Ursula to herself, clear as if +in a trance, clear, calm, and certain beyond human certainty. But +somewhere behind, in the twilight, there was a bitter weeping and a +hopelessness. That must not be attended to. One must go where the +unfaltering spirit goes, there must be no baulking the issue, because +of fear. No baulking the issue, no listening to the lesser voices. If +the deepest desire be now, to go on into the unknown of death, shall +one forfeit the deepest truth for one more shallow? + +“Then let it end,” she said to herself. It was a decision. It was not a +question of taking one’s life—she would _never_ kill herself, that was +repulsive and violent. It was a question of _knowing_ the nextcstep. +And the next step led into the space of death. Did it?—or was there—? + +Her thoughts drifted into unconsciousness, she sat as if asleep beside +the fire. And then the thought came back. The space of death! Could she +give herself to it? Ah yes—it was a sleep. She had had enough. So long +she had held out; and resisted. Now was the time to relinquish, not to +resist any more. + +In a kind of spiritual trance, she yielded, she gave way, and all was +dark. She could feel, within the darkness, the terrible assertion of +her body, the unutterable anguish of dissolution, the only anguish that +is too much, the far-off, awful nausea of dissolution set in within the +body. + +“Does the body correspond so immediately with the spirit?” she asked +herself. And she knew, with the clarity of ultimate knowledge, that the +body is only one of the manifestations of the spirit, the transmutation +of the integral spirit is the transmutation of the physical body as +well. Unless I set my will, unless I absolve myself from the rhythm of +life, fix myself and remain static, cut off from living, absolved +within my own will. But better die than live mechanically a life that +is a repetition of repetitions. To die is to move on with the +invisible. To die is also a joy, a joy of submitting to that which is +greater than the known, namely, the pure unknown. That is a joy. But to +live mechanised and cut off within the motion of the will, to live as +an entity absolved from the unknown, that is shameful and ignominious. +There is no ignominy in death. There is complete ignominy in an +unreplenished, mechanised life. Life indeed may be ignominious, +shameful to the soul. But death is never a shame. Death itself, like +the illimitable space, is beyond our sullying. + +Tomorrow was Monday. Monday, the beginning of another school-week! +Another shameful, barren school-week, mere routine and mechanical +activity. Was not the adventure of death infinitely preferable? Was not +death infinitely more lovely and noble than such a life? A life of +barren routine, without inner meaning, without any real significance. +How sordid life was, how it was a terrible shame to the soul, to live +now! How much cleaner and more dignified to be dead! One could not bear +any more of this shame of sordid routine and mechanical nullity. One +might come to fruit in death. She had had enough. For where was life to +be found? No flowers grow upon busy machinery, there is no sky to a +routine, there is no space to a rotary motion. And all life was a +rotary motion, mechanised, cut off from reality. There was nothing to +look for from life—it was the same in all countries and all peoples. +The only window was death. One could look out on to the great dark sky +of death with elation, as one had looked out of the classroom window as +a child, and seen perfect freedom in the outside. Now one was not a +child, and one knew that the soul was a prisoner within this sordid +vast edifice of life, and there was no escape, save in death. + +But what a joy! What a gladness to think that whatever humanity did, it +could not seize hold of the kingdom of death, to nullify that. The sea +they turned into a murderous alley and a soiled road of commerce, +disputed like the dirty land of a city every inch of it. The air they +claimed too, shared it up, parcelled it out to certain owners, they +trespassed in the air to fight for it. Everything was gone, walled in, +with spikes on top of the walls, and one must ignominiously creep +between the spiky walls through a labyrinth of life. + +But the great, dark, illimitable kingdom of death, there humanity was +put to scorn. So much they could do upon earth, the multifarious little +gods that they were. But the kingdom of death put them all to scorn, +they dwindled into their true vulgar silliness in face of it. + +How beautiful, how grand and perfect death was, how good to look +forward to. There one would wash off all the lies and ignominy and dirt +that had been put upon one here, a perfect bath of cleanness and glad +refreshment, and go unknown, unquestioned, unabased. After all, one was +rich, if only in the promise of perfect death. It was a gladness above +all, that this remained to look forward to, the pure inhuman otherness +of death. + +Whatever life might be, it could not take away death, the inhuman +transcendent death. Oh, let us ask no question of it, what it is or is +not. To know is human, and in death we do not know, we are not human. +And the joy of this compensates for all the bitterness of knowledge and +the sordidness of our humanity. In death we shall not be human, and we +shall not know. The promise of this is our heritage, we look forward +like heirs to their majority. + +Ursula sat quite still and quite forgotten, alone by the fire in the +drawing-room. The children were playing in the kitchen, all the others +were gone to church. And she was gone into the ultimate darkness of her +own soul. + +She was startled by hearing the bell ring, away in the kitchen, the +children came scudding along the passage in delicious alarm. + +“Ursula, there’s somebody.” + +“I know. Don’t be silly,” she replied. She too was startled, almost +frightened. She dared hardly go to the door. + +Birkin stood on the threshold, his rain-coat turned up to his ears. He +had come now, now she was gone far away. She was aware of the rainy +night behind him. + +“Oh is it you?” she said. + +“I am glad you are at home,” he said in a low voice, entering the +house. + +“They are all gone to church.” + +He took off his coat and hung it up. The children were peeping at him +round the corner. + +“Go and get undressed now, Billy and Dora,” said Ursula. “Mother will +be back soon, and she’ll be disappointed if you’re not in bed.” + +The children, in a sudden angelic mood, retired without a word. Birkin +and Ursula went into the drawing-room. + +The fire burned low. He looked at her and wondered at the luminous +delicacy of her beauty, and the wide shining of her eyes. He watched +from a distance, with wonder in his heart, she seemed transfigured with +light. + +“What have you been doing all day?” he asked her. + +“Only sitting about,” she said. + +He looked at her. There was a change in her. But she was separate from +him. She remained apart, in a kind of brightness. They both sat silent +in the soft light of the lamp. He felt he ought to go away again, he +ought not to have come. Still he did not gather enough resolution to +move. But he was _de trop_, her mood was absent and separate. + +Then there came the voices of the two children calling shyly outside +the door, softly, with self-excited timidity: + +“Ursula! Ursula!” + +She rose and opened the door. On the threshold stood the two children +in their long nightgowns, with wide-eyed, angelic faces. They were +being very good for the moment, playing the rôle perfectly of two +obedient children. + +“Shall you take us to bed!” said Billy, in a loud whisper. + +“Why you _are_ angels tonight,” she said softly. “Won’t you come and +say good-night to Mr Birkin?” + +The children merged shyly into the room, on bare feet. Billy’s face was +wide and grinning, but there was a great solemnity of being good in his +round blue eyes. Dora, peeping from the floss of her fair hair, hung +back like some tiny Dryad, that has no soul. + +“Will you say good-night to me?” asked Birkin, in a voice that was +strangely soft and smooth. Dora drifted away at once, like a leaf +lifted on a breath of wind. But Billy went softly forward, slow and +willing, lifting his pinched-up mouth implicitly to be kissed. Ursula +watched the full, gathered lips of the man gently touch those of the +boy, so gently. Then Birkin lifted his fingers and touched the boy’s +round, confiding cheek, with a faint touch of love. Neither spoke. +Billy seemed angelic like a cherub boy, or like an acolyte, Birkin was +a tall, grave angel looking down to him. + +“Are you going to be kissed?” Ursula broke in, speaking to the little +girl. But Dora edged away like a tiny Dryad that will not be touched. + +“Won’t you say good-night to Mr Birkin? Go, he’s waiting for you,” said +Ursula. But the girl-child only made a little motion away from him. + +“Silly Dora, silly Dora!” said Ursula. + +Birkin felt some mistrust and antagonism in the small child. He could +not understand it. + +“Come then,” said Ursula. “Let us go before mother comes.” + +“Who’ll hear us say our prayers?” asked Billy anxiously. + +“Whom you like.” + +“Won’t you?” + +“Yes, I will.” + +“Ursula?” + +“Well Billy?” + +“Is it _whom_ you like?” + +“That’s it.” + +“Well what is _whom_?” + +“It’s the accusative of who.” + +There was a moment’s contemplative silence, then the confiding: + +“Is it?” + +Birkin smiled to himself as he sat by the fire. When Ursula came down +he sat motionless, with his arms on his knees. She saw him, how he was +motionless and ageless, like some crouching idol, some image of a +deathly religion. He looked round at her, and his face, very pale and +unreal, seemed to gleam with a whiteness almost phosphorescent. + +“Don’t you feel well?” she asked, in indefinable repulsion. + +“I hadn’t thought about it.” + +“But don’t you know without thinking about it?” + +He looked at her, his eyes dark and swift, and he saw her revulsion. He +did not answer her question. + +“Don’t you know whether you are unwell or not, without thinking about +it?” she persisted. + +“Not always,” he said coldly. + +“But don’t you think that’s very wicked?” + +“Wicked?” + +“Yes. I think it’s _criminal_ to have so little connection with your +own body that you don’t even know when you are ill.” + +He looked at her darkly. + +“Yes,” he said. + +“Why don’t you stay in bed when you are seedy? You look perfectly +ghastly.” + +“Offensively so?” he asked ironically. + +“Yes, quite offensive. Quite repelling.” + +“Ah!! Well that’s unfortunate.” + +“And it’s raining, and it’s a horrible night. Really, you shouldn’t be +forgiven for treating your body like it—you _ought_ to suffer, a man +who takes as little notice of his body as that.” + +“—takes as little notice of his body as that,” he echoed mechanically. + +This cut her short, and there was silence. + +The others came in from church, and the two had the girls to face, then +the mother and Gudrun, and then the father and the boy. + +“Good-evening,” said Brangwen, faintly surprised. “Came to see me, did +you?” + +“No,” said Birkin, “not about anything, in particular, that is. The day +was dismal, and I thought you wouldn’t mind if I called in.” + +“It _has_ been a depressing day,” said Mrs Brangwen sympathetically. At +that moment the voices of the children were heard calling from +upstairs: “Mother! Mother!” She lifted her face and answered mildly +into the distance: “I shall come up to you in a minute, Doysie.” Then +to Birkin: “There is nothing fresh at Shortlands, I suppose? Ah,” she +sighed, “no, poor things, I should think not.” + +“You’ve been over there today, I suppose?” asked the father. + +“Gerald came round to tea with me, and I walked back with him. The +house is overexcited and unwholesome, I thought.” + +“I should think they were people who hadn’t much restraint,” said +Gudrun. + +“Or too much,” Birkin answered. + +“Oh yes, I’m sure,” said Gudrun, almost vindictively, “one or the +other.” + +“They all feel they ought to behave in some unnatural fashion,” said +Birkin. “When people are in grief, they would do better to cover their +faces and keep in retirement, as in the old days.” + +“Certainly!” cried Gudrun, flushed and inflammable. “What can be worse +than this public grief—what is more horrible, more false! If _grief_ is +not private, and hidden, what is?” + +“Exactly,” he said. “I felt ashamed when I was there and they were all +going about in a lugubrious false way, feeling they must not be natural +or ordinary.” + +“Well—” said Mrs Brangwen, offended at this criticism, “it isn’t so +easy to bear a trouble like that.” + +And she went upstairs to the children. + +He remained only a few minutes longer, then took his leave. When he was +gone Ursula felt such a poignant hatred of him, that all her brain +seemed turned into a sharp crystal of fine hatred. Her whole nature +seemed sharpened and intensified into a pure dart of hate. She could +not imagine what it was. It merely took hold of her, the most poignant +and ultimate hatred, pure and clear and beyond thought. She could not +think of it at all, she was translated beyond herself. It was like a +possession. She felt she was possessed. And for several days she went +about possessed by this exquisite force of hatred against him. It +surpassed anything she had ever known before, it seemed to throw her +out of the world into some terrible region where nothing of her old +life held good. She was quite lost and dazed, really dead to her own +life. + +It was so completely incomprehensible and irrational. She did not know +_why_ she hated him, her hate was quite abstract. She had only realised +with a shock that stunned her, that she was overcome by this pure +transportation. He was the enemy, fine as a diamond, and as hard and +jewel-like, the quintessence of all that was inimical. + +She thought of his face, white and purely wrought, and of his eyes that +had such a dark, constant will of assertion, and she touched her own +forehead, to feel if she were mad, she was so transfigured in white +flame of essential hate. + +It was not temporal, her hatred, she did not hate him for this or for +that; she did not want to do anything to him, to have any connection +with him. Her relation was ultimate and utterly beyond words, the hate +was so pure and gemlike. It was as if he were a beam of essential +enmity, a beam of light that did not only destroy her, but denied her +altogether, revoked her whole world. She saw him as a clear stroke of +uttermost contradiction, a strange gem-like being whose existence +defined her own non-existence. When she heard he was ill again, her +hatred only intensified itself a few degrees, if that were possible. It +stunned her and annihilated her, but she could not escape it. She could +not escape this transfiguration of hatred that had come upon her. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. +MAN TO MAN + + +He lay sick and unmoved, in pure opposition to everything. He knew how +near to breaking was the vessel that held his life. He knew also how +strong and durable it was. And he did not care. Better a thousand times +take one’s chance with death, than accept a life one did not want. But +best of all to persist and persist and persist for ever, till one were +satisfied in life. + +He knew that Ursula was referred back to him. He knew his life rested +with her. But he would rather not live than accept the love she +proffered. The old way of love seemed a dreadful bondage, a sort of +conscription. What it was in him he did not know, but the thought of +love, marriage, and children, and a life lived together, in the +horrible privacy of domestic and connubial satisfaction, was repulsive. +He wanted something clearer, more open, cooler, as it were. The hot +narrow intimacy between man and wife was abhorrent. The way they shut +their doors, these married people, and shut themselves in to their own +exclusive alliance with each other, even in love, disgusted him. It was +a whole community of mistrustful couples insulated in private houses or +private rooms, always in couples, and no further life, no further +immediate, no disinterested relationship admitted: a kaleidoscope of +couples, disjoined, separatist, meaningless entities of married +couples. True, he hated promiscuity even worse than marriage, and a +liaison was only another kind of coupling, reactionary from the legal +marriage. Reaction was a greater bore than action. + +On the whole, he hated sex, it was such a limitation. It was sex that +turned a man into a broken half of a couple, the woman into the other +broken half. And he wanted to be single in himself, the woman single in +herself. He wanted sex to revert to the level of the other appetites, +to be regarded as a functional process, not as a fulfilment. He +believed in sex marriage. But beyond this, he wanted a further +conjunction, where man had being and woman had being, two pure beings, +each constituting the freedom of the other, balancing each other like +two poles of one force, like two angels, or two demons. + +He wanted so much to be free, not under the compulsion of any need for +unification, or tortured by unsatisfied desire. Desire and aspiration +should find their object without all this torture, as now, in a world +of plenty of water, simple thirst is inconsiderable, satisfied almost +unconsciously. And he wanted to be with Ursula as free as with himself, +single and clear and cool, yet balanced, polarised with her. The +merging, the clutching, the mingling of love was become madly abhorrent +to him. + +But it seemed to him, woman was always so horrible and clutching, she +had such a lust for possession, a greed of self-importance in love. She +wanted to have, to own, to control, to be dominant. Everything must be +referred back to her, to Woman, the Great Mother of everything, out of +whom proceeded everything and to whom everything must finally be +rendered up. + +It filled him with almost insane fury, this calm assumption of the +Magna Mater, that all was hers, because she had borne it. Man was hers +because she had borne him. A Mater Dolorosa, she had borne him, a Magna +Mater, she now claimed him again, soul and body, sex, meaning, and all. +He had a horror of the Magna Mater, she was detestable. + +She was on a very high horse again, was woman, the Great Mother. Did he +not know it in Hermione. Hermione, the humble, the subservient, what +was she all the while but the Mater Dolorosa, in her subservience, +claiming with horrible, insidious arrogance and female tyranny, her own +again, claiming back the man she had borne in suffering. By her very +suffering and humility she bound her son with chains, she held him her +everlasting prisoner. + +And Ursula, Ursula was the same—or the inverse. She too was the awful, +arrogant queen of life, as if she were a queen bee on whom all the rest +depended. He saw the yellow flare in her eyes, he knew the unthinkable +overweening assumption of primacy in her. She was unconscious of it +herself. She was only too ready to knock her head on the ground before +a man. But this was only when she was so certain of her man, that she +could worship him as a woman worships her own infant, with a worship of +perfect possession. + +It was intolerable, this possession at the hands of woman. Always a man +must be considered as the broken off fragment of a woman, and the sex +was the still aching scar of the laceration. Man must be added on to a +woman, before he had any real place or wholeness. + +And why? Why should we consider ourselves, men and women, as broken +fragments of one whole? It is not true. We are not broken fragments of +one whole. Rather we are the singling away into purity and clear being, +of things that were mixed. Rather the sex is that which remains in us +of the mixed, the unresolved. And passion is the further separating of +this mixture, that which is manly being taken into the being of the +man, that which is womanly passing to the woman, till the two are clear +and whole as angels, the admixture of sex in the highest sense +surpassed, leaving two single beings constellated together like two +stars. + +In the old age, before sex was, we were mixed, each one a mixture. The +process of singling into individuality resulted into the great +polarisation of sex. The womanly drew to one side, the manly to the +other. But the separation was imperfect even them. And so our +world-cycle passes. There is now to come the new day, when we are +beings each of us, fulfilled in difference. The man is pure man, the +woman pure woman, they are perfectly polarised. But there is no longer +any of the horrible merging, mingling self-abnegation of love. There is +only the pure duality of polarisation, each one free from any +contamination of the other. In each, the individual is primal, sex is +subordinate, but perfectly polarised. Each has a single, separate +being, with its own laws. The man has his pure freedom, the woman hers. +Each acknowledges the perfection of the polarised sex-circuit. Each +admits the different nature in the other. + +So Birkin meditated whilst he was ill. He liked sometimes to be ill +enough to take to his bed. For then he got better very quickly, and +things came to him clear and sure. + +Whilst he was laid up, Gerald came to see him. The two men had a deep, +uneasy feeling for each other. Gerald’s eyes were quick and restless, +his whole manner tense and impatient, he seemed strung up to some +activity. According to conventionality, he wore black clothes, he +looked formal, handsome and _comme il faut_. His hair was fair almost +to whiteness, sharp like splinters of light, his face was keen and +ruddy, his body seemed full of northern energy. Gerald really loved +Birkin, though he never quite believed in him. Birkin was too +unreal;—clever, whimsical, wonderful, but not practical enough. Gerald +felt that his own understanding was much sounder and safer. Birkin was +delightful, a wonderful spirit, but after all, not to be taken +seriously, not quite to be counted as a man among men. + +“Why are you laid up again?” he asked kindly, taking the sick man’s +hand. It was always Gerald who was protective, offering the warm +shelter of his physical strength. + +“For my sins, I suppose,” Birkin said, smiling a little ironically. + +“For your sins? Yes, probably that is so. You should sin less, and keep +better in health?” + +“You’d better teach me.” + +He looked at Gerald with ironic eyes. + +“How are things with you?” asked Birkin. + +“With me?” Gerald looked at Birkin, saw he was serious, and a warm +light came into his eyes. + +“I don’t know that they’re any different. I don’t see how they could +be. There’s nothing to change.” + +“I suppose you are conducting the business as successfully as ever, and +ignoring the demand of the soul.” + +“That’s it,” said Gerald. “At least as far as the business is +concerned. I couldn’t say about the soul, I’am sure.” + +“No.” + +“Surely you don’t expect me to?” laughed Gerald. + +“No. How are the rest of your affairs progressing, apart from the +business?” + +“The rest of my affairs? What are those? I couldn’t say; I don’t know +what you refer to.” + +“Yes, you do,” said Birkin. “Are you gloomy or cheerful? And what about +Gudrun Brangwen?” + +“What about her?” A confused look came over Gerald. “Well,” he added, +“I don’t know. I can only tell you she gave me a hit over the face last +time I saw her.” + +“A hit over the face! What for?” + +“That I couldn’t tell you, either.” + +“Really! But when?” + +“The night of the party—when Diana was drowned. She was driving the +cattle up the hill, and I went after her—you remember.” + +“Yes, I remember. But what made her do that? You didn’t definitely ask +her for it, I suppose?” + +“I? No, not that I know of. I merely said to her, that it was dangerous +to drive those Highland bullocks—as it _is_. She turned in such a way, +and said—‘I suppose you think I’m afraid of you and your cattle, don’t +you?’ So I asked her ‘why,’ and for answer she flung me a back-hander +across the face.” + +Birkin laughed quickly, as if it pleased him. Gerald looked at him, +wondering, and began to laugh as well, saying: + +“I didn’t laugh at the time, I assure you. I was never so taken aback +in my life.” + +“And weren’t you furious?” + +“Furious? I should think I was. I’d have murdered her for two pins.” + +“H’m!” ejaculated Birkin. “Poor Gudrun, wouldn’t she suffer afterwards +for having given herself away!” He was hugely delighted. + +“Would she suffer?” asked Gerald, also amused now. + +Both men smiled in malice and amusement. + +“Badly, I should think; seeing how self-conscious she is.” + +“She is self-conscious, is she? Then what made her do it? For I +certainly think it was quite uncalled-for, and quite unjustified.” + +“I suppose it was a sudden impulse.” + +“Yes, but how do you account for her having such an impulse? I’d done +her no harm.” + +Birkin shook his head. + +“The Amazon suddenly came up in her, I suppose,” he said. + +“Well,” replied Gerald, “I’d rather it had been the Orinoco.” + +They both laughed at the poor joke. Gerald was thinking how Gudrun had +said she would strike the last blow too. But some reserve made him keep +this back from Birkin. + +“And you resent it?” Birkin asked. + +“I don’t resent it. I don’t care a tinker’s curse about it.” He was +silent a moment, then he added, laughing. “No, I’ll see it through, +that’s all. She seemed sorry afterwards.” + +“Did she? You’ve not met since that night?” + +Gerald’s face clouded. + +“No,” he said. “We’ve been—you can imagine how it’s been, since the +accident.” + +“Yes. Is it calming down?” + +“I don’t know. It’s a shock, of course. But I don’t believe mother +minds. I really don’t believe she takes any notice. And what’s so +funny, she used to be all for the children—nothing mattered, nothing +whatever mattered but the children. And now, she doesn’t take any more +notice than if it was one of the servants.” + +“No? Did it upset _you_ very much?” + +“It’s a shock. But I don’t feel it very much, really. I don’t feel any +different. We’ve all got to die, and it doesn’t seem to make any great +difference, anyhow, whether you die or not. I can’t feel any _grief_, +you know. It leaves me cold. I can’t quite account for it.” + +“You don’t care if you die or not?” asked Birkin. + +Gerald looked at him with eyes blue as the blue-fibred steel of a +weapon. He felt awkward, but indifferent. As a matter of fact, he did +care terribly, with a great fear. + +“Oh,” he said, “I don’t want to die, why should I? But I never trouble. +The question doesn’t seem to be on the carpet for me at all. It doesn’t +interest me, you know.” + +“_Timor mortis conturbat me_,” quoted Birkin, adding—“No, death doesn’t +really seem the point any more. It curiously doesn’t concern one. It’s +like an ordinary tomorrow.” + +Gerald looked closely at his friend. The eyes of the two men met, and +an unspoken understanding was exchanged. + +Gerald narrowed his eyes, his face was cool and unscrupulous as he +looked at Birkin, impersonally, with a vision that ended in a point in +space, strangely keen-eyed and yet blind. + +“If death isn’t the point,” he said, in a strangely abstract, cold, +fine voice—“what is?” He sounded as if he had been found out. + +“What is?” re-echoed Birkin. And there was a mocking silence. + +“There’s long way to go, after the point of intrinsic death, before we +disappear,” said Birkin. + +“There is,” said Gerald. “But what sort of way?” He seemed to press the +other man for knowledge which he himself knew far better than Birkin +did. + +“Right down the slopes of degeneration—mystic, universal degeneration. +There are many stages of pure degradation to go through: agelong. We +live on long after our death, and progressively, in progressive +devolution.” + +Gerald listened with a faint, fine smile on his face, all the time, as +if, somewhere, he knew so much better than Birkin, all about this: as +if his own knowledge were direct and personal, whereas Birkin’s was a +matter of observation and inference, not quite hitting the nail on the +head:—though aiming near enough at it. But he was not going to give +himself away. If Birkin could get at the secrets, let him. Gerald would +never help him. Gerald would be a dark horse to the end. + +“Of course,” he said, with a startling change of conversation, “it is +father who really feels it. It will finish him. For him the world +collapses. All his care now is for Winnie—he must save Winnie. He says +she ought to be sent away to school, but she won’t hear of it, and +he’ll never do it. Of course she _is_ in rather a queer way. We’re all +of us curiously bad at living. We can do things—but we can’t get on +with life at all. It’s curious—a family failing.” + +“She oughtn’t to be sent away to school,” said Birkin, who was +considering a new proposition. + +“She oughtn’t. Why?” + +“She’s a queer child—a special child, more special even than you. And +in my opinion special children should never be sent away to school. +Only moderately ordinary children should be sent to school—so it seems +to me.” + +“I’m inclined to think just the opposite. I think it would probably +make her more normal if she went away and mixed with other children.” + +“She wouldn’t mix, you see. _You_ never really mixed, did you? And she +wouldn’t be willing even to pretend to. She’s proud, and solitary, and +naturally apart. If she has a single nature, why do you want to make +her gregarious?” + +“No, I don’t want to make her anything. But I think school would be +good for her.” + +“Was it good for you?” + +Gerald’s eyes narrowed uglily. School had been torture to him. Yet he +had not questioned whether one should go through this torture. He +seemed to believe in education through subjection and torment. + +“I hated it at the time, but I can see it was necessary,” he said. “It +brought me into line a bit—and you can’t live unless you do come into +line somewhere.” + +“Well,” said Birkin, “I begin to think that you can’t live unless you +keep entirely out of the line. It’s no good trying to toe the line, +when your one impulse is to smash up the line. Winnie is a special +nature, and for special natures you must give a special world.” + +“Yes, but where’s your special world?” said Gerald. + +“Make it. Instead of chopping yourself down to fit the world, chop the +world down to fit yourself. As a matter of fact, two exceptional people +make another world. You and I, we make another, separate world. You +don’t _want_ a world same as your brothers-in-law. It’s just the +special quality you value. Do you _want_ to be normal or ordinary! It’s +a lie. You want to be free and extraordinary, in an extraordinary world +of liberty.” + +Gerald looked at Birkin with subtle eyes of knowledge. But he would +never openly admit what he felt. He knew more than Birkin, in one +direction—much more. And this gave him his gentle love for the other +man, as if Birkin were in some way young, innocent, child-like: so +amazingly clever, but incurably innocent. + +“Yet you are so banal as to consider me chiefly a freak,” said Birkin +pointedly. + +“A freak!” exclaimed Gerald, startled. And his face opened suddenly, as +if lighted with simplicity, as when a flower opens out of the cunning +bud. “No—I never consider you a freak.” And he watched the other man +with strange eyes, that Birkin could not understand. “I feel,” Gerald +continued, “that there is always an element of uncertainty about +you—perhaps you are uncertain about yourself. But I’m never sure of +you. You can go away and change as easily as if you had no soul.” + +He looked at Birkin with penetrating eyes. Birkin was amazed. He +thought he had all the soul in the world. He stared in amazement. And +Gerald, watching, saw the amazing attractive goodliness of his eyes, a +young, spontaneous goodness that attracted the other man infinitely, +yet filled him with bitter chagrin, because he mistrusted it so much. +He knew Birkin could do without him—could forget, and not suffer. This +was always present in Gerald’s consciousness, filling him with bitter +unbelief: this consciousness of the young, animal-like spontaneity of +detachment. It seemed almost like hypocrisy and lying, sometimes, oh, +often, on Birkin’s part, to talk so deeply and importantly. + +Quite other things were going through Birkin’s mind. Suddenly he saw +himself confronted with another problem—the problem of love and eternal +conjunction between two men. Of course this was necessary—it had been a +necessity inside himself all his life—to love a man purely and fully. +Of course he had been loving Gerald all along, and all along denying +it. + +He lay in the bed and wondered, whilst his friend sat beside him, lost +in brooding. Each man was gone in his own thoughts. + +“You know how the old German knights used to swear a +_Blutbruderschaft_,” he said to Gerald, with quite a new happy activity +in his eyes. + +“Make a little wound in their arms, and rub each other’s blood into the +cut?” said Gerald. + +“Yes—and swear to be true to each other, of one blood, all their lives. +That is what we ought to do. No wounds, that is obsolete. But we ought +to swear to love each other, you and I, implicitly, and perfectly, +finally, without any possibility of going back on it.” + +He looked at Gerald with clear, happy eyes of discovery. Gerald looked +down at him, attracted, so deeply bondaged in fascinated attraction, +that he was mistrustful, resenting the bondage, hating the attraction. + +“We will swear to each other, one day, shall we?” pleaded Birkin. “We +will swear to stand by each other—be true to each +other—ultimately—infallibly—given to each other, organically—without +possibility of taking back.” + +Birkin sought hard to express himself. But Gerald hardly listened. His +face shone with a certain luminous pleasure. He was pleased. But he +kept his reserve. He held himself back. + +“Shall we swear to each other, one day?” said Birkin, putting out his +hand towards Gerald. + +Gerald just touched the extended fine, living hand, as if withheld and +afraid. + +“We’ll leave it till I understand it better,” he said, in a voice of +excuse. + +Birkin watched him. A little sharp disappointment, perhaps a touch of +contempt came into his heart. + +“Yes,” he said. “You must tell me what you think, later. You know what +I mean? Not sloppy emotionalism. An impersonal union that leaves one +free.” + +They lapsed both into silence. Birkin was looking at Gerald all the +time. He seemed now to see, not the physical, animal man, which he +usually saw in Gerald, and which usually he liked so much, but the man +himself, complete, and as if fated, doomed, limited. This strange sense +of fatality in Gerald, as if he were limited to one form of existence, +one knowledge, one activity, a sort of fatal halfness, which to himself +seemed wholeness, always overcame Birkin after their moments of +passionate approach, and filled him with a sort of contempt, or +boredom. It was the insistence on the limitation which so bored Birkin +in Gerald. Gerald could never fly away from himself, in real +indifferent gaiety. He had a clog, a sort of monomania. + +There was silence for a time. Then Birkin said, in a lighter tone, +letting the stress of the contact pass: + +“Can’t you get a good governess for Winifred?—somebody exceptional?” + +“Hermione Roddice suggested we should ask Gudrun to teach her to draw +and to model in clay. You know Winnie is astonishingly clever with that +plasticine stuff. Hermione declares she is an artist.” Gerald spoke in +the usual animated, chatty manner, as if nothing unusual had passed. +But Birkin’s manner was full of reminder. + +“Really! I didn’t know that. Oh well then, if Gudrun _would_ teach her, +it would be perfect—couldn’t be anything better—if Winifred is an +artist. Because Gudrun somewhere is one. And every true artist is the +salvation of every other.” + +“I thought they got on so badly, as a rule.” + +“Perhaps. But only artists produce for each other the world that is fit +to live in. If you can arrange _that_ for Winifred, it is perfect.” + +“But you think she wouldn’t come?” + +“I don’t know. Gudrun is rather self-opinionated. She won’t go cheap +anywhere. Or if she does, she’ll pretty soon take herself back. So +whether she would condescend to do private teaching, particularly here, +in Beldover, I don’t know. But it would be just the thing. Winifred has +got a special nature. And if you can put into her way the means of +being self-sufficient, that is the best thing possible. She’ll never +get on with the ordinary life. You find it difficult enough yourself, +and she is several skins thinner than you are. It is awful to think +what her life will be like unless she does find a means of expression, +some way of fulfilment. You can see what mere leaving it to fate +brings. You can see how much marriage is to be trusted to—look at your +own mother.” + +“Do you think mother is abnormal?” + +“No! I think she only wanted something more, or other than the common +run of life. And not getting it, she has gone wrong perhaps.” + +“After producing a brood of wrong children,” said Gerald gloomily. + +“No more wrong than any of the rest of us,” Birkin replied. “The most +normal people have the worst subterranean selves, take them one by +one.” + +“Sometimes I think it is a curse to be alive,” said Gerald with sudden +impotent anger. + +“Well,” said Birkin, “why not! Let it be a curse sometimes to be +alive—at other times it is anything but a curse. You’ve got plenty of +zest in it really.” + +“Less than you’d think,” said Gerald, revealing a strange poverty in +his look at the other man. + +There was silence, each thinking his own thoughts. + +“I don’t see what she has to distinguish between teaching at the +Grammar School, and coming to teach Win,” said Gerald. + +“The difference between a public servant and a private one. The only +nobleman today, king and only aristocrat, is the public, the public. +You are quite willing to serve the public—but to be a private tutor—” + +“I don’t want to serve either—” + +“No! And Gudrun will probably feel the same.” + +Gerald thought for a few minutes. Then he said: + +“At all events, father won’t make her feel like a private servant. He +will be fussy and greatful enough.” + +“So he ought. And so ought all of you. Do you think you can hire a +woman like Gudrun Brangwen with money? She is your equal like +anything—probably your superior.” + +“Is she?” said Gerald. + +“Yes, and if you haven’t the guts to know it, I hope she’ll leave you +to your own devices.” + +“Nevertheless,” said Gerald, “if she is my equal, I wish she weren’t a +teacher, because I don’t think teachers as a rule are my equal.” + +“Nor do I, damn them. But am I a teacher because I teach, or a parson +because I preach?” + +Gerald laughed. He was always uneasy on this score. He did not _want_ +to claim social superiority, yet he _would_ not claim intrinsic +personal superiority, because he would never base his standard of +values on pure being. So he wobbled upon a tacit assumption of social +standing. No, Birkin wanted him to accept the fact of intrinsic +difference between human beings, which he did not intend to accept. It +was against his social honour, his principle. He rose to go. + +“I’ve been neglecting my business all this while,” he said smiling. + +“I ought to have reminded you before,” Birkin replied, laughing and +mocking. + +“I knew you’d say something like that,” laughed Gerald, rather +uneasily. + +“Did you?” + +“Yes, Rupert. It wouldn’t do for us all to be like you are—we should +soon be in the cart. When I am above the world, I shall ignore all +businesses.” + +“Of course, we’re not in the cart now,” said Birkin, satirically. + +“Not as much as you make out. At any rate, we have enough to eat and +drink—” + +“And be satisfied,” added Birkin. + +Gerald came near the bed and stood looking down at Birkin whose throat +was exposed, whose tossed hair fell attractively on the warm brow, +above the eyes that were so unchallenged and still in the satirical +face. Gerald, full-limbed and turgid with energy, stood unwilling to +go, he was held by the presence of the other man. He had not the power +to go away. + +“So,” said Birkin. “Good-bye.” And he reached out his hand from under +the bed-clothes, smiling with a glimmering look. + +“Good-bye,” said Gerald, taking the warm hand of his friend in a firm +grasp. “I shall come again. I miss you down at the mill.” + +“I’ll be there in a few days,” said Birkin. + +The eyes of the two men met again. Gerald’s, that were keen as a +hawk’s, were suffused now with warm light and with unadmitted love, +Birkin looked back as out of a darkness, unsounded and unknown, yet +with a kind of warmth, that seemed to flow over Gerald’s brain like a +fertile sleep. + +“Good-bye then. There’s nothing I can do for you?” + +“Nothing, thanks.” + +Birkin watched the black-clothed form of the other man move out of the +door, the bright head was gone, he turned over to sleep. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. +THE INDUSTRIAL MAGNATE + + +In Beldover, there was both for Ursula and for Gudrun an interval. It +seemed to Ursula as if Birkin had gone out of her for the time, he had +lost his significance, he scarcely mattered in her world. She had her +own friends, her own activities, her own life. She turned back to the +old ways with zest, away from him. + +And Gudrun, after feeling every moment in all her veins conscious of +Gerald Crich, connected even physically with him, was now almost +indifferent to the thought of him. She was nursing new schemes for +going away and trying a new form of life. All the time, there was +something in her urging her to avoid the final establishing of a +relationship with Gerald. She felt it would be wiser and better to have +no more than a casual acquaintance with him. + +She had a scheme for going to St Petersburg, where she had a friend who +was a sculptor like herself, and who lived with a wealthy Russian whose +hobby was jewel-making. The emotional, rather rootless life of the +Russians appealed to her. She did not want to go to Paris. Paris was +dry, and essentially boring. She would like to go to Rome, Munich, +Vienna, or to St Petersburg or Moscow. She had a friend in St +Petersburg and a friend in Munich. To each of these she wrote, asking +about rooms. + +She had a certain amount of money. She had come home partly to save, +and now she had sold several pieces of work, she had been praised in +various shows. She knew she could become quite the “go’ if she went to +London. But she knew London, she wanted something else. She had seventy +pounds, of which nobody knew anything. She would move soon, as soon as +she heard from her friends. Her nature, in spite of her apparent +placidity and calm, was profoundly restless. + +The sisters happened to call in a cottage in Willey Green to buy honey. +Mrs Kirk, a stout, pale, sharp-nosed woman, sly, honied, with something +shrewish and cat-like beneath, asked the girls into her too cosy, too +tidy kitchen. There was a cat-like comfort and cleanliness everywhere. + +“Yes, Miss Brangwen,” she said, in her slightly whining, insinuating +voice, “and how do you like being back in the old place, then?” + +Gudrun, whom she addressed, hated her at once. + +“I don’t care for it,” she replied abruptly. + +“You don’t? Ay, well, I suppose you found a difference from London. You +like life, and big, grand places. Some of us has to be content with +Willey Green and Beldover. And what do you think of our Grammar School, +as there’s so much talk about?” + +“What do I think of it?” Gudrun looked round at her slowly. “Do you +mean, do I think it’s a good school?” + +“Yes. What is your opinion of it?” + +“I _do_ think it’s a good school.” + +Gudrun was very cold and repelling. She knew the common people hated +the school. + +“Ay, you do, then! I’ve heard so much, one way and the other. It’s nice +to know what those that’s in it feel. But opinions vary, don’t they? Mr +Crich up at Highclose is all for it. Ay, poor man, I’m afraid he’s not +long for this world. He’s very poorly.” + +“Is he worse?” asked Ursula. + +“Eh, yes—since they lost Miss Diana. He’s gone off to a shadow. Poor +man, he’s had a world of trouble.” + +“Has he?” asked Gudrun, faintly ironic. + +“He has, a world of trouble. And as nice and kind a gentleman as ever +you could wish to meet. His children don’t take after him.” + +“I suppose they take after their mother?” said Ursula. + +“In many ways.” Mrs Krik lowered her voice a little. “She was a proud +haughty lady when she came into these parts—my word, she was that! She +mustn’t be looked at, and it was worth your life to speak to her.” The +woman made a dry, sly face. + +“Did you know her when she was first married?” + +“Yes, I knew her. I nursed three of her children. And proper little +terrors they were, little fiends—that Gerald was a demon if ever there +was one, a proper demon, ay, at six months old.” A curious malicious, +sly tone came into the woman’s voice. + +“Really,” said Gudrun. + +“That wilful, masterful—he’d mastered one nurse at six months. Kick, +and scream, and struggle like a demon. Many’s the time I’ve pinched his +little bottom for him, when he was a child in arms. Ay, and he’d have +been better if he’d had it pinched oftener. But she wouldn’t have them +corrected—no-o, wouldn’t hear of it. I can remember the rows she had +with Mr Crich, my word. When he’d got worked up, properly worked up +till he could stand no more, he’d lock the study door and whip them. +But she paced up and down all the while like a tiger outside, like a +tiger, with very murder in her face. She had a face that could _look_ +death. And when the door was opened, she’d go in with her hands +lifted—‘What have you been doing to _my_ children, you coward.’ She was +like one out of her mind. I believe he was frightened of her; he had to +be driven mad before he’d lift a finger. Didn’t the servants have a +life of it! And didn’t we used to be thankful when one of them caught +it. They were the torment of your life.” + +“Really!” said Gudrun. + +“In every possible way. If you wouldn’t let them smash their pots on +the table, if you wouldn’t let them drag the kitten about with a string +round its neck, if you wouldn’t give them whatever they asked for, +every mortal thing—then there was a shine on, and their mother coming +in asking—‘What’s the matter with him? What have you done to him? What +is it, Darling?’ And then she’d turn on you as if she’d trample you +under her feet. But she didn’t trample on me. I was the only one that +could do anything with her demons—for she wasn’t going to be bothered +with them herself. No, _she_ took no trouble for them. But they must +just have their way, they mustn’t be spoken to. And Master Gerald was +the beauty. I left when he was a year and a half, I could stand no +more. But I pinched his little bottom for him when he was in arms, I +did, when there was no holding him, and I’m not sorry I did—” + +Gudrun went away in fury and loathing. The phrase, “I pinched his +little bottom for him,” sent her into a white, stony fury. She could +not bear it, she wanted to have the woman taken out at once and +strangled. And yet there the phrase was lodged in her mind for ever, +beyond escape. She felt, one day, she would _have_ to tell him, to see +how he took it. And she loathed herself for the thought. + +But at Shortlands the life-long struggle was coming to a close. The +father was ill and was going to die. He had bad internal pains, which +took away all his attentive life, and left him with only a vestige of +his consciousness. More and more a silence came over him, he was less +and less acutely aware of his surroundings. The pain seemed to absorb +his activity. He knew it was there, he knew it would come again. It was +like something lurking in the darkness within him. And he had not the +power, or the will, to seek it out and to know it. There it remained in +the darkness, the great pain, tearing him at times, and then being +silent. And when it tore him he crouched in silent subjection under it, +and when it left him alone again, he refused to know of it. It was +within the darkness, let it remain unknown. So he never admitted it, +except in a secret corner of himself, where all his never-revealed +fears and secrets were accumulated. For the rest, he had a pain, it +went away, it made no difference. It even stimulated him, excited him. + +But it gradually absorbed his life. Gradually it drew away all his +potentiality, it bled him into the dark, it weaned him of life and drew +him away into the darkness. And in this twilight of his life little +remained visible to him. The business, his work, that was gone +entirely. His public interests had disappeared as if they had never +been. Even his family had become extraneous to him, he could only +remember, in some slight non-essential part of himself, that such and +such were his children. But it was historical fact, not vital to him. +He had to make an effort to know their relation to him. Even his wife +barely existed. She indeed was like the darkness, like the pain within +him. By some strange association, the darkness that contained the pain +and the darkness that contained his wife were identical. All his +thoughts and understandings became blurred and fused, and now his wife +and the consuming pain were the same dark secret power against him, +that he never faced. He never drove the dread out of its lair within +him. He only knew that there was a dark place, and something inhabiting +this darkness which issued from time to time and rent him. But he dared +not penetrate and drive the beast into the open. He had rather ignore +its existence. Only, in his vague way, the dread was his wife, the +destroyer, and it was the pain, the destruction, a darkness which was +one and both. + +He very rarely saw his wife. She kept her room. Only occasionally she +came forth, with her head stretched forward, and in her low, possessed +voice, she asked him how he was. And he answered her, in the habit of +more than thirty years: “Well, I don’t think I’m any the worse, dear.” +But he was frightened of her, underneath this safeguard of habit, +frightened almost to the verge of death. + +But all his life, he had been so constant to his lights, he had never +broken down. He would die even now without breaking down, without +knowing what his feelings were, towards her. All his life, he had said: +“Poor Christiana, she has such a strong temper.” With unbroken will, he +had stood by this position with regard to her, he had substituted pity +for all his hostility, pity had been his shield and his safeguard, and +his infallible weapon. And still, in his consciousness, he was sorry +for her, her nature was so violent and so impatient. + +But now his pity, with his life, was wearing thin, and the dread almost +amounting to horror, was rising into being. But before the armour of +his pity really broke, he would die, as an insect when its shell is +cracked. This was his final resource. Others would live on, and know +the living death, the ensuing process of hopeless chaos. He would not. +He denied death its victory. + +He had been so constant to his lights, so constant to charity, and to +his love for his neighbour. Perhaps he had loved his neighbour even +better than himself—which is going one further than the commandment. +Always, this flame had burned in his heart, sustaining him through +everything, the welfare of the people. He was a large employer of +labour, he was a great mine-owner. And he had never lost this from his +heart, that in Christ he was one with his workmen. Nay, he had felt +inferior to them, as if they through poverty and labour were nearer to +God than he. He had always the unacknowledged belief, that it was his +workmen, the miners, who held in their hands the means of salvation. To +move nearer to God, he must move towards his miners, his life must +gravitate towards theirs. They were, unconsciously, his idol, his God +made manifest. In them he worshipped the highest, the great, +sympathetic, mindless Godhead of humanity. + +And all the while, his wife had opposed him like one of the great +demons of hell. Strange, like a bird of prey, with the fascinating +beauty and abstraction of a hawk, she had beat against the bars of his +philanthropy, and like a hawk in a cage, she had sunk into silence. By +force of circumstance, because all the world combined to make the cage +unbreakable, he had been too strong for her, he had kept her prisoner. +And because she was his prisoner, his passion for her had always +remained keen as death. He had always loved her, loved her with +intensity. Within the cage, she was denied nothing, she was given all +licence. + +But she had gone almost mad. Of wild and overweening temper, she could +not bear the humiliation of her husband’s soft, half-appealing kindness +to everybody. He was not deceived by the poor. He knew they came and +sponged on him, and whined to him, the worse sort; the majority, +luckily for him, were much too proud to ask for anything, much too +independent to come knocking at his door. But in Beldover, as +everywhere else, there were the whining, parasitic, foul human beings +who come crawling after charity, and feeding on the living body of the +public like lice. A kind of fire would go over Christiana Crich’s +brain, as she saw two more pale-faced, creeping women in objectionable +black clothes, cringing lugubriously up the drive to the door. She +wanted to set the dogs on them, “Hi Rip! Hi Ring! Ranger! At ’em boys, +set ’em off.” But Crowther, the butler, with all the rest of the +servants, was Mr Crich’s man. Nevertheless, when her husband was away, +she would come down like a wolf on the crawling supplicants: + +“What do you people want? There is nothing for you here. You have no +business on the drive at all. Simpson, drive them away and let no more +of them through the gate.” + +The servants had to obey her. And she would stand watching with an eye +like the eagle’s, whilst the groom in clumsy confusion drove the +lugubrious persons down the drive, as if they were rusty fowls, +scuttling before him. + +But they learned to know, from the lodge-keeper, when Mrs Crich was +away, and they timed their visits. How many times, in the first years, +would Crowther knock softly at the door: “Person to see you, sir.” + +“What name?” + +“Grocock, sir.” + +“What do they want?” The question was half impatient, half gratified. +He liked hearing appeals to his charity. + +“About a child, sir.” + +“Show them into the library, and tell them they shouldn’t come after +eleven o’clock in the morning.” + +“Why do you get up from dinner?—send them off,” his wife would say +abruptly. + +“Oh, I can’t do that. It’s no trouble just to hear what they have to +say.” + +“How many more have been here today? Why don’t you establish open house +for them? They would soon oust me and the children.” + +“You know dear, it doesn’t hurt me to hear what they have to say. And +if they really are in trouble—well, it is my duty to help them out of +it.” + +“It’s your duty to invite all the rats in the world to gnaw at your +bones.” + +“Come, Christiana, it isn’t like that. Don’t be uncharitable.” + +But she suddenly swept out of the room, and out to the study. There sat +the meagre charity-seekers, looking as if they were at the doctor’s. + +“Mr Crich can’t see you. He can’t see you at this hour. Do you think he +is your property, that you can come whenever you like? You must go +away, there is nothing for you here.” + +The poor people rose in confusion. But Mr Crich, pale and black-bearded +and deprecating, came behind her, saying: + +“Yes, I don’t like you coming as late as this. I’ll hear any of you in +the morning part of the day, but I can’t really do with you after. +What’s amiss then, Gittens. How is your Missis?” + +“Why, she’s sunk very low, Mester Crich, she’s a’most gone, she is—” + +Sometimes, it seemed to Mrs Crich as if her husband were some subtle +funeral bird, feeding on the miseries of the people. It seemed to her +he was never satisfied unless there was some sordid tale being poured +out to him, which he drank in with a sort of mournful, sympathetic +satisfaction. He would have no _raison d’être_ if there were no +lugubrious miseries in the world, as an undertaker would have no +meaning if there were no funerals. + +Mrs Crich recoiled back upon herself, she recoiled away from this world +of creeping democracy. A band of tight, baleful exclusion fastened +round her heart, her isolation was fierce and hard, her antagonism was +passive but terribly pure, like that of a hawk in a cage. As the years +went on, she lost more and more count of the world, she seemed rapt in +some glittering abstraction, almost purely unconscious. She would +wander about the house and about the surrounding country, staring +keenly and seeing nothing. She rarely spoke, she had no connection with +the world. And she did not even think. She was consumed in a fierce +tension of opposition, like the negative pole of a magnet. + +And she bore many children. For, as time went on, she never opposed her +husband in word or deed. She took no notice of him, externally. She +submitted to him, let him take what he wanted and do as he wanted with +her. She was like a hawk that sullenly submits to everything. The +relation between her and her husband was wordless and unknown, but it +was deep, awful, a relation of utter inter-destruction. And he, who +triumphed in the world, he became more and more hollow in his vitality, +the vitality was bled from within him, as by some hæmorrhage. She was +hulked like a hawk in a cage, but her heart was fierce and undiminished +within her, though her mind was destroyed. + +So to the last he would go to her and hold her in his arms sometimes, +before his strength was all gone. The terrible white, destructive light +that burned in her eyes only excited and roused him. Till he was bled +to death, and then he dreaded her more than anything. But he always +said to himself, how happy he had been, how he had loved her with a +pure and consuming love ever since he had known her. And he thought of +her as pure, chaste; the white flame which was known to him alone, the +flame of her sex, was a white flower of snow to his mind. She was a +wonderful white snow-flower, which he had desired infinitely. And now +he was dying with all his ideas and interpretations intact. They would +only collapse when the breath left his body. Till then they would be +pure truths for him. Only death would show the perfect completeness of +the lie. Till death, she was his white snow-flower. He had subdued her, +and her subjugation was to him an infinite chastity in her, a virginity +which he could never break, and which dominated him as by a spell. + +She had let go the outer world, but within herself she was unbroken and +unimpaired. She only sat in her room like a moping, dishevelled hawk, +motionless, mindless. Her children, for whom she had been so fierce in +her youth, now meant scarcely anything to her. She had lost all that, +she was quite by herself. Only Gerald, the gleaming, had some existence +for her. But of late years, since he had become head of the business, +he too was forgotten. Whereas the father, now he was dying, turned for +compassion to Gerald. There had always been opposition between the two +of them. Gerald had feared and despised his father, and to a great +extent had avoided him all through boyhood and young manhood. And the +father had felt very often a real dislike of his eldest son, which, +never wanting to give way to, he had refused to acknowledge. He had +ignored Gerald as much as possible, leaving him alone. + +Since, however, Gerald had come home and assumed responsibility in the +firm, and had proved such a wonderful director, the father, tired and +weary of all outside concerns, had put all his trust of these things in +his son, implicitly, leaving everything to him, and assuming a rather +touching dependence on the young enemy. This immediately roused a +poignant pity and allegiance in Gerald’s heart, always shadowed by +contempt and by unadmitted enmity. For Gerald was in reaction against +Charity; and yet he was dominated by it, it assumed supremacy in the +inner life, and he could not confute it. So he was partly subject to +that which his father stood for, but he was in reaction against it. Now +he could not save himself. A certain pity and grief and tenderness for +his father overcame him, in spite of the deeper, more sullen hostility. + +The father won shelter from Gerald through compassion. But for love he +had Winifred. She was his youngest child, she was the only one of his +children whom he had ever closely loved. And her he loved with all the +great, overweening, sheltering love of a dying man. He wanted to +shelter her infinitely, infinitely, to wrap her in warmth and love and +shelter, perfectly. If he could save her she should never know one +pain, one grief, one hurt. He had been so right all his life, so +constant in his kindness and his goodness. And this was his last +passionate righteousness, his love for the child Winifred. Some things +troubled him yet. The world had passed away from him, as his strength +ebbed. There were no more poor and injured and humble to protect and +succour. These were all lost to him. There were no more sons and +daughters to trouble him, and to weigh on him as an unnatural +responsibility. These too had faded out of reality. All these things +had fallen out of his hands, and left him free. + +There remained the covert fear and horror of his wife, as she sat +mindless and strange in her room, or as she came forth with slow, +prowling step, her head bent forward. But this he put away. Even his +life-long righteousness, however, would not quite deliver him from the +inner horror. Still, he could keep it sufficiently at bay. It would +never break forth openly. Death would come first. + +Then there was Winifred! If only he could be sure about her, if only he +could be sure. Since the death of Diana, and the development of his +illness, his craving for surety with regard to Winifred amounted almost +to obsession. It was as if, even dying, he must have some anxiety, some +responsibility of love, of Charity, upon his heart. + +She was an odd, sensitive, inflammable child, having her father’s dark +hair and quiet bearing, but being quite detached, momentaneous. She was +like a changeling indeed, as if her feelings did not matter to her, +really. She often seemed to be talking and playing like the gayest and +most childish of children, she was full of the warmest, most delightful +affection for a few things—for her father, and for her animals in +particular. But if she heard that her beloved kitten Leo had been run +over by the motor-car she put her head on one side, and replied, with a +faint contraction like resentment on her face: “Has he?” Then she took +no more notice. She only disliked the servant who would force bad news +on her, and wanted her to be sorry. She wished not to know, and that +seemed her chief motive. She avoided her mother, and most of the +members of her family. She _loved_ her Daddy, because he wanted her +always to be happy, and because he seemed to become young again, and +irresponsible in her presence. She liked Gerald, because he was so +self-contained. She loved people who would make life a game for her. +She had an amazing instinctive critical faculty, and was a pure +anarchist, a pure aristocrat at once. For she accepted her equals +wherever she found them, and she ignored with blithe indifference her +inferiors, whether they were her brothers and sisters, or whether they +were wealthy guests of the house, or whether they were the common +people or the servants. She was quite single and by herself, deriving +from nobody. It was as if she were cut off from all purpose or +continuity, and existed simply moment by moment. + +The father, as by some strange final illusion, felt as if all his fate +depended on his ensuring to Winifred her happiness. She who could never +suffer, because she never formed vital connections, she who could lose +the dearest things of her life and be just the same the next day, the +whole memory dropped out, as if deliberately, she whose will was so +strangely and easily free, anarchistic, almost nihilistic, who like a +soulless bird flits on its own will, without attachment or +responsibility beyond the moment, who in her every motion snapped the +threads of serious relationship with blithe, free hands, really +nihilistic, because never troubled, she must be the object of her +father’s final passionate solicitude. + +When Mr Crich heard that Gudrun Brangwen might come to help Winifred +with her drawing and modelling he saw a road to salvation for his +child. He believed that Winifred had talent, he had seen Gudrun, he +knew that she was an exceptional person. He could give Winifred into +her hands as into the hands of a right being. Here was a direction and +a positive force to be lent to his child, he need not leave her +directionless and defenceless. If he could but graft the girl on to +some tree of utterance before he died, he would have fulfilled his +responsibility. And here it could be done. He did not hesitate to +appeal to Gudrun. + +Meanwhile, as the father drifted more and more out of life, Gerald +experienced more and more a sense of exposure. His father after all had +stood for the living world to him. Whilst his father lived Gerald was +not responsible for the world. But now his father was passing away, +Gerald found himself left exposed and unready before the storm of +living, like the mutinous first mate of a ship that has lost his +captain, and who sees only a terrible chaos in front of him. He did not +inherit an established order and a living idea. The whole unifying idea +of mankind seemed to be dying with his father, the centralising force +that had held the whole together seemed to collapse with his father, +the parts were ready to go asunder in terrible disintegration. Gerald +was as if left on board of a ship that was going asunder beneath his +feet, he was in charge of a vessel whose timbers were all coming apart. + +He knew that all his life he had been wrenching at the frame of life to +break it apart. And now, with something of the terror of a destructive +child, he saw himself on the point of inheriting his own destruction. +And during the last months, under the influence of death, and of +Birkin’s talk, and of Gudrun’s penetrating being, he had lost entirely +that mechanical certainty that had been his triumph. Sometimes spasms +of hatred came over him, against Birkin and Gudrun and that whole set. +He wanted to go back to the dullest conservatism, to the most stupid of +conventional people. He wanted to revert to the strictest Toryism. But +the desire did not last long enough to carry him into action. + +During his childhood and his boyhood he had wanted a sort of savagedom. +The days of Homer were his ideal, when a man was chief of an army of +heroes, or spent his years in wonderful Odyssey. He hated remorselessly +the circumstances of his own life, so much that he never really saw +Beldover and the colliery valley. He turned his face entirely away from +the blackened mining region that stretched away on the right hand of +Shortlands, he turned entirely to the country and the woods beyond +Willey Water. It was true that the panting and rattling of the coal +mines could always be heard at Shortlands. But from his earliest +childhood, Gerald had paid no heed to this. He had ignored the whole of +the industrial sea which surged in coal-blackened tides against the +grounds of the house. The world was really a wilderness where one +hunted and swam and rode. He rebelled against all authority. Life was a +condition of savage freedom. + +Then he had been sent away to school, which was so much death to him. +He refused to go to Oxford, choosing a German university. He had spent +a certain time at Bonn, at Berlin, and at Frankfurt. There, a curiosity +had been aroused in his mind. He wanted to see and to know, in a +curious objective fashion, as if it were an amusement to him. Then he +must try war. Then he must travel into the savage regions that had so +attracted him. + +The result was, he found humanity very much alike everywhere, and to a +mind like his, curious and cold, the savage was duller, less exciting +than the European. So he took hold of all kinds of sociological ideas, +and ideas of reform. But they never went more than skin-deep, they were +never more than a mental amusement. Their interest lay chiefly in the +reaction against the positive order, the destructive reaction. + +He discovered at last a real adventure in the coal-mines. His father +asked him to help in the firm. Gerald had been educated in the science +of mining, and it had never interested him. Now, suddenly, with a sort +of exultation, he laid hold of the world. + +There was impressed photographically on his consciousness the great +industry. Suddenly, it was real, he was part of it. Down the valley ran +the colliery railway, linking mine with mine. Down the railway ran the +trains, short trains of heavily laden trucks, long trains of empty +wagons, each one bearing in big white letters the initials: + +“C. B. & Co.” + +These white letters on all the wagons he had seen since his first +childhood, and it was as if he had never seen them, they were so +familiar, and so ignored. Now at last he saw his own name written on +the wall. Now he had a vision of power. + +So many wagons, bearing his initial, running all over the country. He +saw them as he entered London in the train, he saw them at Dover. So +far his power ramified. He looked at Beldover, at Selby, at Whatmore, +at Lethley Bank, the great colliery villages which depended entirely on +his mines. They were hideous and sordid, during his childhood they had +been sores in his consciousness. And now he saw them with pride. Four +raw new towns, and many ugly industrial hamlets were crowded under his +dependence. He saw the stream of miners flowing along the causeways +from the mines at the end of the afternoon, thousands of blackened, +slightly distorted human beings with red mouths, all moving subjugate +to his will. He pushed slowly in his motor-car through the little +market-top on Friday nights in Beldover, through a solid mass of human +beings that were making their purchases and doing their weekly +spending. They were all subordinate to him. They were ugly and uncouth, +but they were his instruments. He was the God of the machine. They made +way for his motor-car automatically, slowly. + +He did not care whether they made way with alacrity, or grudgingly. He +did not care what they thought of him. His vision had suddenly +crystallised. Suddenly he had conceived the pure instrumentality of +mankind. There had been so much humanitarianism, so much talk of +sufferings and feelings. It was ridiculous. The sufferings and feelings +of individuals did not matter in the least. They were mere conditions, +like the weather. What mattered was the pure instrumentality of the +individual. As a man as of a knife: does it cut well? Nothing else +mattered. + +Everything in the world has its function, and is good or not good in so +far as it fulfils this function more or less perfectly. Was a miner a +good miner? Then he was complete. Was a manager a good manager? That +was enough. Gerald himself, who was responsible for all this industry, +was he a good director? If he were, he had fulfilled his life. The rest +was by-play. + +The mines were there, they were old. They were giving out, it did not +pay to work the seams. There was talk of closing down two of them. It +was at this point that Gerald arrived on the scene. + +He looked around. There lay the mines. They were old, obsolete. They +were like old lions, no more good. He looked again. Pah! the mines were +nothing but the clumsy efforts of impure minds. There they lay, +abortions of a half-trained mind. Let the idea of them be swept away. +He cleared his brain of them, and thought only of the coal in the under +earth. How much was there? + +There was plenty of coal. The old workings could not get at it, that +was all. Then break the neck of the old workings. The coal lay there in +its seams, even though the seams were thin. There it lay, inert matter, +as it had always lain, since the beginning of time, subject to the will +of man. The will of man was the determining factor. Man was the archgod +of earth. His mind was obedient to serve his will. Man’s will was the +absolute, the only absolute. + +And it was his will to subjugate Matter to his own ends. The +subjugation itself was the point, the fight was the be-all, the fruits +of victory were mere results. It was not for the sake of money that +Gerald took over the mines. He did not care about money, fundamentally. +He was neither ostentatious nor luxurious, neither did he care about +social position, not finally. What he wanted was the pure fulfilment of +his own will in the struggle with the natural conditions. His will was +now, to take the coal out of the earth, profitably. The profit was +merely the condition of victory, but the victory itself lay in the feat +achieved. He vibrated with zest before the challenge. Every day he was +in the mines, examining, testing, he consulted experts, he gradually +gathered the whole situation into his mind, as a general grasps the +plan of his campaign. + +Then there was need for a complete break. The mines were run on an old +system, an obsolete idea. The initial idea had been, to obtain as much +money from the earth as would make the owners comfortably rich, would +allow the workmen sufficient wages and good conditions, and would +increase the wealth of the country altogether. Gerald’s father, +following in the second generation, having a sufficient fortune, had +thought only of the men. The mines, for him, were primarily great +fields to produce bread and plenty for all the hundreds of human beings +gathered about them. He had lived and striven with his fellow owners to +benefit the men every time. And the men had been benefited in their +fashion. There were few poor, and few needy. All was plenty, because +the mines were good and easy to work. And the miners, in those days, +finding themselves richer than they might have expected, felt glad and +triumphant. They thought themselves well-off, they congratulated +themselves on their good-fortune, they remembered how their fathers had +starved and suffered, and they felt that better times had come. They +were grateful to those others, the pioneers, the new owners, who had +opened out the pits, and let forth this stream of plenty. + +But man is never satisfied, and so the miners, from gratitude to their +owners, passed on to murmuring. Their sufficiency decreased with +knowledge, they wanted more. Why should the master be so +out-of-all-proportion rich? + +There was a crisis when Gerald was a boy, when the Masters’ Federation +closed down the mines because the men would not accept a reduction. +This lock-out had forced home the new conditions to Thomas Crich. +Belonging to the Federation, he had been compelled by his honour to +close the pits against his men. He, the father, the Patriarch, was +forced to deny the means of life to his sons, his people. He, the rich +man who would hardly enter heaven because of his possessions, must now +turn upon the poor, upon those who were nearer Christ than himself, +those who were humble and despised and closer to perfection, those who +were manly and noble in their labours, and must say to them: “Ye shall +neither labour nor eat bread.” + +It was this recognition of the state of war which really broke his +heart. He wanted his industry to be run on love. Oh, he wanted love to +be the directing power even of the mines. And now, from under the cloak +of love, the sword was cynically drawn, the sword of mechanical +necessity. + +This really broke his heart. He must have the illusion and now the +illusion was destroyed. The men were not against _him_, but they were +against the masters. It was war, and willy nilly he found himself on +the wrong side, in his own conscience. Seething masses of miners met +daily, carried away by a new religious impulse. The idea flew through +them: “All men are equal on earth,” and they would carry the idea to +its material fulfilment. After all, is it not the teaching of Christ? +And what is an idea, if not the germ of action in the material world. +“All men are equal in spirit, they are all sons of God. Whence then +this obvious _disquality_?” It was a religious creed pushed to its +material conclusion. Thomas Crich at least had no answer. He could but +admit, according to his sincere tenets, that the disquality was wrong. +But he could not give up his goods, which were the stuff of disquality. +So the men would fight for their rights. The last impulses of the last +religious passion left on earth, the passion for equality, inspired +them. + +Seething mobs of men marched about, their faces lighted up as for holy +war, with a smoke of cupidity. How disentangle the passion for equality +from the passion of cupidity, when begins the fight for equality of +possessions? But the God was the machine. Each man claimed equality in +the Godhead of the great productive machine. Every man equally was part +of this Godhead. But somehow, somewhere, Thomas Crich knew this was +false. When the machine is the Godhead, and production or work is +worship, then the most mechanical mind is purest and highest, the +representative of God on earth. And the rest are subordinate, each +according to his degree. + +Riots broke out, Whatmore pit-head was in flames. This was the pit +furthest in the country, near the woods. Soldiers came. From the +windows of Shortlands, on that fatal day, could be seen the flare of +fire in the sky not far off, and now the little colliery train, with +the workmen’s carriages which were used to convey the miners to the +distant Whatmore, was crossing the valley full of soldiers, full of +redcoats. Then there was the far-off sound of firing, then the later +news that the mob was dispersed, one man was shot dead, the fire was +put out. + +Gerald, who was a boy, was filled with the wildest excitement and +delight. He longed to go with the soldiers to shoot the men. But he was +not allowed to go out of the lodge gates. At the gates were stationed +sentries with guns. Gerald stood near them in delight, whilst gangs of +derisive miners strolled up and down the lanes, calling and jeering: + +“Now then, three ha’porth o’ coppers, let’s see thee shoot thy gun.” +Insults were chalked on the walls and the fences, the servants left. + +And all this while Thomas Crich was breaking his heart, and giving away +hundreds of pounds in charity. Everywhere there was free food, a +surfeit of free food. Anybody could have bread for asking, and a loaf +cost only three-ha’pence. Every day there was a free tea somewhere, the +children had never had so many treats in their lives. On Friday +afternoon great basketfuls of buns and cakes were taken into the +schools, and great pitchers of milk, the schoolchildren had what they +wanted. They were sick with eating too much cake and milk. + +And then it came to an end, and the men went back to work. But it was +never the same as before. There was a new situation created, a new idea +reigned. Even in the machine, there should be equality. No part should +be subordinate to any other part: all should be equal. The instinct for +chaos had entered. Mystic equality lies in abstraction, not in having +or in doing, which are processes. In function and process, one man, one +part, must of necessity be subordinate to another. It is a condition of +being. But the desire for chaos had risen, and the idea of mechanical +equality was the weapon of disruption which should execute the will of +man, the will for chaos. + +Gerald was a boy at the time of the strike, but he longed to be a man, +to fight the colliers. The father however was trapped between two +half-truths, and broken. He wanted to be a pure Christian, one and +equal with all men. He even wanted to give away all he had, to the +poor. Yet he was a great promoter of industry, and he knew perfectly +that he must keep his goods and keep his authority. This was as divine +a necessity in him, as the need to give away all he possessed—more +divine, even, since this was the necessity he acted upon. Yet because +he did _not_ act on the other ideal, it dominated him, he was dying of +chagrin because he must forfeit it. He wanted to be a father of loving +kindness and sacrificial benevolence. The colliers shouted to him about +his thousands a year. They would not be deceived. + +When Gerald grew up in the ways of the world, he shifted the position. +He did not care about the equality. The whole Christian attitude of +love and self-sacrifice was old hat. He knew that position and +authority were the right thing in the world, and it was useless to cant +about it. They were the right thing, for the simple reason that they +were functionally necessary. They were not the be-all and the end-all. +It was like being part of a machine. He himself happened to be a +controlling, central part, the masses of men were the parts variously +controlled. This was merely as it happened. As well get excited because +a central hub drives a hundred outer wheels or because the whole +universe wheels round the sun. After all, it would be mere silliness to +say that the moon and the earth and Saturn and Jupiter and Venus have +just as much right to be the centre of the universe, each of them +separately, as the sun. Such an assertion is made merely in the desire +of chaos. + +Without bothering to _think_ to a conclusion, Gerald jumped to a +conclusion. He abandoned the whole democratic-equality problem as a +problem of silliness. What mattered was the great social productive +machine. Let that work perfectly, let it produce a sufficiency of +everything, let every man be given a rational portion, greater or less +according to his functional degree or magnitude, and then, provision +made, let the devil supervene, let every man look after his own +amusements and appetites, so long as he interfered with nobody. + +So Gerald set himself to work, to put the great industry in order. In +his travels, and in his accompanying readings, he had come to the +conclusion that the essential secret of life was harmony. He did not +define to himself at all clearly what harmony was. The word pleased +him, he felt he had come to his own conclusions. And he proceeded to +put his philosophy into practice by forcing order into the established +world, translating the mystic word harmony into the practical word +organisation. + +Immediately he _saw_ the firm, he realised what he could do. He had a +fight to fight with Matter, with the earth and the coal it enclosed. +This was the sole idea, to turn upon the inanimate matter of the +underground, and reduce it to his will. And for this fight with matter, +one must have perfect instruments in perfect organisation, a mechanism +so subtle and harmonious in its workings that it represents the single +mind of man, and by its relentless repetition of given movement, will +accomplish a purpose irresistibly, inhumanly. It was this inhuman +principle in the mechanism he wanted to construct that inspired Gerald +with an almost religious exaltation. He, the man, could interpose a +perfect, changeless, godlike medium between himself and the Matter he +had to subjugate. There were two opposites, his will and the resistant +Matter of the earth. And between these he could establish the very +expression of his will, the incarnation of his power, a great and +perfect machine, a system, an activity of pure order, pure mechanical +repetition, repetition _ad infinitum_, hence eternal and infinite. He +found his eternal and his infinite in the pure machine-principle of +perfect co-ordination into one pure, complex, infinitely repeated +motion, like the spinning of a wheel; but a productive spinning, as the +revolving of the universe may be called a productive spinning, a +productive repetition through eternity, to infinity. And this is the +God-motion, this productive repetition _ad infinitum_. And Gerald was +the God of the machine, _Deus ex Machina_. And the whole productive +will of man was the Godhead. + +He had his life-work now, to extend over the earth a great and perfect +system in which the will of man ran smooth and unthwarted, timeless, a +Godhead in process. He had to begin with the mines. The terms were +given: first the resistant Matter of the underground; then the +instruments of its subjugation, instruments human and metallic; and +finally his own pure will, his own mind. It would need a marvellous +adjustment of myriad instruments, human, animal, metallic, kinetic, +dynamic, a marvellous casting of myriad tiny wholes into one great +perfect entirety. And then, in this case there was perfection attained, +the will of the highest was perfectly fulfilled, the will of mankind +was perfectly enacted; for was not mankind mystically +contra-distinguished against inanimate Matter, was not the history of +mankind just the history of the conquest of the one by the other? + +The miners were overreached. While they were still in the toils of +divine equality of man, Gerald had passed on, granted essentially their +case, and proceeded in his quality of human being to fulfil the will of +mankind as a whole. He merely represented the miners in a higher sense +when he perceived that the only way to fulfil perfectly the will of man +was to establish the perfect, inhuman machine. But he represented them +very essentially, they were far behind, out of date, squabbling for +their material equality. The desire had already transmuted into this +new and greater desire, for a perfect intervening mechanism between man +and Matter, the desire to translate the Godhead into pure mechanism. + +As soon as Gerald entered the firm, the convulsion of death ran through +the old system. He had all his life been tortured by a furious and +destructive demon, which possessed him sometimes like an insanity. This +temper now entered like a virus into the firm, and there were cruel +eruptions. Terrible and inhuman were his examinations into every +detail; there was no privacy he would spare, no old sentiment but he +would turn it over. The old grey managers, the old grey clerks, the +doddering old pensioners, he looked at them, and removed them as so +much lumber. The whole concern seemed like a hospital of invalid +employees. He had no emotional qualms. He arranged what pensions were +necessary, he looked for efficient substitutes, and when these were +found, he substituted them for the old hands. + +“I’ve a pitiful letter here from Letherington,” his father would say, +in a tone of deprecation and appeal. “Don’t you think the poor fellow +might keep on a little longer. I always fancied he did very well.” + +“I’ve got a man in his place now, father. He’ll be happier out of it, +believe me. You think his allowance is plenty, don’t you?” + +“It is not the allowance that he wants, poor man. He feels it very +much, that he is superannuated. Says he thought he had twenty more +years of work in him yet.” + +“Not of this kind of work I want. He doesn’t understand.” + +The father sighed. He wanted not to know any more. He believed the pits +would have to be overhauled if they were to go on working. And after +all, it would be worst in the long run for everybody, if they must +close down. So he could make no answer to the appeals of his old and +trusty servants, he could only repeat “Gerald says.” + +So the father drew more and more out of the light. The whole frame of +the real life was broken for him. He had been right according to his +lights. And his lights had been those of the great religion. Yet they +seemed to have become obsolete, to be superseded in the world. He could +not understand. He only withdrew with his lights into an inner room, +into the silence. The beautiful candles of belief, that would not do to +light the world any more, they would still burn sweetly and +sufficiently in the inner room of his soul, and in the silence of his +retirement. + +Gerald rushed into the reform of the firm, beginning with the office. +It was needful to economise severely, to make possible the great +alterations he must introduce. + +“What are these widows’ coals?” he asked. + +“We have always allowed all widows of men who worked for the firm a +load of coals every three months.” + +“They must pay cost price henceforward. The firm is not a charity +institution, as everybody seems to think.” + +Widows, these stock figures of sentimental humanitarianism, he felt a +dislike at the thought of them. They were almost repulsive. Why were +they not immolated on the pyre of the husband, like the sati in India? +At any rate, let them pay the cost of their coals. + +In a thousand ways he cut down the expenditure, in ways so fine as to +be hardly noticeable to the men. The miners must pay for the cartage of +their coals, heavy cartage too; they must pay for their tools, for the +sharpening, for the care of lamps, for the many trifling things that +made the bill of charges against every man mount up to a shilling or so +in the week. It was not grasped very definitely by the miners, though +they were sore enough. But it saved hundreds of pounds every week for +the firm. + +Gradually Gerald got hold of everything. And then began the great +reform. Expert engineers were introduced in every department. An +enormous electric plant was installed, both for lighting and for +haulage underground, and for power. The electricity was carried into +every mine. New machinery was brought from America, such as the miners +had never seen before, great iron men, as the cutting machines were +called, and unusual appliances. The working of the pits was thoroughly +changed, all the control was taken out of the hands of the miners, the +butty system was abolished. Everything was run on the most accurate and +delicate scientific method, educated and expert men were in control +everywhere, the miners were reduced to mere mechanical instruments. +They had to work hard, much harder than before, the work was terrible +and heart-breaking in its mechanicalness. + +But they submitted to it all. The joy went out of their lives, the hope +seemed to perish as they became more and more mechanised. And yet they +accepted the new conditions. They even got a further satisfaction out +of them. At first they hated Gerald Crich, they swore to do something +to him, to murder him. But as time went on, they accepted everything +with some fatal satisfaction. Gerald was their high priest, he +represented the religion they really felt. His father was forgotten +already. There was a new world, a new order, strict, terrible, inhuman, +but satisfying in its very destructiveness. The men were satisfied to +belong to the great and wonderful machine, even whilst it destroyed +them. It was what they wanted. It was the highest that man had +produced, the most wonderful and superhuman. They were exalted by +belonging to this great and superhuman system which was beyond feeling +or reason, something really godlike. Their hearts died within them, but +their souls were satisfied. It was what they wanted. Otherwise Gerald +could never have done what he did. He was just ahead of them in giving +them what they wanted, this participation in a great and perfect system +that subjected life to pure mathematical principles. This was a sort of +freedom, the sort they really wanted. It was the first great step in +undoing, the first great phase of chaos, the substitution of the +mechanical principle for the organic, the destruction of the organic +purpose, the organic unity, and the subordination of every organic unit +to the great mechanical purpose. It was pure organic disintegration and +pure mechanical organisation. This is the first and finest state of +chaos. + +Gerald was satisfied. He knew the colliers said they hated him. But he +had long ceased to hate them. When they streamed past him at evening, +their heavy boots slurring on the pavement wearily, their shoulders +slightly distorted, they took no notice of him, they gave him no +greeting whatever, they passed in a grey-black stream of unemotional +acceptance. They were not important to him, save as instruments, nor he +to them, save as a supreme instrument of control. As miners they had +their being, he had his being as director. He admired their qualities. +But as men, personalities, they were just accidents, sporadic little +unimportant phenomena. And tacitly, the men agreed to this. For Gerald +agreed to it in himself. + +He had succeeded. He had converted the industry into a new and terrible +purity. There was a greater output of coal than ever, the wonderful and +delicate system ran almost perfectly. He had a set of really clever +engineers, both mining and electrical, and they did not cost much. A +highly educated man cost very little more than a workman. His managers, +who were all rare men, were no more expensive than the old bungling +fools of his father’s days, who were merely colliers promoted. His +chief manager, who had twelve hundred a year, saved the firm at least +five thousand. The whole system was now so perfect that Gerald was +hardly necessary any more. + +It was so perfect that sometimes a strange fear came over him, and he +did not know what to do. He went on for some years in a sort of trance +of activity. What he was doing seemed supreme, he was almost like a +divinity. He was a pure and exalted activity. + +But now he had succeeded—he had finally succeeded. And once or twice +lately, when he was alone in the evening and had nothing to do, he had +suddenly stood up in terror, not knowing what he was. And he went to +the mirror and looked long and closely at his own face, at his own +eyes, seeking for something. He was afraid, in mortal dry fear, but he +knew not what of. He looked at his own face. There it was, shapely and +healthy and the same as ever, yet somehow, it was not real, it was a +mask. He dared not touch it, for fear it should prove to be only a +composition mask. His eyes were blue and keen as ever, and as firm in +their sockets. Yet he was not sure that they were not blue false +bubbles that would burst in a moment and leave clear annihilation. He +could see the darkness in them, as if they were only bubbles of +darkness. He was afraid that one day he would break down and be a +purely meaningless babble lapping round a darkness. + +But his will yet held good, he was able to go away and read, and think +about things. He liked to read books about the primitive man, books of +anthropology, and also works of speculative philosophy. His mind was +very active. But it was like a bubble floating in the darkness. At any +moment it might burst and leave him in chaos. He would not die. He knew +that. He would go on living, but the meaning would have collapsed out +of him, his divine reason would be gone. In a strangely indifferent, +sterile way, he was frightened. But he could not react even to the +fear. It was as if his centres of feeling were drying up. He remained +calm, calculative and healthy, and quite freely deliberate, even whilst +he felt, with faint, small but final sterile horror, that his mystic +reason was breaking, giving way now, at this crisis. + +And it was a strain. He knew there was no equilibrium. He would have to +go in some direction, shortly, to find relief. Only Birkin kept the +fear definitely off him, saved him his quick sufficiency in life, by +the odd mobility and changeableness which seemed to contain the +quintessence of faith. But then Gerald must always come away from +Birkin, as from a Church service, back to the outside real world of +work and life. There it was, it did not alter, and words were +futilities. He had to keep himself in reckoning with the world of work +and material life. And it became more and more difficult, such a +strange pressure was upon him, as if the very middle of him were a +vacuum, and outside were an awful tension. + +He had found his most satisfactory relief in women. After a debauch +with some desperate woman, he went on quite easy and forgetful. The +devil of it was, it was so hard to keep up his interest in women +nowadays. He didn’t care about them any more. A Pussum was all right in +her way, but she was an exceptional case, and even she mattered +extremely little. No, women, in that sense, were useless to him any +more. He felt that his _mind_ needed acute stimulation, before he could +be physically roused. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. +RABBIT + + +Gudrun knew that it was a critical thing for her to go to Shortlands. +She knew it was equivalent to accepting Gerald Crich as a lover. And +though she hung back, disliking the condition, yet she knew she would +go on. She equivocated. She said to herself, in torment recalling the +blow and the kiss, “after all, what is it? What is a kiss? What even is +a blow? It is an instant, vanished at once. I can go to Shortlands just +for a time, before I go away, if only to see what it is like.” For she +had an insatiable curiosity to see and to know everything. + +She also wanted to know what Winifred was really like. Having heard the +child calling from the steamer in the night, she felt some mysterious +connection with her. + +Gudrun talked with the father in the library. Then he sent for his +daughter. She came accompanied by Mademoiselle. + +“Winnie, this is Miss Brangwen, who will be so kind as to help you with +your drawing and making models of your animals,” said the father. + +The child looked at Gudrun for a moment with interest, before she came +forward and with face averted offered her hand. There was a complete +_sang-froid_ and indifference under Winifred’s childish reserve, a +certain irresponsible callousness. + +“How do you do?” said the child, not lifting her face. + +“How do you do?” said Gudrun. + +Then Winifred stood aside, and Gudrun was introduced to Mademoiselle. + +“You have a fine day for your walk,” said Mademoiselle, in a bright +manner. + +“_Quite_ fine,” said Gudrun. + +Winifred was watching from her distance. She was as if amused, but +rather unsure as yet what this new person was like. She saw so many new +persons, and so few who became real to her. Mademoiselle was of no +count whatever, the child merely put up with her, calmly and easily, +accepting her little authority with faint scorn, compliant out of +childish arrogance of indifference. + +“Well, Winifred,” said the father, “aren’t you glad Miss Brangwen has +come? She makes animals and birds in wood and in clay, that the people +in London write about in the papers, praising them to the skies.” + +Winifred smiled slightly. + +“Who told you, Daddie?” she asked. + +“Who told me? Hermione told me, and Rupert Birkin.” + +“Do you know them?” Winifred asked of Gudrun, turning to her with faint +challenge. + +“Yes,” said Gudrun. + +Winifred readjusted herself a little. She had been ready to accept +Gudrun as a sort of servant. Now she saw it was on terms of friendship +they were intended to meet. She was rather glad. She had so many half +inferiors, whom she tolerated with perfect good-humour. + +Gudrun was very calm. She also did not take these things very +seriously. A new occasion was mostly spectacular to her. However, +Winifred was a detached, ironic child, she would never attach herself. +Gudrun liked her and was intrigued by her. The first meetings went off +with a certain humiliating clumsiness. Neither Winifred nor her +instructress had any social grace. + +Soon, however, they met in a kind of make-belief world. Winifred did +not notice human beings unless they were like herself, playful and +slightly mocking. She would accept nothing but the world of amusement, +and the serious people of her life were the animals she had for pets. +On those she lavished, almost ironically, her affection and her +companionship. To the rest of the human scheme she submitted with a +faint bored indifference. + +She had a pekinese dog called Looloo, which she loved. + +“Let us draw Looloo,” said Gudrun, “and see if we can get his +Looliness, shall we?” + +“Darling!” cried Winifred, rushing to the dog, that sat with +contemplative sadness on the hearth, and kissing its bulging brow. +“Darling one, will you be drawn? Shall its mummy draw its portrait?” +Then she chuckled gleefully, and turning to Gudrun, said: “Oh let’s!” + +They proceeded to get pencils and paper, and were ready. + +“Beautifullest,” cried Winifred, hugging the dog, “sit still while its +mummy draws its beautiful portrait.” The dog looked up at her with +grievous resignation in its large, prominent eyes. She kissed it +fervently, and said: “I wonder what mine will be like. It’s sure to be +awful.” + +As she sketched she chuckled to herself, and cried out at times: + +“Oh darling, you’re so beautiful!” + +And again chuckling, she rushed to embrace the dog, in penitence, as if +she were doing him some subtle injury. He sat all the time with the +resignation and fretfulness of ages on his dark velvety face. She drew +slowly, with a wicked concentration in her eyes, her head on one side, +an intense stillness over her. She was as if working the spell of some +enchantment. Suddenly she had finished. She looked at the dog, and then +at her drawing, and then cried, with real grief for the dog, and at the +same time with a wicked exultation: + +“My beautiful, why did they?” + +She took her paper to the dog, and held it under his nose. He turned +his head aside as in chagrin and mortification, and she impulsively +kissed his velvety bulging forehead. + +“’s a Loolie, ’s a little Loozie! Look at his portrait, darling, look +at his portrait, that his mother has done of him.” She looked at her +paper and chuckled. Then, kissing the dog once more, she rose and came +gravely to Gudrun, offering her the paper. + +It was a grotesque little diagram of a grotesque little animal, so +wicked and so comical, a slow smile came over Gudrun’s face, +unconsciously. And at her side Winifred chuckled with glee, and said: + +“It isn’t like him, is it? He’s much lovelier than that. He’s _so_ +beautiful-mmm, Looloo, my sweet darling.” And she flew off to embrace +the chagrined little dog. He looked up at her with reproachful, +saturnine eyes, vanquished in his extreme agedness of being. Then she +flew back to her drawing, and chuckled with satisfaction. + +“It isn’t like him, is it?” she said to Gudrun. + +“Yes, it’s very like him,” Gudrun replied. + +The child treasured her drawing, carried it about with her, and showed +it, with a silent embarrassment, to everybody. + +“Look,” she said, thrusting the paper into her father’s hand. + +“Why that’s Looloo!” he exclaimed. And he looked down in surprise, +hearing the almost inhuman chuckle of the child at his side. + +Gerald was away from home when Gudrun first came to Shortlands. But the +first morning he came back he watched for her. It was a sunny, soft +morning, and he lingered in the garden paths, looking at the flowers +that had come out during his absence. He was clean and fit as ever, +shaven, his fair hair scrupulously parted at the side, bright in the +sunshine, his short, fair moustache closely clipped, his eyes with +their humorous kind twinkle, which was so deceptive. He was dressed in +black, his clothes sat well on his well-nourished body. Yet as he +lingered before the flower-beds in the morning sunshine, there was a +certain isolation, a fear about him, as of something wanting. + +Gudrun came up quickly, unseen. She was dressed in blue, with woollen +yellow stockings, like the Bluecoat boys. He glanced up in surprise. +Her stockings always disconcerted him, the pale-yellow stockings and +the heavy heavy black shoes. Winifred, who had been playing about the +garden with Mademoiselle and the dogs, came flitting towards Gudrun. +The child wore a dress of black-and-white stripes. Her hair was rather +short, cut round and hanging level in her neck. + +“We’re going to do Bismarck, aren’t we?” she said, linking her hand +through Gudrun’s arm. + +“Yes, we’re going to do Bismarck. Do you want to?” + +“Oh yes-oh I do! I want most awfully to do Bismarck. He looks _so_ +splendid this morning, so _fierce_. He’s almost as big as a lion.” And +the child chuckled sardonically at her own hyperbole. “He’s a real +king, he really is.” + +“_Bonjour, Mademoiselle,_” said the little French governess, wavering +up with a slight bow, a bow of the sort that Gudrun loathed, insolent. + +“_Winifred veut tant faire le portrait de Bismarck—! Oh, mais toute la +matiné_e—‘We will do Bismarck this morning!’—_Bismarck, Bismarck, +toujours Bismarck! C’est un lapin, n’est-ce pas, mademoiselle?_” + +“_Oui, c’est un grand lapin blanc et noir. Vous ne l’avez pas vu?_” +said Gudrun in her good, but rather heavy French. + +“_Non, mademoiselle, Winifred n’a jamais voulu me le faire voir. Tant +de fois je le lui ai demandé, ‘Qu’est ce donc que ce Bismarck, +Winifred?’ Mais elle n’a pas voulu me le dire. Son Bismarck, c’etait un +mystère._” + +“_Oui, c’est un mystère, vraiment un mystère!_ Miss Brangwen, say that +Bismarck is a mystery,” cried Winifred. + +“Bismarck, is a mystery, _Bismarck, c’est un mystère, der Bismarck, er +ist ein Wunder_,” said Gudrun, in mocking incantation. + +“_Ja, er ist ein Wunder_,” repeated Winifred, with odd seriousness, +under which lay a wicked chuckle. + +“_Ist er auch ein Wunder?_” came the slightly insolent sneering of +Mademoiselle. + +“_Doch!_” said Winifred briefly, indifferent. + +“_Doch ist er nicht ein König._ Beesmarck, he was not a king, Winifred, +as you have said. He was only—_il n’était que chancelier._” + +“_Qu’est ce qu’un chancelier?_” said Winifred, with slightly +contemptuous indifference. + +“A _chancelier_ is a chancellor, and a chancellor is, I believe, a sort +of judge,” said Gerald coming up and shaking hands with Gudrun. “You’ll +have made a song of Bismarck soon,” said he. + +Mademoiselle waited, and discreetly made her inclination, and her +greeting. + +“So they wouldn’t let you see Bismarck, Mademoiselle?” he said. + +“_Non, Monsieur._” + +“Ay, very mean of them. What are you going to do to him, Miss Brangwen? +I want him sent to the kitchen and cooked.” + +“Oh no,” cried Winifred. + +“We’re going to draw him,” said Gudrun. + +“Draw him and quarter him and dish him up,” he said, being purposely +fatuous. + +“Oh no,” cried Winifred with emphasis, chuckling. + +Gudrun detected the tang of mockery in him, and she looked up and +smiled into his face. He felt his nerves caressed. Their eyes met in +knowledge. + +“How do you like Shortlands?” he asked. + +“Oh, very much,” she said, with nonchalance. + +“Glad you do. Have you noticed these flowers?” + +He led her along the path. She followed intently. Winifred came, and +the governess lingered in the rear. They stopped before some veined +salpiglossis flowers. + +“Aren’t they wonderful?” she cried, looking at them absorbedly. Strange +how her reverential, almost ecstatic admiration of the flowers caressed +his nerves. She stooped down, and touched the trumpets, with infinitely +fine and delicate-touching finger-tips. It filled him with ease to see +her. When she rose, her eyes, hot with the beauty of the flowers, +looked into his. + +“What are they?” she asked. + +“Sort of petunia, I suppose,” he answered. “I don’t really know them.” + +“They are quite strangers to me,” she said. + +They stood together in a false intimacy, a nervous contact. And he was +in love with her. + +She was aware of Mademoiselle standing near, like a little French +beetle, observant and calculating. She moved away with Winifred, saying +they would go to find Bismarck. + +Gerald watched them go, looking all the while at the soft, full, still +body of Gudrun, in its silky cashmere. How silky and rich and soft her +body must be. An excess of appreciation came over his mind, she was the +all-desirable, the all-beautiful. He wanted only to come to her, +nothing more. He was only this, this being that should come to her, and +be given to her. + +At the same time he was finely and acutely aware of Mademoiselle’s +neat, brittle finality of form. She was like some elegant beetle with +thin ankles, perched on her high heels, her glossy black dress +perfectly correct, her dark hair done high and admirably. How repulsive +her completeness and her finality was! He loathed her. + +Yet he did admire her. She was perfectly correct. And it did rather +annoy him, that Gudrun came dressed in startling colours, like a macaw, +when the family was in mourning. Like a macaw she was! He watched the +lingering way she took her feet from the ground. And her ankles were +pale yellow, and her dress a deep blue. Yet it pleased him. It pleased +him very much. He felt the challenge in her very attire—she challenged +the whole world. And he smiled as to the note of a trumpet. + +Gudrun and Winifred went through the house to the back, where were the +stables and the out-buildings. Everywhere was still and deserted. Mr +Crich had gone out for a short drive, the stableman had just led round +Gerald’s horse. The two girls went to the hutch that stood in a corner, +and looked at the great black-and-white rabbit. + +“Isn’t he beautiful! Oh, do look at him listening! Doesn’t he look +silly!” she laughed quickly, then added “Oh, do let’s do him listening, +do let us, he listens with so much of himself;—don’t you darling +Bismarck?” + +“Can we take him out?” said Gudrun. + +“He’s very strong. He really is extremely strong.” She looked at +Gudrun, her head on one side, in odd calculating mistrust. + +“But we’ll try, shall we?” + +“Yes, if you like. But he’s a fearful kicker!” + +They took the key to unlock the door. The rabbit exploded in a wild +rush round the hutch. + +“He scratches most awfully sometimes,” cried Winifred in excitement. +“Oh do look at him, isn’t he wonderful!” The rabbit tore round the +hutch in a hurry. “Bismarck!” cried the child, in rousing excitement. +“How _dreadful_ you are! You are beastly.” Winifred looked up at Gudrun +with some misgiving in her wild excitement. Gudrun smiled sardonically +with her mouth. Winifred made a strange crooning noise of unaccountable +excitement. “Now he’s still!” she cried, seeing the rabbit settled down +in a far corner of the hutch. “Shall we take him now?” she whispered +excitedly, mysteriously, looking up at Gudrun and edging very close. +“Shall we get him now?—” she chuckled wickedly to herself. + +They unlocked the door of the hutch. Gudrun thrust in her arm and +seized the great, lusty rabbit as it crouched still, she grasped its +long ears. It set its four feet flat, and thrust back. There was a long +scraping sound as it was hauled forward, and in another instant it was +in mid-air, lunging wildly, its body flying like a spring coiled and +released, as it lashed out, suspended from the ears. Gudrun held the +black-and-white tempest at arms’ length, averting her face. But the +rabbit was magically strong, it was all she could do to keep her grasp. +She almost lost her presence of mind. + +“Bismarck, Bismarck, you are behaving terribly,” said Winifred in a +rather frightened voice, “Oh, do put him down, he’s beastly.” + +Gudrun stood for a moment astounded by the thunder-storm that had +sprung into being in her grip. Then her colour came up, a heavy rage +came over her like a cloud. She stood shaken as a house in a storm, and +utterly overcome. Her heart was arrested with fury at the mindlessness +and the bestial stupidity of this struggle, her wrists were badly +scored by the claws of the beast, a heavy cruelty welled up in her. + +Gerald came round as she was trying to capture the flying rabbit under +her arm. He saw, with subtle recognition, her sullen passion of +cruelty. + +“You should let one of the men do that for you,” he said hurrying up. + +“Oh, he’s _so_ horrid!” cried Winifred, almost frantic. + +He held out his nervous, sinewy hand and took the rabbit by the ears, +from Gudrun. + +“It’s most _fearfully_ strong,” she cried, in a high voice, like the +crying a seagull, strange and vindictive. + +The rabbit made itself into a ball in the air, and lashed out, flinging +itself into a bow. It really seemed demoniacal. Gudrun saw Gerald’s +body tighten, saw a sharp blindness come into his eyes. + +“I know these beggars of old,” he said. + +The long, demon-like beast lashed out again, spread on the air as if it +were flying, looking something like a dragon, then closing up again, +inconceivably powerful and explosive. The man’s body, strung to its +efforts, vibrated strongly. Then a sudden sharp, white-edged wrath came +up in him. Swift as lightning he drew back and brought his free hand +down like a hawk on the neck of the rabbit. Simultaneously, there came +the unearthly abhorrent scream of a rabbit in the fear of death. It +made one immense writhe, tore his wrists and his sleeves in a final +convulsion, all its belly flashed white in a whirlwind of paws, and +then he had slung it round and had it under his arm, fast. It cowered +and skulked. His face was gleaming with a smile. + +“You wouldn’t think there was all that force in a rabbit,” he said, +looking at Gudrun. And he saw her eyes black as night in her pallid +face, she looked almost unearthly. The scream of the rabbit, after the +violent tussle, seemed to have torn the veil of her consciousness. He +looked at her, and the whitish, electric gleam in his face intensified. + +“I don’t really like him,” Winifred was crooning. “I don’t care for him +as I do for Loozie. He’s hateful really.” + +A smile twisted Gudrun’s face, as she recovered. She knew she was +revealed. “Don’t they make the most fearful noise when they scream?” +she cried, the high note in her voice, like a seagull’s cry. + +“Abominable,” he said. + +“He shouldn’t be so silly when he has to be taken out,” Winifred was +saying, putting out her hand and touching the rabbit tentatively, as it +skulked under his arm, motionless as if it were dead. + +“He’s not dead, is he Gerald?” she asked. + +“No, he ought to be,” he said. + +“Yes, he ought!” cried the child, with a sudden flush of amusement. And +she touched the rabbit with more confidence. “His heart is beating _so_ +fast. Isn’t he funny? He really is.” + +“Where do you want him?” asked Gerald. + +“In the little green court,” she said. + +Gudrun looked at Gerald with strange, darkened eyes, strained with +underworld knowledge, almost supplicating, like those of a creature +which is at his mercy, yet which is his ultimate victor. He did not +know what to say to her. He felt the mutual hellish recognition. And he +felt he ought to say something, to cover it. He had the power of +lightning in his nerves, she seemed like a soft recipient of his +magical, hideous white fire. He was unconfident, he had qualms of fear. + +“Did he hurt you?” he asked. + +“No,” she said. + +“He’s an insensible beast,” he said, turning his face away. + +They came to the little court, which was shut in by old red walls in +whose crevices wall-flowers were growing. The grass was soft and fine +and old, a level floor carpeting the court, the sky was blue overhead. +Gerald tossed the rabbit down. It crouched still and would not move. +Gudrun watched it with faint horror. + +“Why doesn’t it move?” she cried. + +“It’s skulking,” he said. + +She looked up at him, and a slight sinister smile contracted her white +face. + +“Isn’t it a _fool!_” she cried. “Isn’t it a sickening _fool?_” The +vindictive mockery in her voice made his brain quiver. Glancing up at +him, into his eyes, she revealed again the mocking, white-cruel +recognition. There was a league between them, abhorrent to them both. +They were implicated with each other in abhorrent mysteries. + +“How many scratches have you?” he asked, showing his hard forearm, +white and hard and torn in red gashes. + +“How really vile!” she cried, flushing with a sinister vision. “Mine is +nothing.” + +She lifted her arm and showed a deep red score down the silken white +flesh. + +“What a devil!” he exclaimed. But it was as if he had had knowledge of +her in the long red rent of her forearm, so silken and soft. He did not +want to touch her. He would have to make himself touch her, +deliberately. The long, shallow red rip seemed torn across his own +brain, tearing the surface of his ultimate consciousness, letting +through the forever unconscious, unthinkable red ether of the beyond, +the obscene beyond. + +“It doesn’t hurt you very much, does it?” he asked, solicitous. + +“Not at all,” she cried. + +And suddenly the rabbit, which had been crouching as if it were a +flower, so still and soft, suddenly burst into life. Round and round +the court it went, as if shot from a gun, round and round like a furry +meteorite, in a tense hard circle that seemed to bind their brains. +They all stood in amazement, smiling uncannily, as if the rabbit were +obeying some unknown incantation. Round and round it flew, on the grass +under the old red walls like a storm. + +And then quite suddenly it settled down, hobbled among the grass, and +sat considering, its nose twitching like a bit of fluff in the wind. +After having considered for a few minutes, a soft bunch with a black, +open eye, which perhaps was looking at them, perhaps was not, it +hobbled calmly forward and began to nibble the grass with that mean +motion of a rabbit’s quick eating. + +“It’s mad,” said Gudrun. “It is most decidedly mad.” + +He laughed. + +“The question is,” he said, “what is madness? I don’t suppose it is +rabbit-mad.” + +“Don’t you think it is?” she asked. + +“No. That’s what it is to be a rabbit.” + +There was a queer, faint, obscene smile over his face. She looked at +him and saw him, and knew that he was initiate as she was initiate. +This thwarted her, and contravened her, for the moment. + +“God be praised we aren’t rabbits,” she said, in a high, shrill voice. + +The smile intensified a little, on his face. + +“Not rabbits?” he said, looking at her fixedly. + +Slowly her face relaxed into a smile of obscene recognition. + +“Ah Gerald,” she said, in a strong, slow, almost man-like way. “—All +that, and more.” Her eyes looked up at him with shocking nonchalance. + +He felt again as if she had torn him across the breast, dully, finally. +He turned aside. + +“Eat, eat my darling!” Winifred was softly conjuring the rabbit, and +creeping forward to touch it. It hobbled away from her. “Let its mother +stroke its fur then, darling, because it is so mysterious—” + + + + +CHAPTER XIX. +MOONY + + +After his illness Birkin went to the south of France for a time. He did +not write, nobody heard anything of him. Ursula, left alone, felt as if +everything were lapsing out. There seemed to be no hope in the world. +One was a tiny little rock with the tide of nothingness rising higher +and higher She herself was real, and only herself—just like a rock in a +wash of flood-water. The rest was all nothingness. She was hard and +indifferent, isolated in herself. + +There was nothing for it now, but contemptuous, resistant indifference. +All the world was lapsing into a grey wish-wash of nothingness, she had +no contact and no connection anywhere. She despised and detested the +whole show. From the bottom of her heart, from the bottom of her soul, +she despised and detested people, adult people. She loved only children +and animals: children she loved passionately, but coldly. They made her +want to hug them, to protect them, to give them life. But this very +love, based on pity and despair, was only a bondage and a pain to her. +She loved best of all the animals, that were single and unsocial as she +herself was. She loved the horses and cows in the field. Each was +single and to itself, magical. It was not referred away to some +detestable social principle. It was incapable of soulfulness and +tragedy, which she detested so profoundly. + +She could be very pleasant and flattering, almost subservient, to +people she met. But no one was taken in. Instinctively each felt her +contemptuous mockery of the human being in himself, or herself. She had +a profound grudge against the human being. That which the word “human” +stood for was despicable and repugnant to her. + +Mostly her heart was closed in this hidden, unconscious strain of +contemptuous ridicule. She thought she loved, she thought she was full +of love. This was her idea of herself. But the strange brightness of +her presence, a marvellous radiance of intrinsic vitality, was a +luminousness of supreme repudiation, nothing but repudiation. + +Yet, at moments, she yielded and softened, she wanted pure love, only +pure love. This other, this state of constant unfailing repudiation, +was a strain, a suffering also. A terrible desire for pure love +overcame her again. + +She went out one evening, numbed by this constant essential suffering. +Those who are timed for destruction must die now. The knowledge of this +reached a finality, a finishing in her. And the finality released her. +If fate would carry off in death or downfall all those who were timed +to go, why need she trouble, why repudiate any further. She was free of +it all, she could seek a new union elsewhere. + +Ursula set off to Willey Green, towards the mill. She came to Willey +Water. It was almost full again, after its period of emptiness. Then +she turned off through the woods. The night had fallen, it was dark. +But she forgot to be afraid, she who had such great sources of fear. +Among the trees, far from any human beings, there was a sort of magic +peace. The more one could find a pure loneliness, with no taint of +people, the better one felt. She was in reality terrified, horrified in +her apprehension of people. + +She started, noticing something on her right hand, between the tree +trunks. It was like a great presence, watching her, dodging her. She +started violently. It was only the moon, risen through the thin trees. +But it seemed so mysterious, with its white and deathly smile. And +there was no avoiding it. Night or day, one could not escape the +sinister face, triumphant and radiant like this moon, with a high +smile. She hurried on, cowering from the white planet. She would just +see the pond at the mill before she went home. + +Not wanting to go through the yard, because of the dogs, she turned off +along the hill-side to descend on the pond from above. The moon was +transcendent over the bare, open space, she suffered from being exposed +to it. There was a glimmer of nightly rabbits across the ground. The +night was as clear as crystal, and very still. She could hear a distant +coughing of a sheep. + +So she swerved down to the steep, tree-hidden bank above the pond, +where the alders twisted their roots. She was glad to pass into the +shade out of the moon. There she stood, at the top of the fallen-away +bank, her hand on the rough trunk of a tree, looking at the water, that +was perfect in its stillness, floating the moon upon it. But for some +reason she disliked it. It did not give her anything. She listened for +the hoarse rustle of the sluice. And she wished for something else out +of the night, she wanted another night, not this moon-brilliant +hardness. She could feel her soul crying out in her, lamenting +desolately. + +She saw a shadow moving by the water. It would be Birkin. He had come +back then, unawares. She accepted it without remark, nothing mattered +to her. She sat down among the roots of the alder tree, dim and veiled, +hearing the sound of the sluice like dew distilling audibly into the +night. The islands were dark and half revealed, the reeds were dark +also, only some of them had a little frail fire of reflection. A fish +leaped secretly, revealing the light in the pond. This fire of the +chill night breaking constantly on to the pure darkness, repelled her. +She wished it were perfectly dark, perfectly, and noiseless and without +motion. Birkin, small and dark also, his hair tinged with moonlight, +wandered nearer. He was quite near, and yet he did not exist in her. He +did not know she was there. Supposing he did something he would not +wish to be seen doing, thinking he was quite private? But there, what +did it matter? What did the small privacies matter? How could it +matter, what he did? How can there be any secrets, we are all the same +organisms? How can there be any secrecy, when everything is known to +all of us? + +He was touching unconsciously the dead husks of flowers as he passed +by, and talking disconnectedly to himself. + +“You can’t go away,” he was saying. “There _is_ no away. You only +withdraw upon yourself.” + +He threw a dead flower-husk on to the water. + +“An antiphony—they lie, and you sing back to them. There wouldn’t have +to be any truth, if there weren’t any lies. Then one needn’t assert +anything—” + +He stood still, looking at the water, and throwing upon it the husks of +the flowers. + +“Cybele—curse her! The accursed Syria Dea! Does one begrudge it her? +What else is there—?” + +Ursula wanted to laugh loudly and hysterically, hearing his isolated +voice speaking out. It was so ridiculous. + +He stood staring at the water. Then he stooped and picked up a stone, +which he threw sharply at the pond. Ursula was aware of the bright moon +leaping and swaying, all distorted, in her eyes. It seemed to shoot out +arms of fire like a cuttle-fish, like a luminous polyp, palpitating +strongly before her. + +And his shadow on the border of the pond, was watching for a few +moments, then he stooped and groped on the ground. Then again there was +a burst of sound, and a burst of brilliant light, the moon had exploded +on the water, and was flying asunder in flakes of white and dangerous +fire. Rapidly, like white birds, the fires all broken rose across the +pond, fleeing in clamorous confusion, battling with the flock of dark +waves that were forcing their way in. The furthest waves of light, +fleeing out, seemed to be clamouring against the shore for escape, the +waves of darkness came in heavily, running under towards the centre. +But at the centre, the heart of all, was still a vivid, incandescent +quivering of a white moon not quite destroyed, a white body of fire +writhing and striving and not even now broken open, not yet violated. +It seemed to be drawing itself together with strange, violent pangs, in +blind effort. It was getting stronger, it was re-asserting itself, the +inviolable moon. And the rays were hastening in in thin lines of light, +to return to the strengthened moon, that shook upon the water in +triumphant reassumption. + +Birkin stood and watched, motionless, till the pond was almost calm, +the moon was almost serene. Then, satisfied of so much, he looked for +more stones. She felt his invisible tenacity. And in a moment again, +the broken lights scattered in explosion over her face, dazzling her; +and then, almost immediately, came the second shot. The moon leapt up +white and burst through the air. Darts of bright light shot asunder, +darkness swept over the centre. There was no moon, only a battlefield +of broken lights and shadows, running close together. Shadows, dark and +heavy, struck again and again across the place where the heart of the +moon had been, obliterating it altogether. The white fragments pulsed +up and down, and could not find where to go, apart and brilliant on the +water like the petals of a rose that a wind has blown far and wide. + +Yet again, they were flickering their way to the centre, finding the +path blindly, enviously. And again, all was still, as Birkin and Ursula +watched. The waters were loud on the shore. He saw the moon regathering +itself insidiously, saw the heart of the rose intertwining vigorously +and blindly, calling back the scattered fragments, winning home the +fragments, in a pulse and in effort of return. + +And he was not satisfied. Like a madness, he must go on. He got large +stones, and threw them, one after the other, at the white-burning +centre of the moon, till there was nothing but a rocking of hollow +noise, and a pond surged up, no moon any more, only a few broken flakes +tangled and glittering broadcast in the darkness, without aim or +meaning, a darkened confusion, like a black and white kaleidoscope +tossed at random. The hollow night was rocking and crashing with noise, +and from the sluice came sharp, regular flashes of sound. Flakes of +light appeared here and there, glittering tormented among the shadows, +far off, in strange places; among the dripping shadow of the willow on +the island. Birkin stood and listened and was satisfied. + +Ursula was dazed, her mind was all gone. She felt she had fallen to the +ground and was spilled out, like water on the earth. Motionless and +spent she remained in the gloom. Though even now she was aware, +unseeing, that in the darkness was a little tumult of ebbing flakes of +light, a cluster dancing secretly in a round, twining and coming +steadily together. They were gathering a heart again, they were coming +once more into being. Gradually the fragments caught together +re-united, heaving, rocking, dancing, falling back as in panic, but +working their way home again persistently, making semblance of fleeing +away when they had advanced, but always flickering nearer, a little +closer to the mark, the cluster growing mysteriously larger and +brighter, as gleam after gleam fell in with the whole, until a ragged +rose, a distorted, frayed moon was shaking upon the waters again, +re-asserted, renewed, trying to recover from its convulsion, to get +over the disfigurement and the agitation, to be whole and composed, at +peace. + +Birkin lingered vaguely by the water. Ursula was afraid that he would +stone the moon again. She slipped from her seat and went down to him, +saying: + +“You won’t throw stones at it any more, will you?” + +“How long have you been there?” + +“All the time. You won’t throw any more stones, will you?” + +“I wanted to see if I could make it be quite gone off the pond,” he +said. + +“Yes, it was horrible, really. Why should you hate the moon? It hasn’t +done you any harm, has it?” + +“Was it hate?” he said. + +And they were silent for a few minutes. + +“When did you come back?” she said. + +“Today.” + +“Why did you never write?” + +“I could find nothing to say.” + +“Why was there nothing to say?” + +“I don’t know. Why are there no daffodils now?” + +“No.” + +Again there was a space of silence. Ursula looked at the moon. It had +gathered itself together, and was quivering slightly. + +“Was it good for you, to be alone?” she asked. + +“Perhaps. Not that I know much. But I got over a good deal. Did you do +anything important?” + +“No. I looked at England, and thought I’d done with it.” + +“Why England?” he asked in surprise. + +“I don’t know, it came like that.” + +“It isn’t a question of nations,” he said. “France is far worse.” + +“Yes, I know. I felt I’d done with it all.” + +They went and sat down on the roots of the trees, in the shadow. And +being silent, he remembered the beauty of her eyes, which were +sometimes filled with light, like spring, suffused with wonderful +promise. So he said to her, slowly, with difficulty: + +“There is a golden light in you, which I wish you would give me.” It +was as if he had been thinking of this for some time. + +She was startled, she seemed to leap clear of him. Yet also she was +pleased. + +“What kind of a light,” she asked. + +But he was shy, and did not say any more. So the moment passed for this +time. And gradually a feeling of sorrow came over her. + +“My life is unfulfilled,” she said. + +“Yes,” he answered briefly, not wanting to hear this. + +“And I feel as if nobody could ever really love me,” she said. + +But he did not answer. + +“You think, don’t you,” she said slowly, “that I only want physical +things? It isn’t true. I want you to serve my spirit.” + +“I know you do. I know you don’t want physical things by themselves. +But, I want you to give me—to give your spirit to me—that golden light +which is you—which you don’t know—give it me—” + +After a moment’s silence she replied: + +“But how can I, you don’t love me! You only want your own ends. You +don’t want to serve _me_, and yet you want me to serve you. It is so +one-sided!” + +It was a great effort to him to maintain this conversation, and to +press for the thing he wanted from her, the surrender of her spirit. + +“It is different,” he said. “The two kinds of service are so different. +I serve you in another way—not through _yourself_—somewhere else. But I +want us to be together without bothering about ourselves—to be really +together because we _are_ together, as if it were a phenomenon, not a +not a thing we have to maintain by our own effort.” + +“No,” she said, pondering. “You are just egocentric. You never have any +enthusiasm, you never come out with any spark towards me. You want +yourself, really, and your own affairs. And you want me just to be +there, to serve you.” + +But this only made him shut off from her. + +“Ah well,” he said, “words make no matter, any way. The thing _is_ +between us, or it isn’t.” + +“You don’t even love me,” she cried. + +“I do,” he said angrily. “But I want—” His mind saw again the lovely +golden light of spring transfused through her eyes, as through some +wonderful window. And he wanted her to be with him there, in this world +of proud indifference. But what was the good of telling her he wanted +this company in proud indifference. What was the good of talking, any +way? It must happen beyond the sound of words. It was merely ruinous to +try to work her by conviction. This was a paradisal bird that could +never be netted, it must fly by itself to the heart. + +“I always think I am going to be loved—and then I am let down. You +_don’t_ love me, you know. You don’t want to serve me. You only want +yourself.” + +A shiver of rage went over his veins, at this repeated: “You don’t want +to serve me.” All the paradisal disappeared from him. + +“No,” he said, irritated, “I don’t want to serve you, because there is +nothing there to serve. What you want me to serve, is nothing, mere +nothing. It isn’t even you, it is your mere female quality. And I +wouldn’t give a straw for your female ego—it’s a rag doll.” + +“Ha!” she laughed in mockery. “That’s all you think of me, is it? And +then you have the impudence to say you love me.” + +She rose in anger, to go home. + +You want the paradisal unknowing,” she said, turning round on him as he +still sat half-visible in the shadow. “I know what that means, thank +you. You want me to be your thing, never to criticise you or to have +anything to say for myself. You want me to be a mere _thing_ for you! +No thank you! _If_ you want that, there are plenty of women who will +give it to you. There are plenty of women who will lie down for you to +walk over them—_go_ to them then, if that’s what you want—go to them.” + +“No,” he said, outspoken with anger. “I want you to drop your assertive +_will_, your frightened apprehensive self-insistence, that is what I +want. I want you to trust yourself so implicitly, that you can let +yourself go.” + +“Let myself go!” she re-echoed in mockery. “I can let myself go, easily +enough. It is you who can’t let yourself go, it is you who hang on to +yourself as if it were your only treasure. _You—you_ are the Sunday +school teacher—_You_—you preacher.” + +The amount of truth that was in this made him stiff and unheeding of +her. + +“I don’t mean let yourself go in the Dionysic ecstatic way,” he said. +“I know you can do that. But I hate ecstasy, Dionysic or any other. +It’s like going round in a squirrel cage. I want you not to care about +yourself, just to be there and not to care about yourself, not to +insist—be glad and sure and indifferent.” + +“Who insists?” she mocked. “Who is it that keeps on insisting? It isn’t +_me!_” + +There was a weary, mocking bitterness in her voice. He was silent for +some time. + +“I know,” he said. “While ever either of us insists to the other, we +are all wrong. But there we are, the accord doesn’t come.” + +They sat in stillness under the shadow of the trees by the bank. The +night was white around them, they were in the darkness, barely +conscious. + +Gradually, the stillness and peace came over them. She put her hand +tentatively on his. Their hands clasped softly and silently, in peace. + +“Do you really love me?” she said. + +He laughed. + +“I call that your war-cry,” he replied, amused. + +“Why!” she cried, amused and really wondering. + +“Your insistence—Your war-cry—“A Brangwen, A Brangwen”—an old +battle-cry. Yours is, ‘Do you love me? Yield knave, or die.’” + +“No,” she said, pleading, “not like that. Not like that. But I must +know that you love me, mustn’t I?” + +“Well then, know it and have done with it.” + +“But do you?” + +“Yes, I do. I love you, and I know it’s final. It is final, so why say +any more about it.” + +She was silent for some moments, in delight and doubt. + +“Are you sure?” she said, nestling happily near to him. + +“Quite sure—so now have done—accept it and have done.” + +She was nestled quite close to him. + +“Have done with what?” she murmured, happily. + +“With bothering,” he said. + +She clung nearer to him. He held her close, and kissed her softly, +gently. It was such peace and heavenly freedom, just to fold her and +kiss her gently, and not to have any thoughts or any desires or any +will, just to be still with her, to be perfectly still and together, in +a peace that was not sleep, but content in bliss. To be content in +bliss, without desire or insistence anywhere, this was heaven: to be +together in happy stillness. + +For a long time she nestled to him, and he kissed her softly, her hair, +her face, her ears, gently, softly, like dew falling. But this warm +breath on her ears disturbed her again, kindled the old destructive +fires. She cleaved to him, and he could feel his blood changing like +quicksilver. + +“But we’ll be still, shall we?” he said. + +“Yes,” she said, as if submissively. + +And she continued to nestle against him. + +But in a little while she drew away and looked at him. + +“I must be going home,” she said. + +“Must you—how sad,” he replied. + +She leaned forward and put up her mouth to be kissed. + +“Are you really sad?” she murmured, smiling. + +“Yes,” he said, “I wish we could stay as we were, always.” + +“Always! Do you?” she murmured, as he kissed her. And then, out of a +full throat, she crooned “Kiss me! Kiss me!” And she cleaved close to +him. He kissed her many times. But he too had his idea and his will. He +wanted only gentle communion, no other, no passion now. So that soon +she drew away, put on her hat and went home. + +The next day however, he felt wistful and yearning. He thought he had +been wrong, perhaps. Perhaps he had been wrong to go to her with an +idea of what he wanted. Was it really only an idea, or was it the +interpretation of a profound yearning? If the latter, how was it he was +always talking about sensual fulfilment? The two did not agree very +well. + +Suddenly he found himself face to face with a situation. It was as +simple as this: fatally simple. On the one hand, he knew he did not +want a further sensual experience—something deeper, darker, than +ordinary life could give. He remembered the African fetishes he had +seen at Halliday’s so often. There came back to him one, a statuette +about two feet high, a tall, slim, elegant figure from West Africa, in +dark wood, glossy and suave. It was a woman, with hair dressed high, +like a melon-shaped dome. He remembered her vividly: she was one of his +soul’s intimates. Her body was long and elegant, her face was crushed +tiny like a beetle’s, she had rows of round heavy collars, like a +column of quoits, on her neck. He remembered her: her astonishing +cultured elegance, her diminished, beetle face, the astounding long +elegant body, on short, ugly legs, with such protuberant buttocks, so +weighty and unexpected below her slim long loins. She knew what he +himself did not know. She had thousands of years of purely sensual, +purely unspiritual knowledge behind her. It must have been thousands of +years since her race had died, mystically: that is, since the relation +between the senses and the outspoken mind had broken, leaving the +experience all in one sort, mystically sensual. Thousands of years ago, +that which was imminent in himself must have taken place in these +Africans: the goodness, the holiness, the desire for creation and +productive happiness must have lapsed, leaving the single impulse for +knowledge in one sort, mindless progressive knowledge through the +senses, knowledge arrested and ending in the senses, mystic knowledge +in disintegration and dissolution, knowledge such as the beetles have, +which live purely within the world of corruption and cold dissolution. +This was why her face looked like a beetle’s: this was why the +Egyptians worshipped the ball-rolling scarab: because of the principle +of knowledge in dissolution and corruption. + +There is a long way we can travel, after the death-break: after that +point when the soul in intense suffering breaks, breaks away from its +organic hold like a leaf that falls. We fall from the connection with +life and hope, we lapse from pure integral being, from creation and +liberty, and we fall into the long, long African process of purely +sensual understanding, knowledge in the mystery of dissolution. + +He realised now that this is a long process—thousands of years it +takes, after the death of the creative spirit. He realised that there +were great mysteries to be unsealed, sensual, mindless, dreadful +mysteries, far beyond the phallic cult. How far, in their inverted +culture, had these West Africans gone beyond phallic knowledge? Very, +very far. Birkin recalled again the female figure: the elongated, long, +long body, the curious unexpected heavy buttocks, the long, imprisoned +neck, the face with tiny features like a beetle’s. This was far beyond +any phallic knowledge, sensual subtle realities far beyond the scope of +phallic investigation. + +There remained this way, this awful African process, to be fulfilled. +It would be done differently by the white races. The white races, +having the arctic north behind them, the vast abstraction of ice and +snow, would fulfil a mystery of ice-destructive knowledge, +snow-abstract annihilation. Whereas the West Africans, controlled by +the burning death-abstraction of the Sahara, had been fulfilled in +sun-destruction, the putrescent mystery of sun-rays. + +Was this then all that remained? Was there left now nothing but to +break off from the happy creative being, was the time up? Is our day of +creative life finished? Does there remain to us only the strange, awful +afterwards of the knowledge in dissolution, the African knowledge, but +different in us, who are blond and blue-eyed from the north? + +Birkin thought of Gerald. He was one of these strange white wonderful +demons from the north, fulfilled in the destructive frost mystery. And +was he fated to pass away in this knowledge, this one process of +frost-knowledge, death by perfect cold? Was he a messenger, an omen of +the universal dissolution into whiteness and snow? + +Birkin was frightened. He was tired too, when he had reached this +length of speculation. Suddenly his strange, strained attention gave +way, he could not attend to these mysteries any more. There was another +way, the way of freedom. There was the paradisal entry into pure, +single being, the individual soul taking precedence over love and +desire for union, stronger than any pangs of emotion, a lovely state of +free proud singleness, which accepted the obligation of the permanent +connection with others, and with the other, submits to the yoke and +leash of love, but never forfeits its own proud individual singleness, +even while it loves and yields. + +There was the other way, the remaining way. And he must run to follow +it. He thought of Ursula, how sensitive and delicate she really was, +her skin so over-fine, as if one skin were wanting. She was really so +marvellously gentle and sensitive. Why did he ever forget it? He must +go to her at once. He must ask her to marry him. They must marry at +once, and so make a definite pledge, enter into a definite communion. +He must set out at once and ask her, this moment. There was no moment +to spare. + +He drifted on swiftly to Beldover, half-unconscious of his own +movement. He saw the town on the slope of the hill, not straggling, but +as if walled-in with the straight, final streets of miners’ dwellings, +making a great square, and it looked like Jerusalem to his fancy. The +world was all strange and transcendent. + +Rosalind opened the door to him. She started slightly, as a young girl +will, and said: + +“Oh, I’ll tell father.” + +With which she disappeared, leaving Birkin in the hall, looking at some +reproductions from Picasso, lately introduced by Gudrun. He was +admiring the almost wizard, sensuous apprehension of the earth, when +Will Brangwen appeared, rolling down his shirt sleeves. + +“Well,” said Brangwen, “I’ll get a coat.” And he too disappeared for a +moment. Then he returned, and opened the door of the drawing-room, +saying: + +“You must excuse me, I was just doing a bit of work in the shed. Come +inside, will you.” + +Birkin entered and sat down. He looked at the bright, reddish face of +the other man, at the narrow brow and the very bright eyes, and at the +rather sensual lips that unrolled wide and expansive under the black +cropped moustache. How curious it was that this was a human being! What +Brangwen thought himself to be, how meaningless it was, confronted with +the reality of him. Birkin could see only a strange, inexplicable, +almost patternless collection of passions and desires and suppressions +and traditions and mechanical ideas, all cast unfused and disunited +into this slender, bright-faced man of nearly fifty, who was as +unresolved now as he was at twenty, and as uncreated. How could he be +the parent of Ursula, when he was not created himself. He was not a +parent. A slip of living flesh had been transmitted through him, but +the spirit had not come from him. The spirit had not come from any +ancestor, it had come out of the unknown. A child is the child of the +mystery, or it is uncreated. + +“The weather’s not so bad as it has been,” said Brangwen, after waiting +a moment. There was no connection between the two men. + +“No,” said Birkin. “It was full moon two days ago.” + +“Oh! You believe in the moon then, affecting the weather?” + +“No, I don’t think I do. I don’t really know enough about it.” + +“You know what they say? The moon and the weather may change together, +but the change of the moon won’t change the weather.” + +“Is that it?” said Birkin. “I hadn’t heard it.” + +There was a pause. Then Birkin said: + +“Am I hindering you? I called to see Ursula, really. Is she at home?” + +“I don’t believe she is. I believe she’s gone to the library. I’ll just +see.” + +Birkin could hear him enquiring in the dining-room. + +“No,” he said, coming back. “But she won’t be long. You wanted to speak +to her?” + +Birkin looked across at the other man with curious calm, clear eyes. + +“As a matter of fact,” he said, “I wanted to ask her to marry me.” + +A point of light came on the golden-brown eyes of the elder man. + +“O-oh?” he said, looking at Birkin, then dropping his eyes before the +calm, steadily watching look of the other: “Was she expecting you +then?” + +“No,” said Birkin. + +“No? I didn’t know anything of this sort was on foot—” Brangwen smiled +awkwardly. + +Birkin looked back at him, and said to himself: “I wonder why it should +be ‘on foot’!” Aloud he said: + +“No, it’s perhaps rather sudden.” At which, thinking of his +relationship with Ursula, he added—“but I don’t know—” + +“Quite sudden, is it? Oh!” said Brangwen, rather baffled and annoyed. + +“In one way,” replied Birkin, “—not in another.” + +There was a moment’s pause, after which Brangwen said: + +“Well, she pleases herself—” + +“Oh yes!” said Birkin, calmly. + +A vibration came into Brangwen’s strong voice, as he replied: + +“Though I shouldn’t want her to be in too big a hurry, either. It’s no +good looking round afterwards, when it’s too late.” + +“Oh, it need never be too late,” said Birkin, “as far as that goes.” + +“How do you mean?” asked the father. + +“If one repents being married, the marriage is at an end,” said Birkin. + +“You think so?” + +“Yes.” + +“Ay, well that may be your way of looking at it.” + +Birkin, in silence, thought to himself: “So it may. As for _your_ way +of looking at it, William Brangwen, it needs a little explaining.” + +“I suppose,” said Brangwen, “you know what sort of people we are? What +sort of a bringing-up she’s had?” + +“‘She’,” thought Birkin to himself, remembering his childhood’s +corrections, “is the cat’s mother.” + +“Do I know what sort of a bringing-up she’s had?” he said aloud. + +He seemed to annoy Brangwen intentionally. + +“Well,” he said, “she’s had everything that’s right for a girl to +have—as far as possible, as far as we could give it her.” + +“I’m sure she has,” said Birkin, which caused a perilous full-stop. The +father was becoming exasperated. There was something naturally irritant +to him in Birkin’s mere presence. + +“And I don’t want to see her going back on it all,” he said, in a +clanging voice. + +“Why?” said Birkin. + +This monosyllable exploded in Brangwen’s brain like a shot. + +“Why! _I_ don’t believe in your new-fangled ways and new-fangled +ideas—in and out like a frog in a gallipot. It would never do for me.” + +Birkin watched him with steady emotionless eyes. The radical antagnoism +in the two men was rousing. + +“Yes, but are my ways and ideas new-fangled?” asked Birkin. + +“Are they?” Brangwen caught himself up. “I’m not speaking of you in +particular,” he said. “What I mean is that my children have been +brought up to think and do according to the religion I was brought up +in myself, and I don’t want to see them going away from _that_.” + +There was a dangerous pause. + +“And beyond that—?” asked Birkin. + +The father hesitated, he was in a nasty position. + +“Eh? What do you mean? All I want to say is that my daughter”—he tailed +off into silence, overcome by futility. He knew that in some way he was +off the track. + +“Of course,” said Birkin, “I don’t want to hurt anybody or influence +anybody. Ursula does exactly as she pleases.” + +There was a complete silence, because of the utter failure in mutual +understanding. Birkin felt bored. Her father was not a coherent human +being, he was a roomful of old echoes. The eyes of the younger man +rested on the face of the elder. Brangwen looked up, and saw Birkin +looking at him. His face was covered with inarticulate anger and +humiliation and sense of inferiority in strength. + +“And as for beliefs, that’s one thing,” he said. “But I’d rather see my +daughters dead tomorrow than that they should be at the beck and call +of the first man that likes to come and whistle for them.” + +A queer painful light came into Birkin’s eyes. + +“As to that,” he said, “I only know that it’s much more likely that +it’s I who am at the beck and call of the woman, than she at mine.” + +Again there was a pause. The father was somewhat bewildered. + +“I know,” he said, “she’ll please herself—she always has done. I’ve +done my best for them, but that doesn’t matter. They’ve got themselves +to please, and if they can help it they’ll please nobody _but_ +themselves. But she’s a right to consider her mother, and me as well—” + +Brangwen was thinking his own thoughts. + +“And I tell you this much, I would rather bury them, than see them +getting into a lot of loose ways such as you see everywhere nowadays. +I’d rather bury them—” + +“Yes but, you see,” said Birkin slowly, rather wearily, bored again by +this new turn, “they won’t give either you or me the chance to bury +them, because they’re not to be buried.” + +Brangwen looked at him in a sudden flare of impotent anger. + +“Now, Mr Birkin,” he said, “I don’t know what you’ve come here for, and +I don’t know what you’re asking for. But my daughters are my +daughters—and it’s my business to look after them while I can.” + +Birkin’s brows knitted suddenly, his eyes concentrated in mockery. But +he remained perfectly stiff and still. There was a pause. + +“I’ve nothing against your marrying Ursula,” Brangwen began at length. +“It’s got nothing to do with me, she’ll do as she likes, me or no me.” + +Birkin turned away, looking out of the window and letting go his +consciousness. After all, what good was this? It was hopeless to keep +it up. He would sit on till Ursula came home, then speak to her, then +go away. He would not accept trouble at the hands of her father. It was +all unnecessary, and he himself need not have provoked it. + +The two men sat in complete silence, Birkin almost unconscious of his +own whereabouts. He had come to ask her to marry him—well then, he +would wait on, and ask her. As for what she said, whether she accepted +or not, he did not think about it. He would say what he had come to +say, and that was all he was conscious of. He accepted the complete +insignificance of this household, for him. But everything now was as if +fated. He could see one thing ahead, and no more. From the rest, he was +absolved entirely for the time being. It had to be left to fate and +chance to resolve the issues. + +At length they heard the gate. They saw her coming up the steps with a +bundle of books under her arm. Her face was bright and abstracted as +usual, with the abstraction, that look of being not quite _there_, not +quite present to the facts of reality, that galled her father so much. +She had a maddening faculty of assuming a light of her own, which +excluded the reality, and within which she looked radiant as if in +sunshine. + +They heard her go into the dining-room, and drop her armful of books on +the table. + +“Did you bring me that Girl’s Own?” cried Rosalind. + +“Yes, I brought it. But I forgot which one it was you wanted.” + +“You would,” cried Rosalind angrily. “It’s right for a wonder.” + +Then they heard her say something in a lowered tone. + +“Where?” cried Ursula. + +Again her sister’s voice was muffled. + +Brangwen opened the door, and called, in his strong, brazen voice: + +“Ursula.” + +She appeared in a moment, wearing her hat. + +“Oh how do you do!” she cried, seeing Birkin, and all dazzled as if +taken by surprise. He wondered at her, knowing she was aware of his +presence. She had her queer, radiant, breathless manner, as if confused +by the actual world, unreal to it, having a complete bright world of +her self alone. + +“Have I interrupted a conversation?” she asked. + +“No, only a complete silence,” said Birkin. + +“Oh,” said Ursula, vaguely, absent. Their presence was not vital to +her, she was withheld, she did not take them in. It was a subtle insult +that never failed to exasperate her father. + +“Mr Birkin came to speak to _you_, not to me,” said her father. + +“Oh, did he!” she exclaimed vaguely, as if it did not concern her. +Then, recollecting herself, she turned to him rather radiantly, but +still quite superficially, and said: “Was it anything special?” + +“I hope so,” he said, ironically. + +“—To propose to you, according to all accounts,” said her father. + +“Oh,” said Ursula. + +“Oh,” mocked her father, imitating her. “Have you nothing more to say?” + +She winced as if violated. + +“Did you really come to propose to me?” she asked of Birkin, as if it +were a joke. + +“Yes,” he said. “I suppose I came to propose.” He seemed to fight shy +of the last word. + +“Did you?” she cried, with her vague radiance. He might have been +saying anything whatsoever. She seemed pleased. + +“Yes,” he answered. “I wanted to—I wanted you to agree to marry me.” + +She looked at him. His eyes were flickering with mixed lights, wanting +something of her, yet not wanting it. She shrank a little, as if she +were exposed to his eyes, and as if it were a pain to her. She +darkened, her soul clouded over, she turned aside. She had been driven +out of her own radiant, single world. And she dreaded contact, it was +almost unnatural to her at these times. + +“Yes,” she said vaguely, in a doubting, absent voice. + +Birkin’s heart contracted swiftly, in a sudden fire of bitterness. It +all meant nothing to her. He had been mistaken again. She was in some +self-satisfied world of her own. He and his hopes were accidentals, +violations to her. It drove her father to a pitch of mad exasperation. +He had had to put up with this all his life, from her. + +“Well, what do you say?” he cried. + +She winced. Then she glanced down at her father, half-frightened, and +she said: + +“I didn’t speak, did I?” as if she were afraid she might have committed +herself. + +“No,” said her father, exasperated. “But you needn’t look like an +idiot. You’ve got your wits, haven’t you?” + +She ebbed away in silent hostility. + +“I’ve got my wits, what does that mean?” she repeated, in a sullen +voice of antagonism. + +“You heard what was asked you, didn’t you?” cried her father in anger. + +“Of course I heard.” + +“Well then, can’t you answer?” thundered her father. + +“Why should I?” + +At the impertinence of this retort, he went stiff. But he said nothing. + +“No,” said Birkin, to help out the occasion, “there’s no need to answer +at once. You can say when you like.” + +Her eyes flashed with a powerful light. + +“Why should I say anything?” she cried. “You do this off your _own_ +bat, it has nothing to do with me. Why do you both want to bully me?” + +“Bully you! Bully you!” cried her father, in bitter, rancorous anger. +“Bully you! Why, it’s a pity you can’t be bullied into some sense and +decency. Bully you! _You’ll_ see to that, you self-willed creature.” + +She stood suspended in the middle of the room, her face glimmering and +dangerous. She was set in satisfied defiance. Birkin looked up at her. +He too was angry. + +“But none is bullying you,” he said, in a very soft dangerous voice +also. + +“Oh yes,” she cried. “You both want to force me into something.” + +“That is an illusion of yours,” he said ironically. + +“Illusion!” cried her father. “A self-opinionated fool, that’s what she +is.” + +Birkin rose, saying: + +“However, we’ll leave it for the time being.” + +And without another word, he walked out of the house. + +“You fool! You fool!” her father cried to her, with extreme bitterness. +She left the room, and went upstairs, singing to herself. But she was +terribly fluttered, as after some dreadful fight. From her window, she +could see Birkin going up the road. He went in such a blithe drift of +rage, that her mind wondered over him. He was ridiculous, but she was +afraid of him. She was as if escaped from some danger. + +Her father sat below, powerless in humiliation and chagrin. It was as +if he were possessed with all the devils, after one of these +unaccountable conflicts with Ursula. He hated her as if his only +reality were in hating her to the last degree. He had all hell in his +heart. But he went away, to escape himself. He knew he must despair, +yield, give in to despair, and have done. + +Ursula’s face closed, she completed herself against them all. Recoiling +upon herself, she became hard and self-completed, like a jewel. She was +bright and invulnerable, quite free and happy, perfectly liberated in +her self-possession. Her father had to learn not to see her blithe +obliviousness, or it would have sent him mad. She was so radiant with +all things, in her possession of perfect hostility. + +She would go on now for days like this, in this bright frank state of +seemingly pure spontaneity, so essentially oblivious of the existence +of anything but herself, but so ready and facile in her interest. Ah it +was a bitter thing for a man to be near her, and her father cursed his +fatherhood. But he must learn not to see her, not to know. + +She was perfectly stable in resistance when she was in this state: so +bright and radiant and attractive in her pure opposition, so very pure, +and yet mistrusted by everybody, disliked on every hand. It was her +voice, curiously clear and repellent, that gave her away. Only Gudrun +was in accord with her. It was at these times that the intimacy between +the two sisters was most complete, as if their intelligence were one. +They felt a strong, bright bond of understanding between them, +surpassing everything else. And during all these days of blind bright +abstraction and intimacy of his two daughters, the father seemed to +breathe an air of death, as if he were destroyed in his very being. He +was irritable to madness, he could not rest, his daughters seemed to be +destroying him. But he was inarticulate and helpless against them. He +was forced to breathe the air of his own death. He cursed them in his +soul, and only wanted, that they should be removed from him. + +They continued radiant in their easy female transcendancy, beautiful to +look at. They exchanged confidences, they were intimate in their +revelations to the last degree, giving each other at last every secret. +They withheld nothing, they told everything, till they were over the +border of evil. And they armed each other with knowledge, they +extracted the subtlest flavours from the apple of knowledge. It was +curious how their knowledge was complementary, that of each to that of +the other. + +Ursula saw her men as sons, pitied their yearning and admired their +courage, and wondered over them as a mother wonders over her child, +with a certain delight in their novelty. But to Gudrun, they were the +opposite camp. She feared them and despised them, and respected their +activities even overmuch. + +“Of course,” she said easily, “there is a quality of life in Birkin +which is quite remarkable. There is an extraordinary rich spring of +life in him, really amazing, the way he can give himself to things. But +there are so many things in life that he simply doesn’t know. Either he +is not aware of their existence at all, or he dismisses them as merely +negligible—things which are vital to the other person. In a way, he is +not clever enough, he is too intense in spots.” + +“Yes,” cried Ursula, “too much of a preacher. He is really a priest.” + +“Exactly! He can’t hear what anybody else has to say—he simply cannot +hear. His own voice is so loud.” + +“Yes. He cries you down.” + +“He cries you down,” repeated Gudrun. “And by mere force of violence. +And of course it is hopeless. Nobody is convinced by violence. It makes +talking to him impossible—and living with him I should think would be +more than impossible.” + +“You don’t think one could live with him’ asked Ursula. + +“I think it would be too wearing, too exhausting. One would be shouted +down every time, and rushed into his way without any choice. He would +want to control you entirely. He cannot allow that there is any other +mind than his own. And then the real clumsiness of his mind is its lack +of self-criticism. No, I think it would be perfectly intolerable.” + +“Yes,” assented Ursula vaguely. She only half agreed with Gudrun. “The +nuisance is,” she said, “that one would find almost any man intolerable +after a fortnight.” + +“It’s perfectly dreadful,” said Gudrun. “But Birkin—he is too positive. +He couldn’t bear it if you called your soul your own. Of him that is +strictly true.” + +“Yes,” said Ursula. “You must have _his_ soul.” + +“Exactly! And what can you conceive more deadly?” This was all so true, +that Ursula felt jarred to the bottom of her soul with ugly distaste. + +She went on, with the discord jarring and jolting through her, in the +most barren of misery. + +Then there started a revulsion from Gudrun. She finished life off so +thoroughly, she made things so ugly and so final. As a matter of fact, +even if it were as Gudrun said, about Birkin, other things were true as +well. But Gudrun would draw two lines under him and cross him out like +an account that is settled. There he was, summed up, paid for, settled, +done with. And it was such a lie. This finality of Gudrun’s, this +dispatching of people and things in a sentence, it was all such a lie. +Ursula began to revolt from her sister. + +One day as they were walking along the lane, they saw a robin sitting +on the top twig of a bush, singing shrilly. The sisters stood to look +at him. An ironical smile flickered on Gudrun’s face. + +“Doesn’t he feel important?” smiled Gudrun. + +“Doesn’t he!” exclaimed Ursula, with a little ironical grimace. “Isn’t +he a little Lloyd George of the air!” + +“Isn’t he! Little Lloyd George of the air! That’s just what they are,” +cried Gudrun in delight. Then for days, Ursula saw the persistent, +obtrusive birds as stout, short politicians lifting up their voices +from the platform, little men who must make themselves heard at any +cost. + +But even from this there came the revulsion. Some yellowhammers +suddenly shot along the road in front of her. And they looked to her so +uncanny and inhuman, like flaring yellow barbs shooting through the air +on some weird, living errand, that she said to herself: “After all, it +is impudence to call them little Lloyd Georges. They are really unknown +to us, they are the unknown forces. It is impudence to look at them as +if they were the same as human beings. They are of another world. How +stupid anthropomorphism is! Gudrun is really impudent, insolent, making +herself the measure of everything, making everything come down to human +standards. Rupert is quite right, human beings are boring, painting the +universe with their own image. The universe is non-human, thank God.” +It seemed to her irreverence, destructive of all true life, to make +little Lloyd Georges of the birds. It was such a lie towards the +robins, and such a defamation. Yet she had done it herself. But under +Gudrun’s influence: so she exonerated herself. + +So she withdrew away from Gudrun and from that which she stood for, she +turned in spirit towards Birkin again. She had not seen him since the +fiasco of his proposal. She did not want to, because she did not want +the question of her acceptance thrust upon her. She knew what Birkin +meant when he asked her to marry him; vaguely, without putting it into +speech, she knew. She knew what kind of love, what kind of surrender he +wanted. And she was not at all sure that this was the kind of love that +she herself wanted. She was not at all sure that it was this mutual +unison in separateness that she wanted. She wanted unspeakable +intimacies. She wanted to have him, utterly, finally to have him as her +own, oh, so unspeakably, in intimacy. To drink him down—ah, like a +life-draught. She made great professions, to herself, of her +willingness to warm his foot-soles between her breasts, after the +fashion of the nauseous Meredith poem. But only on condition that he, +her lover, loved her absolutely, with complete self-abandon. And subtly +enough, she knew he would never abandon himself _finally_ to her. He +did not believe in final self-abandonment. He said it openly. It was +his challenge. She was prepared to fight him for it. For she believed +in an absolute surrender to love. She believed that love far surpassed +the individual. He said the individual was _more_ than love, or than +any relationship. For him, the bright, single soul accepted love as one +of its conditions, a condition of its own equilibrium. She believed +that love was _everything_. Man must render himself up to her. He must +be quaffed to the dregs by her. Let him be _her man_ utterly, and she +in return would be his humble slave—whether she wanted it or not. + + + + +CHAPTER XX. +GLADIATORIAL + + +After the fiasco of the proposal, Birkin had hurried blindly away from +Beldover, in a whirl of fury. He felt he had been a complete fool, that +the whole scene had been a farce of the first water. But that did not +trouble him at all. He was deeply, mockingly angry that Ursula +persisted always in this old cry: “Why do you want to bully me?” and in +her bright, insolent abstraction. + +He went straight to Shortlands. There he found Gerald standing with his +back to the fire, in the library, as motionless as a man is, who is +completely and emptily restless, utterly hollow. He had done all the +work he wanted to do—and now there was nothing. He could go out in the +car, he could run to town. But he did not want to go out in the car, he +did not want to run to town, he did not want to call on the Thirlbys. +He was suspended motionless, in an agony of inertia, like a machine +that is without power. + +This was very bitter to Gerald, who had never known what boredom was, +who had gone from activity to activity, never at a loss. Now, +gradually, everything seemed to be stopping in him. He did not want any +more to do the things that offered. Something dead within him just +refused to respond to any suggestion. He cast over in his mind, what it +would be possible to do, to save himself from this misery of +nothingness, relieve the stress of this hollowness. And there were only +three things left, that would rouse him, make him live. One was to +drink or smoke hashish, the other was to be soothed by Birkin, and the +third was women. And there was no one for the moment to drink with. Nor +was there a woman. And he knew Birkin was out. So there was nothing to +do but to bear the stress of his own emptiness. + +When he saw Birkin his face lit up in a sudden, wonderful smile. + +“By God, Rupert,” he said, “I’d just come to the conclusion that +nothing in the world mattered except somebody to take the edge off +one’s being alone: the right somebody.” + +The smile in his eyes was very astonishing, as he looked at the other +man. It was the pure gleam of relief. His face was pallid and even +haggard. + +“The right woman, I suppose you mean,” said Birkin spitefully. + +“Of course, for choice. Failing that, an amusing man.” + +He laughed as he said it. Birkin sat down near the fire. + +“What were you doing?” he asked. + +“I? Nothing. I’m in a bad way just now, everything’s on edge, and I can +neither work nor play. I don’t know whether it’s a sign of old age, I’m +sure.” + +“You mean you are bored?” + +“Bored, I don’t know. I can’t apply myself. And I feel the devil is +either very present inside me, or dead.” + +Birkin glanced up and looked in his eyes. + +“You should try hitting something,” he said. + +Gerald smiled. + +“Perhaps,” he said. “So long as it was something worth hitting.” + +“Quite!” said Birkin, in his soft voice. There was a long pause during +which each could feel the presence of the other. + +“One has to wait,” said Birkin. + +“Ah God! Waiting! What are we waiting for?” + +“Some old Johnny says there are three cures for _ennui_, sleep, drink, +and travel,” said Birkin. + +“All cold eggs,” said Gerald. “In sleep, you dream, in drink you curse, +and in travel you yell at a porter. No, work and love are the two. When +you’re not at work you should be in love.” + +“Be it then,” said Birkin. + +“Give me the object,” said Gerald. “The possibilities of love exhaust +themselves.” + +“Do they? And then what?” + +“Then you die,” said Gerald. + +“So you ought,” said Birkin. + +“I don’t see it,” replied Gerald. He took his hands out of his trousers +pockets, and reached for a cigarette. He was tense and nervous. He lit +the cigarette over a lamp, reaching forward and drawing steadily. He +was dressed for dinner, as usual in the evening, although he was alone. + +“There’s a third one even to your two,” said Birkin. “Work, love, and +fighting. You forget the fight.” + +“I suppose I do,” said Gerald. “Did you ever do any boxing—?” + +“No, I don’t think I did,” said Birkin. + +“Ay—” Gerald lifted his head and blew the smoke slowly into the air. + +“Why?” said Birkin. + +“Nothing. I thought we might have a round. It is perhaps true, that I +want something to hit. It’s a suggestion.” + +“So you think you might as well hit me?” said Birkin. + +“You? Well! Perhaps—! In a friendly kind of way, of course.” + +“Quite!” said Birkin, bitingly. + +Gerald stood leaning back against the mantel-piece. He looked down at +Birkin, and his eyes flashed with a sort of terror like the eyes of a +stallion, that are bloodshot and overwrought, turned glancing backwards +in a stiff terror. + +“I fell that if I don’t watch myself, I shall find myself doing +something silly,” he said. + +“Why not do it?” said Birkin coldly. + +Gerald listened with quick impatience. He kept glancing down at Birkin, +as if looking for something from the other man. + +“I used to do some Japanese wrestling,” said Birkin. “A Jap lived in +the same house with me in Heidelberg, and he taught me a little. But I +was never much good at it.” + +“You did!” exclaimed Gerald. “That’s one of the things I’ve never ever +seen done. You mean jiu-jitsu, I suppose?” + +“Yes. But I am no good at those things—they don’t interest me.” + +“They don’t? They do me. What’s the start?” + +“I’ll show you what I can, if you like,” said Birkin. + +“You will?” A queer, smiling look tightened Gerald’s face for a moment, +as he said, “Well, I’d like it very much.” + +“Then we’ll try jiu-jitsu. Only you can’t do much in a starched shirt.” + +“Then let us strip, and do it properly. Hold a minute—” He rang the +bell, and waited for the butler. + +“Bring a couple of sandwiches and a syphon,” he said to the man, “and +then don’t trouble me any more tonight—or let anybody else.” + +The man went. Gerald turned to Birkin with his eyes lighted. + +“And you used to wrestle with a Jap?” he said. “Did you strip?” + +“Sometimes.” + +“You did! What was he like then, as a wrestler?” + +“Good, I believe. I am no judge. He was very quick and slippery and +full of electric fire. It is a remarkable thing, what a curious sort of +fluid force they seem to have in them, those people—not like a human +grip—like a polyp—” + +Gerald nodded. + +“I should imagine so,” he said, “to look at them. They repel me, +rather.” + +“Repel and attract, both. They are very repulsive when they are cold, +and they look grey. But when they are hot and roused, there is a +definite attraction—a curious kind of full electric fluid—like eels.” + +“Well—yes—probably.” + +The man brought in the tray and set it down. + +“Don’t come in any more,” said Gerald. + +The door closed. + +“Well then,” said Gerald; “shall we strip and begin? Will you have a +drink first?” + +“No, I don’t want one.” + +“Neither do I.” + +Gerald fastened the door and pushed the furniture aside. The room was +large, there was plenty of space, it was thickly carpeted. Then he +quickly threw off his clothes, and waited for Birkin. The latter, white +and thin, came over to him. Birkin was more a presence than a visible +object, Gerald was aware of him completely, but not really visually. +Whereas Gerald himself was concrete and noticeable, a piece of pure +final substance. + +“Now,” said Birkin, “I will show you what I learned, and what I +remember. You let me take you so—” And his hands closed on the naked +body of the other man. In another moment, he had Gerald swung over +lightly and balanced against his knee, head downwards. Relaxed, Gerald +sprang to his feet with eyes glittering. + +“That’s smart,” he said. “Now try again.” + +So the two men began to struggle together. They were very dissimilar. +Birkin was tall and narrow, his bones were very thin and fine. Gerald +was much heavier and more plastic. His bones were strong and round, his +limbs were rounded, all his contours were beautifully and fully +moulded. He seemed to stand with a proper, rich weight on the face of +the earth, whilst Birkin seemed to have the centre of gravitation in +his own middle. And Gerald had a rich, frictional kind of strength, +rather mechanical, but sudden and invincible, whereas Birkin was +abstract as to be almost intangible. He impinged invisibly upon the +other man, scarcely seeming to touch him, like a garment, and then +suddenly piercing in a tense fine grip that seemed to penetrate into +the very quick of Gerald’s being. + +They stopped, they discussed methods, they practised grips and throws, +they became accustomed to each other, to each other’s rhythm, they got +a kind of mutual physical understanding. And then again they had a real +struggle. They seemed to drive their white flesh deeper and deeper +against each other, as if they would break into a oneness. Birkin had a +great subtle energy, that would press upon the other man with an +uncanny force, weigh him like a spell put upon him. Then it would pass, +and Gerald would heave free, with white, heaving, dazzling movements. + +So the two men entwined and wrestled with each other, working nearer +and nearer. Both were white and clear, but Gerald flushed smart red +where he was touched, and Birkin remained white and tense. He seemed to +penetrate into Gerald’s more solid, more diffuse bulk, to interfuse his +body through the body of the other, as if to bring it subtly into +subjection, always seizing with some rapid necromantic fore-knowledge +every motion of the other flesh, converting and counteracting it, +playing upon the limbs and trunk of Gerald like some hard wind. It was +as if Birkin’s whole physical intelligence interpenetrated into +Gerald’s body, as if his fine, sublimated energy entered into the flesh +of the fuller man, like some potency, casting a fine net, a prison, +through the muscles into the very depths of Gerald’s physical being. + +So they wrestled swiftly, rapturously, intent and mindless at last, two +essential white figures working into a tighter closer oneness of +struggle, with a strange, octopus-like knotting and flashing of limbs +in the subdued light of the room; a tense white knot of flesh gripped +in silence between the walls of old brown books. Now and again came a +sharp gasp of breath, or a sound like a sigh, then the rapid thudding +of movement on the thickly-carpeted floor, then the strange sound of +flesh escaping under flesh. Often, in the white interlaced knot of +violent living being that swayed silently, there was no head to be +seen, only the swift, tight limbs, the solid white backs, the physical +junction of two bodies clinched into oneness. Then would appear the +gleaming, ruffled head of Gerald, as the struggle changed, then for a +moment the dun-coloured, shadow-like head of the other man would lift +up from the conflict, the eyes wide and dreadful and sightless. + +At length Gerald lay back inert on the carpet, his breast rising in +great slow panting, whilst Birkin kneeled over him, almost unconscious. +Birkin was much more exhausted. He caught little, short breaths, he +could scarcely breathe any more. The earth seemed to tilt and sway, and +a complete darkness was coming over his mind. He did not know what +happened. He slid forward quite unconscious, over Gerald, and Gerald +did not notice. Then he was half-conscious again, aware only of the +strange tilting and sliding of the world. The world was sliding, +everything was sliding off into the darkness. And he was sliding, +endlessly, endlessly away. + +He came to consciousness again, hearing an immense knocking outside. +What could be happening, what was it, the great hammer-stroke +resounding through the house? He did not know. And then it came to him +that it was his own heart beating. But that seemed impossible, the +noise was outside. No, it was inside himself, it was his own heart. And +the beating was painful, so strained, surcharged. He wondered if Gerald +heard it. He did not know whether he were standing or lying or falling. + +When he realised that he had fallen prostrate upon Gerald’s body he +wondered, he was surprised. But he sat up, steadying himself with his +hand and waiting for his heart to become stiller and less painful. It +hurt very much, and took away his consciousness. + +Gerald however was still less conscious than Birkin. They waited dimly, +in a sort of not-being, for many uncounted, unknown minutes. + +“Of course—” panted Gerald, “I didn’t have to be rough—with you—I had +to keep back—my force—” + +Birkin heard the sound as if his own spirit stood behind him, outside +him, and listened to it. His body was in a trance of exhaustion, his +spirit heard thinly. His body could not answer. Only he knew his heart +was getting quieter. He was divided entirely between his spirit, which +stood outside, and knew, and his body, that was a plunging, unconscious +stroke of blood. + +“I could have thrown you—using violence—” panted Gerald. “But you beat +me right enough.” + +“Yes,” said Birkin, hardening his throat and producing the words in the +tension there, “you’re much stronger than I—you could beat me—easily.” + +Then he relaxed again to the terrible plunging of his heart and his +blood. + +“It surprised me,” panted Gerald, “what strength you’ve got. Almost +supernatural.” + +“For a moment,” said Birkin. + +He still heard as if it were his own disembodied spirit hearing, +standing at some distance behind him. It drew nearer however, his +spirit. And the violent striking of blood in his chest was sinking +quieter, allowing his mind to come back. He realised that he was +leaning with all his weight on the soft body of the other man. It +startled him, because he thought he had withdrawn. He recovered +himself, and sat up. But he was still vague and unestablished. He put +out his hand to steady himself. It touched the hand of Gerald, that was +lying out on the floor. And Gerald’s hand closed warm and sudden over +Birkin’s, they remained exhausted and breathless, the one hand clasped +closely over the other. It was Birkin whose hand, in swift response, +had closed in a strong, warm clasp over the hand of the other. Gerald’s +clasp had been sudden and momentaneous. + +The normal consciousness however was returning, ebbing back. Birkin +could breathe almost naturally again. Gerald’s hand slowly withdrew, +Birkin slowly, dazedly rose to his feet and went towards the table. He +poured out a whiskey and soda. Gerald also came for a drink. + +“It was a real set-to, wasn’t it?” said Birkin, looking at Gerald with +darkened eyes. + +“God, yes,” said Gerald. He looked at the delicate body of the other +man, and added: “It wasn’t too much for you, was it?” + +“No. One ought to wrestle and strive and be physically close. It makes +one sane.” + +“You do think so?” + +“I do. Don’t you?” + +“Yes,” said Gerald. + +There were long spaces of silence between their words. The wrestling +had some deep meaning to them—an unfinished meaning. + +“We are mentally, spiritually intimate, therefore we should be more or +less physically intimate too—it is more whole.” + +“Certainly it is,” said Gerald. Then he laughed pleasantly, adding: +“It’s rather wonderful to me.” He stretched out his arms handsomely. + +“Yes,” said Birkin. “I don’t know why one should have to justify +oneself.” + +“No.” + +The two men began to dress. + +“I think also that you are beautiful,” said Birkin to Gerald, “and that +is enjoyable too. One should enjoy what is given.” + +“You think I am beautiful—how do you mean, physically?” asked Gerald, +his eyes glistening. + +“Yes. You have a northern kind of beauty, like light refracted from +snow—and a beautiful, plastic form. Yes, that is there to enjoy as +well. We should enjoy everything.” + +Gerald laughed in his throat, and said: + +“That’s certainly one way of looking at it. I can say this much, I feel +better. It has certainly helped me. Is this the Bruderschaft you +wanted?” + +“Perhaps. Do you think this pledges anything?” + +“I don’t know,” laughed Gerald. + +“At any rate, one feels freer and more open now—and that is what we +want.” + +“Certainly,” said Gerald. + +They drew to the fire, with the decanters and the glasses and the food. + +“I always eat a little before I go to bed,” said Gerald. “I sleep +better.” + +“I should not sleep so well,” said Birkin. + +“No? There you are, we are not alike. I’ll put a dressing-gown on.” +Birkin remained alone, looking at the fire. His mind had reverted to +Ursula. She seemed to return again into his consciousness. Gerald came +down wearing a gown of broad-barred, thick black-and-green silk, +brilliant and striking. + +“You are very fine,” said Birkin, looking at the full robe. + +“It was a caftan in Bokhara,” said Gerald. “I like it.” + +“I like it too.” + +Birkin was silent, thinking how scrupulous Gerald was in his attire, +how expensive too. He wore silk socks, and studs of fine workmanship, +and silk underclothing, and silk braces. Curious! This was another of +the differences between them. Birkin was careless and unimaginative +about his own appearance. + +“Of course you,” said Gerald, as if he had been thinking; “there’s +something curious about you. You’re curiously strong. One doesn’t +expect it, it is rather surprising.” + +Birkin laughed. He was looking at the handsome figure of the other man, +blond and comely in the rich robe, and he was half thinking of the +difference between it and himself—so different; as far, perhaps, apart +as man from woman, yet in another direction. But really it was Ursula, +it was the woman who was gaining ascendance over Birkin’s being, at +this moment. Gerald was becoming dim again, lapsing out of him. + +“Do you know,” he said suddenly, “I went and proposed to Ursula +Brangwen tonight, that she should marry me.” + +He saw the blank shining wonder come over Gerald’s face. + +“You did?” + +“Yes. Almost formally—speaking first to her father, as it should be, in +the world—though that was accident—or mischief.” + +Gerald only stared in wonder, as if he did not grasp. + +“You don’t mean to say that you seriously went and asked her father to +let you marry her?” + +“Yes,” said Birkin, “I did.” + +“What, had you spoken to her before about it, then?” + +“No, not a word. I suddenly thought I would go there and ask her—and +her father happened to come instead of her—so I asked him first.” + +“If you could have her?” concluded Gerald. + +“Ye-es, that.” + +“And you didn’t speak to her?” + +“Yes. She came in afterwards. So it was put to her as well.” + +“It was! And what did she say then? You’re an engaged man?” + +“No,—she only said she didn’t want to be bullied into answering.” + +“She what?” + +“Said she didn’t want to be bullied into answering.” + +“‘Said she didn’t want to be bullied into answering!’ Why, what did she +mean by that?” + +Birkin raised his shoulders. “Can’t say,” he answered. “Didn’t want to +be bothered just then, I suppose.” + +“But is this really so? And what did you do then?” + +“I walked out of the house and came here.” + +“You came straight here?” + +“Yes.” + +Gerald stared in amazement and amusement. He could not take it in. + +“But is this really true, as you say it now?” + +“Word for word.” + +“It is?” + +He leaned back in his chair, filled with delight and amusement. + +“Well, that’s good,” he said. “And so you came here to wrestle with +your good angel, did you?” + +“Did I?” said Birkin. + +“Well, it looks like it. Isn’t that what you did?” + +Now Birkin could not follow Gerald’s meaning. + +“And what’s going to happen?” said Gerald. “You’re going to keep open +the proposition, so to speak?” + +“I suppose so. I vowed to myself I would see them all to the devil. But +I suppose I shall ask her again, in a little while.” + +Gerald watched him steadily. + +“So you’re fond of her then?” he asked. + +“I think—I love her,” said Birkin, his face going very still and fixed. + +Gerald glistened for a moment with pleasure, as if it were something +done specially to please him. Then his face assumed a fitting gravity, +and he nodded his head slowly. + +“You know,” he said, “I always believed in love—true love. But where +does one find it nowadays?” + +“I don’t know,” said Birkin. + +“Very rarely,” said Gerald. Then, after a pause, “I’ve never felt it +myself—not what I should call love. I’ve gone after women—and been keen +enough over some of them. But I’ve never felt _love_. I don’t believe +I’ve ever felt as much _love_ for a woman, as I have for you—not +_love_. You understand what I mean?” + +“Yes. I’m sure you’ve never loved a woman.” + +“You feel that, do you? And do you think I ever shall? You understand +what I mean?” He put his hand to his breast, closing his fist there, as +if he would draw something out. “I mean that—that I can’t express what +it is, but I know it.” + +“What is it, then?” asked Birkin. + +“You see, I can’t put it into words. I mean, at any rate, something +abiding, something that can’t change—” + +His eyes were bright and puzzled. + +“Now do you think I shall ever feel that for a woman?” he said, +anxiously. + +Birkin looked at him, and shook his head. + +“I don’t know,” he said. “I could not say.” + +Gerald had been on the _qui vive_, as awaiting his fate. Now he drew +back in his chair. + +“No,” he said, “and neither do I, and neither do I.” + +“We are different, you and I,” said Birkin. “I can’t tell your life.” + +“No,” said Gerald, “no more can I. But I tell you—I begin to doubt it!” + +“That you will ever love a woman?” + +“Well—yes—what you would truly call love—” + +“You doubt it?” + +“Well—I begin to.” + +There was a long pause. + +“Life has all kinds of things,” said Birkin. “There isn’t only one +road.” + +“Yes, I believe that too. I believe it. And mind you, I don’t care how +it is with me—I don’t care how it is—so long as I don’t feel—” he +paused, and a blank, barren look passed over his face, to express his +feeling—“so long as I feel I’ve _lived_, somehow—and I don’t care how +it is—but I want to feel that—” + +“Fulfilled,” said Birkin. + +“We-ell, perhaps it is fulfilled; I don’t use the same words as you.” + +“It is the same.” + + + + +CHAPTER XXI. +THRESHOLD + + +Gudrun was away in London, having a little show of her work, with a +friend, and looking round, preparing for flight from Beldover. Come +what might she would be on the wing in a very short time. She received +a letter from Winifred Crich, ornamented with drawings. + +“Father also has been to London, to be examined by the doctors. It made +him very tired. They say he must rest a very great deal, so he is +mostly in bed. He brought me a lovely tropical parrot in faience, of +Dresden ware, also a man ploughing, and two mice climbing up a stalk, +also in faience. The mice were Copenhagen ware. They are the best, but +mice don’t shine so much, otherwise they are very good, their tails are +slim and long. They all shine nearly like glass. Of course it is the +glaze, but I don’t like it. Gerald likes the man ploughing the best, +his trousers are torn, he is ploughing with an ox, being I suppose a +German peasant. It is all grey and white, white shirt and grey +trousers, but very shiny and clean. Mr Birkin likes the girl best, +under the hawthorn blossom, with a lamb, and with daffodils painted on +her skirts, in the drawing room. But that is silly, because the lamb is +not a real lamb, and she is silly too. + +“Dear Miss Brangwen, are you coming back soon, you are very much missed +here. I enclose a drawing of father sitting up in bed. He says he hopes +you are not going to forsake us. Oh dear Miss Brangwen, I am sure you +won’t. Do come back and draw the ferrets, they are the most lovely +noble darlings in the world. We might carve them in holly-wood, playing +against a background of green leaves. Oh do let us, for they are most +beautiful. + +“Father says we might have a studio. Gerald says we could easily have a +beautiful one over the stables, it would only need windows to be put in +the slant of the roof, which is a simple matter. Then you could stay +here all day and work, and we could live in the studio, like two real +artists, like the man in the picture in the hall, with the frying-pan +and the walls all covered with drawings. I long to be free, to live the +free life of an artist. Even Gerald told father that only an artist is +free, because he lives in a creative world of his own—” + +Gudrun caught the drift of the family intentions, in this letter. +Gerald wanted her to be attached to the household at Shortlands, he was +using Winifred as his stalking-horse. The father thought only of his +child, he saw a rock of salvation in Gudrun. And Gudrun admired him for +his perspicacity. The child, moreover, was really exceptional. Gudrun +was quite content. She was quite willing, given a studio, to spend her +days at Shortlands. She disliked the Grammar School already thoroughly, +she wanted to be free. If a studio were provided, she would be free to +go on with her work, she would await the turn of events with complete +serenity. And she was really interested in Winifred, she would be quite +glad to understand the girl. + +So there was quite a little festivity on Winifred’s account, the day +Gudrun returned to Shortlands. + +“You should make a bunch of flowers to give to Miss Brangwen when she +arrives,” Gerald said smiling to his sister. + +“Oh no,” cried Winifred, “it’s silly.” + +“Not at all. It is a very charming and ordinary attention.” + +“Oh, it is silly,” protested Winifred, with all the extreme _mauvaise +honte_ of her years. Nevertheless, the idea appealed to her. She wanted +very much to carry it out. She flitted round the green-houses and the +conservatory looking wistfully at the flowers on their stems. And the +more she looked, the more she _longed_ to have a bunch of the blossoms +she saw, the more fascinated she became with her little vision of +ceremony, and the more consumedly shy and self-conscious she grew, till +she was almost beside herself. She could not get the idea out of her +mind. It was as if some haunting challenge prompted her, and she had +not enough courage to take it up. So again she drifted into the +green-houses, looking at the lovely roses in their pots, and at the +virginal cyclamens, and at the mystic white clusters of a creeper. The +beauty, oh the beauty of them, and oh the paradisal bliss, if she +should have a perfect bouquet and could give it to Gudrun the next day. +Her passion and her complete indecision almost made her ill. + +At last she slid to her father’s side. + +“Daddie—” she said. + +“What, my precious?” + +But she hung back, the tears almost coming to her eyes, in her +sensitive confusion. Her father looked at her, and his heart ran hot +with tenderness, an anguish of poignant love. + +“What do you want to say to me, my love?” + +“Daddie—!” her eyes smiled laconically—“isn’t it silly if I give Miss +Brangwen some flowers when she comes?” + +The sick man looked at the bright, knowing eyes of his child, and his +heart burned with love. + +“No, darling, that’s not silly. It’s what they do to queens.” + +This was not very reassuring to Winifred. She half suspected that +queens in themselves were a silliness. Yet she so wanted her little +romantic occasion. + +“Shall I then?” she asked. + +“Give Miss Brangwen some flowers? Do, Birdie. Tell Wilson I say you are +to have what you want.” + +The child smiled a small, subtle, unconscious smile to herself, in +anticipation of her way. + +“But I won’t get them till tomorrow,” she said. + +“Not till tomorrow, Birdie. Give me a kiss then—” + +Winifred silently kissed the sick man, and drifted out of the room. She +again went the round of the green-houses and the conservatory, +informing the gardener, in her high, peremptory, simple fashion, of +what she wanted, telling him all the blooms she had selected. + +“What do you want these for?” Wilson asked. + +“I want them,” she said. She wished servants did not ask questions. + +“Ay, you’ve said as much. But what do you want them for, for +decoration, or to send away, or what?” + +“I want them for a presentation bouquet.” + +“A presentation bouquet! Who’s coming then?—the Duchess of Portland?” + +“No.” + +“Oh, not her? Well you’ll have a rare poppy-show if you put all the +things you’ve mentioned into your bouquet.” + +“Yes, I want a rare poppy-show.” + +“You do! Then there’s no more to be said.” + +The next day Winifred, in a dress of silvery velvet, and holding a +gaudy bunch of flowers in her hand, waited with keen impatience in the +schoolroom, looking down the drive for Gudrun’s arrival. It was a wet +morning. Under her nose was the strange fragrance of hot-house flowers, +the bunch was like a little fire to her, she seemed to have a strange +new fire in her heart. This slight sense of romance stirred her like an +intoxicant. + +At last she saw Gudrun coming, and she ran downstairs to warn her +father and Gerald. They, laughing at her anxiety and gravity, came with +her into the hall. The man-servant came hastening to the door, and +there he was, relieving Gudrun of her umbrella, and then of her +raincoat. The welcoming party hung back till their visitor entered the +hall. + +Gudrun was flushed with the rain, her hair was blown in loose little +curls, she was like a flower just opened in the rain, the heart of the +blossom just newly visible, seeming to emit a warmth of retained +sunshine. Gerald winced in spirit, seeing her so beautiful and unknown. +She was wearing a soft blue dress, and her stockings were of dark red. + +Winifred advanced with odd, stately formality. + +“We are so glad you’ve come back,” she said. “These are your flowers.” +She presented the bouquet. + +“Mine!” cried Gudrun. She was suspended for a moment, then a vivid +flush went over her, she was as if blinded for a moment with a flame of +pleasure. Then her eyes, strange and flaming, lifted and looked at the +father, and at Gerald. And again Gerald shrank in spirit, as if it +would be more than he could bear, as her hot, exposed eyes rested on +him. There was something so revealed, she was revealed beyond bearing, +to his eyes. He turned his face aside. And he felt he would not be able +to avert her. And he writhed under the imprisonment. + +Gudrun put her face into the flowers. + +“But how beautiful they are!” she said, in a muffled voice. Then, with +a strange, suddenly revealed passion, she stooped and kissed Winifred. + +Mr Crich went forward with his hand held out to her. + +“I was afraid you were going to run away from us,” he said, playfully. + +Gudrun looked up at him with a luminous, roguish, unknown face. + +“Really!” she replied. “No, I didn’t want to stay in London.” Her voice +seemed to imply that she was glad to get back to Shortlands, her tone +was warm and subtly caressing. + +“That is a good thing,” smiled the father. “You see you are very +welcome here among us.” + +Gudrun only looked into his face with dark-blue, warm, shy eyes. She +was unconsciously carried away by her own power. + +“And you look as if you came home in every possible triumph,” Mr Crich +continued, holding her hand. + +“No,” she said, glowing strangely. “I haven’t had any triumph till I +came here.” + +“Ah, come, come! We’re not going to hear any of those tales. Haven’t we +read notices in the newspaper, Gerald?” + +“You came off pretty well,” said Gerald to her, shaking hands. “Did you +sell anything?” + +“No,” she said, “not much.” + +“Just as well,” he said. + +She wondered what he meant. But she was all aglow with her reception, +carried away by this little flattering ceremonial on her behalf. + +“Winifred,” said the father, “have you a pair of shoes for Miss +Brangwen? You had better change at once—” + +Gudrun went out with her bouquet in her hand. + +“Quite a remarkable young woman,” said the father to Gerald, when she +had gone. + +“Yes,” replied Gerald briefly, as if he did not like the observation. + +Mr Crich liked Gudrun to sit with him for half an hour. Usually he was +ashy and wretched, with all the life gnawed out of him. But as soon as +he rallied, he liked to make believe that he was just as before, quite +well and in the midst of life—not of the outer world, but in the midst +of a strong essential life. And to this belief, Gudrun contributed +perfectly. With her, he could get by stimulation those precious +half-hours of strength and exaltation and pure freedom, when he seemed +to live more than he had ever lived. + +She came to him as he lay propped up in the library. His face was like +yellow wax, his eyes darkened, as it were sightless. His black beard, +now streaked with grey, seemed to spring out of the waxy flesh of a +corpse. Yet the atmosphere about him was energetic and playful. Gudrun +subscribed to this, perfectly. To her fancy, he was just an ordinary +man. Only his rather terrible appearance was photographed upon her +soul, away beneath her consciousness. She knew that, in spite of his +playfulness, his eyes could not change from their darkened vacancy, +they were the eyes of a man who is dead. + +“Ah, this is Miss Brangwen,” he said, suddenly rousing as she entered, +announced by the man-servant. “Thomas, put Miss Brangwen a chair +here—that’s right.” He looked at her soft, fresh face with pleasure. It +gave him the illusion of life. “Now, you will have a glass of sherry +and a little piece of cake. Thomas—” + +“No thank you,” said Gudrun. And as soon as she had said it, her heart +sank horribly. The sick man seemed to fall into a gap of death, at her +contradiction. She ought to play up to him, not to contravene him. In +an instant she was smiling her rather roguish smile. + +“I don’t like sherry very much,” she said. “But I like almost anything +else.” + +The sick man caught at this straw instantly. + +“Not sherry! No! Something else! What then? What is there, Thomas?” + +“Port wine—curacçao—” + +“I would love some curaçao—” said Gudrun, looking at the sick man +confidingly. + +“You would. Well then Thomas, curaçao—and a little cake, or a biscuit?” + +“A biscuit,” said Gudrun. She did not want anything, but she was wise. + +“Yes.” + +He waited till she was settled with her little glass and her biscuit. +Then he was satisfied. + +“You have heard the plan,” he said with some excitement, “for a studio +for Winifred, over the stables?” + +“No!” exclaimed Gudrun, in mock wonder. + +“Oh!—I thought Winnie wrote it to you, in her letter!” + +“Oh—yes—of course. But I thought perhaps it was only her own little +idea—” Gudrun smiled subtly, indulgently. The sick man smiled also, +elated. + +“Oh no. It is a real project. There is a good room under the roof of +the stables—with sloping rafters. We had thought of converting it into +a studio.” + +“How _very_ nice that would be!” cried Gudrun, with excited warmth. The +thought of the rafters stirred her. + +“You think it would? Well, it can be done.” + +“But how perfectly splendid for Winifred! Of course, it is just what is +needed, if she is to work at all seriously. One must have one’s +workshop, otherwise one never ceases to be an amateur.” + +“Is that so? Yes. Of course, I should like you to share it with +Winifred.” + +“Thank you _so_ much.” + +Gudrun knew all these things already, but she must look shy and very +grateful, as if overcome. + +“Of course, what I should like best, would be if you could give up your +work at the Grammar School, and just avail yourself of the studio, and +work there—well, as much or as little as you liked—” + +He looked at Gudrun with dark, vacant eyes. She looked back at him as +if full of gratitude. These phrases of a dying man were so complete and +natural, coming like echoes through his dead mouth. + +“And as to your earnings—you don’t mind taking from me what you have +taken from the Education Committee, do you? I don’t want you to be a +loser.” + +“Oh,” said Gudrun, “if I can have the studio and work there, I can earn +money enough, really I can.” + +“Well,” he said, pleased to be the benefactor, “we can see about all +that. You wouldn’t mind spending your days here?” + +“If there were a studio to work in,” said Gudrun, “I could ask for +nothing better.” + +“Is that so?” + +He was really very pleased. But already he was getting tired. She could +see the grey, awful semi-consciousness of mere pain and dissolution +coming over him again, the torture coming into the vacancy of his +darkened eyes. It was not over yet, this process of death. She rose +softly saying: + +“Perhaps you will sleep. I must look for Winifred.” + +She went out, telling the nurse that she had left him. Day by day the +tissue of the sick man was further and further reduced, nearer and +nearer the process came, towards the last knot which held the human +being in its unity. But this knot was hard and unrelaxed, the will of +the dying man never gave way. He might be dead in nine-tenths, yet the +remaining tenth remained unchanged, till it too was torn apart. With +his will he held the unit of himself firm, but the circle of his power +was ever and ever reduced, it would be reduced to a point at last, then +swept away. + +To adhere to life, he must adhere to human relationships, and he caught +at every straw. Winifred, the butler, the nurse, Gudrun, these were the +people who meant all to him, in these last resources. Gerald, in his +father’s presence, stiffened with repulsion. It was so, to a less +degree, with all the other children except Winifred. They could not see +anything but the death, when they looked at their father. It was as if +some subterranean dislike overcame them. They could not see the +familiar face, hear the familiar voice. They were overwhelmed by the +antipathy of visible and audible death. Gerald could not breathe in his +father’s presence. He must get out at once. And so, in the same way, +the father could not bear the presence of his son. It sent a final +irritation through the soul of the dying man. + +The studio was made ready, Gudrun and Winifred moved in. They enjoyed +so much the ordering and the appointing of it. And now they need hardly +be in the house at all. They had their meals in the studio, they lived +there safely. For the house was becoming dreadful. There were two +nurses in white, flitting silently about, like heralds of death. The +father was confined to his bed, there was a come and go of _sotto voce_ +sisters and brothers and children. + +Winifred was her father’s constant visitor. Every morning, after +breakfast, she went into his room when he was washed and propped up in +bed, to spend half an hour with him. + +“Are you better, Daddie?” she asked him invariably. + +And invariably he answered: + +“Yes, I think I’m a little better, pet.” + +She held his hand in both her own, lovingly and protectively. And this +was very dear to him. + +She ran in again as a rule at lunch time, to tell him the course of +events, and every evening, when the curtains were drawn, and his room +was cosy, she spent a long time with him. Gudrun was gone home, +Winifred was alone in the house: she liked best to be with her father. +They talked and prattled at random, he always as if he were well, just +the same as when he was going about. So that Winifred, with a child’s +subtle instinct for avoiding the painful things, behaved as if nothing +serious was the matter. Instinctively, she withheld her attention, and +was happy. Yet in her remoter soul, she knew as well as the adults +knew: perhaps better. + +Her father was quite well in his make-belief with her. But when she +went away, he relapsed under the misery of his dissolution. But still +there were these bright moments, though as his strength waned, his +faculty for attention grew weaker, and the nurse had to send Winifred +away, to save him from exhaustion. + +He never admitted that he was going to die. He knew it was so, he knew +it was the end. Yet even to himself he did not admit it. He hated the +fact, mortally. His will was rigid. He could not bear being overcome by +death. For him, there was no death. And yet, at times, he felt a great +need to cry out and to wail and complain. He would have liked to cry +aloud to Gerald, so that his son should be horrified out of his +composure. Gerald was instinctively aware of this, and he recoiled, to +avoid any such thing. This uncleanness of death repelled him too much. +One should die quickly, like the Romans, one should be master of one’s +fate in dying as in living. He was convulsed in the clasp of this death +of his father’s, as in the coils of the great serpent of Laocoön. The +great serpent had got the father, and the son was dragged into the +embrace of horrifying death along with him. He resisted always. And in +some strange way, he was a tower of strength to his father. + +The last time the dying man asked to see Gudrun he was grey with near +death. Yet he must see someone, he must, in the intervals of +consciousness, catch into connection with the living world, lest he +should have to accept his own situation. Fortunately he was most of his +time dazed and half gone. And he spent many hours dimly thinking of the +past, as it were, dimly re-living his old experiences. But there were +times even to the end when he was capable of realising what was +happening to him in the present, the death that was on him. And these +were the times when he called in outside help, no matter whose. For to +realise this death that he was dying was a death beyond death, never to +be borne. It was an admission never to be made. + +Gudrun was shocked by his appearance, and by the darkened, almost +disintegrated eyes, that still were unconquered and firm. + +“Well,” he said in his weakened voice, “and how are you and Winifred +getting on?” + +“Oh, very well indeed,” replied Gudrun. + +There were slight dead gaps in the conversation, as if the ideas called +up were only elusive straws floating on the dark chaos of the sick +man’s dying. + +“The studio answers all right?” he said. + +“Splendid. It couldn’t be more beautiful and perfect,” said Gudrun. + +She waited for what he would say next. + +“And you think Winifred has the makings of a sculptor?” + +It was strange how hollow the words were, meaningless. + +“I’m sure she has. She will do good things one day.” + +“Ah! Then her life won’t be altogether wasted, you think?” + +Gudrun was rather surprised. + +“Sure it won’t!” she exclaimed softly. + +“That’s right.” + +Again Gudrun waited for what he would say. + +“You find life pleasant, it is good to live, isn’t it?” he asked, with +a pitiful faint smile that was almost too much for Gudrun. + +“Yes,” she smiled—she would lie at random—“I get a pretty good time I +believe.” + +“That’s right. A happy nature is a great asset.” + +Again Gudrun smiled, though her soul was dry with repulsion. Did one +have to die like this—having the life extracted forcibly from one, +whilst one smiled and made conversation to the end? Was there no other +way? Must one go through all the horror of this victory over death, the +triumph of the integral will, that would not be broken till it +disappeared utterly? One must, it was the only way. She admired the +self-possession and the control of the dying man exceedingly. But she +loathed the death itself. She was glad the everyday world held good, +and she need not recognise anything beyond. + +“You are quite all right here?—nothing we can do for you?—nothing you +find wrong in your position?” + +“Except that you are too good to me,” said Gudrun. + +“Ah, well, the fault of that lies with yourself,” he said, and he felt +a little exultation, that he had made this speech. + +He was still so strong and living! But the nausea of death began to +creep back on him, in reaction. + +Gudrun went away, back to Winifred. Mademoiselle had left, Gudrun +stayed a good deal at Shortlands, and a tutor came in to carry on +Winifred’s education. But he did not live in the house, he was +connected with the Grammar School. + +One day, Gudrun was to drive with Winifred and Gerald and Birkin to +town, in the car. It was a dark, showery day. Winifred and Gudrun were +ready and waiting at the door. Winifred was very quiet, but Gudrun had +not noticed. Suddenly the child asked, in a voice of unconcern: + +“Do you think my father’s going to die, Miss Brangwen?” + +Gudrun started. + +“I don’t know,” she replied. + +“Don’t you truly?” + +“Nobody knows for certain. He _may_ die, of course.” + +The child pondered a few moments, then she asked: + +“But do you _think_ he will die?” + +It was put almost like a question in geography or science, insistent, +as if she would force an admission from the adult. The watchful, +slightly triumphant child was almost diabolical. + +“Do I think he will die?” repeated Gudrun. “Yes, I do.” + +But Winifred’s large eyes were fixed on her, and the girl did not move. + +“He is very ill,” said Gudrun. + +A small smile came over Winifred’s face, subtle and sceptical. + +“_I_ don’t believe he will,” the child asserted, mockingly, and she +moved away into the drive. Gudrun watched the isolated figure, and her +heart stood still. Winifred was playing with a little rivulet of water, +absorbedly as if nothing had been said. + +“I’ve made a proper dam,” she said, out of the moist distance. + +Gerald came to the door from out of the hall behind. + +“It is just as well she doesn’t choose to believe it,” he said. + +Gudrun looked at him. Their eyes met; and they exchanged a sardonic +understanding. + +“Just as well,” said Gudrun. + +He looked at her again, and a fire flickered up in his eyes. + +“Best to dance while Rome burns, since it must burn, don’t you think?” +he said. + +She was rather taken aback. But, gathering herself together, she +replied: + +“Oh—better dance than wail, certainly.” + +“So I think.” + +And they both felt the subterranean desire to let go, to fling away +everything, and lapse into a sheer unrestraint, brutal and licentious. +A strange black passion surged up pure in Gudrun. She felt strong. She +felt her hands so strong, as if she could tear the world asunder with +them. She remembered the abandonments of Roman licence, and her heart +grew hot. She knew she wanted this herself also—or something, something +equivalent. Ah, if that which was unknown and suppressed in her were +once let loose, what an orgiastic and satisfying event it would be. And +she wanted it, she trembled slightly from the proximity of the man, who +stood just behind her, suggestive of the same black licentiousness that +rose in herself. She wanted it with him, this unacknowledged frenzy. +For a moment the clear perception of this preoccupied her, distinct and +perfect in its final reality. Then she shut it off completely, saying: + +“We might as well go down to the lodge after Winifred—we can get in the +car there.” + +“So we can,” he answered, going with her. + +They found Winifred at the lodge admiring the litter of purebred white +puppies. The girl looked up, and there was a rather ugly, unseeing cast +in her eyes as she turned to Gerald and Gudrun. She did not want to see +them. + +“Look!” she cried. “Three new puppies! Marshall says this one seems +perfect. Isn’t it a sweetling? But it isn’t so nice as its mother.” She +turned to caress the fine white bull-terrier bitch that stood uneasily +near her. + +“My dearest Lady Crich,” she said, “you are beautiful as an angel on +earth. Angel—angel—don’t you think she’s good enough and beautiful +enough to go to heaven, Gudrun? They will be in heaven, won’t they—and +_especially_ my darling Lady Crich! Mrs Marshall, I say!” + +“Yes, Miss Winifred?” said the woman, appearing at the door. + +“Oh do call this one Lady Winifred, if she turns out perfect, will you? +Do tell Marshall to call it Lady Winifred.” + +“I’ll tell him—but I’m afraid that’s a gentleman puppy, Miss Winifred.” + +“Oh _no!_” There was the sound of a car. “There’s Rupert!” cried the +child, and she ran to the gate. + +Birkin, driving his car, pulled up outside the lodge gate. + +“We’re ready!” cried Winifred. “I want to sit in front with you, +Rupert. May I?” + +“I’m afraid you’ll fidget about and fall out,” he said. + +“No I won’t. I do want to sit in front next to you. It makes my feet so +lovely and warm, from the engines.” + +Birkin helped her up, amused at sending Gerald to sit by Gudrun in the +body of the car. + +“Have you any news, Rupert?” Gerald called, as they rushed along the +lanes. + +“News?” exclaimed Birkin. + +“Yes,” Gerald looked at Gudrun, who sat by his side, and he said, his +eyes narrowly laughing, “I want to know whether I ought to congratulate +him, but I can’t get anything definite out of him.” + +Gudrun flushed deeply. + +“Congratulate him on what?” she asked. + +“There was some mention of an engagement—at least, he said something to +me about it.” + +Gudrun flushed darkly. + +“You mean with Ursula?” she said, in challenge. + +“Yes. That is so, isn’t it?” + +“I don’t think there’s any engagement,” said Gudrun, coldly. + +“That so? Still no developments, Rupert?” he called. + +“Where? Matrimonial? No.” + +“How’s that?” called Gudrun. + +Birkin glanced quickly round. There was irritation in his eyes also. + +“Why?” he replied. “What do you think of it, Gudrun?” + +“Oh,” she cried, determined to fling her stone also into the pool, +since they had begun, “I don’t think she wants an engagement. +Naturally, she’s a bird that prefers the bush.” Gudrun’s voice was +clear and gong-like. It reminded Rupert of her father’s, so strong and +vibrant. + +“And I,” said Birkin, his face playful but yet determined, “I want a +binding contract, and am not keen on love, particularly free love.” + +They were both amused. _Why_ this public avowal? Gerald seemed +suspended a moment, in amusement. + +“Love isn’t good enough for you?” he called. + +“No!” shouted Birkin. + +“Ha, well that’s being over-refined,” said Gerald, and the car ran +through the mud. + +“What’s the matter, really?” said Gerald, turning to Gudrun. + +This was an assumption of a sort of intimacy that irritated Gudrun +almost like an affront. It seemed to her that Gerald was deliberately +insulting her, and infringing on the decent privacy of them all. + +“What is it?” she said, in her high, repellent voice. “Don’t ask me!—I +know nothing about _ultimate_ marriage, I assure you: or even +penultimate.” + +“Only the ordinary unwarrantable brand!” replied Gerald. “Just so—same +here. I am no expert on marriage, and degrees of ultimateness. It seems +to be a bee that buzzes loudly in Rupert’s bonnet.” + +“Exactly! But that is his trouble, exactly! Instead of wanting a woman +for herself, he wants his _ideas_ fulfilled. Which, when it comes to +actual practice, is not good enough.” + +“Oh no. Best go slap for what’s womanly in woman, like a bull at a +gate.” Then he seemed to glimmer in himself. “You think love is the +ticket, do you?” he asked. + +“Certainly, while it lasts—you only can’t insist on permanency,” came +Gudrun’s voice, strident above the noise. + +“Marriage or no marriage, ultimate or penultimate or just so-so?—take +the love as you find it.” + +“As you please, or as you don’t please,” she echoed. “Marriage is a +social arrangement, I take it, and has nothing to do with the question +of love.” + +His eyes were flickering on her all the time. She felt as is he were +kissing her freely and malevolently. It made the colour burn in her +cheeks, but her heart was quite firm and unfailing. + +“You think Rupert is off his head a bit?” Gerald asked. + +Her eyes flashed with acknowledgment. + +“As regards a woman, yes,” she said, “I do. There _is_ such a thing as +two people being in love for the whole of their lives—perhaps. But +marriage is neither here nor there, even then. If they are in love, +well and good. If not—why break eggs about it!” + +“Yes,” said Gerald. “That’s how it strikes me. But what about Rupert?” + +“I can’t make out—neither can he nor anybody. He seems to think that if +you marry you can get through marriage into a third heaven, or +something—all very vague.” + +“Very! And who wants a third heaven? As a matter of fact, Rupert has a +great yearning to be _safe_—to tie himself to the mast.” + +“Yes. It seems to me he’s mistaken there too,” said Gudrun. “I’m sure a +mistress is more likely to be faithful than a wife—just because she is +her _own_ mistress. No—he says he believes that a man and wife can go +further than any other two beings—but _where_, is not explained. They +can know each other, heavenly and hellish, but particularly hellish, so +perfectly that they go beyond heaven and hell—into—there it all breaks +down—into nowhere.” + +“Into Paradise, he says,” laughed Gerald. + +Gudrun shrugged her shoulders. “_Je m’en fiche_ of your Paradise!” she +said. + +“Not being a Mohammedan,” said Gerald. Birkin sat motionless, driving +the car, quite unconscious of what they said. And Gudrun, sitting +immediately behind him, felt a sort of ironic pleasure in thus exposing +him. + +“He says,” she added, with a grimace of irony, “that you can find an +eternal equilibrium in marriage, if you accept the unison, and still +leave yourself separate, don’t try to fuse.” + +“Doesn’t inspire me,” said Gerald. + +“That’s just it,” said Gudrun. + +“I believe in love, in a real _abandon_, if you’re capable of it,” said +Gerald. + +“So do I,” said she. + +“And so does Rupert, too—though he is always shouting.” + +“No,” said Gudrun. “He won’t abandon himself to the other person. You +can’t be sure of him. That’s the trouble I think.” + +“Yet he wants marriage! Marriage—_et puis?_” + +“_Le paradis!_” mocked Gudrun. + +Birkin, as he drove, felt a creeping of the spine, as if somebody was +threatening his neck. But he shrugged with indifference. It began to +rain. Here was a change. He stopped the car and got down to put up the +hood. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII. +WOMAN TO WOMAN + + +They came to the town, and left Gerald at the railway station. Gudrun +and Winifred were to come to tea with Birkin, who expected Ursula also. +In the afternoon, however, the first person to turn up was Hermione. +Birkin was out, so she went in the drawing-room, looking at his books +and papers, and playing on the piano. Then Ursula arrived. She was +surprised, unpleasantly so, to see Hermione, of whom she had heard +nothing for some time. + +“It is a surprise to see you,” she said. + +“Yes,” said Hermione—“I’ve been away at Aix—” + +“Oh, for your health?” + +“Yes.” + +The two women looked at each other. Ursula resented Hermione’s long, +grave, downward-looking face. There was something of the stupidity and +the unenlightened self-esteem of a horse in it. “She’s got a +horse-face,” Ursula said to herself, “she runs between blinkers.” It +did seem as if Hermione, like the moon, had only one side to her penny. +There was no obverse. She stared out all the time on the narrow, but to +her, complete world of the extant consciousness. In the darkness, she +did not exist. Like the moon, one half of her was lost to life. Her +self was all in her head, she did not know what it was spontaneously to +run or move, like a fish in the water, or a weasel on the grass. She +must always _know_. + +But Ursula only suffered from Hermione’s one-sidedness. She only felt +Hermione’s cool evidence, which seemed to put her down as nothing. +Hermione, who brooded and brooded till she was exhausted with the ache +of her effort at consciousness, spent and ashen in her body, who gained +so slowly and with such effort her final and barren conclusions of +knowledge, was apt, in the presence of other women, whom she thought +simply female, to wear the conclusions of her bitter assurance like +jewels which conferred on her an unquestionable distinction, +established her in a higher order of life. She was apt, mentally, to +condescend to women such as Ursula, whom she regarded as purely +emotional. Poor Hermione, it was her one possession, this aching +certainty of hers, it was her only justification. She must be confident +here, for God knows, she felt rejected and deficient enough elsewhere. +In the life of thought, of the spirit, she was one of the elect. And +she wanted to be universal. But there was a devastating cynicism at the +bottom of her. She did not believe in her own universals—they were +sham. She did not believe in the inner life—it was a trick, not a +reality. She did not believe in the spiritual world—it was an +affectation. In the last resort, she believed in Mammon, the flesh, and +the devil—these at least were not sham. She was a priestess without +belief, without conviction, suckled in a creed outworn, and condemned +to the reiteration of mysteries that were not divine to her. Yet there +was no escape. She was a leaf upon a dying tree. What help was there +then, but to fight still for the old, withered truths, to die for the +old, outworn belief, to be a sacred and inviolate priestess of +desecrated mysteries? The old great truths _had_ been true. And she was +a leaf of the old great tree of knowledge that was withering now. To +the old and last truth then she must be faithful even though cynicism +and mockery took place at the bottom of her soul. + +“I am so glad to see you,” she said to Ursula, in her slow voice, that +was like an incantation. “You and Rupert have become quite friends?” + +“Oh yes,” said Ursula. “He is always somewhere in the background.” + +Hermione paused before she answered. She saw perfectly well the other +woman’s vaunt: it seemed truly vulgar. + +“Is he?” she said slowly, and with perfect equanimity. “And do you +think you will marry?” + +The question was so calm and mild, so simple and bare and dispassionate +that Ursula was somewhat taken aback, rather attracted. It pleased her +almost like a wickedness. There was some delightful naked irony in +Hermione. + +“Well,” replied Ursula, “_He_ wants to, awfully, but I’m not so sure.” + +Hermione watched her with slow calm eyes. She noted this new expression +of vaunting. How she envied Ursula a certain unconscious positivity! +even her vulgarity! + +“Why aren’t you sure?” she asked, in her easy sing song. She was +perfectly at her ease, perhaps even rather happy in this conversation. +“You don’t really love him?” + +Ursula flushed a little at the mild impertinence of this question. And +yet she could not definitely take offence. Hermione seemed so calmly +and sanely candid. After all, it was rather great to be able to be so +sane. + +“He says it isn’t love he wants,” she replied. + +“What is it then?” Hermione was slow and level. + +“He wants me really to accept him in marriage.” + +Hermione was silent for some time, watching Ursula with slow, pensive +eyes. + +“Does he?” she said at length, without expression. Then, rousing, “And +what is it you don’t want? You don’t want marriage?” + +“No—I don’t—not really. I don’t want to give the sort of _submission_ +he insists on. He wants me to give myself up—and I simply don’t feel +that I _can_ do it.” + +Again there was a long pause, before Hermione replied: + +“Not if you don’t want to.” Then again there was silence. Hermione +shuddered with a strange desire. Ah, if only he had asked _her_ to +subserve him, to be his slave! She shuddered with desire. + +“You see I can’t—” + +“But exactly in what does—” + +They had both begun at once, they both stopped. Then, Hermione, +assuming priority of speech, resumed as if wearily: + +“To what does he want you to submit?” + +“He says he wants me to accept him non-emotionally, and finally—I +really don’t know _what_ he means. He says he wants the demon part of +himself to be mated—physically—not the human being. You see he says one +thing one day, and another the next—and he always contradicts himself—” + +“And always thinks about himself, and his own dissatisfaction,” said +Hermione slowly. + +“Yes,” cried Ursula. “As if there were no one but himself concerned. +That makes it so impossible.” + +But immediately she began to retract. + +“He insists on my accepting God knows what in _him_,” she resumed. “He +wants me to accept _him_ as—as an absolute—But it seems to me he +doesn’t want to _give_ anything. He doesn’t want real warm intimacy—he +won’t have it—he rejects it. He won’t let me think, really, and he +won’t let me _feel_—he hates feelings.” + +There was a long pause, bitter for Hermione. Ah, if only he would have +made this demand of her? Her he _drove_ into thought, drove inexorably +into knowledge—and then execrated her for it. + +“He wants me to sink myself,” Ursula resumed, “not to have any being of +my own—” + +“Then why doesn’t he marry an odalisk?” said Hermione in her mild +sing-song, “if it is that he wants.” Her long face looked sardonic and +amused. + +“Yes,” said Ursula vaguely. After all, the tiresome thing was, he did +not want an odalisk, he did not want a slave. Hermione would have been +his slave—there was in her a horrible desire to prostrate herself +before a man—a man who worshipped her, however, and admitted her as the +supreme thing. He did not want an odalisk. He wanted a woman to _take_ +something from him, to give herself up so much that she could take the +last realities of him, the last facts, the last physical facts, +physical and unbearable. + +And if she did, would he acknowledge her? Would he be able to +acknowledge her through everything, or would he use her just as his +instrument, use her for his own private satisfaction, not admitting +her? That was what the other men had done. They had wanted their own +show, and they would not admit her, they turned all she was into +nothingness. Just as Hermione now betrayed herself as a woman. Hermione +was like a man, she believed only in men’s things. She betrayed the +woman in herself. And Birkin, would he acknowledge, or would he deny +her? + +“Yes,” said Hermione, as each woman came out of her own separate +reverie. “It would be a mistake—I think it would be a mistake—” + +“To marry him?” asked Ursula. + +“Yes,” said Hermione slowly—“I think you need a man—soldierly, +strong-willed—” Hermione held out her hand and clenched it with +rhapsodic intensity. “You should have a man like the old heroes—you +need to stand behind him as he goes into battle, you need to _see_ his +strength, and to _hear_ his shout—. You need a man physically strong, +and virile in his will, _not_ a sensitive man—.” There was a break, as +if the pythoness had uttered the oracle, and now the woman went on, in +a rhapsody-wearied voice: “And you see, Rupert isn’t this, he isn’t. He +is frail in health and body, he needs great, great care. Then he is so +changeable and unsure of himself—it requires the greatest patience and +understanding to help him. And I don’t think you are patient. You would +have to be prepared to suffer—dreadfully. I can’t _tell_ you how much +suffering it would take to make him happy. He lives an _intensely_ +spiritual life, at times—too, too wonderful. And then come the +reactions. I can’t speak of what I have been through with him. We have +been together so long, I really do know him, I _do_ know what he is. +And I feel I must say it; I feel it would be perfectly _disastrous_ for +you to marry him—for you even more than for him.” Hermione lapsed into +bitter reverie. “He is so uncertain, so unstable—he wearies, and then +reacts. I couldn’t _tell_ you what his reactions are. I couldn’t _tell_ +you the agony of them. That which he affirms and loves one day—a little +latter he turns on it in a fury of destruction. He is never constant, +always this awful, dreadful reaction. Always the quick change from good +to bad, bad to good. And nothing is so devastating, nothing—” + +“Yes,” said Ursula humbly, “you must have suffered.” + +An unearthly light came on Hermione’s face. She clenched her hand like +one inspired. + +“And one must be willing to suffer—willing to suffer for him hourly, +daily—if you are going to help him, if he is to keep true to anything +at all—” + +“And I don’t _want_ to suffer hourly and daily,” said Ursula. “I don’t, +I should be ashamed. I think it is degrading not to be happy.” + +Hermione stopped and looked at her a long time. + +“Do you?” she said at last. And this utterance seemed to her a mark of +Ursula’s far distance from herself. For to Hermione suffering was the +greatest reality, come what might. Yet she too had a creed of +happiness. + +“Yes,” she said. “One _should_ be happy—” But it was a matter of will. + +“Yes,” said Hermione, listlessly now, “I can only feel that it would be +disastrous, disastrous—at least, to marry in a hurry. Can’t you be +together without marriage? Can’t you go away and live somewhere without +marriage? I do feel that marriage would be fatal, for both of you. I +think for you even more than for him—and I think of his health—” + +“Of course,” said Ursula, “I don’t care about marriage—it isn’t really +important to me—it’s he who wants it.” + +“It is his idea for the moment,” said Hermione, with that weary +finality, and a sort of _si jeunesse savait_ infallibility. + +There was a pause. Then Ursula broke into faltering challenge. + +“You think I’m merely a physical woman, don’t you?” + +“No indeed,” said Hermione. “No, indeed! But I think you are vital and +young—it isn’t a question of years, or even of experience—it is almost +a question of race. Rupert is race-old, he comes of an old race—and you +seem to me so young, you come of a young, inexperienced race.” + +“Do I!” said Ursula. “But I think he is awfully young, on one side.” + +“Yes, perhaps childish in many respects. Nevertheless—” + +They both lapsed into silence. Ursula was filled with deep resentment +and a touch of hopelessness. “It isn’t true,” she said to herself, +silently addressing her adversary. “It isn’t true. And it is _you_ who +want a physically strong, bullying man, not I. It is you who want an +unsensitive man, not I. You _don’t_ know anything about Rupert, not +really, in spite of the years you have had with him. You don’t give him +a woman’s love, you give him an ideal love, and that is why he reacts +away from you. You don’t know. You only know the dead things. Any +kitchen maid would know something about him, you don’t know. What do +you think your knowledge is but dead understanding, that doesn’t mean a +thing. You are so false, and untrue, how could you know anything? What +is the good of your talking about love—you untrue spectre of a woman! +How can you know anything, when you don’t believe? You don’t believe in +yourself and your own womanhood, so what good is your conceited, +shallow cleverness—!” + +The two women sat on in antagonistic silence. Hermione felt injured, +that all her good intention, all her offering, only left the other +woman in vulgar antagonism. But then, Ursula could not understand, +never would understand, could never be more than the usual jealous and +unreasonable female, with a good deal of powerful female emotion, +female attraction, and a fair amount of female understanding, but no +mind. Hermione had decided long ago that where there was no mind, it +was useless to appeal for reason—one had merely to ignore the ignorant. +And Rupert—he had now reacted towards the strongly female, healthy, +selfish woman—it was his reaction for the time being—there was no +helping it all. It was all a foolish backward and forward, a violent +oscillation that would at length be too violent for his coherency, and +he would smash and be dead. There was no saving him. This violent and +directionless reaction between animalism and spiritual truth would go +on in him till he tore himself in two between the opposite directions, +and disappeared meaninglessly out of life. It was no good—he too was +without unity, without _mind_, in the ultimate stages of living; not +quite man enough to make a destiny for a woman. + +They sat on till Birkin came in and found them together. He felt at +once the antagonism in the atmosphere, something radical and +insuperable, and he bit his lip. But he affected a bluff manner. + +“Hello, Hermione, are you back again? How do you feel?” + +“Oh, better. And how are you—you don’t look well—” + +“Oh!—I believe Gudrun and Winnie Crich are coming in to tea. At least +they said they were. We shall be a tea-party. What train did you come +by, Ursula?” + +It was rather annoying to see him trying to placate both women at once. +Both women watched him, Hermione with deep resentment and pity for him, +Ursula very impatient. He was nervous and apparently in quite good +spirits, chattering the conventional commonplaces. Ursula was amazed +and indignant at the way he made small-talk; he was adept as any _fat_ +in Christendom. She became quite stiff, she would not answer. It all +seemed to her so false and so belittling. And still Gudrun did not +appear. + +“I think I shall go to Florence for the winter,” said Hermione at +length. + +“Will you?” he answered. “But it is so cold there.” + +“Yes, but I shall stay with Palestra. It is quite comfortable.” + +“What takes you to Florence?” + +“I don’t know,” said Hermione slowly. Then she looked at him with her +slow, heavy gaze. “Barnes is starting his school of æsthetics, and +Olandese is going to give a set of discourses on the Italian national +policy—” + +“Both rubbish,” he said. + +“No, I don’t think so,” said Hermione. + +“Which do you admire, then?” + +“I admire both. Barnes is a pioneer. And then I am interested in Italy, +in her coming to national consciousness.” + +“I wish she’d come to something different from national consciousness, +then,” said Birkin; “especially as it only means a sort of +commercial-industrial consciousness. I hate Italy and her national +rant. And I think Barnes is an amateur.” + +Hermione was silent for some moments, in a state of hostility. But yet, +she had got Birkin back again into her world! How subtle her influence +was, she seemed to start his irritable attention into her direction +exclusively, in one minute. He was her creature. + +“No,” she said, “you are wrong.” Then a sort of tension came over her, +she raised her face like the pythoness inspired with oracles, and went +on, in rhapsodic manner: “_Il Sandro mi scrive che ha accolto il più +grande entusiasmo, tutti i giovani, e fanciulle e ragazzi, sono +tutti_—” She went on in Italian, as if, in thinking of the Italians she +thought in their language. + +He listened with a shade of distaste to her rhapsody, then he said: + +“For all that, I don’t like it. Their nationalism is just +industrialism—that and a shallow jealousy I detest so much.” + +“I think you are wrong—I think you are wrong—” said Hermione. “It seems +to me purely spontaneous and beautiful, the modern Italian’s _passion_, +for it is a passion, for Italy, _l’Italia_—” + +“Do you know Italy well?” Ursula asked of Hermione. Hermione hated to +be broken in upon in this manner. Yet she answered mildly: + +“Yes, pretty well. I spent several years of my girlhood there, with my +mother. My mother died in Florence.” + +“Oh.” + +There was a pause, painful to Ursula and to Birkin. Hermione however +seemed abstracted and calm. Birkin was white, his eyes glowed as if he +were in a fever, he was far too over-wrought. How Ursula suffered in +this tense atmosphere of strained wills! Her head seemed bound round by +iron bands. + +Birkin rang the bell for tea. They could not wait for Gudrun any +longer. When the door was opened, the cat walked in. + +“Micio! Micio!” called Hermione, in her slow, deliberate sing-song. The +young cat turned to look at her, then, with his slow and stately walk +he advanced to her side. + +“_Vieni—vieni quá_,” Hermione was saying, in her strange caressive, +protective voice, as if she were always the elder, the mother superior. +“_Vieni dire Buon’ Giorno alla zia. Mi ricordi, mi ricordi bene—non è +vero, piccolo? È vero che mi ricordi? È vero?_” And slowly she rubbed +his head, slowly and with ironic indifference. + +“Does he understand Italian?” said Ursula, who knew nothing of the +language. + +“Yes,” said Hermione at length. “His mother was Italian. She was born +in my waste-paper basket in Florence, on the morning of Rupert’s +birthday. She was his birthday present.” + +Tea was brought in. Birkin poured out for them. It was strange how +inviolable was the intimacy which existed between him and Hermione. +Ursula felt that she was an outsider. The very tea-cups and the old +silver was a bond between Hermione and Birkin. It seemed to belong to +an old, past world which they had inhabited together, and in which +Ursula was a foreigner. She was almost a parvenue in their old cultured +milieu. Her convention was not their convention, their standards were +not her standards. But theirs were established, they had the sanction +and the grace of age. He and she together, Hermione and Birkin, were +people of the same old tradition, the same withered deadening culture. +And she, Ursula, was an intruder. So they always made her feel. + +Hermione poured a little cream into a saucer. The simple way she +assumed her rights in Birkin’s room maddened and discouraged Ursula. +There was a fatality about it, as if it were bound to be. Hermione +lifted the cat and put the cream before him. He planted his two paws on +the edge of the table and bent his gracious young head to drink. + +“_Sicuro che capisce italiano_,” sang Hermione, “_non l’avrà +dimenticato, la lingua della Mamma._” + +She lifted the cat’s head with her long, slow, white fingers, not +letting him drink, holding him in her power. It was always the same, +this joy in power she manifested, peculiarly in power over any male +being. He blinked forbearingly, with a male, bored expression, licking +his whiskers. Hermione laughed in her short, grunting fashion. + +“_Ecco, il bravo ragazzo, com’ è superbo, questo!_” + +She made a vivid picture, so calm and strange with the cat. She had a +true static impressiveness, she was a social artist in some ways. + +The cat refused to look at her, indifferently avoided her fingers, and +began to drink again, his nose down to the cream, perfectly balanced, +as he lapped with his odd little click. + +“It’s bad for him, teaching him to eat at table,” said Birkin. + +“Yes,” said Hermione, easily assenting. + +Then, looking down at the cat, she resumed her old, mocking, humorous +sing-song. + +“_Ti imparano fare brutte cose, brutte cose_—” + +She lifted the Mino’s white chin on her forefinger, slowly. The young +cat looked round with a supremely forbearing air, avoided seeing +anything, withdrew his chin, and began to wash his face with his paw. +Hermione grunted her laughter, pleased. + +“_Bel giovanotto_—” she said. + +The cat reached forward again and put his fine white paw on the edge of +the saucer. Hermione lifted it down with delicate slowness. This +deliberate, delicate carefulness of movement reminded Ursula of Gudrun. + +“_No! Non è permesso di mettere il zampino nel tondinetto. Non piace al +babbo. Un signor gatto così selvatico—!_” + +And she kept her finger on the softly planted paw of the cat, and her +voice had the same whimsical, humorous note of bullying. + +Ursula had her nose out of joint. She wanted to go away now. It all +seemed no good. Hermione was established for ever, she herself was +ephemeral and had not yet even arrived. + +“I will go now,” she said suddenly. + +Birkin looked at her almost in fear—he so dreaded her anger. “But there +is no need for such hurry,” he said. + +“Yes,” she answered. “I will go.” And turning to Hermione, before there +was time to say any more, she held out her hand and said “Good-bye.” + +“Good-bye—” sang Hermione, detaining the hand. “Must you really go +now?” + +“Yes, I think I’ll go,” said Ursula, her face set, and averted from +Hermione’s eyes. + +“You think you will—” + +But Ursula had got her hand free. She turned to Birkin with a quick, +almost jeering: “Good-bye,” and she was opening the door before he had +time to do it for her. + +When she got outside the house she ran down the road in fury and +agitation. It was strange, the unreasoning rage and violence Hermione +roused in her, by her very presence. Ursula knew she gave herself away +to the other woman, she knew she looked ill-bred, uncouth, exaggerated. +But she did not care. She only ran up the road, lest she should go back +and jeer in the faces of the two she had left behind. For they outraged +her. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. +EXCURSE + + +Next day Birkin sought Ursula out. It happened to be the half-day at +the Grammar School. He appeared towards the end of the morning, and +asked her, would she drive with him in the afternoon. She consented. +But her face was closed and unresponding, and his heart sank. + +The afternoon was fine and dim. He was driving the motor-car, and she +sat beside him. But still her face was closed against him, +unresponding. When she became like this, like a wall against him, his +heart contracted. + +His life now seemed so reduced, that he hardly cared any more. At +moments it seemed to him he did not care a straw whether Ursula or +Hermione or anybody else existed or did not exist. Why bother! Why +strive for a coherent, satisfied life? Why not drift on in a series of +accidents—like a picaresque novel? Why not? Why bother about human +relationships? Why take them seriously-male or female? Why form any +serious connections at all? Why not be casual, drifting along, taking +all for what it was worth? + +And yet, still, he was damned and doomed to the old effort at serious +living. + +“Look,” he said, “what I bought.” The car was running along a broad +white road, between autumn trees. + +He gave her a little bit of screwed-up paper. She took it and opened +it. + +“How lovely,” she cried. + +She examined the gift. + +“How perfectly lovely!” she cried again. “But why do you give them me?” +She put the question offensively. + +His face flickered with bored irritation. He shrugged his shoulders +slightly. + +“I wanted to,” he said, coolly. + +“But why? Why should you?” + +“Am I called on to find reasons?” he asked. + +There was a silence, whilst she examined the rings that had been +screwed up in the paper. + +“I think they are _beautiful_,” she said, “especially this. This is +wonderful—” + +It was a round opal, red and fiery, set in a circle of tiny rubies. + +“You like that best?” he said. + +“I think I do.” + +“I like the sapphire,” he said. + +“This?” + +It was a rose-shaped, beautiful sapphire, with small brilliants. + +“Yes,” she said, “it is lovely.” She held it in the light. “Yes, +perhaps it _is_ the best—” + +“The blue—” he said. + +“Yes, wonderful—” + +He suddenly swung the car out of the way of a farm-cart. It tilted on +the bank. He was a careless driver, yet very quick. But Ursula was +frightened. There was always that something regardless in him which +terrified her. She suddenly felt he might kill her, by making some +dreadful accident with the motor-car. For a moment she was stony with +fear. + +“Isn’t it rather dangerous, the way you drive?” she asked him. + +“No, it isn’t dangerous,” he said. And then, after a pause: “Don’t you +like the yellow ring at all?” + +It was a squarish topaz set in a frame of steel, or some other similar +mineral, finely wrought. + +“Yes,” she said, “I do like it. But why did you buy these rings?” + +“I wanted them. They are second-hand.” + +“You bought them for yourself?” + +“No. Rings look wrong on my hands.” + +“Why did you buy them then?” + +“I bought them to give to you.” + +“But why? Surely you ought to give them to Hermione! You belong to +her.” + +He did not answer. She remained with the jewels shut in her hand. She +wanted to try them on her fingers, but something in her would not let +her. And moreover, she was afraid her hands were too large, she shrank +from the mortification of a failure to put them on any but her little +finger. They travelled in silence through the empty lanes. + +Driving in a motor-car excited her, she forgot his presence even. + +“Where are we?” she asked suddenly. + +“Not far from Worksop.” + +“And where are we going?” + +“Anywhere.” + +It was the answer she liked. + +She opened her hand to look at the rings. They gave her _such_ +pleasure, as they lay, the three circles, with their knotted jewels, +entangled in her palm. She would have to try them on. She did so +secretly, unwilling to let him see, so that he should not know her +finger was too large for them. But he saw nevertheless. He always saw, +if she wanted him not to. It was another of his hateful, watchful +characteristics. + +Only the opal, with its thin wire loop, would go on her ring finger. +And she was superstitious. No, there was ill-portent enough, she would +not accept this ring from him in pledge. + +“Look,” she said, putting forward her hand, that was half-closed and +shrinking. “The others don’t fit me.” + +He looked at the red-glinting, soft stone, on her over-sensitive skin. + +“Yes,” he said. + +“But opals are unlucky, aren’t they?” she said wistfully. + +“No. I prefer unlucky things. Luck is vulgar. Who wants what _luck_ +would bring? I don’t.” + +“But why?” she laughed. + +And, consumed with a desire to see how the other rings would look on +her hand, she put them on her little finger. + +“They can be made a little bigger,” he said. + +“Yes,” she replied, doubtfully. And she sighed. She knew that, in +accepting the rings, she was accepting a pledge. Yet fate seemed more +than herself. She looked again at the jewels. They were very beautiful +to her eyes—not as ornament, or wealth, but as tiny fragments of +loveliness. + +“I’m glad you bought them,” she said, putting her hand, half +unwillingly, gently on his arm. + +He smiled, slightly. He wanted her to come to him. But he was angry at +the bottom of his soul, and indifferent. He knew she had a passion for +him, really. But it was not finally interesting. There were depths of +passion when one became impersonal and indifferent, unemotional. +Whereas Ursula was still at the emotional personal level—always so +abominably personal. He had taken her as he had never been taken +himself. He had taken her at the roots of her darkness and shame—like a +demon, laughing over the fountain of mystic corruption which was one of +the sources of her being, laughing, shrugging, accepting, accepting +finally. As for her, when would she so much go beyond herself as to +accept him at the quick of death? + +She now became quite happy. The motor-car ran on, the afternoon was +soft and dim. She talked with lively interest, analysing people and +their motives—Gudrun, Gerald. He answered vaguely. He was not very much +interested any more in personalities and in people—people were all +different, but they were all enclosed nowadays in a definite +limitation, he said; there were only about two great ideas, two great +streams of activity remaining, with various forms of reaction +therefrom. The reactions were all varied in various people, but they +followed a few great laws, and intrinsically there was no difference. +They acted and reacted involuntarily according to a few great laws, and +once the laws, the great principles, were known, people were no longer +mystically interesting. They were all essentially alike, the +differences were only variations on a theme. None of them transcended +the given terms. + +Ursula did not agree—people were still an adventure to her—but—perhaps +not as much as she tried to persuade herself. Perhaps there was +something mechanical, now, in her interest. Perhaps also her interest +was destructive, her analysing was a real tearing to pieces. There was +an under-space in her where she did not care for people and their +idiosyncracies, even to destroy them. She seemed to touch for a moment +this undersilence in herself, she became still, and she turned for a +moment purely to Birkin. + +“Won’t it be lovely to go home in the dark?” she said. “We might have +tea rather late—shall we?—and have high tea? Wouldn’t that be rather +nice?” + +“I promised to be at Shortlands for dinner,” he said. + +“But—it doesn’t matter—you can go tomorrow—” + +“Hermione is there,” he said, in rather an uneasy voice. “She is going +away in two days. I suppose I ought to say good-bye to her. I shall +never see her again.” + +Ursula drew away, closed in a violent silence. He knitted his brows, +and his eyes began to sparkle again in anger. + +“You don’t mind, do you?” he asked irritably. + +“No, I don’t care. Why should I? Why should I mind?” Her tone was +jeering and offensive. + +“That’s what I ask myself,” he said; “why _should_ you mind! But you +seem to.” His brows were tense with violent irritation. + +“I _assure_ you I don’t, I don’t mind in the least. Go where you +belong—it’s what I want you to do.” + +“Ah you fool!” he cried, “with your ‘go where you belong.’ It’s +finished between Hermione and me. She means much more to _you_, if it +comes to that, than she does to me. For you can only revolt in pure +reaction from her—and to be her opposite is to be her counterpart.” + +“Ah, opposite!” cried Ursula. “I know your dodges. I am not taken in by +your word-twisting. You belong to Hermione and her dead show. Well, if +you do, you do. I don’t blame you. But then you’ve nothing to do with +me. + +In his inflamed, overwrought exasperation, he stopped the car, and they +sat there, in the middle of the country lane, to have it out. It was a +crisis of war between them, so they did not see the ridiculousness of +their situation. + +“If you weren’t a fool, if only you weren’t a fool,” he cried in bitter +despair, “you’d see that one could be decent, even when one has been +wrong. I _was_ wrong to go on all those years with Hermione—it was a +deathly process. But after all, one can have a little human decency. +But no, you would tear my soul out with your jealousy at the very +mention of Hermione’s name.” + +“I jealous! _I_—jealous! You _are_ mistaken if you think that. I’m not +jealous in the least of Hermione, she is nothing to me, not _that!_” +And Ursula snapped her fingers. “No, it’s you who are a liar. It’s you +who must return, like a dog to his vomit. It is what Hermione _stands +for_ that I _hate_. I _hate_ it. It is lies, it is false, it is death. +But you want it, you can’t help it, you can’t help yourself. You belong +to that old, deathly way of living—then go back to it. But don’t come +to me, for I’ve nothing to do with it.” + +And in the stress of her violent emotion, she got down from the car and +went to the hedgerow, picking unconsciously some flesh-pink +spindleberries, some of which were burst, showing their orange seeds. + +“Ah, you are a fool,” he cried, bitterly, with some contempt. + +“Yes, I am. I _am_ a fool. And thank God for it. I’m too big a fool to +swallow your cleverness. God be praised. You go to your women—go to +them—they are your sort—you’ve always had a string of them trailing +after you—and you always will. Go to your spiritual brides—but don’t +come to me as well, because I’m not having any, thank you. You’re not +satisfied, are you? Your spiritual brides can’t give you what you want, +they aren’t common and fleshy enough for you, aren’t they? So you come +to me, and keep them in the background! You will marry me for daily +use. But you’ll keep yourself well provided with spiritual brides in +the background. I know your dirty little game.” Suddenly a flame ran +over her, and she stamped her foot madly on the road, and he winced, +afraid that she would strike him. “And _I, I’m_ not spiritual enough, +_I’m_ not as spiritual as that Hermione—!” Her brows knitted, her eyes +blazed like a tiger’s. “Then _go_ to her, that’s all I say, _go_ to +her, _go_. Ha, she spiritual—_spiritual_, she! A dirty materialist as +she is. _She_ spiritual? What does she care for, what is her +spirituality? What _is_ it?” Her fury seemed to blaze out and burn his +face. He shrank a little. “I tell you it’s _dirt, dirt_, and nothing +_but_ dirt. And it’s dirt you want, you crave for it. Spiritual! Is +_that_ spiritual, her bullying, her conceit, her sordid materialism? +She’s a fishwife, a fishwife, she is such a materialist. And all so +sordid. What does she work out to, in the end, with all her social +passion, as you call it. Social passion—what social passion has +she?—show it me!—where is it? She wants petty, immediate _power_, she +wants the illusion that she is a great woman, that is all. In her soul +she’s a devilish unbeliever, common as dirt. That’s what she is at the +bottom. And all the rest is pretence—but you love it. You love the sham +spirituality, it’s your food. And why? Because of the dirt underneath. +Do you think I don’t know the foulness of your sex life—and her’s?—I +do. And it’s that foulness you want, you liar. Then have it, have it. +You’re such a liar.” + +She turned away, spasmodically tearing the twigs of spindleberry from +the hedge, and fastening them, with vibrating fingers, in the bosom of +her coat. + +He stood watching in silence. A wonderful tenderness burned in him, at +the sight of her quivering, so sensitive fingers: and at the same time +he was full of rage and callousness. + +“This is a degrading exhibition,” he said coolly. + +“Yes, degrading indeed,” she said. “But more to me than to you.” + +“Since you choose to degrade yourself,” he said. Again the flash came +over her face, the yellow lights concentrated in her eyes. + +“_You!_” she cried. “You! You truth-lover! You purity-monger! It +_stinks_, your truth and your purity. It stinks of the offal you feed +on, you scavenger dog, you eater of corpses. You are foul, _foul_—and +you must know it. Your purity, your candour, your goodness—yes, thank +you, we’ve had some. What you are is a foul, deathly thing, obscene, +that’s what you are, obscene and perverse. You, and love! You may well +say, you don’t want love. No, you want _yourself_, and dirt, and +death—that’s what you want. You are so _perverse_, so death-eating. And +then—” + +“There’s a bicycle coming,” he said, writhing under her loud +denunciation. + +She glanced down the road. + +“I don’t care,” she cried. + +Nevertheless she was silent. The cyclist, having heard the voices +raised in altercation, glanced curiously at the man, and the woman, and +at the standing motor-car as he passed. + +“—Afternoon,” he said, cheerfully. + +“Good-afternoon,” replied Birkin coldly. + +They were silent as the man passed into the distance. + +A clearer look had come over Birkin’s face. He knew she was in the main +right. He knew he was perverse, so spiritual on the one hand, and in +some strange way, degraded, on the other. But was she herself any +better? Was anybody any better? + +“It may all be true, lies and stink and all,” he said. “But Hermione’s +spiritual intimacy is no rottener than your emotional-jealous intimacy. +One can preserve the decencies, even to one’s enemies: for one’s own +sake. Hermione is my enemy—to her last breath! That’s why I must bow +her off the field.” + +“You! You and your enemies and your bows! A pretty picture you make of +yourself. But it takes nobody in but yourself. I _jealous! I!_ What I +say,” her voice sprang into flame, “I say because it is _true_, do you +see, because you are _you_, a foul and false liar, a whited sepulchre. +That’s why I say it. And _you_ hear it.” + +“And be grateful,” he added, with a satirical grimace. + +“Yes,” she cried, “and if you have a spark of decency in you, be +grateful.” + +“Not having a spark of decency, however—” he retorted. + +“No,” she cried, “you haven’t a _spark_. And so you can go your way, +and I’ll go mine. It’s no good, not the slightest. So you can leave me +now, I don’t want to go any further with you—leave me—” + +“You don’t even know where you are,” he said. + +“Oh, don’t bother, I assure you I shall be all right. I’ve got ten +shillings in my purse, and that will take me back from anywhere _you_ +have brought me to.” She hesitated. The rings were still on her +fingers, two on her little finger, one on her ring finger. Still she +hesitated. + +“Very good,” he said. “The only hopeless thing is a fool.” + +“You are quite right,” she said. + +Still she hesitated. Then an ugly, malevolent look came over her face, +she pulled the rings from her fingers, and tossed them at him. One +touched his face, the others hit his coat, and they scattered into the +mud. + +“And take your rings,” she said, “and go and buy yourself a female +elsewhere—there are plenty to be had, who will be quite glad to share +your spiritual mess,—or to have your physical mess, and leave your +spiritual mess to Hermione.” + +With which she walked away, desultorily, up the road. He stood +motionless, watching her sullen, rather ugly walk. She was sullenly +picking and pulling at the twigs of the hedge as she passed. She grew +smaller, she seemed to pass out of his sight. A darkness came over his +mind. Only a small, mechanical speck of consciousness hovered near him. + +He felt tired and weak. Yet also he was relieved. He gave up his old +position. He went and sat on the bank. No doubt Ursula was right. It +was true, really, what she said. He knew that his spirituality was +concomitant of a process of depravity, a sort of pleasure in +self-destruction. There really _was_ a certain stimulant in +self-destruction, for him—especially when it was translated +spiritually. But then he knew it—he knew it, and had done. And was not +Ursula’s way of emotional intimacy, emotional and physical, was it not +just as dangerous as Hermione’s abstract spiritual intimacy? Fusion, +fusion, this horrible fusion of two beings, which every woman and most +men insisted on, was it not nauseous and horrible anyhow, whether it +was a fusion of the spirit or of the emotional body? Hermione saw +herself as the perfect Idea, to which all men must come: And Ursula was +the perfect Womb, the bath of birth, to which all men must come! And +both were horrible. Why could they not remain individuals, limited by +their own limits? Why this dreadful all-comprehensiveness, this hateful +tyranny? Why not leave the other being, free, why try to absorb, or +melt, or merge? One might abandon oneself utterly to the _moments_, but +not to any other being. + +He could not bear to see the rings lying in the pale mud of the road. +He picked them up, and wiped them unconsciously on his hands. They were +the little tokens of the reality of beauty, the reality of happiness in +warm creation. But he had made his hands all dirty and gritty. + +There was a darkness over his mind. The terrible knot of consciousness +that had persisted there like an obsession was broken, gone, his life +was dissolved in darkness over his limbs and his body. But there was a +point of anxiety in his heart now. He wanted her to come back. He +breathed lightly and regularly like an infant, that breathes +innocently, beyond the touch of responsibility. + +She was coming back. He saw her drifting desultorily under the high +hedge, advancing towards him slowly. He did not move, he did not look +again. He was as if asleep, at peace, slumbering and utterly relaxed. + +She came up and stood before him, hanging her head. + +“See what a flower I found you,” she said, wistfully holding a piece of +purple-red bell-heather under his face. He saw the clump of coloured +bells, and the tree-like, tiny branch: also her hands, with their +over-fine, over-sensitive skin. + +“Pretty!” he said, looking up at her with a smile, taking the flower. +Everything had become simple again, quite simple, the complexity gone +into nowhere. But he badly wanted to cry: except that he was weary and +bored by emotion. + +Then a hot passion of tenderness for her filled his heart. He stood up +and looked into her face. It was new and oh, so delicate in its +luminous wonder and fear. He put his arms round her, and she hid her +face on his shoulder. + +It was peace, just simple peace, as he stood folding her quietly there +on the open lane. It was peace at last. The old, detestable world of +tension had passed away at last, his soul was strong and at ease. + +She looked up at him. The wonderful yellow light in her eyes now was +soft and yielded, they were at peace with each other. He kissed her, +softly, many, many times. A laugh came into her eyes. + +“Did I abuse you?” she asked. + +He smiled too, and took her hand, that was so soft and given. + +“Never mind,” she said, “it is all for the good.” He kissed her again, +softly, many times. + +“Isn’t it?” she said. + +“Certainly,” he replied. “Wait! I shall have my own back.” + +She laughed suddenly, with a wild catch in her voice, and flung her +arms around him. + +“You are mine, my love, aren’t you?” she cried straining him close. + +“Yes,” he said, softly. + +His voice was so soft and final, she went very still, as if under a +fate which had taken her. Yes, she acquiesced—but it was accomplished +without her acquiescence. He was kissing her quietly, repeatedly, with +a soft, still happiness that almost made her heart stop beating. + +“My love!” she cried, lifting her face and looking with frightened, +gentle wonder of bliss. Was it all real? But his eyes were beautiful +and soft and immune from stress or excitement, beautiful and smiling +lightly to her, smiling with her. She hid her face on his shoulder, +hiding before him, because he could see her so completely. She knew he +loved her, and she was afraid, she was in a strange element, a new +heaven round about her. She wished he were passionate, because in +passion she was at home. But this was so still and frail, as space is +more frightening than force. + +Again, quickly, she lifted her head. + +“Do you love me?” she said, quickly, impulsively. + +“Yes,” he replied, not heeding her motion, only her stillness. + +She knew it was true. She broke away. + +“So you ought,” she said, turning round to look at the road. “Did you +find the rings?” + +“Yes.” + +“Where are they?” + +“In my pocket.” + +She put her hand into his pocket and took them out. + +She was restless. + +“Shall we go?” she said. + +“Yes,” he answered. And they mounted to the car once more, and left +behind them this memorable battle-field. + +They drifted through the wild, late afternoon, in a beautiful motion +that was smiling and transcendent. His mind was sweetly at ease, the +life flowed through him as from some new fountain, he was as if born +out of the cramp of a womb. + +“Are you happy?” she asked him, in her strange, delighted way. + +“Yes,” he said. + +“So am I,” she cried in sudden ecstacy, putting her arm round him and +clutching him violently against her, as he steered the motor-car. + +“Don’t drive much more,” she said. “I don’t want you to be always doing +something.” + +“No,” he said. “We’ll finish this little trip, and then we’ll be free.” + +“We will, my love, we will,” she cried in delight, kissing him as he +turned to her. + +He drove on in a strange new wakefulness, the tension of his +consciousness broken. He seemed to be conscious all over, all his body +awake with a simple, glimmering awareness, as if he had just come +awake, like a thing that is born, like a bird when it comes out of an +egg, into a new universe. + +They dropped down a long hill in the dusk, and suddenly Ursula +recognised on her right hand, below in the hollow, the form of +Southwell Minster. + +“Are we here!” she cried with pleasure. + +The rigid, sombre, ugly cathedral was settling under the gloom of the +coming night, as they entered the narrow town, the golden lights showed +like slabs of revelation, in the shop-windows. + +“Father came here with mother,” she said, “when they first knew each +other. He loves it—he loves the Minster. Do you?” + +“Yes. It looks like quartz crystals sticking up out of the dark hollow. +We’ll have our high tea at the Saracen’s Head.” + +As they descended, they heard the Minster bells playing a hymn, when +the hour had struck six. + +Glory to thee my God this night +For all the blessings of the light— + +So, to Ursula’s ear, the tune fell out, drop by drop, from the unseen +sky on to the dusky town. It was like dim, bygone centuries sounding. +It was all so far off. She stood in the old yard of the inn, smelling +of straw and stables and petrol. Above, she could see the first stars. +What was it all? This was no actual world, it was the dream-world of +one’s childhood—a great circumscribed reminiscence. The world had +become unreal. She herself was a strange, transcendent reality. + +They sat together in a little parlour by the fire. + +“Is it true?” she said, wondering. + +“What?” + +“Everything—is everything true?” + +“The best is true,” he said, grimacing at her. + +“Is it?” she replied, laughing, but unassured. + +She looked at him. He seemed still so separate. New eyes were opened in +her soul. She saw a strange creature from another world, in him. It was +as if she were enchanted, and everything were metamorphosed. She +recalled again the old magic of the Book of Genesis, where the sons of +God saw the daughters of men, that they were fair. And he was one of +these, one of these strange creatures from the beyond, looking down at +her, and seeing she was fair. + +He stood on the hearth-rug looking at her, at her face that was +upturned exactly like a flower, a fresh, luminous flower, glinting +faintly golden with the dew of the first light. And he was smiling +faintly as if there were no speech in the world, save the silent +delight of flowers in each other. Smilingly they delighted in each +other’s presence, pure presence, not to be thought of, even known. But +his eyes had a faintly ironical contraction. + +And she was drawn to him strangely, as in a spell. Kneeling on the +hearth-rug before him, she put her arms round his loins, and put her +face against his thigh. Riches! Riches! She was overwhelmed with a +sense of a heavenful of riches. + +“We love each other,” she said in delight. + +“More than that,” he answered, looking down at her with his glimmering, +easy face. + +Unconsciously, with her sensitive fingertips, she was tracing the back +of his thighs, following some mysterious life-flow there. She had +discovered something, something more than wonderful, more wonderful +than life itself. It was the strange mystery of his life-motion, there, +at the back of the thighs, down the flanks. It was a strange reality of +his being, the very stuff of being, there in the straight downflow of +the thighs. It was here she discovered him one of the sons of God such +as were in the beginning of the world, not a man, something other, +something more. + +This was release at last. She had had lovers, she had known passion. +But this was neither love nor passion. It was the daughters of men +coming back to the sons of God, the strange inhuman sons of God who are +in the beginning. + +Her face was now one dazzle of released, golden light, as she looked up +at him, and laid her hands full on his thighs, behind, as he stood +before her. He looked down at her with a rich bright brow like a diadem +above his eyes. She was beautiful as a new marvellous flower opened at +his knees, a paradisal flower she was, beyond womanhood, such a flower +of luminousness. Yet something was tight and unfree in him. He did not +like this crouching, this radiance—not altogether. + +It was all achieved, for her. She had found one of the sons of God from +the Beginning, and he had found one of the first most luminous +daughters of men. + +She traced with her hands the line of his loins and thighs, at the +back, and a living fire ran through her, from him, darkly. It was a +dark flood of electric passion she released from him, drew into +herself. She had established a rich new circuit, a new current of +passional electric energy, between the two of them, released from the +darkest poles of the body and established in perfect circuit. It was a +dark fire of electricity that rushed from him to her, and flooded them +both with rich peace, satisfaction. + +“My love,” she cried, lifting her face to him, her eyes, her mouth open +in transport. + +“My love,” he answered, bending and kissing her, always kissing her. + +She closed her hands over the full, rounded body of his loins, as he +stooped over her, she seemed to touch the quick of the mystery of +darkness that was bodily him. She seemed to faint beneath, and he +seemed to faint, stooping over her. It was a perfect passing away for +both of them, and at the same time the most intolerable accession into +being, the marvellous fullness of immediate gratification, +overwhelming, out-flooding from the source of the deepest life-force, +the darkest, deepest, strangest life-source of the human body, at the +back and base of the loins. + +After a lapse of stillness, after the rivers of strange dark fluid +richness had passed over her, flooding, carrying away her mind and +flooding down her spine and down her knees, past her feet, a strange +flood, sweeping away everything and leaving her an essential new being, +she was left quite free, she was free in complete ease, her complete +self. So she rose, stilly and blithe, smiling at him. He stood before +her, glimmering, so awfully real, that her heart almost stopped +beating. He stood there in his strange, whole body, that had its +marvellous fountains, like the bodies of the sons of God who were in +the beginning. There were strange fountains of his body, more +mysterious and potent than any she had imagined or known, more +satisfying, ah, finally, mystically-physically satisfying. She had +thought there was no source deeper than the phallic source. And now, +behold, from the smitten rock of the man’s body, from the strange +marvellous flanks and thighs, deeper, further in mystery than the +phallic source, came the floods of ineffable darkness and ineffable +riches. + +They were glad, and they could forget perfectly. They laughed, and went +to the meal provided. There was a venison pasty, of all things, a large +broad-faced cut ham, eggs and cresses and red beet-root, and medlars +and apple-tart, and tea. + +“What _good_ things!” she cried with pleasure. “How noble it +looks!—shall I pour out the tea?—” + +She was usually nervous and uncertain at performing these public +duties, such as giving tea. But today she forgot, she was at her ease, +entirely forgetting to have misgivings. The tea-pot poured beautifully +from a proud slender spout. Her eyes were warm with smiles as she gave +him his tea. She had learned at last to be still and perfect. + +“Everything is ours,” she said to him. + +“Everything,” he answered. + +She gave a queer little crowing sound of triumph. + +“I’m so glad!” she cried, with unspeakable relief. + +“So am I,” he said. “But I’m thinking we’d better get out of our +responsibilities as quick as we can.” + +“What responsibilities?” she asked, wondering. + +“We must drop our jobs, like a shot.” + +A new understanding dawned into her face. + +“Of course,” she said, “there’s that.” + +“We must get out,” he said. “There’s nothing for it but to get out, +quick.” + +She looked at him doubtfully across the table. + +“But where?” she said. + +“I don’t know,” he said. “We’ll just wander about for a bit.” + +Again she looked at him quizzically. + +“I should be perfectly happy at the Mill,” she said. + +“It’s very near the old thing,” he said. “Let us wander a bit.” + +His voice could be so soft and happy-go-lucky, it went through her +veins like an exhilaration. Nevertheless she dreamed of a valley, and +wild gardens, and peace. She had a desire too for splendour—an +aristocratic extravagant splendour. Wandering seemed to her like +restlessness, dissatisfaction. + +“Where will you wander to?” she asked. + +“I don’t know. I feel as if I would just meet you and we’d set off—just +towards the distance.” + +“But where can one go?” she asked anxiously. “After all, there _is_ +only the world, and none of it is very distant.” + +“Still,” he said, “I should like to go with you—nowhere. It would be +rather wandering just to nowhere. That’s the place to get to—nowhere. +One wants to wander away from the world’s somewheres, into our own +nowhere.” + +Still she meditated. + +“You see, my love,” she said, “I’m so afraid that while we are only +people, we’ve got to take the world that’s given—because there isn’t +any other.” + +“Yes there is,” he said. “There’s somewhere where we can be +free—somewhere where one needn’t wear much clothes—none even—where one +meets a few people who have gone through enough, and can take things +for granted—where you be yourself, without bothering. There is +somewhere—there are one or two people—” + +“But where—?” she sighed. + +“Somewhere—anywhere. Let’s wander off. That’s the thing to do—let’s +wander off.” + +“Yes—” she said, thrilled at the thought of travel. But to her it was +only travel. + +“To be free,” he said. “To be free, in a free place, with a few other +people!” + +“Yes,” she said wistfully. Those “few other people” depressed her. + +“It isn’t really a locality, though,” he said. “It’s a perfected +relation between you and me, and others—the perfect relation—so that we +are free together.” + +“It is, my love, isn’t it,” she said. “It’s you and me. It’s you and +me, isn’t it?” She stretched out her arms to him. He went across and +stooped to kiss her face. Her arms closed round him again, her hands +spread upon his shoulders, moving slowly there, moving slowly on his +back, down his back slowly, with a strange recurrent, rhythmic motion, +yet moving slowly down, pressing mysteriously over his loins, over his +flanks. The sense of the awfulness of riches that could never be +impaired flooded her mind like a swoon, a death in most marvellous +possession, mystic-sure. She possessed him so utterly and intolerably, +that she herself lapsed out. And yet she was only sitting still in the +chair, with her hands pressed upon him, and lost. + +Again he softly kissed her. + +“We shall never go apart again,” he murmured quietly. And she did not +speak, but only pressed her hands firmer down upon the source of +darkness in him. + +They decided, when they woke again from the pure swoon, to write their +resignations from the world of work there and then. She wanted this. + +He rang the bell, and ordered note-paper without a printed address. The +waiter cleared the table. + +“Now then,” he said, “yours first. Put your home address, and the +date—then ‘Director of Education, Town Hall—Sir—’ Now then!—I don’t +know how one really stands—I suppose one could get out of it in less +than month—Anyhow ‘Sir—I beg to resign my post as classmistress in the +Willey Green Grammar School. I should be very grateful if you would +liberate me as soon as possible, without waiting for the expiration of +the month’s notice.’ That’ll do. Have you got it? Let me look. ‘Ursula +Brangwen.’ Good! Now I’ll write mine. I ought to give them three +months, but I can plead health. I can arrange it all right.” + +He sat and wrote out his formal resignation. + +“Now,” he said, when the envelopes were sealed and addressed, “shall we +post them here, both together? I know Jackie will say, ‘Here’s a +coincidence!’ when he receives them in all their identity. Shall we let +him say it, or not?” + +“I don’t care,” she said. + +“No—?” he said, pondering. + +“It doesn’t matter, does it?” she said. + +“Yes,” he replied. “Their imaginations shall not work on us. I’ll post +yours here, mine after. I cannot be implicated in their imaginings.” + +He looked at her with his strange, non-human singleness. + +“Yes, you are right,” she said. + +She lifted her face to him, all shining and open. It was as if he might +enter straight into the source of her radiance. His face became a +little distracted. + +“Shall we go?” he said. + +“As you like,” she replied. + +They were soon out of the little town, and running through the uneven +lanes of the country. Ursula nestled near him, into his constant +warmth, and watched the pale-lit revelation racing ahead, the visible +night. Sometimes it was a wide old road, with grass-spaces on either +side, flying magic and elfin in the greenish illumination, sometimes it +was trees looming overhead, sometimes it was bramble bushes, sometimes +the walls of a crew-yard and the butt of a barn. + +“Are you going to Shortlands to dinner?” Ursula asked him suddenly. He +started. + +“Good God!” he said. “Shortlands! Never again. Not that. Besides we +should be too late.” + +“Where are we going then—to the Mill?” + +“If you like. Pity to go anywhere on this good dark night. Pity to come +out of it, really. Pity we can’t stop in the good darkness. It is +better than anything ever would be—this good immediate darkness.” + +She sat wondering. The car lurched and swayed. She knew there was no +leaving him, the darkness held them both and contained them, it was not +to be surpassed. Besides she had a full mystic knowledge of his suave +loins of darkness, dark-clad and suave, and in this knowledge there was +some of the inevitability and the beauty of fate, fate which one asks +for, which one accepts in full. + +He sat still like an Egyptian Pharoah, driving the car. He felt as if +he were seated in immemorial potency, like the great carven statues of +real Egypt, as real and as fulfilled with subtle strength, as these +are, with a vague inscrutable smile on the lips. He knew what it was to +have the strange and magical current of force in his back and loins, +and down his legs, force so perfect that it stayed him immobile, and +left his face subtly, mindlessly smiling. He knew what it was to be +awake and potent in that other basic mind, the deepest physical mind. +And from this source he had a pure and magic control, magical, +mystical, a force in darkness, like electricity. + +It was very difficult to speak, it was so perfect to sit in this pure +living silence, subtle, full of unthinkable knowledge and unthinkable +force, upheld immemorially in timeless force, like the immobile, +supremely potent Egyptians, seated forever in their living, subtle +silence. + +“We need not go home,” he said. “This car has seats that let down and +make a bed, and we can lift the hood.” + +She was glad and frightened. She cowered near to him. + +“But what about them at home?” she said. + +“Send a telegram.” + +Nothing more was said. They ran on in silence. But with a sort of +second consciousness he steered the car towards a destination. For he +had the free intelligence to direct his own ends. His arms and his +breast and his head were rounded and living like those of the Greek, he +had not the unawakened straight arms of the Egyptian, nor the sealed, +slumbering head. A lambent intelligence played secondarily above his +pure Egyptian concentration in darkness. + +They came to a village that lined along the road. The car crept slowly +along, until he saw the post-office. Then he pulled up. + +“I will send a telegram to your father,” he said. “I will merely say +‘spending the night in town,’ shall I?” + +“Yes,” she answered. She did not want to be disturbed into taking +thought. + +She watched him move into the post-office. It was also a shop, she saw. +Strange, he was. Even as he went into the lighted, public place he +remained dark and magic, the living silence seemed the body of reality +in him, subtle, potent, indiscoverable. There he was! In a strange +uplift of elation she saw him, the being never to be revealed, awful in +its potency, mystic and real. This dark, subtle reality of him, never +to be translated, liberated her into perfection, her own perfected +being. She too was dark and fulfilled in silence. + +He came out, throwing some packages into the car. + +“There is some bread, and cheese, and raisins, and apples, and hard +chocolate,” he said, in his voice that was as if laughing, because of +the unblemished stillness and force which was the reality in him. She +would have to touch him. To speak, to see, was nothing. It was a +travesty to look and to comprehend the man there. Darkness and silence +must fall perfectly on her, then she could know mystically, in +unrevealed touch. She must lightly, mindlessly connect with him, have +the knowledge which is death of knowledge, the reality of surety in +not-knowing. + +Soon they had run on again into the darkness. She did not ask where +they were going, she did not care. She sat in a fullness and a pure +potency that was like apathy, mindless and immobile. She was next to +him, and hung in a pure rest, as a star is hung, balanced unthinkably. +Still there remained a dark lambency of anticipation. She would touch +him. With perfect fine finger-tips of reality she would touch the +reality in him, the suave, pure, untranslatable reality of his loins of +darkness. To touch, mindlessly in darkness to come in pure touching +upon the living reality of him, his suave perfect loins and thighs of +darkness, this was her sustaining anticipation. + +And he too waited in the magical steadfastness of suspense, for her to +take this knowledge of him as he had taken it of her. He knew her +darkly, with the fullness of dark knowledge. Now she would know him, +and he too would be liberated. He would be night-free, like an +Egyptian, steadfast in perfectly suspended equilibrium, pure mystic +nodality of physical being. They would give each other this +star-equilibrium which alone is freedom. + +She saw that they were running among trees—great old trees with dying +bracken undergrowth. The palish, gnarled trunks showed ghostly, and +like old priests in the hovering distance, the fern rose magical and +mysterious. It was a night all darkness, with low cloud. The motor-car +advanced slowly. + +“Where are we?” she whispered. + +“In Sherwood Forest.” + +It was evident he knew the place. He drove softly, watching. Then they +came to a green road between the trees. They turned cautiously round, +and were advancing between the oaks of the forest, down a green lane. +The green lane widened into a little circle of grass, where there was a +small trickle of water at the bottom of a sloping bank. The car +stopped. + +“We will stay here,” he said, “and put out the lights.” + +He extinguished the lamps at once, and it was pure night, with shadows +of trees like realities of other, nightly being. He threw a rug on to +the bracken, and they sat in stillness and mindless silence. There were +faint sounds from the wood, but no disturbance, no possible +disturbance, the world was under a strange ban, a new mystery had +supervened. They threw off their clothes, and he gathered her to him, +and found her, found the pure lambent reality of her forever invisible +flesh. Quenched, inhuman, his fingers upon her unrevealed nudity were +the fingers of silence upon silence, the body of mysterious night upon +the body of mysterious night, the night masculine and feminine, never +to be seen with the eye, or known with the mind, only known as a +palpable revelation of living otherness. + +She had her desire of him, she touched, she received the maximum of +unspeakable communication in touch, dark, subtle, positively silent, a +magnificent gift and give again, a perfect acceptance and yielding, a +mystery, the reality of that which can never be known, vital, sensual +reality that can never be transmuted into mind content, but remains +outside, living body of darkness and silence and subtlety, the mystic +body of reality. She had her desire fulfilled. He had his desire +fulfilled. For she was to him what he was to her, the immemorial +magnificence of mystic, palpable, real otherness. + +They slept the chilly night through under the hood of the car, a night +of unbroken sleep. It was already high day when he awoke. They looked +at each other and laughed, then looked away, filled with darkness and +secrecy. Then they kissed and remembered the magnificence of the night. +It was so magnificent, such an inheritance of a universe of dark +reality, that they were afraid to seem to remember. They hid away the +remembrance and the knowledge. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV. +DEATH AND LOVE + + +Thomas Crich died slowly, terribly slowly. It seemed impossible to +everybody that the thread of life could be drawn out so thin, and yet +not break. The sick man lay unutterably weak and spent, kept alive by +morphia and by drinks, which he sipped slowly. He was only half +conscious—a thin strand of consciousness linking the darkness of death +with the light of day. Yet his will was unbroken, he was integral, +complete. Only he must have perfect stillness about him. + +Any presence but that of the nurses was a strain and an effort to him +now. Every morning Gerald went into the room, hoping to find his father +passed away at last. Yet always he saw the same transparent face, the +same dread dark hair on the waxen forehead, and the awful, inchoate +dark eyes, which seemed to be decomposing into formless darkness, +having only a tiny grain of vision within them. + +And always, as the dark, inchoate eyes turned to him, there passed +through Gerald’s bowels a burning stroke of revolt, that seemed to +resound through his whole being, threatening to break his mind with its +clangour, and making him mad. + +Every morning, the son stood there, erect and taut with life, gleaming +in his blondness. The gleaming blondness of his strange, imminent being +put the father into a fever of fretful irritation. He could not bear to +meet the uncanny, downward look of Gerald’s blue eyes. But it was only +for a moment. Each on the brink of departure, the father and son looked +at each other, then parted. + +For a long time Gerald preserved a perfect _sang-froid_, he remained +quite collected. But at last, fear undermined him. He was afraid of +some horrible collapse in himself. He had to stay and see this thing +through. Some perverse will made him watch his father drawn over the +borders of life. And yet, now, every day, the great red-hot stroke of +horrified fear through the bowels of the son struck a further +inflammation. Gerald went about all day with a tendency to cringe, as +if there were the point of a sword of Damocles pricking the nape of his +neck. + +There was no escape—he was bound up with his father, he had to see him +through. And the father’s will never relaxed or yielded to death. It +would have to snap when death at last snapped it,—if it did not persist +after a physical death. In the same way, the will of the son never +yielded. He stood firm and immune, he was outside this death and this +dying. + +It was a trial by ordeal. Could he stand and see his father slowly +dissolve and disappear in death, without once yielding his will, +without once relenting before the omnipotence of death. Like a Red +Indian undergoing torture, Gerald would experience the whole process of +slow death without wincing or flinching. He even triumphed in it. He +somehow _wanted_ this death, even forced it. It was as if he himself +were dealing the death, even when he most recoiled in horror. Still, he +would deal it, he would triumph through death. + +But in the stress of this ordeal, Gerald too lost his hold on the +outer, daily life. That which was much to him, came to mean nothing. +Work, pleasure—it was all left behind. He went on more or less +mechanically with his business, but this activity was all extraneous. +The real activity was this ghastly wrestling for death in his own soul. +And his own will should triumph. Come what might, he would not bow down +or submit or acknowledge a master. He had no master in death. + +But as the fight went on, and all that he had been and was continued to +be destroyed, so that life was a hollow shell all round him, roaring +and clattering like the sound of the sea, a noise in which he +participated externally, and inside this hollow shell was all the +darkness and fearful space of death, he knew he would have to find +reinforcements, otherwise he would collapse inwards upon the great dark +void which circled at the centre of his soul. His will held his outer +life, his outer mind, his outer being unbroken and unchanged. But the +pressure was too great. He would have to find something to make good +the equilibrium. Something must come with him into the hollow void of +death in his soul, fill it up, and so equalise the pressure within to +the pressure without. For day by day he felt more and more like a +bubble filled with darkness, round which whirled the iridescence of his +consciousness, and upon which the pressure of the outer world, the +outer life, roared vastly. + +In this extremity his instinct led him to Gudrun. He threw away +everything now—he only wanted the relation established with her. He +would follow her to the studio, to be near her, to talk to her. He +would stand about the room, aimlessly picking up the implements, the +lumps of clay, the little figures she had cast—they were whimsical and +grotesque—looking at them without perceiving them. And she felt him +following her, dogging her heels like a doom. She held away from him, +and yet she knew he drew always a little nearer, a little nearer. + +“I say,” he said to her one evening, in an odd, unthinking, uncertain +way, “won’t you stay to dinner tonight? I wish you would.” + +She started slightly. He spoke to her like a man making a request of +another man. + +“They’ll be expecting me at home,” she said. + +“Oh, they won’t mind, will they?” he said. “I should be awfully glad if +you’d stay.” + +Her long silence gave consent at last. + +“I’ll tell Thomas, shall I?” he said. + +“I must go almost immediately after dinner,” she said. + +It was a dark, cold evening. There was no fire in the drawing-room, +they sat in the library. He was mostly silent, absent, and Winifred +talked little. But when Gerald did rouse himself, he smiled and was +pleasant and ordinary with her. Then there came over him again the long +blanks, of which he was not aware. + +She was very much attracted by him. He looked so preoccupied, and his +strange, blank silences, which she could not read, moved her and made +her wonder over him, made her feel reverential towards him. + +But he was very kind. He gave her the best things at the table, he had +a bottle of slightly sweet, delicious golden wine brought out for +dinner, knowing she would prefer it to the burgundy. She felt herself +esteemed, needed almost. + +As they took coffee in the library, there was a soft, very soft +knocking at the door. He started, and called “Come in.” The timbre of +his voice, like something vibrating at high pitch, unnerved Gudrun. A +nurse in white entered, half hovering in the doorway like a shadow. She +was very good-looking, but strangely enough, shy and self-mistrusting. + +“The doctor would like to speak to you, Mr Crich,” she said, in her +low, discreet voice. + +“The doctor!” he said, starting up. “Where is he?” + +“He is in the dining-room.” + +“Tell him I’m coming.” + +He drank up his coffee, and followed the nurse, who had dissolved like +a shadow. + +“Which nurse was that?” asked Gudrun. + +“Miss Inglis—I like her best,” replied Winifred. + +After a while Gerald came back, looking absorbed by his own thoughts, +and having some of that tension and abstraction which is seen in a +slightly drunken man. He did not say what the doctor had wanted him +for, but stood before the fire, with his hands behind his back, and his +face open and as if rapt. Not that he was really thinking—he was only +arrested in pure suspense inside himself, and thoughts wafted through +his mind without order. + +“I must go now and see Mama,” said Winifred, “and see Dadda before he +goes to sleep.” + +She bade them both good-night. + +Gudrun also rose to take her leave. + +“You needn’t go yet, need you?” said Gerald, glancing quickly at the +clock. “It is early yet. I’ll walk down with you when you go. Sit down, +don’t hurry away.” + +Gudrun sat down, as if, absent as he was, his will had power over her. +She felt almost mesmerised. He was strange to her, something unknown. +What was he thinking, what was he feeling, as he stood there so rapt, +saying nothing? He kept her—she could feel that. He would not let her +go. She watched him in humble submissiveness. + +“Had the doctor anything new to tell you?” she asked, softly, at +length, with that gentle, timid sympathy which touched a keen fibre in +his heart. He lifted his eyebrows with a negligent, indifferent +expression. + +“No—nothing new,” he replied, as if the question were quite casual, +trivial. “He says the pulse is very weak indeed, very intermittent—but +that doesn’t necessarily mean much, you know.” + +He looked down at her. Her eyes were dark and soft and unfolded, with a +stricken look that roused him. + +“No,” she murmured at length. “I don’t understand anything about these +things.” + +“Just as well not,” he said. “I say, won’t you have a cigarette?—do!” +He quickly fetched the box, and held her a light. Then he stood before +her on the hearth again. + +“No,” he said, “we’ve never had much illness in the house, either—not +till father.” He seemed to meditate a while. Then looking down at her, +with strangely communicative blue eyes, that filled her with dread, he +continued: “It’s something you don’t reckon with, you know, till it is +there. And then you realise that it was there all the time—it was +always there—you understand what I mean?—the possibility of this +incurable illness, this slow death.” + +He moved his feet uneasily on the marble hearth, and put his cigarette +to his mouth, looking up at the ceiling. + +“I know,” murmured Gudrun: “it is dreadful.” + +He smoked without knowing. Then he took the cigarette from his lips, +bared his teeth, and putting the tip of his tongue between his teeth +spat off a grain of tobacco, turning slightly aside, like a man who is +alone, or who is lost in thought. + +“I don’t know what the effect actually _is_, on one,” he said, and +again he looked down at her. Her eyes were dark and stricken with +knowledge, looking into his. He saw her submerged, and he turned aside +his face. “But I absolutely am not the same. There’s nothing left, if +you understand what I mean. You seem to be clutching at the void—and at +the same time you are void yourself. And so you don’t know what to +_do_.” + +“No,” she murmured. A heavy thrill ran down her nerves, heavy, almost +pleasure, almost pain. “What can be done?” she added. + +He turned, and flipped the ash from his cigarette on to the great +marble hearth-stones, that lay bare in the room, without fender or bar. + +“I don’t know, I’m sure,” he replied. “But I do think you’ve got to +find some way of resolving the situation—not because you want to, but +because you’ve _got_ to, otherwise you’re done. The whole of +everything, and yourself included, is just on the point of caving in, +and you are just holding it up with your hands. Well, it’s a situation +that obviously can’t continue. You can’t stand holding the roof up with +your hands, for ever. You know that sooner or later you’ll _have_ to +let go. Do you understand what I mean? And so something’s got to be +done, or there’s a universal collapse—as far as you yourself are +concerned.” + +He shifted slightly on the hearth, crunching a cinder under his heel. +He looked down at it. Gudrun was aware of the beautiful old marble +panels of the fireplace, swelling softly carved, round him and above +him. She felt as if she were caught at last by fate, imprisoned in some +horrible and fatal trap. + +“But what _can_ be done?” she murmured humbly. “You must use me if I +can be of any help at all—but how can I? I don’t see how I _can_ help +you.” + +He looked down at her critically. + +“I don’t want you to _help_,” he said, slightly irritated, “because +there’s nothing to be _done_. I only want sympathy, do you see: I want +somebody I can talk to sympathetically. That eases the strain. And +there _is_ nobody to talk to sympathetically. That’s the curious thing. +There _is_ nobody. There’s Rupert Birkin. But then he _isn’t_ +sympathetic, he wants to _dictate_. And that is no use whatsoever.” + +She was caught in a strange snare. She looked down at her hands. + +Then there was the sound of the door softly opening. Gerald started. He +was chagrined. It was his starting that really startled Gudrun. Then he +went forward, with quick, graceful, intentional courtesy. + +“Oh, mother!” he said. “How nice of you to come down. How are you?” + +The elderly woman, loosely and bulkily wrapped in a purple gown, came +forward silently, slightly hulked, as usual. Her son was at her side. +He pushed her up a chair, saying “You know Miss Brangwen, don’t you?” + +The mother glanced at Gudrun indifferently. + +“Yes,” she said. Then she turned her wonderful, forget-me-not blue eyes +up to her son, as she slowly sat down in the chair he had brought her. + +“I came to ask you about your father,” she said, in her rapid, +scarcely-audible voice. “I didn’t know you had company.” + +“No? Didn’t Winifred tell you? Miss Brangwen stayed to dinner, to make +us a little more lively—” + +Mrs Crich turned slowly round to Gudrun, and looked at her, but with +unseeing eyes. + +“I’m afraid it would be no treat to her.” Then she turned again to her +son. “Winifred tells me the doctor had something to say about your +father. What is it?” + +“Only that the pulse is very weak—misses altogether a good many +times—so that he might not last the night out,” Gerald replied. + +Mrs Crich sat perfectly impassive, as if she had not heard. Her bulk +seemed hunched in the chair, her fair hair hung slack over her ears. +But her skin was clear and fine, her hands, as she sat with them +forgotten and folded, were quite beautiful, full of potential energy. A +great mass of energy seemed decaying up in that silent, hulking form. + +She looked up at her son, as he stood, keen and soldierly, near to her. +Her eyes were most wonderfully blue, bluer than forget-me-nots. She +seemed to have a certain confidence in Gerald, and to feel a certain +motherly mistrust of him. + +“How are _you?_” she muttered, in her strangely quiet voice, as if +nobody should hear but him. “You’re not getting into a state, are you? + +You’re not letting it make you hysterical?” + +The curious challenge in the last words startled Gudrun. + +“I don’t think so, mother,” he answered, rather coldly cheery. + +“Somebody’s got to see it through, you know.” + +“Have they? Have they?” answered his mother rapidly. “Why should _you_ +take it on yourself? What have you got to do, seeing it through. It +will see itself through. You are not needed.” + +“No, I don’t suppose I can do any good,” he answered. “It’s just how it +affects us, you see.” + +“You like to be affected—don’t you? It’s quite nuts for you? You would +have to be important. You have no need to stop at home. Why don’t you +go away!” + +These sentences, evidently the ripened grain of many dark hours, took +Gerald by surprise. + +“I don’t think it’s any good going away now, mother, at the last +minute,” he said, coldly. + +“You take care,” replied his mother. “You mind _yourself_—that’s your +business. You take too much on yourself. You mind _yourself_, or you’ll +find yourself in Queer Street, that’s what will happen to you. You’re +hysterical, always were.” + +“I’m all right, mother,” he said. “There’s no need to worry about _me_, +I assure you.” + +“Let the dead bury their dead—don’t go and bury yourself along with +them—that’s what I tell you. I know you well enough.” + +He did not answer this, not knowing what to say. The mother sat bunched +up in silence, her beautiful white hands, that had no rings whatsoever, +clasping the pommels of her arm-chair. + +“You can’t do it,” she said, almost bitterly. “You haven’t the nerve. +You’re as weak as a cat, really—always were. Is this young woman +staying here?” + +“No,” said Gerald. “She is going home tonight.” + +“Then she’d better have the dog-cart. Does she go far?” + +“Only to Beldover.” + +“Ah!” The elderly woman never looked at Gudrun, yet she seemed to take +knowledge of her presence. + +“You are inclined to take too much on yourself, Gerald,” said the +mother, pulling herself to her feet, with a little difficulty. + +“Will you go, mother?” he asked, politely. + +“Yes, I’ll go up again,” she replied. Turning to Gudrun, she bade her +“Good-night.” Then she went slowly to the door, as if she were +unaccustomed to walking. At the door she lifted her face to him, +implicitly. He kissed her. + +“Don’t come any further with me,” she said, in her barely audible +voice. “I don’t want you any further.” + +He bade her good-night, watched her across to the stairs and mount +slowly. Then he closed the door and came back to Gudrun. Gudrun rose +also, to go. + +“A queer being, my mother,” he said. + +“Yes,” replied Gudrun. + +“She has her own thoughts.” + +“Yes,” said Gudrun. + +Then they were silent. + +“You want to go?” he asked. “Half a minute, I’ll just have a horse put +in—” + +“No,” said Gudrun. “I want to walk.” + +He had promised to walk with her down the long, lonely mile of drive, +and she wanted this. + +“You might _just_ as well drive,” he said. + +“I’d _much rather_ walk,” she asserted, with emphasis. + +“You would! Then I will come along with you. You know where your things +are? I’ll put boots on.” + +He put on a cap, and an overcoat over his evening dress. They went out +into the night. + +“Let us light a cigarette,” he said, stopping in a sheltered angle of +the porch. “You have one too.” + +So, with the scent of tobacco on the night air, they set off down the +dark drive that ran between close-cut hedges through sloping meadows. + +He wanted to put his arm round her. If he could put his arm round her, +and draw her against him as they walked, he would equilibriate himself. +For now he felt like a pair of scales, the half of which tips down and +down into an indefinite void. He must recover some sort of balance. And +here was the hope and the perfect recovery. + +Blind to her, thinking only of himself, he slipped his arm softly round +her waist, and drew her to him. Her heart fainted, feeling herself +taken. But then, his arm was so strong, she quailed under its powerful +close grasp. She died a little death, and was drawn against him as they +walked down the stormy darkness. He seemed to balance her perfectly in +opposition to himself, in their dual motion of walking. So, suddenly, +he was liberated and perfect, strong, heroic. + +He put his hand to his mouth and threw his cigarette away, a gleaming +point, into the unseen hedge. Then he was quite free to balance her. + +“That’s better,” he said, with exultancy. + +The exultation in his voice was like a sweetish, poisonous drug to her. +Did she then mean so much to him! She sipped the poison. + +“Are you happier?” she asked, wistfully. + +“Much better,” he said, in the same exultant voice, “and I was rather +far gone.” + +She nestled against him. He felt her all soft and warm, she was the +rich, lovely substance of his being. The warmth and motion of her walk +suffused through him wonderfully. + +“I’m _so_ glad if I help you,” she said. + +“Yes,” he answered. “There’s nobody else could do it, if you wouldn’t.” + +“That is true,” she said to herself, with a thrill of strange, fatal +elation. + +As they walked, he seemed to lift her nearer and nearer to himself, +till she moved upon the firm vehicle of his body. + +He was so strong, so sustaining, and he could not be opposed. She +drifted along in a wonderful interfusion of physical motion, down the +dark, blowy hillside. Far across shone the little yellow lights of +Beldover, many of them, spread in a thick patch on another dark hill. +But he and she were walking in perfect, isolated darkness, outside the +world. + +“But how much do you care for me!” came her voice, almost querulous. +“You see, I don’t know, I don’t understand!” + +“How much!” His voice rang with a painful elation. “I don’t know +either—but everything.” He was startled by his own declaration. It was +true. So he stripped himself of every safeguard, in making this +admission to her. He cared everything for her—she was everything. + +“But I can’t believe it,” said her low voice, amazed, trembling. She +was trembling with doubt and exultance. This was the thing she wanted +to hear, only this. Yet now she heard it, heard the strange clapping +vibration of truth in his voice as he said it, she could not believe. +She could not believe—she did not believe. Yet she believed, +triumphantly, with fatal exultance. + +“Why not?” he said. “Why don’t you believe it? It’s true. It is true, +as we stand at this moment—” he stood still with her in the wind; “I +care for nothing on earth, or in heaven, outside this spot where we +are. And it isn’t my own presence I care about, it is all yours. I’d +sell my soul a hundred times—but I couldn’t bear not to have you here. +I couldn’t bear to be alone. My brain would burst. It is true.” He drew +her closer to him, with definite movement. + +“No,” she murmured, afraid. Yet this was what she wanted. Why did she +so lose courage? + +They resumed their strange walk. They were such strangers—and yet they +were so frightfully, unthinkably near. It was like a madness. Yet it +was what she wanted, it was what she wanted. They had descended the +hill, and now they were coming to the square arch where the road passed +under the colliery railway. The arch, Gudrun knew, had walls of squared +stone, mossy on one side with water that trickled down, dry on the +other side. She had stood under it to hear the train rumble thundering +over the logs overhead. And she knew that under this dark and lonely +bridge the young colliers stood in the darkness with their sweethearts, +in rainy weather. And so she wanted to stand under the bridge with +_her_ sweetheart, and be kissed under the bridge in the invisible +darkness. Her steps dragged as she drew near. + +So, under the bridge, they came to a standstill, and he lifted her upon +his breast. His body vibrated taut and powerful as he closed upon her +and crushed her, breathless and dazed and destroyed, crushed her upon +his breast. Ah, it was terrible, and perfect. Under this bridge, the +colliers pressed their lovers to their breast. And now, under the +bridge, the master of them all pressed her to himself! And how much +more powerful and terrible was his embrace than theirs, how much more +concentrated and supreme his love was, than theirs in the same sort! +She felt she would swoon, die, under the vibrating, inhuman tension of +his arms and his body—she would pass away. Then the unthinkable high +vibration slackened and became more undulating. He slackened and drew +her with him to stand with his back to the wall. + +She was almost unconscious. So the colliers’ lovers would stand with +their backs to the walls, holding their sweethearts and kissing them as +she was being kissed. Ah, but would their kisses be fine and powerful +as the kisses of the firm-mouthed master? Even the keen, short-cut +moustache—the colliers would not have that. + +And the colliers’ sweethearts would, like herself, hang their heads +back limp over their shoulder, and look out from the dark archway, at +the close patch of yellow lights on the unseen hill in the distance, or +at the vague form of trees, and at the buildings of the colliery +wood-yard, in the other direction. + +His arms were fast around her, he seemed to be gathering her into +himself, her warmth, her softness, her adorable weight, drinking in the +suffusion of her physical being, avidly. He lifted her, and seemed to +pour her into himself, like wine into a cup. + +“This is worth everything,” he said, in a strange, penetrating voice. + +So she relaxed, and seemed to melt, to flow into him, as if she were +some infinitely warm and precious suffusion filling into his veins, +like an intoxicant. Her arms were round his neck, he kissed her and +held her perfectly suspended, she was all slack and flowing into him, +and he was the firm, strong cup that receives the wine of her life. So +she lay cast upon him, stranded, lifted up against him, melting and +melting under his kisses, melting into his limbs and bones, as if he +were soft iron becoming surcharged with her electric life. + +Till she seemed to swoon, gradually her mind went, and she passed away, +everything in her was melted down and fluid, and she lay still, become +contained by him, sleeping in him as lightning sleeps in a pure, soft +stone. So she was passed away and gone in him, and he was perfected. + +When she opened her eyes again, and saw the patch of lights in the +distance, it seemed to her strange that the world still existed, that +she was standing under the bridge resting her head on Gerald’s breast. +Gerald—who was he? He was the exquisite adventure, the desirable +unknown to her. + +She looked up, and in the darkness saw his face above her, his shapely, +male face. There seemed a faint, white light emitted from him, a white +aura, as if he were visitor from the unseen. She reached up, like Eve +reaching to the apples on the tree of knowledge, and she kissed him, +though her passion was a transcendent fear of the thing he was, +touching his face with her infinitely delicate, encroaching wondering +fingers. Her fingers went over the mould of his face, over his +features. How perfect and foreign he was—ah how dangerous! Her soul +thrilled with complete knowledge. This was the glistening, forbidden +apple, this face of a man. She kissed him, putting her fingers over his +face, his eyes, his nostrils, over his brows and his ears, to his neck, +to know him, to gather him in by touch. He was so firm, and shapely, +with such satisfying, inconceivable shapeliness, strange, yet +unutterably clear. He was such an unutterable enemy, yet glistening +with uncanny white fire. She wanted to touch him and touch him and +touch him, till she had him all in her hands, till she had strained him +into her knowledge. Ah, if she could have the precious _knowledge_ of +him, she would be filled, and nothing could deprive her of this. For he +was so unsure, so risky in the common world of day. + +“You are so _beautiful_,” she murmured in her throat. + +He wondered, and was suspended. But she felt him quiver, and she came +down involuntarily nearer upon him. He could not help himself. Her +fingers had him under their power. The fathomless, fathomless desire +they could evoke in him was deeper than death, where he had no choice. + +But she knew now, and it was enough. For the time, her soul was +destroyed with the exquisite shock of his invisible fluid lightning. +She knew. And this knowledge was a death from which she must recover. +How much more of him was there to know? Ah much, much, many days +harvesting for her large, yet perfectly subtle and intelligent hands +upon the field of his living, radio-active body. Ah, her hands were +eager, greedy for knowledge. But for the present it was enough, enough, +as much as her soul could bear. Too much, and she would shatter +herself, she would fill the fine vial of her soul too quickly, and it +would break. Enough now—enough for the time being. There were all the +after days when her hands, like birds, could feed upon the fields of +him mystical plastic form—till then enough. + +And even he was glad to be checked, rebuked, held back. For to desire +is better than to possess, the finality of the end was dreaded as +deeply as it was desired. + +They walked on towards the town, towards where the lamps threaded +singly, at long intervals down the dark high-road of the valley. They +came at length to the gate of the drive. + +“Don’t come any further,” she said. + +“You’d rather I didn’t?” he asked, relieved. He did not want to go up +the public streets with her, his soul all naked and alight as it was. + +“Much rather—good-night.” She held out her hand. He grasped it, then +touched the perilous, potent fingers with his lips. + +“Good-night,” he said. “Tomorrow.” + +And they parted. He went home full of the strength and the power of +living desire. + +But the next day, she did not come, she sent a note that she was kept +indoors by a cold. Here was a torment! But he possessed his soul in +some sort of patience, writing a brief answer, telling her how sorry he +was not to see her. + +The day after this, he stayed at home—it seemed so futile to go down to +the office. His father could not live the week out. And he wanted to be +at home, suspended. + +Gerald sat on a chair by the window in his father’s room. The landscape +outside was black and winter-sodden. His father lay grey and ashen on +the bed, a nurse moved silently in her white dress, neat and elegant, +even beautiful. There was a scent of eau-de-Cologne in the room. The +nurse went out of the room, Gerald was alone with death, facing the +winter-black landscape. + +“Is there much more water in Denley?” came the faint voice, determined +and querulous, from the bed. The dying man was asking about a leakage +from Willey Water into one of the pits. + +“Some more—we shall have to run off the lake,” said Gerald. + +“Will you?” The faint voice filtered to extinction. There was dead +stillness. The grey-faced, sick man lay with eyes closed, more dead +than death. Gerald looked away. He felt his heart was seared, it would +perish if this went on much longer. + +Suddenly he heard a strange noise. Turning round, he saw his father’s +eyes wide open, strained and rolling in a frenzy of inhuman struggling. +Gerald started to his feet, and stood transfixed in horror. + +“Wha-a-ah-h-h—” came a horrible choking rattle from his father’s +throat, the fearful, frenzied eye, rolling awfully in its wild +fruitless search for help, passed blindly over Gerald, then up came the +dark blood and mess pumping over the face of the agonised being. The +tense body relaxed, the head fell aside, down the pillow. + +Gerald stood transfixed, his soul echoing in horror. He would move, but +he could not. He could not move his limbs. His brain seemed to re-echo, +like a pulse. + +The nurse in white softly entered. She glanced at Gerald, then at the +bed. + +“Ah!” came her soft whimpering cry, and she hurried forward to the dead +man. “Ah-h!” came the slight sound of her agitated distress, as she +stood bending over the bedside. Then she recovered, turned, and came +for towel and sponge. She was wiping the dead face carefully, and +murmuring, almost whimpering, very softly: “Poor Mr Crich!—Poor Mr +Crich! Poor Mr Crich!” + +“Is he dead?” clanged Gerald’s sharp voice. + +“Oh yes, he’s gone,” replied the soft, moaning voice of the nurse, as +she looked up at Gerald’s face. She was young and beautiful and +quivering. A strange sort of grin went over Gerald’s face, over the +horror. And he walked out of the room. + +He was going to tell his mother. On the landing he met his brother +Basil. + +“He’s gone, Basil,” he said, scarcely able to subdue his voice, not to +let an unconscious, frightening exultation sound through. + +“What?” cried Basil, going pale. + +Gerald nodded. Then he went on to his mother’s room. + +She was sitting in her purple gown, sewing, very slowly sewing, putting +in a stitch then another stitch. She looked up at Gerald with her blue +undaunted eyes. + +“Father’s gone,” he said. + +“He’s dead? Who says so?” + +“Oh, you know, mother, if you see him.” + +She put her sewing down, and slowly rose. + +“Are you going to see him?” he asked. + +“Yes,” she said + +By the bedside the children already stood in a weeping group. + +“Oh, mother!” cried the daughters, almost in hysterics, weeping loudly. + +But the mother went forward. The dead man lay in repose, as if gently +asleep, so gently, so peacefully, like a young man sleeping in purity. +He was still warm. She stood looking at him in gloomy, heavy silence, +for some time. + +“Ay,” she said bitterly, at length, speaking as if to the unseen +witnesses of the air. “You’re dead.” She stood for some minutes in +silence, looking down. “Beautiful,” she asserted, “beautiful as if life +had never touched you—never touched you. God send I look different. I +hope I shall look my years, when I am dead. Beautiful, beautiful,” she +crooned over him. “You can see him in his teens, with his first beard +on his face. A beautiful soul, beautiful—” Then there was a tearing in +her voice as she cried: “None of you look like this, when you are dead! +Don’t let it happen again.” It was a strange, wild command from out of +the unknown. Her children moved unconsciously together, in a nearer +group, at the dreadful command in her voice. The colour was flushed +bright in her cheek, she looked awful and wonderful. “Blame me, blame +me if you like, that he lies there like a lad in his teens, with his +first beard on his face. Blame me if you like. But you none of you +know.” She was silent in intense silence. + +Then there came, in a low, tense voice: “If I thought that the children +I bore would lie looking like that in death, I’d strangle them when +they were infants, yes—” + +“No, mother,” came the strange, clarion voice of Gerald from the +background, “we are different, we don’t blame you.” + +She turned and looked full in his eyes. Then she lifted her hands in a +strange half-gesture of mad despair. + +“Pray!” she said strongly. “Pray for yourselves to God, for there’s no +help for you from your parents.” + +“Oh mother!” cried her daughters wildly. + +But she had turned and gone, and they all went quickly away from each +other. + +When Gudrun heard that Mr Crich was dead, she felt rebuked. She had +stayed away lest Gerald should think her too easy of winning. And now, +he was in the midst of trouble, whilst she was cold. + +The following day she went up as usual to Winifred, who was glad to see +her, glad to get away into the studio. The girl had wept, and then, too +frightened, had turned aside to avoid any more tragic eventuality. She +and Gudrun resumed work as usual, in the isolation of the studio, and +this seemed an immeasurable happiness, a pure world of freedom, after +the aimlessness and misery of the house. Gudrun stayed on till evening. +She and Winifred had dinner brought up to the studio, where they ate in +freedom, away from all the people in the house. + +After dinner Gerald came up. The great high studio was full of shadow +and a fragrance of coffee. Gudrun and Winifred had a little table near +the fire at the far end, with a white lamp whose light did not travel +far. They were a tiny world to themselves, the two girls surrounded by +lovely shadows, the beams and rafters shadowy over-head, the benches +and implements shadowy down the studio. + +“You are cosy enough here,” said Gerald, going up to them. + +There was a low brick fireplace, full of fire, an old blue Turkish rug, +the little oak table with the lamp and the white-and-blue cloth and the +dessert, and Gudrun making coffee in an odd brass coffee-maker, and +Winifred scalding a little milk in a tiny saucepan. + +“Have you had coffee?” said Gudrun. + +“I have, but I’ll have some more with you,” he replied. + +“Then you must have it in a glass—there are only two cups,” said +Winifred. + +“It is the same to me,” he said, taking a chair and coming into the +charmed circle of the girls. How happy they were, how cosy and +glamorous it was with them, in a world of lofty shadows! The outside +world, in which he had been transacting funeral business all the day +was completely wiped out. In an instant he snuffed glamour and magic. + +They had all their things very dainty, two odd and lovely little cups, +scarlet and solid gilt, and a little black jug with scarlet discs, and +the curious coffee-machine, whose spirit-flame flowed steadily, almost +invisibly. There was the effect of rather sinister richness, in which +Gerald at once escaped himself. + +They all sat down, and Gudrun carefully poured out the coffee. + +“Will you have milk?” she asked calmly, yet nervously poising the +little black jug with its big red dots. She was always so completely +controlled, yet so bitterly nervous. + +“No, I won’t,” he replied. + +So, with a curious humility, she placed him the little cup of coffee, +and herself took the awkward tumbler. She seemed to want to serve him. + +“Why don’t you give me the glass—it is so clumsy for you,” he said. He +would much rather have had it, and seen her daintily served. But she +was silent, pleased with the disparity, with her self-abasement. + +“You are quite _en ménage_,” he said. + +“Yes. We aren’t really at home to visitors,” said Winifred. + +“You’re not? Then I’m an intruder?” + +For once he felt his conventional dress was out of place, he was an +outsider. + +Gudrun was very quiet. She did not feel drawn to talk to him. At this +stage, silence was best—or mere light words. It was best to leave +serious things aside. So they talked gaily and lightly, till they heard +the man below lead out the horse, and call it to “back-back!” into the +dog-cart that was to take Gudrun home. So she put on her things, and +shook hands with Gerald, without once meeting his eyes. And she was +gone. + +The funeral was detestable. Afterwards, at the tea-table, the daughters +kept saying—“He was a good father to us—the best father in the +world”—or else—“We shan’t easily find another man as good as father +was.” + +Gerald acquiesced in all this. It was the right conventional attitude, +and, as far as the world went, he believed in the conventions. He took +it as a matter of course. But Winifred hated everything, and hid in the +studio, and cried her heart out, and wished Gudrun would come. + +Luckily everybody was going away. The Criches never stayed long at +home. By dinner-time, Gerald was left quite alone. Even Winifred was +carried off to London, for a few days with her sister Laura. + +But when Gerald was really left alone, he could not bear it. One day +passed by, and another. And all the time he was like a man hung in +chains over the edge of an abyss. Struggle as he might, he could not +turn himself to the solid earth, he could not get footing. He was +suspended on the edge of a void, writhing. Whatever he thought of, was +the abyss—whether it were friends or strangers, or work or play, it all +showed him only the same bottomless void, in which his heart swung +perishing. There was no escape, there was nothing to grasp hold of. He +must writhe on the edge of the chasm, suspended in chains of invisible +physical life. + +At first he was quiet, he kept still, expecting the extremity to pass +away, expecting to find himself released into the world of the living, +after this extremity of penance. But it did not pass, and a crisis +gained upon him. + +As the evening of the third day came on, his heart rang with fear. He +could not bear another night. Another night was coming on, for another +night he was to be suspended in chain of physical life, over the +bottomless pit of nothingness. And he could not bear it. He could not +bear it. He was frightened deeply, and coldly, frightened in his soul. +He did not believe in his own strength any more. He could not fall into +this infinite void, and rise again. If he fell, he would be gone for +ever. He must withdraw, he must seek reinforcements. He did not believe +in his own single self, any further than this. + +After dinner, faced with the ultimate experience of his own +nothingness, he turned aside. He pulled on his boots, put on his coat, +and set out to walk in the night. + +It was dark and misty. He went through the wood, stumbling and feeling +his way to the Mill. Birkin was away. Good—he was half glad. He turned +up the hill, and stumbled blindly over the wild slopes, having lost the +path in the complete darkness. It was boring. Where was he going? No +matter. He stumbled on till he came to a path again. Then he went on +through another wood. His mind became dark, he went on automatically. +Without thought or sensation, he stumbled unevenly on, out into the +open again, fumbling for stiles, losing the path, and going along the +hedges of the fields till he came to the outlet. + +And at last he came to the high road. It had distracted him to struggle +blindly through the maze of darkness. But now, he must take a +direction. And he did not even know where he was. But he must take a +direction now. Nothing would be resolved by merely walking, walking +away. He had to take a direction. + +He stood still on the road, that was high in the utterly dark night, +and he did not know where he was. It was a strange sensation, his heart +beating, and ringed round with the utterly unknown darkness. So he +stood for some time. + +Then he heard footsteps, and saw a small, swinging light. He +immediately went towards this. It was a miner. + +“Can you tell me,” he said, “where this road goes?” + +“Road? Ay, it goes ter Whatmore.” + +“Whatmore! Oh thank you, that’s right. I thought I was wrong. +Good-night.” + +“Good-night,” replied the broad voice of the miner. + +Gerald guessed where he was. At least, when he came to Whatmore, he +would know. He was glad to be on a high road. He walked forward as in a +sleep of decision. + +That was Whatmore Village—? Yes, the King’s Head—and there the hall +gates. He descended the steep hill almost running. Winding through the +hollow, he passed the Grammar School, and came to Willey Green Church. +The churchyard! He halted. + +Then in another moment he had clambered up the wall and was going among +the graves. Even in this darkness he could see the heaped pallor of old +white flowers at his feet. This then was the grave. He stooped down. +The flowers were cold and clammy. There was a raw scent of +chrysanthemums and tube-roses, deadened. He felt the clay beneath, and +shrank, it was so horribly cold and sticky. He stood away in revulsion. + +Here was one centre then, here in the complete darkness beside the +unseen, raw grave. But there was nothing for him here. No, he had +nothing to stay here for. He felt as if some of the clay were sticking +cold and unclean, on his heart. No, enough of this. + +Where then?—home? Never! It was no use going there. That was less than +no use. It could not be done. There was somewhere else to go. Where? + +A dangerous resolve formed in his heart, like a fixed idea. There was +Gudrun—she would be safe in her home. But he could get at her—he would +get at her. He would not go back tonight till he had come to her, if it +cost him his life. He staked his all on this throw. + +He set off walking straight across the fields towards Beldover. It was +so dark, nobody could ever see him. His feet were wet and cold, heavy +with clay. But he went on persistently, like a wind, straight forward, +as if to his fate. There were great gaps in his consciousness. He was +conscious that he was at Winthorpe hamlet, but quite unconscious how he +had got there. And then, as in a dream, he was in the long street of +Beldover, with its street-lamps. + +There was a noise of voices, and of a door shutting loudly, and being +barred, and of men talking in the night. The “Lord Nelson” had just +closed, and the drinkers were going home. He had better ask one of +these where she lived—for he did not know the side streets at all. + +“Can you tell me where Somerset Drive is?” he asked of one of the +uneven men. + +“Where what?” replied the tipsy miner’s voice. + +“Somerset Drive.” + +“Somerset Drive!—I’ve heard o’ such a place, but I couldn’t for my life +say where it is. Who might you be wanting?” + +“Mr Brangwen—William Brangwen.” + +“William Brangwen—?—?” + +“Who teaches at the Grammar School, at Willey Green—his daughter +teaches there too.” + +“O-o-o-oh, Brangwen! _Now_ I’ve got you. Of _course_, William Brangwen! +Yes, yes, he’s got two lasses as teachers, aside hisself. Ay, that’s +him—that’s him! Why certainly I know where he lives, back your life I +do! Yi—_what_ place do they ca’ it?” + +“Somerset Drive,” repeated Gerald patiently. He knew his own colliers +fairly well. + +“Somerset Drive, for certain!” said the collier, swinging his arm as if +catching something up. “Somerset Drive—yi! I couldn’t for my life lay +hold o’ the lercality o’ the place. Yis, I know the place, to be sure I +do—” + +He turned unsteadily on his feet, and pointed up the dark, +nigh-deserted road. + +“You go up theer—an’ you ta’e th’ first—yi, th’ first turnin’ on your +left—o’ that side—past Withamses tuffy shop—” + +“_I_ know,” said Gerald. + +“Ay! You go down a bit, past wheer th’ water-man lives—and then +Somerset Drive, as they ca’ it, branches off on ’t right hand side—an’ +there’s nowt but three houses in it, no more than three, I believe,—an’ +I’m a’most certain as theirs is th’ last—th’ last o’ th’ three—you +see—” + +“Thank you very much,” said Gerald. “Good-night.” + +And he started off, leaving the tipsy man there standing rooted. + +Gerald went past the dark shops and houses, most of them sleeping now, +and twisted round to the little blind road that ended on a field of +darkness. He slowed down, as he neared his goal, not knowing how he +should proceed. What if the house were closed in darkness? + +But it was not. He saw a big lighted window, and heard voices, then a +gate banged. His quick ears caught the sound of Birkin’s voice, his +keen eyes made out Birkin, with Ursula standing in a pale dress on the +step of the garden path. Then Ursula stepped down, and came along the +road, holding Birkin’s arm. + +Gerald went across into the darkness and they dawdled past him, talking +happily, Birkin’s voice low, Ursula’s high and distinct. Gerald went +quickly to the house. + +The blinds were drawn before the big, lighted window of the +dining-room. Looking up the path at the side he could see the door left +open, shedding a soft, coloured light from the hall lamp. He went +quickly and silently up the path, and looked up into the hall. There +were pictures on the walls, and the antlers of a stag—and the stairs +going up on one side—and just near the foot of the stairs the half +opened door of the dining-room. + +With heart drawn fine, Gerald stepped into the hall, whose floor was of +coloured tiles, went quickly and looked into the large, pleasant room. +In a chair by the fire, the father sat asleep, his head tilted back +against the side of the big oak chimney piece, his ruddy face seen +foreshortened, the nostrils open, the mouth fallen a little. It would +take the merest sound to wake him. + +Gerald stood a second suspended. He glanced down the passage behind +him. It was all dark. Again he was suspended. Then he went swiftly +upstairs. His senses were so finely, almost supernaturally keen, that +he seemed to cast his own will over the half-unconscious house. + +He came to the first landing. There he stood, scarcely breathing. +Again, corresponding to the door below, there was a door again. That +would be the mother’s room. He could hear her moving about in the +candlelight. She would be expecting her husband to come up. He looked +along the dark landing. + +Then, silently, on infinitely careful feet, he went along the passage, +feeling the wall with the extreme tips of his fingers. There was a +door. He stood and listened. He could hear two people’s breathing. It +was not that. He went stealthily forward. There was another door, +slightly open. The room was in darkness. Empty. Then there was the +bathroom, he could smell the soap and the heat. Then at the end another +bedroom—one soft breathing. This was she. + +With an almost occult carefulness he turned the door handle, and opened +the door an inch. It creaked slightly. Then he opened it another +inch—then another. His heart did not beat, he seemed to create a +silence about himself, an obliviousness. + +He was in the room. Still the sleeper breathed softly. It was very +dark. He felt his way forward inch by inch, with his feet and hands. He +touched the bed, he could hear the sleeper. He drew nearer, bending +close as if his eyes would disclose whatever there was. And then, very +near to his face, to his fear, he saw the round, dark head of a boy. + +He recovered, turned round, saw the door ajar, a faint light revealed. +And he retreated swiftly, drew the door to without fastening it, and +passed rapidly down the passage. At the head of the stairs he +hesitated. There was still time to flee. + +But it was unthinkable. He would maintain his will. He turned past the +door of the parental bedroom like a shadow, and was climbing the second +flight of stairs. They creaked under his weight—it was exasperating. Ah +what disaster, if the mother’s door opened just beneath him, and she +saw him! It would have to be, if it were so. He held the control still. + +He was not quite up these stairs when he heard a quick running of feet +below, the outer door was closed and locked, he heard Ursula’s voice, +then the father’s sleepy exclamation. He pressed on swiftly to the +upper landing. + +Again a door was ajar, a room was empty. Feeling his way forward, with +the tips of his fingers, travelling rapidly, like a blind man, anxious +lest Ursula should come upstairs, he found another door. There, with +his preternaturally fine sense alert, he listened. He heard someone +moving in bed. This would be she. + +Softly now, like one who has only one sense, the tactile sense, he +turned the latch. It clicked. He held still. The bed-clothes rustled. +His heart did not beat. Then again he drew the latch back, and very +gently pushed the door. It made a sticking noise as it gave. + +“Ursula?” said Gudrun’s voice, frightened. He quickly opened the door +and pushed it behind him. + +“Is it you, Ursula?” came Gudrun’s frightened voice. He heard her +sitting up in bed. In another moment she would scream. + +“No, it’s me,” he said, feeling his way towards her. “It is I, Gerald.” + +She sat motionless in her bed in sheer astonishment. She was too +astonished, too much taken by surprise, even to be afraid. + +“Gerald!” she echoed, in blank amazement. He had found his way to the +bed, and his outstretched hand touched her warm breast blindly. She +shrank away. + +“Let me make a light,” she said, springing out. + +He stood perfectly motionless. He heard her touch the match-box, he +heard her fingers in their movement. Then he saw her in the light of a +match, which she held to the candle. The light rose in the room, then +sank to a small dimness, as the flame sank down on the candle, before +it mounted again. + +She looked at him, as he stood near the other side of the bed. His cap +was pulled low over his brow, his black overcoat was buttoned close up +to his chin. His face was strange and luminous. He was inevitable as a +supernatural being. When she had seen him, she knew. She knew there was +something fatal in the situation, and she must accept it. Yet she must +challenge him. + +“How did you come up?” she asked. + +“I walked up the stairs—the door was open.” + +She looked at him. + +“I haven’t closed this door, either,” he said. She walked swiftly +across the room, and closed her door, softly, and locked it. Then she +came back. + +She was wonderful, with startled eyes and flushed cheeks, and her plait +of hair rather short and thick down her back, and her long, fine white +night-dress falling to her feet. + +She saw that his boots were all clayey, even his trousers were +plastered with clay. And she wondered if he had made footprints all the +way up. He was a very strange figure, standing in her bedroom, near the +tossed bed. + +“Why have you come?” she asked, almost querulous. + +“I wanted to,” he replied. + +And this she could see from his face. It was fate. + +“You are so muddy,” she said, in distaste, but gently. + +He looked down at his feet. + +“I was walking in the dark,” he replied. But he felt vividly elated. +There was a pause. He stood on one side of the tumbled bed, she on the +other. He did not even take his cap from his brows. + +“And what do you want of me,” she challenged. + +He looked aside, and did not answer. Save for the extreme beauty and +mystic attractiveness of this distinct, strange face, she would have +sent him away. But his face was too wonderful and undiscovered to her. +It fascinated her with the fascination of pure beauty, cast a spell on +her, like nostalgia, an ache. + +“What do you want of me?” she repeated in an estranged voice. + +He pulled off his cap, in a movement of dream-liberation, and went +across to her. But he could not touch her, because she stood barefoot +in her night-dress, and he was muddy and damp. Her eyes, wide and large +and wondering, watched him, and asked him the ultimate question. + +“I came—because I must,” he said. “Why do you ask?” + +She looked at him in doubt and wonder. + +“I must ask,” she said. + +He shook his head slightly. + +“There is no answer,” he replied, with strange vacancy. + +There was about him a curious, and almost godlike air of simplicity and +native directness. He reminded her of an apparition, the young Hermes. + +“But why did you come to me?” she persisted. + +“Because—it has to be so. If there weren’t you in the world, then _I_ +shouldn’t be in the world, either.” + +She stood looking at him, with large, wide, wondering, stricken eyes. +His eyes were looking steadily into hers all the time, and he seemed +fixed in an odd supernatural steadfastness. She sighed. She was lost +now. She had no choice. + +“Won’t you take off your boots,” she said. “They must be wet.” + +He dropped his cap on a chair, unbuttoned his overcoat, lifting up his +chin to unfasten the throat buttons. His short, keen hair was ruffled. +He was so beautifully blond, like wheat. He pulled off his overcoat. + +Quickly he pulled off his jacket, pulled loose his black tie, and was +unfastening his studs, which were headed each with a pearl. She +listened, watching, hoping no one would hear the starched linen +crackle. It seemed to snap like pistol shots. + +He had come for vindication. She let him hold her in his arms, clasp +her close against him. He found in her an infinite relief. Into her he +poured all his pent-up darkness and corrosive death, and he was whole +again. It was wonderful, marvellous, it was a miracle. This was the +ever-recurrent miracle of his life, at the knowledge of which he was +lost in an ecstasy of relief and wonder. And she, subject, received him +as a vessel filled with his bitter potion of death. She had no power at +this crisis to resist. The terrible frictional violence of death filled +her, and she received it in an ecstasy of subjection, in throes of +acute, violent sensation. + +As he drew nearer to her, he plunged deeper into her enveloping soft +warmth, a wonderful creative heat that penetrated his veins and gave +him life again. He felt himself dissolving and sinking to rest in the +bath of her living strength. It seemed as if her heart in her breast +were a second unconquerable sun, into the glow and creative strength of +which he plunged further and further. All his veins, that were murdered +and lacerated, healed softly as life came pulsing in, stealing +invisibly in to him as if it were the all-powerful effluence of the +sun. His blood, which seemed to have been drawn back into death, came +ebbing on the return, surely, beautifully, powerfully. + +He felt his limbs growing fuller and flexible with life, his body +gained an unknown strength. He was a man again, strong and rounded. And +he was a child, so soothed and restored and full of gratitude. + +And she, she was the great bath of life, he worshipped her. Mother and +substance of all life she was. And he, child and man, received of her +and was made whole. His pure body was almost killed. But the +miraculous, soft effluence of her breast suffused over him, over his +seared, damaged brain, like a healing lymph, like a soft, soothing flow +of life itself, perfect as if he were bathed in the womb again. + +His brain was hurt, seared, the tissue was as if destroyed. He had not +known how hurt he was, how his tissue, the very tissue of his brain was +damaged by the corrosive flood of death. Now, as the healing lymph of +her effluence flowed through him, he knew how destroyed he was, like a +plant whose tissue is burst from inwards by a frost. + +He buried his small, hard head between her breasts, and pressed her +breasts against him with his hands. And she with quivering hands +pressed his head against her, as he lay suffused out, and she lay fully +conscious. The lovely creative warmth flooded through him like a sleep +of fecundity within the womb. Ah, if only she would grant him the flow +of this living effluence, he would be restored, he would be complete +again. He was afraid she would deny him before it was finished. Like a +child at the breast, he cleaved intensely to her, and she could not put +him away. And his seared, ruined membrane relaxed, softened, that which +was seared and stiff and blasted yielded again, became soft and +flexible, palpitating with new life. He was infinitely grateful, as to +God, or as an infant is at its mother’s breast. He was glad and +grateful like a delirium, as he felt his own wholeness come over him +again, as he felt the full, unutterable sleep coming over him, the +sleep of complete exhaustion and restoration. + +But Gudrun lay wide awake, destroyed into perfect consciousness. She +lay motionless, with wide eyes staring motionless into the darkness, +whilst he was sunk away in sleep, his arms round her. + +She seemed to be hearing waves break on a hidden shore, long, slow, +gloomy waves, breaking with the rhythm of fate, so monotonously that it +seemed eternal. This endless breaking of slow, sullen waves of fate +held her life a possession, whilst she lay with dark, wide eyes looking +into the darkness. She could see so far, as far as eternity—yet she saw +nothing. She was suspended in perfect consciousness—and of what was she +conscious? + +This mood of extremity, when she lay staring into eternity, utterly +suspended, and conscious of everything, to the last limits, passed and +left her uneasy. She had lain so long motionless. She moved, she became +self-conscious. She wanted to look at him, to see him. + +But she dared not make a light, because she knew he would wake, and she +did not want to break his perfect sleep, that she knew he had got of +her. + +She disengaged herself, softly, and rose up a little to look at him. +There was a faint light, it seemed to her, in the room. She could just +distinguish his features, as he slept the perfect sleep. In this +darkness, she seemed to see him so distinctly. But he was far off, in +another world. Ah, she could shriek with torment, he was so far off, +and perfected, in another world. She seemed to look at him as at a +pebble far away under clear dark water. And here was she, left with all +the anguish of consciousness, whilst he was sunk deep into the other +element of mindless, remote, living shadow-gleam. He was beautiful, +far-off, and perfected. They would never be together. Ah, this awful, +inhuman distance which would always be interposed between her and the +other being! + +There was nothing to do but to lie still and endure. She felt an +overwhelming tenderness for him, and a dark, under-stirring of jealous +hatred, that he should lie so perfect and immune, in an other-world, +whilst she was tormented with violent wakefulness, cast out in the +outer darkness. + +She lay in intense and vivid consciousness, an exhausting +superconsciousness. The church clock struck the hours, it seemed to +her, in quick succession. She heard them distinctly in the tension of +her vivid consciousness. And he slept as if time were one moment, +unchanging and unmoving. + +She was exhausted, wearied. Yet she must continue in this state of +violent active superconsciousness. She was conscious of everything—her +childhood, her girlhood, all the forgotten incidents, all the +unrealised influences and all the happenings she had not understood, +pertaining to herself, to her family, to her friends, her lovers, her +acquaintances, everybody. It was as if she drew a glittering rope of +knowledge out of the sea of darkness, drew and drew and drew it out of +the fathomless depths of the past, and still it did not come to an end, +there was no end to it, she must haul and haul at the rope of +glittering consciousness, pull it out phosphorescent from the endless +depths of the unconsciousness, till she was weary, aching, exhausted, +and fit to break, and yet she had not done. + +Ah, if only she might wake him! She turned uneasily. When could she +rouse him and send him away? When could she disturb him? And she +relapsed into her activity of automatic consciousness, that would never +end. + +But the time was drawing near when she could wake him. It was like a +release. The clock had struck four, outside in the night. Thank God the +night had passed almost away. At five he must go, and she would be +released. Then she could relax and fill her own place. Now she was +driven up against his perfect sleeping motion like a knife white-hot on +a grindstone. There was something monstrous about him, about his +juxtaposition against her. + +The last hour was the longest. And yet, at last it passed. Her heart +leapt with relief—yes, there was the slow, strong stroke of the church +clock—at last, after this night of eternity. She waited to catch each +slow, fatal reverberation. “Three—four—five!” There, it was finished. A +weight rolled off her. + +She raised herself, leaned over him tenderly, and kissed him. She was +sad to wake him. After a few moments, she kissed him again. But he did +not stir. The darling, he was so deep in sleep! What a shame to take +him out of it. She let him lie a little longer. But he must go—he must +really go. + +With full over-tenderness she took his face between her hands, and +kissed his eyes. The eyes opened, he remained motionless, looking at +her. Her heart stood still. To hide her face from his dreadful opened +eyes, in the darkness, she bent down and kissed him, whispering: + +“You must go, my love.” + +But she was sick with terror, sick. + +He put his arms round her. Her heart sank. + +“But you must go, my love. It’s late.” + +“What time is it?” he said. + +Strange, his man’s voice. She quivered. It was an intolerable +oppression to her. + +“Past five o’clock,” she said. + +But he only closed his arms round her again. Her heart cried within her +in torture. She disengaged herself firmly. + +“You really must go,” she said. + +“Not for a minute,” he said. + +She lay still, nestling against him, but unyielding. + +“Not for a minute,” he repeated, clasping her closer. + +“Yes,” she said, unyielding, “I’m afraid if you stay any longer.” + +There was a certain coldness in her voice that made him release her, +and she broke away, rose and lit the candle. That then was the end. + +He got up. He was warm and full of life and desire. Yet he felt a +little bit ashamed, humiliated, putting on his clothes before her, in +the candle-light. For he felt revealed, exposed to her, at a time when +she was in some way against him. It was all very difficult to +understand. He dressed himself quickly, without collar or tie. Still he +felt full and complete, perfected. She thought it humiliating to see a +man dressing: the ridiculous shirt, the ridiculous trousers and braces. +But again an idea saved her. + +“It is like a workman getting up to go to work,” thought Gudrun. “And I +am like a workman’s wife.” But an ache like nausea was upon her: a +nausea of him. + +He pushed his collar and tie into his overcoat pocket. Then he sat down +and pulled on his boots. They were sodden, as were his socks and +trouser-bottoms. But he himself was quick and warm. + +“Perhaps you ought to have put your boots on downstairs,” she said. + +At once, without answering, he pulled them off again, and stood holding +them in his hand. She had thrust her feet into slippers, and flung a +loose robe round her. She was ready. She looked at him as he stood +waiting, his black coat buttoned to the chin, his cap pulled down, his +boots in his hand. And the passionate almost hateful fascination +revived in her for a moment. It was not exhausted. His face was so +warm-looking, wide-eyed and full of newness, so perfect. She felt old, +old. She went to him heavily, to be kissed. He kissed her quickly. She +wished his warm, expressionless beauty did not so fatally put a spell +on her, compel her and subjugate her. It was a burden upon her, that +she resented, but could not escape. Yet when she looked at his straight +man’s brows, and at his rather small, well-shaped nose, and at his +blue, indifferent eyes, she knew her passion for him was not yet +satisfied, perhaps never could be satisfied. Only now she was weary, +with an ache like nausea. She wanted him gone. + +They went downstairs quickly. It seemed they made a prodigious noise. +He followed her as, wrapped in her vivid green wrap, she preceded him +with the light. She suffered badly with fear, lest her people should be +roused. He hardly cared. He did not care now who knew. And she hated +this in him. One _must_ be cautious. One must preserve oneself. + +She led the way to the kitchen. It was neat and tidy, as the woman had +left it. He looked up at the clock—twenty minutes past five Then he sat +down on a chair to put on his boots. She waited, watching his every +movement. She wanted it to be over, it was a great nervous strain on +her. + +He stood up—she unbolted the back door, and looked out. A cold, raw +night, not yet dawn, with a piece of a moon in the vague sky. She was +glad she need not go out. + +“Good-bye then,” he murmured. + +“I’ll come to the gate,” she said. + +And again she hurried on in front, to warn him of the steps. And at the +gate, once more she stood on the step whilst he stood below her. + +“Good-bye,” she whispered. + +He kissed her dutifully, and turned away. + +She suffered torments hearing his firm tread going so distinctly down +the road. Ah, the insensitiveness of that firm tread! + +She closed the gate, and crept quickly and noiselessly back to bed. +When she was in her room, and the door closed, and all safe, she +breathed freely, and a great weight fell off her. She nestled down in +bed, in the groove his body had made, in the warmth he had left. And +excited, worn-out, yet still satisfied, she fell soon into a deep, +heavy sleep. + +Gerald walked quickly through the raw darkness of the coming dawn. He +met nobody. His mind was beautifully still and thoughtless, like a +still pool, and his body full and warm and rich. He went quickly along +towards Shortlands, in a grateful self-sufficiency. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV. +MARRIAGE OR NOT + + +The Brangwen family was going to move from Beldover. It was necessary +now for the father to be in town. + +Birkin had taken out a marriage licence, yet Ursula deferred from day +to day. She would not fix any definite time—she still wavered. Her +month’s notice to leave the Grammar School was in its third week. +Christmas was not far off. + +Gerald waited for the Ursula-Birkin marriage. It was something crucial +to him. + +“Shall we make it a double-barrelled affair?” he said to Birkin one +day. + +“Who for the second shot?” asked Birkin. + +“Gudrun and me,” said Gerald, the venturesome twinkle in his eyes. + +Birkin looked at him steadily, as if somewhat taken aback. + +“Serious—or joking?” he asked. + +“Oh, serious. Shall I? Shall Gudrun and I rush in along with you?” + +“Do by all means,” said Birkin. “I didn’t know you’d got that length.” + +“What length?” said Gerald, looking at the other man, and laughing. + +“Oh yes, we’ve gone all the lengths.” + +“There remains to put it on a broad social basis, and to achieve a high +moral purpose,” said Birkin. + +“Something like that: the length and breadth and height of it,” replied +Gerald, smiling. + +“Oh well,” said Birkin, “it’s a very admirable step to take, I should +say.” + +Gerald looked at him closely. + +“Why aren’t you enthusiastic?” he asked. “I thought you were such dead +nuts on marriage.” + +Birkin lifted his shoulders. + +“One might as well be dead nuts on noses. There are all sorts of noses, +snub and otherwise—” + +Gerald laughed. + +“And all sorts of marriage, also snub and otherwise?” he said. + +“That’s it.” + +“And you think if I marry, it will be snub?” asked Gerald quizzically, +his head a little on one side. + +Birkin laughed quickly. + +“How do I know what it will be!” he said. “Don’t lambaste me with my +own parallels—” + +Gerald pondered a while. + +“But I should like to know your opinion, exactly,” he said. + +“On your marriage?—or marrying? Why should you want my opinion? I’ve +got no opinions. I’m not interested in legal marriage, one way or +another. It’s a mere question of convenience.” + +Still Gerald watched him closely. + +“More than that, I think,” he said seriously. “However you may be bored +by the ethics of marriage, yet really to marry, in one’s own personal +case, is something critical, final—” + +“You mean there is something final in going to the registrar with a +woman?” + +“If you’re coming back with her, I do,” said Gerald. “It is in some way +irrevocable.” + +“Yes, I agree,” said Birkin. + +“No matter how one regards legal marriage, yet to enter into the +married state, in one’s own personal instance, is final—” + +“I believe it is,” said Birkin, “somewhere.” + +“The question remains then, should one do it,” said Gerald. + +Birkin watched him narrowly, with amused eyes. + +“You are like Lord Bacon, Gerald,” he said. “You argue it like a +lawyer—or like Hamlet’s to-be-or-not-to-be. If I were you I would _not_ +marry: but ask Gudrun, not me. You’re not marrying me, are you?” + +Gerald did not heed the latter part of this speech. + +“Yes,” he said, “one must consider it coldly. It is something critical. +One comes to the point where one must take a step in one direction or +another. And marriage is one direction—” + +“And what is the other?” asked Birkin quickly. + +Gerald looked up at him with hot, strangely-conscious eyes, that the +other man could not understand. + +“I can’t say,” he replied. “If I knew _that_—” He moved uneasily on his +feet, and did not finish. + +“You mean if you knew the alternative?” asked Birkin. “And since you +don’t know it, marriage is a _pis aller._” + +Gerald looked up at Birkin with the same hot, constrained eyes. + +“One does have the feeling that marriage is a _pis aller_,” he +admitted. + +“Then don’t do it,” said Birkin. “I tell you,” he went on, “the same as +I’ve said before, marriage in the old sense seems to me repulsive. +_Égoïsme à deux_ is nothing to it. It’s a sort of tacit hunting in +couples: the world all in couples, each couple in its own little house, +watching its own little interests, and stewing in its own little +privacy—it’s the most repulsive thing on earth.” + +“I quite agree,” said Gerald. “There’s something inferior about it. But +as I say, what’s the alternative.” + +“One should avoid this _home_ instinct. It’s not an instinct, it’s a +habit of cowardliness. One should never have a _home_.” + +“I agree really,” said Gerald. “But there’s no alternative.” + +“We’ve got to find one. I do believe in a permanent union between a man +and a woman. Chopping about is merely an exhaustive process. But a +permanent relation between a man and a woman isn’t the last word—it +certainly isn’t.” + +“Quite,” said Gerald. + +“In fact,” said Birkin, “because the relation between man and woman is +made the supreme and exclusive relationship, that’s where all the +tightness and meanness and insufficiency comes in.” + +“Yes, I believe you,” said Gerald. + +“You’ve got to take down the love-and-marriage ideal from its pedestal. +We want something broader. I believe in the _additional_ perfect +relationship between man and man—additional to marriage.” + +“I can never see how they can be the same,” said Gerald. + +“Not the same—but equally important, equally creative, equally sacred, +if you like.” + +“I know,” said Gerald, “you believe something like that. Only I can’t +_feel_ it, you see.” He put his hand on Birkin’s arm, with a sort of +deprecating affection. And he smiled as if triumphantly. + +He was ready to be doomed. Marriage was like a doom to him. He was +willing to condemn himself in marriage, to become like a convict +condemned to the mines of the underworld, living no life in the sun, +but having a dreadful subterranean activity. He was willing to accept +this. And marriage was the seal of his condemnation. He was willing to +be sealed thus in the underworld, like a soul damned but living forever +in damnation. But he would not make any pure relationship with any +other soul. He could not. Marriage was not the committing of himself +into a relationship with Gudrun. It was a committing of himself in +acceptance of the established world, he would accept the established +order, in which he did not livingly believe, and then he would retreat +to the underworld for his life. This he would do. + +The other way was to accept Rupert’s offer of alliance, to enter into +the bond of pure trust and love with the other man, and then +subsequently with the woman. If he pledged himself with the man he +would later be able to pledge himself with the woman: not merely in +legal marriage, but in absolute, mystic marriage. + +Yet he could not accept the offer. There was a numbness upon him, a +numbness either of unborn, absent volition, or of atrophy. Perhaps it +was the absence of volition. For he was strangely elated at Rupert’s +offer. Yet he was still more glad to reject it, not to be committed. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI. +A CHAIR + + +There was a jumble market every Monday afternoon in the old +market-place in town. Ursula and Birkin strayed down there one +afternoon. They had been talking of furniture, and they wanted to see +if there was any fragment they would like to buy, amid the heaps of +rubbish collected on the cobble-stones. + +The old market-square was not very large, a mere bare patch of granite +setts, usually with a few fruit-stalls under a wall. It was in a poor +quarter of the town. Meagre houses stood down one side, there was a +hosiery factory, a great blank with myriad oblong windows, at the end, +a street of little shops with flagstone pavement down the other side, +and, for a crowning monument, the public baths, of new red brick, with +a clock-tower. The people who moved about seemed stumpy and sordid, the +air seemed to smell rather dirty, there was a sense of many mean +streets ramifying off into warrens of meanness. Now and again a great +chocolate-and-yellow tramcar ground round a difficult bend under the +hosiery factory. + +Ursula was superficially thrilled when she found herself out among the +common people, in the jumbled place piled with old bedding, heaps of +old iron, shabby crockery in pale lots, muffled lots of unthinkable +clothing. She and Birkin went unwillingly down the narrow aisle between +the rusty wares. He was looking at the goods, she at the people. + +She excitedly watched a young woman, who was going to have a baby, and +who was turning over a mattress and making a young man, down-at-heel +and dejected, feel it also. So secretive and active and anxious the +young woman seemed, so reluctant, slinking, the young man. He was going +to marry her because she was having a child. + +When they had felt the mattress, the young woman asked the old man +seated on a stool among his wares, how much it was. He told her, and +she turned to the young man. The latter was ashamed, and selfconscious. +He turned his face away, though he left his body standing there, and +muttered aside. And again the woman anxiously and actively fingered the +mattress and added up in her mind and bargained with the old, unclean +man. All the while, the young man stood by, shamefaced and +down-at-heel, submitting. + +“Look,” said Birkin, “there is a pretty chair.” + +“Charming!” cried Ursula. “Oh, charming.” + +It was an arm-chair of simple wood, probably birch, but of such fine +delicacy of grace, standing there on the sordid stones, it almost +brought tears to the eyes. It was square in shape, of the purest, +slender lines, and four short lines of wood in the back, that reminded +Ursula of harpstrings. + +“It was once,” said Birkin, “gilded—and it had a cane seat. Somebody +has nailed this wooden seat in. Look, here is a trifle of the red that +underlay the gilt. The rest is all black, except where the wood is worn +pure and glossy. It is the fine unity of the lines that is so +attractive. Look, how they run and meet and counteract. But of course +the wooden seat is wrong—it destroys the perfect lightness and unity in +tension the cane gave. I like it though—” + +“Ah yes,” said Ursula, “so do I.” + +“How much is it?” Birkin asked the man. + +“Ten shillings.” + +“And you will send it—?” + +It was bought. + +“So beautiful, so pure!” Birkin said. “It almost breaks my heart.” They +walked along between the heaps of rubbish. “My beloved country—it had +something to express even when it made that chair.” + +“And hasn’t it now?” asked Ursula. She was always angry when he took +this tone. + +“No, it hasn’t. When I see that clear, beautiful chair, and I think of +England, even Jane Austen’s England—it had living thoughts to unfold +even then, and pure happiness in unfolding them. And now, we can only +fish among the rubbish heaps for the remnants of their old expression. +There is no production in us now, only sordid and foul mechanicalness.” + +“It isn’t true,” cried Ursula. “Why must you always praise the past, at +the expense of the present? _Really_, I don’t think so much of Jane +Austen’s England. It was materialistic enough, if you like—” + +“It could afford to be materialistic,” said Birkin, “because it had the +power to be something other—which we haven’t. We are materialistic +because we haven’t the power to be anything else—try as we may, we +can’t bring off anything but materialism: mechanism, the very soul of +materialism.” + +Ursula was subdued into angry silence. She did not heed what he said. +She was rebelling against something else. + +“And I hate your past. I’m sick of it,” she cried. “I believe I even +hate that old chair, though it _is_ beautiful. It isn’t _my_ sort of +beauty. I wish it had been smashed up when its day was over, not left +to preach the beloved past to us. I’m sick of the beloved past.” + +“Not so sick as I am of the accursed present,” he said. + +“Yes, just the same. I hate the present—but I don’t want the past to +take its place—I don’t want that old chair.” + +He was rather angry for a moment. Then he looked at the sky shining +beyond the tower of the public baths, and he seemed to get over it all. +He laughed. + +“All right,” he said, “then let us not have it. I’m sick of it all, +too. At any rate one can’t go on living on the old bones of beauty.” + +“One can’t,” she cried. “I _don’t_ want old things.” + +“The truth is, we don’t want things at all,” he replied. “The thought +of a house and furniture of my own is hateful to me.” + +This startled her for a moment. Then she replied: + +“So it is to me. But one must live somewhere.” + +“Not somewhere—anywhere,” he said. “One should just live anywhere—not +have a definite place. I don’t want a definite place. As soon as you +get a room, and it is _complete_, you want to run from it. Now my rooms +at the Mill are quite complete, I want them at the bottom of the sea. +It is a horrible tyranny of a fixed milieu, where each piece of +furniture is a commandment-stone.” + +She clung to his arm as they walked away from the market. + +“But what are we going to do?” she said. “We must live somehow. And I +do want some beauty in my surroundings. I want a sort of natural +_grandeur_ even, _splendour_.” + +“You’ll never get it in houses and furniture—or even clothes. Houses +and furniture and clothes, they are all terms of an old base world, a +detestable society of man. And if you have a Tudor house and old, +beautiful furniture, it is only the past perpetuated on top of you, +horrible. And if you have a perfect modern house done for you by +Poiret, it is something else perpetuated on top of you. It is all +horrible. It is all possessions, possessions, bullying you and turning +you into a generalisation. You have to be like Rodin, Michelangelo, and +leave a piece of raw rock unfinished to your figure. You must leave +your surroundings sketchy, unfinished, so that you are never contained, +never confined, never dominated from the outside.” + +She stood in the street contemplating. + +“And we are never to have a complete place of our own—never a home?” +she said. + +“Pray God, in this world, no,” he answered. + +“But there’s only this world,” she objected. + +He spread out his hands with a gesture of indifference. + +“Meanwhile, then, we’ll avoid having things of our own,” he said. + +“But you’ve just bought a chair,” she said. + +“I can tell the man I don’t want it,” he replied. + +She pondered again. Then a queer little movement twitched her face. + +“No,” she said, “we don’t want it. I’m sick of old things.” + +“New ones as well,” he said. + +They retraced their steps. + +There—in front of some furniture, stood the young couple, the woman who +was going to have a baby, and the narrow-faced youth. She was fair, +rather short, stout. He was of medium height, attractively built. His +dark hair fell sideways over his brow, from under his cap, he stood +strangely aloof, like one of the damned. + +“Let us give it to _them_,” whispered Ursula. “Look they are getting a +home together.” + +“_I_ won’t aid abet them in it,” he said petulantly, instantly +sympathising with the aloof, furtive youth, against the active, +procreant female. + +“Oh yes,” cried Ursula. “It’s right for them—there’s nothing else for +them.” + +“Very well,” said Birkin, “you offer it to them. I’ll watch.” + +Ursula went rather nervously to the young couple, who were discussing +an iron washstand—or rather, the man was glancing furtively and +wonderingly, like a prisoner, at the abominable article, whilst the +woman was arguing. + +“We bought a chair,” said Ursula, “and we don’t want it. Would you have +it? We should be glad if you would.” + +The young couple looked round at her, not believing that she could be +addressing them. + +“Would you care for it?” repeated Ursula. “It’s really _very_ +pretty—but—but—” she smiled rather dazzlingly. + +The young couple only stared at her, and looked significantly at each +other, to know what to do. And the man curiously obliterated himself, +as if he could make himself invisible, as a rat can. + +“We wanted to _give_ it to you,” explained Ursula, now overcome with +confusion and dread of them. She was attracted by the young man. He was +a still, mindless creature, hardly a man at all, a creature that the +towns have produced, strangely pure-bred and fine in one sense, +furtive, quick, subtle. His lashes were dark and long and fine over his +eyes, that had no mind in them, only a dreadful kind of subject, inward +consciousness, glazed and dark. His dark brows and all his lines, were +finely drawn. He would be a dreadful, but wonderful lover to a woman, +so marvellously contributed. His legs would be marvellously subtle and +alive, under the shapeless, trousers, he had some of the fineness and +stillness and silkiness of a dark-eyed, silent rat. + +Ursula had apprehended him with a fine _frisson_ of attraction. The +full-built woman was staring offensively. Again Ursula forgot him. + +“Won’t you have the chair?” she said. + +The man looked at her with a sideways look of appreciation, yet +far-off, almost insolent. The woman drew herself up. There was a +certain costermonger richness about her. She did not know what Ursula +was after, she was on her guard, hostile. Birkin approached, smiling +wickedly at seeing Ursula so nonplussed and frightened. + +“What’s the matter?” he said, smiling. His eyelids had dropped +slightly, there was about him the same suggestive, mocking secrecy that +was in the bearing of the two city creatures. The man jerked his head a +little on one side, indicating Ursula, and said, with curious amiable, +jeering warmth: + +“What she warnt?—eh?” An odd smile writhed his lips. + +Birkin looked at him from under his slack, ironical eyelids. + +“To give you a chair—that—with the label on it,” he said, pointing. + +The man looked at the object indicated. There was a curious hostility +in male, outlawed understanding between the two men. + +“What’s she warnt to give it _us_ for, guvnor,” he replied, in a tone +of free intimacy that insulted Ursula. + +“Thought you’d like it—it’s a pretty chair. We bought it and don’t want +it. No need for you to have it, don’t be frightened,” said Birkin, with +a wry smile. + +The man glanced up at him, half inimical, half recognising. + +“Why don’t you want it for yourselves, if you’ve just bought it?” asked +the woman coolly. “’Taint good enough for you, now you’ve had a look at +it. Frightened it’s got something in it, eh?” + +She was looking at Ursula, admiringly, but with some resentment. + +“I’d never thought of that,” said Birkin. “But no, the wood’s too thin +everywhere.” + +“You see,” said Ursula, her face luminous and pleased. “_We_ are just +going to get married, and we thought we’d buy things. Then we decided, +just now, that we wouldn’t have furniture, we’d go abroad.” + +The full-built, slightly blowsy city girl looked at the fine face of +the other woman, with appreciation. They appreciated each other. The +youth stood aside, his face expressionless and timeless, the thin line +of the black moustache drawn strangely suggestive over his rather wide, +closed mouth. He was impassive, abstract, like some dark suggestive +presence, a gutter-presence. + +“It’s all right to be some folks,” said the city girl, turning to her +own young man. He did not look at her, but he smiled with the lower +part of his face, putting his head aside in an odd gesture of assent. +His eyes were unchanging, glazed with darkness. + +“Cawsts something to chynge your mind,” he said, in an incredibly low +accent. + +“Only ten shillings this time,” said Birkin. + +The man looked up at him with a grimace of a smile, furtive, unsure. + +“Cheap at ’arf a quid, guvnor,” he said. “Not like getting divawced.” + +“We’re not married yet,” said Birkin. + +“No, no more aren’t we,” said the young woman loudly. “But we shall be, +a Saturday.” + +Again she looked at the young man with a determined, protective look, +at once overbearing and very gentle. He grinned sicklily, turning away +his head. She had got his manhood, but Lord, what did he care! He had a +strange furtive pride and slinking singleness. + +“Good luck to you,” said Birkin. + +“Same to you,” said the young woman. Then, rather tentatively: “When’s +yours coming off, then?” + +Birkin looked round at Ursula. + +“It’s for the lady to say,” he replied. “We go to the registrar the +moment she’s ready.” + +Ursula laughed, covered with confusion and bewilderment. + +“No ’urry,” said the young man, grinning suggestive. + +“Oh, don’t break your neck to get there,” said the young woman. “’Slike +when you’re dead—you’re long time married.” + +The young man turned aside as if this hit him. + +“The longer the better, let us hope,” said Birkin. + +“That’s it, guvnor,” said the young man admiringly. “Enjoy it while it +larsts—niver whip a dead donkey.” + +“Only when he’s shamming dead,” said the young woman, looking at her +young man with caressive tenderness of authority. + +“Aw, there’s a difference,” he said satirically. + +“What about the chair?” said Birkin. + +“Yes, all right,” said the woman. + +They trailed off to the dealer, the handsome but abject young fellow +hanging a little aside. + +“That’s it,” said Birkin. “Will you take it with you, or have the +address altered.” + +“Oh, Fred can carry it. Make him do what he can for the dear old ’ome.” + +“Mike use of ’im,” said Fred, grimly humorous, as he took the chair +from the dealer. His movements were graceful, yet curiously abject, +slinking. + +“’Ere’s mother’s cosy chair,” he said. “Warnts a cushion.” And he stood +it down on the market stones. + +“Don’t you think it’s pretty?” laughed Ursula. + +“Oh, I do,” said the young woman. + +“’Ave a sit in it, you’ll wish you’d kept it,” said the young man. + +Ursula promptly sat down in the middle of the market-place. + +“Awfully comfortable,” she said. “But rather hard. You try it.” She +invited the young man to a seat. But he turned uncouthly, awkwardly +aside, glancing up at her with quick bright eyes, oddly suggestive, +like a quick, live rat. + +“Don’t spoil him,” said the young woman. “He’s not used to arm-chairs, +’e isn’t.” + +The young man turned away, and said, with averted grin: + +“Only warnts legs on ’is.” + +The four parted. The young woman thanked them. + +“Thank you for the chair—it’ll last till it gives way.” + +“Keep it for an ornyment,” said the young man. + +“Good afternoon—good afternoon,” said Ursula and Birkin. + +“Goo’-luck to you,” said the young man, glancing and avoiding Birkin’s +eyes, as he turned aside his head. + +The two couples went asunder, Ursula clinging to Birkin’s arm. When +they had gone some distance, she glanced back and saw the young man +going beside the full, easy young woman. His trousers sank over his +heels, he moved with a sort of slinking evasion, more crushed with odd +self-consciousness now he had the slim old arm-chair to carry, his arm +over the back, the four fine, square tapering legs swaying perilously +near the granite setts of the pavement. And yet he was somewhere +indomitable and separate, like a quick, vital rat. He had a queer, +subterranean beauty, repulsive too. + +“How strange they are!” said Ursula. + +“Children of men,” he said. “They remind me of Jesus: ‘The meek shall +inherit the earth.’” + +“But they aren’t the meek,” said Ursula. + +“Yes, I don’t know why, but they are,” he replied. + +They waited for the tramcar. Ursula sat on top and looked out on the +town. The dusk was just dimming the hollows of crowded houses. + +“And are they going to inherit the earth?” she said. + +“Yes—they.” + +“Then what are we going to do?” she asked. “We’re not like them—are we? +We’re not the meek?” + +“No. We’ve got to live in the chinks they leave us.” + +“How horrible!” cried Ursula. “I don’t want to live in chinks.” + +“Don’t worry,” he said. “They are the children of men, they like +market-places and street-corners best. That leaves plenty of chinks.” + +“All the world,” she said. + +“Ah no—but some room.” + +The tramcar mounted slowly up the hill, where the ugly winter-grey +masses of houses looked like a vision of hell that is cold and angular. +They sat and looked. Away in the distance was an angry redness of +sunset. It was all cold, somehow small, crowded, and like the end of +the world. + +“I don’t mind it even then,” said Ursula, looking at the repulsiveness +of it all. “It doesn’t concern me.” + +“No more it does,” he replied, holding her hand. “One needn’t see. One +goes one’s way. In my world it is sunny and spacious—” + +“It is, my love, isn’t it?” she cried, hugging near to him on the top +of the tramcar, so that the other passengers stared at them. + +“And we will wander about on the face of the earth,” he said, “and +we’ll look at the world beyond just this bit.” + +There was a long silence. Her face was radiant like gold, as she sat +thinking. + +“I don’t want to inherit the earth,” she said. “I don’t want to inherit +anything.” + +He closed his hand over hers. + +“Neither do I. I want to be disinherited.” + +She clasped his fingers closely. + +“We won’t care about _anything_,” she said. + +He sat still, and laughed. + +“And we’ll be married, and have done with them,” she added. + +Again he laughed. + +“It’s one way of getting rid of everything,” she said, “to get +married.” + +“And one way of accepting the whole world,” he added. + +“A whole other world, yes,” she said happily. + +“Perhaps there’s Gerald—and Gudrun—” he said. + +“If there is there is, you see,” she said. “It’s no good our worrying. +We can’t really alter them, can we?” + +“No,” he said. “One has no right to try—not with the best intentions in +the world.” + +“Do you try to force them?” she asked. + +“Perhaps,” he said. “Why should I want him to be free, if it isn’t his +business?” + +She paused for a time. + +“We can’t _make_ him happy, anyhow,” she said. “He’d have to be it of +himself.” + +“I know,” he said. “But we want other people with us, don’t we?” + +“Why should we?” she asked. + +“I don’t know,” he said uneasily. “One has a hankering after a sort of +further fellowship.” + +“But why?” she insisted. “Why should you hanker after other people? Why +should you need them?” + +This hit him right on the quick. His brows knitted. + +“Does it end with just our two selves?” he asked, tense. + +“Yes—what more do you want? If anybody likes to come along, let them. +But why must you run after them?” + +His face was tense and unsatisfied. + +“You see,” he said, “I always imagine our being really happy with some +few other people—a little freedom with people.” + +She pondered for a moment. + +“Yes, one does want that. But it must _happen_. You can’t do anything +for it with your will. You always seem to think you can _force_ the +flowers to come out. People must love us because they love us—you can’t +_make_ them.” + +“I know,” he said. “But must one take no steps at all? Must one just go +as if one were alone in the world—the only creature in the world?” + +“You’ve got me,” she said. “Why should you _need_ others? Why must you +force people to agree with you? Why can’t you be single by yourself, as +you are always saying? You try to bully Gerald—as you tried to bully +Hermione. You must learn to be alone. And it’s so horrid of you. You’ve +got me. And yet you want to force other people to love you as well. You +do try to bully them to love you. And even then, you don’t want their +love.” + +His face was full of real perplexity. + +“Don’t I?” he said. “It’s the problem I can’t solve. I _know_ I want a +perfect and complete relationship with you: and we’ve nearly got it—we +really have. But beyond that. _Do_ I want a real, ultimate relationship +with Gerald? Do I want a final almost extra-human relationship with +him—a relationship in the ultimate of me and him—or don’t I?” + +She looked at him for a long time, with strange bright eyes, but she +did not answer. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII. +FLITTING + + +That evening Ursula returned home very bright-eyed and wondrous—which +irritated her people. Her father came home at suppertime, tired after +the evening class, and the long journey home. Gudrun was reading, the +mother sat in silence. + +Suddenly Ursula said to the company at large, in a bright voice, +“Rupert and I are going to be married tomorrow.” + +Her father turned round, stiffly. + +“You what?” he said. + +“Tomorrow!” echoed Gudrun. + +“Indeed!” said the mother. + +But Ursula only smiled wonderfully, and did not reply. + +“Married tomorrow!” cried her father harshly. “What are you talking +about.” + +“Yes,” said Ursula. “Why not?” Those two words, from her, always drove +him mad. “Everything is all right—we shall go to the registrar’s +office—” + +There was a second’s hush in the room, after Ursula’s blithe vagueness. + +“_Really_, Ursula!” said Gudrun. + +“Might we ask why there has been all this secrecy?” demanded the +mother, rather superbly. + +“But there hasn’t,” said Ursula. “You knew.” + +“Who knew?” now cried the father. “Who knew? What do you mean by your +‘you knew’?” + +He was in one of his stupid rages, she instantly closed against him. + +“Of course you knew,” she said coolly. “You knew we were going to get +married.” + +There was a dangerous pause. + +“We knew you were going to get married, did we? Knew! Why, does anybody +know anything about you, you shifty bitch!” + +“Father!” cried Gudrun, flushing deep in violent remonstrance. Then, in +a cold, but gentle voice, as if to remind her sister to be tractable: +“But isn’t it a _fearfully_ sudden decision, Ursula?” she asked. + +“No, not really,” replied Ursula, with the same maddening cheerfulness. +“He’s been _wanting_ me to agree for weeks—he’s had the licence ready. +Only I—I wasn’t ready in myself. Now I am ready—is there anything to be +disagreeable about?” + +“Certainly not,” said Gudrun, but in a tone of cold reproof. “You are +perfectly free to do as you like.” + +“‘Ready in yourself’—_yourself_, that’s all that matters, isn’t it! ‘I +wasn’t ready in myself,’” he mimicked her phrase offensively. “You and +_yourself_, you’re of some importance, aren’t you?” + +She drew herself up and set back her throat, her eyes shining yellow +and dangerous. + +“I am to myself,” she said, wounded and mortified. “I know I am not to +anybody else. You only wanted to _bully_ me—you never cared for my +happiness.” + +He was leaning forward watching her, his face intense like a spark. + +“Ursula, what are you saying? Keep your tongue still,” cried her +mother. + +Ursula swung round, and the lights in her eyes flashed. + +“No, I won’t,” she cried. “I won’t hold my tongue and be bullied. What +does it matter which day I get married—what does it _matter!_ It +doesn’t affect anybody but myself.” + +Her father was tense and gathered together like a cat about to spring. + +“Doesn’t it?” he cried, coming nearer to her. She shrank away. + +“No, how can it?” she replied, shrinking but stubborn. + +“It doesn’t matter to _me_ then, what you do—what becomes of you?” he +cried, in a strange voice like a cry. + +The mother and Gudrun stood back as if hypnotised. + +“No,” stammered Ursula. Her father was very near to her. “You only want +to—” + +She knew it was dangerous, and she stopped. He was gathered together, +every muscle ready. + +“What?” he challenged. + +“Bully me,” she muttered, and even as her lips were moving, his hand +had caught her smack at the side of the face and she was sent up +against the door. + +“Father!” cried Gudrun in a high voice, “it is impossible!” + +He stood unmoving. Ursula recovered, her hand was on the door handle. +She slowly drew herself up. He seemed doubtful now. + +“It’s true,” she declared, with brilliant tears in her eyes, her head +lifted up in defiance. “What has your love meant, what did it ever +mean?—bullying, and denial—it did—” + +He was advancing again with strange, tense movements, and clenched +fist, and the face of a murderer. But swift as lightning she had +flashed out of the door, and they heard her running upstairs. + +He stood for a moment looking at the door. Then, like a defeated +animal, he turned and went back to his seat by the fire. + +Gudrun was very white. Out of the intense silence, the mother’s voice +was heard saying, cold and angry: + +“Well, you shouldn’t take so much notice of her.” + +Again the silence fell, each followed a separate set of emotions and +thoughts. + +Suddenly the door opened again: Ursula, dressed in hat and furs, with a +small valise in her hand: + +“Good-bye!” she said, in her maddening, bright, almost mocking tone. +“I’m going.” + +And in the next instant the door was closed, they heard the outer door, +then her quick steps down the garden path, then the gate banged, and +her light footfall was gone. There was a silence like death in the +house. + +Ursula went straight to the station, hastening heedlessly on winged +feet. There was no train, she must walk on to the junction. As she went +through the darkness, she began to cry, and she wept bitterly, with a +dumb, heart-broken, child’s anguish, all the way on the road, and in +the train. Time passed unheeded and unknown, she did not know where she +was, nor what was taking place. Only she wept from fathomless depths of +hopeless, hopeless grief, the terrible grief of a child, that knows no +extenuation. + +Yet her voice had the same defensive brightness as she spoke to +Birkin’s landlady at the door. + +“Good evening! Is Mr Birkin in? Can I see him?” + +“Yes, he’s in. He’s in his study.” + +Ursula slipped past the woman. His door opened. He had heard her voice. + +“Hello!” he exclaimed in surprise, seeing her standing there with the +valise in her hand, and marks of tears on her face. She was one who +wept without showing many traces, like a child. + +“Do I look a sight?” she said, shrinking. + +“No—why? Come in,” he took the bag from her hand and they went into the +study. + +There—immediately, her lips began to tremble like those of a child that +remembers again, and the tears came rushing up. + +“What’s the matter?” he asked, taking her in his arms. She sobbed +violently on his shoulder, whilst he held her still, waiting. + +“What’s the matter?” he said again, when she was quieter. But she only +pressed her face further into his shoulder, in pain, like a child that +cannot tell. + +“What is it, then?” he asked. Suddenly she broke away, wiped her eyes, +regained her composure, and went and sat in a chair. + +“Father hit me,” she announced, sitting bunched up, rather like a +ruffled bird, her eyes very bright. + +“What for?” he said. + +She looked away, and would not answer. There was a pitiful redness +about her sensitive nostrils, and her quivering lips. + +“Why?” he repeated, in his strange, soft, penetrating voice. + +She looked round at him, rather defiantly. + +“Because I said I was going to be married tomorrow, and he bullied me.” + +“Why did he bully you?” + +Her mouth dropped again, she remembered the scene once more, the tears +came up. + +“Because I said he didn’t care—and he doesn’t, it’s only his +domineeringness that’s hurt—” she said, her mouth pulled awry by her +weeping, all the time she spoke, so that he almost smiled, it seemed so +childish. Yet it was not childish, it was a mortal conflict, a deep +wound. + +“It isn’t quite true,” he said. “And even so, you shouldn’t _say_ it.” + +“It _is_ true—it _is_ true,” she wept, “and I won’t be bullied by his +pretending it’s love—when it _isn’t_—he doesn’t care, how can he—no, he +can’t—” + +He sat in silence. She moved him beyond himself. + +“Then you shouldn’t rouse him, if he can’t,” replied Birkin quietly. + +“And I _have_ loved him, I have,” she wept. “I’ve loved him always, and +he’s always done this to me, he has—” + +“It’s been a love of opposition, then,” he said. “Never mind—it will be +all right. It’s nothing desperate.” + +“Yes,” she wept, “it is, it is.” + +“Why?” + +“I shall never see him again—” + +“Not immediately. Don’t cry, you had to break with him, it had to +be—don’t cry.” + +He went over to her and kissed her fine, fragile hair, touching her wet +cheeks gently. + +“Don’t cry,” he repeated, “don’t cry any more.” + +He held her head close against him, very close and quiet. + +At last she was still. Then she looked up, her eyes wide and +frightened. + +“Don’t you want me?” she asked. + +“Want you?” His darkened, steady eyes puzzled her and did not give her +play. + +“Do you wish I hadn’t come?” she asked, anxious now again for fear she +might be out of place. + +“No,” he said. “I wish there hadn’t been the violence—so much +ugliness—but perhaps it was inevitable.” + +She watched him in silence. He seemed deadened. + +“But where shall I stay?” she asked, feeling humiliated. + +He thought for a moment. + +“Here, with me,” he said. “We’re married as much today as we shall be +tomorrow.” + +“But—” + +“I’ll tell Mrs Varley,” he said. “Never mind now.” + +He sat looking at her. She could feel his darkened steady eyes looking +at her all the time. It made her a little bit frightened. She pushed +her hair off her forehead nervously. + +“Do I look ugly?” she said. + +And she blew her nose again. + +A small smile came round his eyes. + +“No,” he said, “fortunately.” + +And he went across to her, and gathered her like a belonging in his +arms. She was so tenderly beautiful, he could not bear to see her, he +could only bear to hide her against himself. Now; washed all clean by +her tears, she was new and frail like a flower just unfolded, a flower +so new, so tender, so made perfect by inner light, that he could not +bear to look at her, he must hide her against himself, cover his eyes +against her. She had the perfect candour of creation, something +translucent and simple, like a radiant, shining flower that moment +unfolded in primal blessedness. She was so new, so wonder-clear, so +undimmed. And he was so old, so steeped in heavy memories. Her soul was +new, undefined and glimmering with the unseen. And his soul was dark +and gloomy, it had only one grain of living hope, like a grain of +mustard seed. But this one living grain in him matched the perfect +youth in her. + +“I love you,” he whispered as he kissed her, and trembled with pure +hope, like a man who is born again to a wonderful, lively hope far +exceeding the bounds of death. + +She could not know how much it meant to him, how much he meant by the +few words. Almost childish, she wanted proof, and statement, even +over-statement, for everything seemed still uncertain, unfixed to her. + +But the passion of gratitude with which he received her into his soul, +the extreme, unthinkable gladness of knowing himself living and fit to +unite with her, he, who was so nearly dead, who was so near to being +gone with the rest of his race down the slope of mechanical death, +could never be understood by her. He worshipped her as age worships +youth, he gloried in her, because, in his one grain of faith, he was +young as she, he was her proper mate. This marriage with her was his +resurrection and his life. + +All this she could not know. She wanted to be made much of, to be +adored. There were infinite distances of silence between them. How +could he tell her of the immanence of her beauty, that was not form, or +weight, or colour, but something like a strange, golden light! How +could he know himself what her beauty lay in, for him. He said “Your +nose is beautiful, your chin is adorable.” But it sounded like lies, +and she was disappointed, hurt. Even when he said, whispering with +truth, “I love you, I love you,” it was not the real truth. It was +something beyond love, such a gladness of having surpassed oneself, of +having transcended the old existence. How could he say ‘I’ when he was +something new and unknown, not himself at all? This I, this old formula +of the age, was a dead letter. + +In the new, superfine bliss, a peace superseding knowledge, there was +no I and you, there was only the third, unrealised wonder, the wonder +of existing not as oneself, but in a consummation of my being and of +her being in a new one, a new, paradisal unit regained from the +duality. Nor can I say “I love you,” when I have ceased to be, and you +have ceased to be: we are both caught up and transcended into a new +oneness where everything is silent, because there is nothing to answer, +all is perfect and at one. Speech travels between the separate parts. +But in the perfect One there is perfect silence of bliss. + +They were married by law on the next day, and she did as he bade her, +she wrote to her father and mother. Her mother replied, not her father. + +She did not go back to school. She stayed with Birkin in his rooms, or +at the Mill, moving with him as he moved. But she did not see anybody, +save Gudrun and Gerald. She was all strange and wondering as yet, but +relieved as by dawn. + +Gerald sat talking to her one afternoon in the warm study down at the +Mill. Rupert had not yet come home. + +“You are happy?” Gerald asked her, with a smile. + +“Very happy!” she cried, shrinking a little in her brightness. + +“Yes, one can see it.” + +“Can one?” cried Ursula in surprise. + +He looked up at her with a communicative smile. + +“Oh yes, plainly.” + +She was pleased. She meditated a moment. + +“And can you see that Rupert is happy as well?” + +He lowered his eyelids, and looked aside. + +“Oh yes,” he said. + +“Really!” + +“Oh yes.” + +He was very quiet, as if it were something not to be talked about by +him. He seemed sad. + +She was very sensitive to suggestion. She asked the question he wanted +her to ask. + +“Why don’t you be happy as well?” she said. “You could be just the +same.” + +He paused a moment. + +“With Gudrun?” he asked. + +“Yes!” she cried, her eyes glowing. But there was a strange tension, an +emphasis, as if they were asserting their wishes, against the truth. + +“You think Gudrun would have me, and we should be happy?” he said. + +“Yes, I’m _sure!_” she cried. + +Her eyes were round with delight. Yet underneath she was constrained, +she knew her own insistence. + +“Oh, I’m _so_ glad,” she added. + +He smiled. + +“What makes you glad?” he said. + +“For _her_ sake,” she replied. “I’m sure you’d—you’re the right man for +her.” + +“You are?” he said. “And do you think she would agree with you?” + +“Oh yes!” she exclaimed hastily. Then, upon reconsideration, very +uneasy: “Though Gudrun isn’t so very simple, is she? One doesn’t know +her in five minutes, does one? She’s not like me in that.” She laughed +at him with her strange, open, dazzled face. + +“You think she’s not much like you?” Gerald asked. + +She knitted her brows. + +“Oh, in many ways she is. But I never know what she will do when +anything new comes.” + +“You don’t?” said Gerald. He was silent for some moments. Then he moved +tentatively. “I was going to ask her, in any case, to go away with me +at Christmas,” he said, in a very small, cautious voice. + +“Go away with you? For a time, you mean?” + +“As long as she likes,” he said, with a deprecating movement. + +They were both silent for some minutes. + +“Of course,” said Ursula at last, “she _might_ just be willing to rush +into marriage. You can see.” + +“Yes,” smiled Gerald. “I can see. But in case she won’t—do you think +she would go abroad with me for a few days—or for a fortnight?” + +“Oh yes,” said Ursula. “I’d ask her.” + +“Do you think we might all go together?” + +“All of us?” Again Ursula’s face lighted up. “It would be rather fun, +don’t you think?” + +“Great fun,” he said. + +“And then you could see,” said Ursula. + +“What?” + +“How things went. I think it is best to take the honeymoon before the +wedding—don’t you?” + +She was pleased with this _mot_. He laughed. + +“In certain cases,” he said. “I’d rather it were so in my own case.” + +“Would you!” exclaimed Ursula. Then doubtingly, “Yes, perhaps you’re +right. One should please oneself.” + +Birkin came in a little later, and Ursula told him what had been said. + +“Gudrun!” exclaimed Birkin. “She’s a born mistress, just as Gerald is a +born lover—_amant en titre_. If as somebody says all women are either +wives or mistresses, then Gudrun is a mistress.” + +“And all men either lovers or husbands,” cried Ursula. “But why not +both?” + +“The one excludes the other,” he laughed. + +“Then I want a lover,” cried Ursula. + +“No you don’t,” he said. + +“But I do,” she wailed. + +He kissed her, and laughed. + +It was two days after this that Ursula was to go to fetch her things +from the house in Beldover. The removal had taken place, the family had +gone. Gudrun had rooms in Willey Green. + +Ursula had not seen her parents since her marriage. She wept over the +rupture, yet what was the good of making it up! Good or not good, she +could not go to them. So her things had been left behind and she and +Gudrun were to walk over for them, in the afternoon. + +It was a wintry afternoon, with red in the sky, when they arrived at +the house. The windows were dark and blank, already the place was +frightening. A stark, void entrance-hall struck a chill to the hearts +of the girls. + +“I don’t believe I dare have come in alone,” said Ursula. “It frightens +me.” + +“Ursula!” cried Gudrun. “Isn’t it amazing! Can you believe you lived in +this place and never felt it? How I lived here a day without dying of +terror, I cannot conceive!” + +They looked in the big dining-room. It was a good-sized room, but now a +cell would have been lovelier. The large bay windows were naked, the +floor was stripped, and a border of dark polish went round the tract of +pale boarding. + +In the faded wallpaper were dark patches where furniture had stood, +where pictures had hung. The sense of walls, dry, thin, flimsy-seeming +walls, and a flimsy flooring, pale with its artificial black edges, was +neutralising to the mind. Everything was null to the senses, there was +enclosure without substance, for the walls were dry and papery. Where +were they standing, on earth, or suspended in some cardboard box? In +the hearth was burnt paper, and scraps of half-burnt paper. + +“Imagine that we passed our days here!” said Ursula. + +“I know,” cried Gudrun. “It is too appalling. What must we be like, if +we are the contents of _this!_” + +“Vile!” said Ursula. “It really is.” + +And she recognised half-burnt covers of “Vogue”—half-burnt +representations of women in gowns—lying under the grate. + +They went to the drawing-room. Another piece of shut-in air; without +weight or substance, only a sense of intolerable papery imprisonment in +nothingness. The kitchen did look more substantial, because of the +red-tiled floor and the stove, but it was cold and horrid. + +The two girls tramped hollowly up the bare stairs. Every sound +re-echoed under their hearts. They tramped down the bare corridor. +Against the wall of Ursula’s bedroom were her things—a trunk, a +work-basket, some books, loose coats, a hat-box, standing desolate in +the universal emptiness of the dusk. + +“A cheerful sight, aren’t they?” said Ursula, looking down at her +forsaken possessions. + +“Very cheerful,” said Gudrun. + +The two girls set to, carrying everything down to the front door. Again +and again they made the hollow, re-echoing transit. The whole place +seemed to resound about them with a noise of hollow, empty futility. In +the distance the empty, invisible rooms sent forth a vibration almost +of obscenity. They almost fled with the last articles, into the +out-of-door. + +But it was cold. They were waiting for Birkin, who was coming with the +car. They went indoors again, and upstairs to their parents’ front +bedroom, whose windows looked down on the road, and across the country +at the black-barred sunset, black and red barred, without light. + +They sat down in the window-seat, to wait. Both girls were looking over +the room. It was void, with a meaninglessness that was almost dreadful. + +“Really,” said Ursula, “this room _couldn’t_ be sacred, could it?” + +Gudrun looked over it with slow eyes. + +“Impossible,” she replied. + +“When I think of their lives—father’s and mother’s, their love, and +their marriage, and all of us children, and our bringing-up—would you +have such a life, Prune?” + +“I wouldn’t, Ursula.” + +“It all seems so _nothing_—their two lives—there’s no meaning in it. +Really, if they had _not_ met, and _not_ married, and not lived +together—it wouldn’t have mattered, would it?” + +“Of course—you can’t tell,” said Gudrun. + +“No. But if I thought my life was going to be like it—Prune,” she +caught Gudrun’s arm, “I should run.” + +Gudrun was silent for a few moments. + +“As a matter of fact, one cannot contemplate the ordinary life—one +cannot contemplate it,” replied Gudrun. “With you, Ursula, it is quite +different. You will be out of it all, with Birkin. He’s a special case. +But with the ordinary man, who has his life fixed in one place, +marriage is just impossible. There may be, and there _are_, thousands +of women who want it, and could conceive of nothing else. But the very +thought of it sends me _mad_. One must be free, above all, one must be +free. One may forfeit everything else, but one must be free—one must +not become 7, Pinchbeck Street—or Somerset Drive—or Shortlands. No man +will be sufficient to make that good—no man! To marry, one must have a +free lance, or nothing, a comrade-in-arms, a Glücksritter. A man with a +position in the social world—well, it is just impossible, impossible!” + +“What a lovely word—a Glücksritter!” said Ursula. “So much nicer than a +soldier of fortune.” + +“Yes, isn’t it?” said Gudrun. “I’d tilt the world with a Glücksritter. +But a home, an establishment! Ursula, what would it mean?—think!” + +“I know,” said Ursula. “We’ve had one home—that’s enough for me.” + +“Quite enough,” said Gudrun. + +“The little grey home in the west,” quoted Ursula ironically. + +“Doesn’t it sound grey, too,” said Gudrun grimly. + +They were interrupted by the sound of the car. There was Birkin. Ursula +was surprised that she felt so lit up, that she became suddenly so free +from the problems of grey homes in the west. + +They heard his heels click on the hall pavement below. + +“Hello!” he called, his voice echoing alive through the house. Ursula +smiled to herself. _He_ was frightened of the place too. + +“Hello! Here we are,” she called downstairs. And they heard him quickly +running up. + +“This is a ghostly situation,” he said. + +“These houses don’t have ghosts—they’ve never had any personality, and +only a place with personality can have a ghost,” said Gudrun. + +“I suppose so. Are you both weeping over the past?” + +“We are,” said Gudrun, grimly. + +Ursula laughed. + +“Not weeping that it’s gone, but weeping that it ever _was_,” she said. + +“Oh,” he replied, relieved. + +He sat down for a moment. There was something in his presence, Ursula +thought, lambent and alive. It made even the impertinent structure of +this null house disappear. + +“Gudrun says she could not bear to be married and put into a house,” +said Ursula meaningful—they knew this referred to Gerald. + +He was silent for some moments. + +“Well,” he said, “if you know beforehand you couldn’t stand it, you’re +safe.” + +“Quite!” said Gudrun. + +“Why _does_ every woman think her aim in life is to have a hubby and a +little grey home in the west? Why is this the goal of life? Why should +it be?” said Ursula. + +“_Il faut avoir le respect de ses bêtises_,” said Birkin. + +“But you needn’t have the respect for the _bêtise_ before you’ve +committed it,” laughed Ursula. + +“Ah then, _des bêtises du papa?_” + +“_Et de la maman_,” added Gudrun satirically. + +“_Et des voisins_,” said Ursula. + +They all laughed, and rose. It was getting dark. They carried the +things to the car. Gudrun locked the door of the empty house. Birkin +had lighted the lamps of the automobile. It all seemed very happy, as +if they were setting out. + +“Do you mind stopping at Coulsons. I have to leave the key there,” said +Gudrun. + +“Right,” said Birkin, and they moved off. + +They stopped in the main street. The shops were just lighted, the last +miners were passing home along the causeways, half-visible shadows in +their grey pit-dirt, moving through the blue air. But their feet rang +harshly in manifold sound, along the pavement. + +How pleased Gudrun was to come out of the shop, and enter the car, and +be borne swiftly away into the downhill of palpable dusk, with Ursula +and Birkin! What an adventure life seemed at this moment! How deeply, +how suddenly she envied Ursula! Life for her was so quick, and an open +door—so reckless as if not only this world, but the world that was gone +and the world to come were nothing to her. Ah, if she could be _just +like that_, it would be perfect. + +For always, except in her moments of excitement, she felt a want within +herself. She was unsure. She had felt that now, at last, in Gerald’s +strong and violent love, she was living fully and finally. But when she +compared herself with Ursula, already her soul was jealous, +unsatisfied. She was not satisfied—she was never to be satisfied. + +What was she short of now? It was marriage—it was the wonderful +stability of marriage. She did want it, let her say what she might. She +had been lying. The old idea of marriage was right even now—marriage +and the home. Yet her mouth gave a little grimace at the words. She +thought of Gerald and Shortlands—marriage and the home! Ah well, let it +rest! He meant a great deal to her—but—! Perhaps it was not in her to +marry. She was one of life’s outcasts, one of the drifting lives that +have no root. No, no it could not be so. She suddenly conjured up a +rosy room, with herself in a beautiful gown, and a handsome man in +evening dress who held her in his arms in the firelight, and kissed +her. This picture she entitled “Home.” It would have done for the Royal +Academy. + +“Come with us to tea—_do_,” said Ursula, as they ran nearer to the +cottage of Willey Green. + +“Thanks awfully—but I _must_ go in—” said Gudrun. She wanted very much +to go on with Ursula and Birkin. + +That seemed like life indeed to her. Yet a certain perversity would not +let her. + +“Do come—yes, it would be so nice,” pleaded Ursula. + +“I’m awfully sorry—I should love to—but I can’t—really—” + +She descended from the car in trembling haste. + +“Can’t you really!” came Ursula’s regretful voice. + +“No, really I can’t,” responded Gudrun’s pathetic, chagrined words out +of the dusk. + +“All right, are you?” called Birkin. + +“Quite!” said Gudrun. “Good-night!” + +“Good-night,” they called. + +“Come whenever you like, we shall be glad,” called Birkin. + +“Thank you very much,” called Gudrun, in the strange, twanging voice of +lonely chagrin that was very puzzling to him. She turned away to her +cottage gate, and they drove on. But immediately she stood to watch +them, as the car ran vague into the distance. And as she went up the +path to her strange house, her heart was full of incomprehensible +bitterness. + +In her parlour was a long-case clock, and inserted into its dial was a +ruddy, round, slant-eyed, joyous-painted face, that wagged over with +the most ridiculous ogle when the clock ticked, and back again with the +same absurd glad-eye at the next tick. All the time the absurd smooth, +brown-ruddy face gave her an obtrusive “glad-eye.” She stood for +minutes, watching it, till a sort of maddened disgust overcame her, and +she laughed at herself hollowly. And still it rocked, and gave her the +glad-eye from one side, then from the other, from one side, then from +the other. Ah, how unhappy she was! In the midst of her most active +happiness, ah, how unhappy she was! She glanced at the table. +Gooseberry jam, and the same home-made cake with too much soda in it! +Still, gooseberry jam was good, and one so rarely got it. + +All the evening she wanted to go to the Mill. But she coldly refused to +allow herself. She went the next afternoon instead. She was happy to +find Ursula alone. It was a lovely, intimate secluded atmosphere. They +talked endlessly and delightedly. “Aren’t you _fearfully_ happy here?” +said Gudrun to her sister glancing at her own bright eyes in the +mirror. She always envied, almost with resentment, the strange positive +fullness that subsisted in the atmosphere around Ursula and Birkin. + +How really beautifully this room is done,” she said aloud. “This hard +plaited matting—what a lovely colour it is, the colour of cool light!” + +And it seemed to her perfect. + +“Ursula,” she said at length, in a voice of question and detachment, +“did you know that Gerald Crich had suggested our going away all +together at Christmas?” + +“Yes, he’s spoken to Rupert.” + +A deep flush dyed Gudrun’s cheek. She was silent a moment, as if taken +aback, and not knowing what to say. + +“But don’t you think,” she said at last, “it is _amazingly cool!_” + +Ursula laughed. + +“I like him for it,” she said. + +Gudrun was silent. It was evident that, whilst she was almost mortified +by Gerald’s taking the liberty of making such a suggestion to Birkin, +yet the idea itself attracted her strongly. + +“There’s a rather lovely simplicity about Gerald, I think,” said +Ursula, “so defiant, somehow! Oh, I think he’s _very_ lovable.” + +Gudrun did not reply for some moments. She had still to get over the +feeling of insult at the liberty taken with her freedom. + +“What did Rupert say—do you know?” she asked. + +“He said it would be most awfully jolly,” said Ursula. + +Again Gudrun looked down, and was silent. + +“Don’t you think it would?” said Ursula, tentatively. She was never +quite sure how many defences Gudrun was having round herself. + +Gudrun raised her face with difficulty and held it averted. + +“I think it _might_ be awfully jolly, as you say,” she replied. “But +don’t you think it was an unpardonable liberty to take—to talk of such +things to Rupert—who after all—you see what I mean, Ursula—they might +have been two men arranging an outing with some little _type_ they’d +picked up. Oh, I think it’s unforgivable, quite!” She used the French +word “_type_.” + +Her eyes flashed, her soft face was flushed and sullen. Ursula looked +on, rather frightened, frightened most of all because she thought +Gudrun seemed rather common, really like a little _type_. But she had +not the courage quite to think this—not right out. + +“Oh no,” she cried, stammering. “Oh no—not at all like that—oh no! No, +I think it’s rather beautiful, the friendship between Rupert and +Gerald. They just are simple—they say anything to each other, like +brothers.” + +Gudrun flushed deeper. She could not _bear_ it that Gerald gave her +away—even to Birkin. + +“But do you think even brothers have any right to exchange confidences +of that sort?” she asked, with deep anger. + +“Oh yes,” said Ursula. “There’s never anything said that isn’t +perfectly straightforward. No, the thing that’s amazed me most in +Gerald—how perfectly simple and direct he can be! And you know, it +takes rather a big man. Most of them _must_ be indirect, they are such +cowards.” + +But Gudrun was still silent with anger. She wanted the absolute secrecy +kept, with regard to her movements. + +“Won’t you go?” said Ursula. “Do, we might all be so happy! There is +something I _love_ about Gerald—he’s _much_ more lovable than I thought +him. He’s free, Gudrun, he really is.” + +Gudrun’s mouth was still closed, sullen and ugly. She opened it at +length. + +“Do you know where he proposes to go?” she asked. + +“Yes—to the Tyrol, where he used to go when he was in Germany—a lovely +place where students go, small and rough and lovely, for winter sport!” + +Through Gudrun’s mind went the angry thought—“they know everything.” + +“Yes,” she said aloud, “about forty kilometres from Innsbruck, isn’t +it?” + +“I don’t know exactly where—but it would be lovely, don’t you think, +high in the perfect snow—?” + +“Very lovely!” said Gudrun, sarcastically. + +Ursula was put out. + +“Of course,” she said, “I think Gerald spoke to Rupert so that it +shouldn’t seem like an outing with a _type_—” + +“I know, of course,” said Gudrun, “that he quite commonly does take up +with that sort.” + +“Does he!” said Ursula. “Why how do you know?” + +“I know of a model in Chelsea,” said Gudrun coldly. Now Ursula was +silent. “Well,” she said at last, with a doubtful laugh, “I hope he has +a good time with her.” At which Gudrun looked more glum. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII. +GUDRUN IN THE POMPADOUR + + +Christmas drew near, all four prepared for flight. Birkin and Ursula +were busy packing their few personal things, making them ready to be +sent off, to whatever country and whatever place they might choose at +last. Gudrun was very much excited. She loved to be on the wing. + +She and Gerald, being ready first, set off via London and Paris to +Innsbruck, where they would meet Ursula and Birkin. In London they +stayed one night. They went to the music-hall, and afterwards to the +Pompadour Café. + +Gudrun hated the Café, yet she always went back to it, as did most of +the artists of her acquaintance. She loathed its atmosphere of petty +vice and petty jealousy and petty art. Yet she always called in again, +when she was in town. It was as if she _had_ to return to this small, +slow, central whirlpool of disintegration and dissolution: just give it +a look. + +She sat with Gerald drinking some sweetish liqueur, and staring with +black, sullen looks at the various groups of people at the tables. She +would greet nobody, but young men nodded to her frequently, with a kind +of sneering familiarity. She cut them all. And it gave her pleasure to +sit there, cheeks flushed, eyes black and sullen, seeing them all +objectively, as put away from her, like creatures in some menagerie of +apish degraded souls. God, what a foul crew they were! Her blood beat +black and thick in her veins with rage and loathing. Yet she must sit +and watch, watch. One or two people came to speak to her. From every +side of the Café, eyes turned half furtively, half jeeringly at her, +men looking over their shoulders, women under their hats. + +The old crowd was there, Carlyon in his corner with his pupils and his +girl, Halliday and Libidnikov and the Pussum—they were all there. +Gudrun watched Gerald. She watched his eyes linger a moment on +Halliday, on Halliday’s party. These last were on the look-out—they +nodded to him, he nodded again. They giggled and whispered among +themselves. Gerald watched them with the steady twinkle in his eyes. +They were urging the Pussum to something. + +She at last rose. She was wearing a curious dress of dark silk splashed +and spattered with different colours, a curious motley effect. She was +thinner, her eyes were perhaps hotter, more disintegrated. Otherwise +she was just the same. Gerald watched her with the same steady twinkle +in his eyes as she came across. She held out her thin brown hand to +him. + +“How are you?” she said. + +He shook hands with her, but remained seated, and let her stand near +him, against the table. She nodded blackly to Gudrun, whom she did not +know to speak to, but well enough by sight and reputation. + +“I am very well,” said Gerald. “And you?” + +“Oh I’m all wight. What about Wupert?” + +“Rupert? He’s very well, too.” + +“Yes, I don’t mean that. What about him being married?” + +“Oh—yes, he is married.” + +The Pussum’s eyes had a hot flash. + +“Oh, he’s weally bwought it off then, has he? When was he married?” + +“A week or two ago.” + +“Weally! He’s never written.” + +“No.” + +“No. Don’t you think it’s too bad?” + +This last was in a tone of challenge. The Pussum let it be known by her +tone, that she was aware of Gudrun’s listening. + +“I suppose he didn’t feel like it,” replied Gerald. + +“But why didn’t he?” pursued the Pussum. + +This was received in silence. There was an ugly, mocking persistence in +the small, beautiful figure of the short-haired girl, as she stood near +Gerald. + +“Are you staying in town long?” she asked. + +“Tonight only.” + +“Oh, only tonight. Are you coming over to speak to Julius?” + +“Not tonight.” + +“Oh very well. I’ll tell him then.” Then came her touch of diablerie. +“You’re looking awf’lly fit.” + +“Yes—I feel it.” Gerald was quite calm and easy, a spark of satiric +amusement in his eye. + +“Are you having a good time?” + +This was a direct blow for Gudrun, spoken in a level, toneless voice of +callous ease. + +“Yes,” he replied, quite colourlessly. + +“I’m awf’lly sorry you aren’t coming round to the flat. You aren’t very +faithful to your fwiends.” + +“Not very,” he said. + +She nodded them both “Good-night’, and went back slowly to her own set. +Gudrun watched her curious walk, stiff and jerking at the loins. They +heard her level, toneless voice distinctly. + +“He won’t come over;—he is otherwise engaged,” it said. There was more +laughter and lowered voices and mockery at the table. + +“Is she a friend of yours?” said Gudrun, looking calmly at Gerald. + +“I’ve stayed at Halliday’s flat with Birkin,” he said, meeting her +slow, calm eyes. And she knew that the Pussum was one of his +mistresses—and he knew she knew. + +She looked round, and called for the waiter. She wanted an iced +cocktail, of all things. This amused Gerald—he wondered what was up. + +The Halliday party was tipsy, and malicious. They were talking out +loudly about Birkin, ridiculing him on every point, particularly on his +marriage. + +“Oh, _don’t_ make me think of Birkin,” Halliday was squealing. “He +makes me perfectly sick. He is as bad as Jesus. ‘Lord, _what_ must I do +to be saved!’” + +He giggled to himself tipsily. + +“Do you remember,” came the quick voice of the Russian, “the letters he +used to send. ‘Desire is holy—’” + +“Oh yes!” cried Halliday. “Oh, how perfectly splendid. Why, I’ve got +one in my pocket. I’m sure I have.” + +He took out various papers from his pocket book. + +“I’m sure I’ve—_hic! Oh dear!_—got one.” + +Gerald and Gudrun were watching absorbedly. + +“Oh yes, how perfectly—_hic!_—splendid! Don’t make me laugh, Pussum, it +gives me the hiccup. Hic!—” They all giggled. + +“What did he say in that one?” the Pussum asked, leaning forward, her +dark, soft hair falling and swinging against her face. There was +something curiously indecent, obscene, about her small, longish, dark +skull, particularly when the ears showed. + +“Wait—oh do wait! _No-o_, I won’t give it to you, I’ll read it aloud. +I’ll read you the choice bits,—_hic!_ Oh dear! Do you think if I drink +water it would take off this hiccup? _Hic!_ Oh, I feel perfectly +helpless.” + +“Isn’t that the letter about uniting the dark and the light—and the +Flux of Corruption?” asked Maxim, in his precise, quick voice. + +“I believe so,” said the Pussum. + +“Oh is it? I’d forgotten—_hic!_—it was that one,” Halliday said, +opening the letter. “_Hic!_ Oh yes. How perfectly splendid! This is one +of the best. ‘There is a phase in every race—’” he read in the +sing-song, slow, distinct voice of a clergyman reading the Scriptures, +“‘When the desire for destruction overcomes every other desire. In the +individual, this desire is ultimately a desire for destruction in the +self’—_hic!_—” he paused and looked up. + +“I hope he’s going ahead with the destruction of himself,” said the +quick voice of the Russian. Halliday giggled, and lolled his head back, +vaguely. + +“There’s not much to destroy in him,” said the Pussum. “He’s so thin +already, there’s only a fag-end to start on.” + +“Oh, isn’t it beautiful! I love reading it! I believe it has cured my +hiccup!” squealed Halliday. “Do let me go on. ‘It is a desire for the +reduction process in oneself, a reducing back to the origin, a return +along the Flux of Corruption, to the original rudimentary conditions of +being—!’ Oh, but I _do_ think it is wonderful. It almost supersedes the +Bible—” + +“Yes—Flux of Corruption,” said the Russian, “I remember that phrase.” + +“Oh, he was always talking about Corruption,” said the Pussum. “He must +be corrupt himself, to have it so much on his mind.” + +“Exactly!” said the Russian. + +“Do let me go on! Oh, this is a perfectly wonderful piece! But do +listen to this. ‘And in the great retrogression, the reducing back of +the created body of life, we get knowledge, and beyond knowledge, the +phosphorescent ecstasy of acute sensation.’ Oh, I do think these +phrases are too absurdly wonderful. Oh but don’t you think they +_are_—they’re nearly as good as Jesus. ‘And if, Julius, you want this +ecstasy of reduction with the Pussum, you must go on till it is +fulfilled. But surely there is in you also, somewhere, the living +desire for positive creation, relationships in ultimate faith, when all +this process of active corruption, with all its flowers of mud, is +transcended, and more or less finished—’ I do wonder what the flowers +of mud are. Pussum, you are a flower of mud.” + +“Thank you—and what are you?” + +“Oh, I’m another, surely, according to this letter! We’re all flowers +of mud—_fleurs—hic! du mal!_ It’s perfectly wonderful, Birkin harrowing +Hell—harrowing the Pompadour—_Hic!_” + +“Go on—go on,” said Maxim. “What comes next? It’s really very +interesting.” + +“I think it’s awful cheek to write like that,” said the Pussum. + +“Yes—yes, so do I,” said the Russian. “He is a megalomaniac, of course, +it is a form of religious mania. He thinks he is the Saviour of man—go +on reading.” + +“Surely,” Halliday intoned, “‘surely goodness and mercy hath followed +me all the days of my life—’” he broke off and giggled. Then he began +again, intoning like a clergyman. “‘Surely there will come an end in us +to this desire—for the constant going apart,—this passion for putting +asunder—everything—ourselves, reducing ourselves part from +part—reacting in intimacy only for destruction,—using sex as a great +reducing agent, reducing the two great elements of male and female from +their highly complex unity—reducing the old ideas, going back to the +savages for our sensations,—always seeking to _lose_ ourselves in some +ultimate black sensation, mindless and infinite—burning only with +destructive fires, raging on with the hope of being burnt out +utterly—’” + +“I want to go,” said Gudrun to Gerald, as she signalled the waiter. Her +eyes were flashing, her cheeks were flushed. The strange effect of +Birkin’s letter read aloud in a perfect clerical sing-song, clear and +resonant, phrase by phrase, made the blood mount into her head as if +she were mad. + +She rose, whilst Gerald was paying the bill, and walked over to +Halliday’s table. They all glanced up at her. + +“Excuse me,” she said. “Is that a genuine letter you are reading?” + +“Oh yes,” said Halliday. “Quite genuine.” + +“May I see?” + +Smiling foolishly he handed it to her, as if hypnotised. + +“Thank you,” she said. + +And she turned and walked out of the Café with the letter, all down the +brilliant room, between the tables, in her measured fashion. It was +some moments before anybody realised what was happening. + +From Halliday’s table came half articulate cries, then somebody booed, +then all the far end of the place began booing after Gudrun’s +retreating form. She was fashionably dressed in blackish-green and +silver, her hat was brilliant green, like the sheen on an insect, but +the brim was soft dark green, a falling edge with fine silver, her coat +was dark green, lustrous, with a high collar of grey fur, and great fur +cuffs, the edge of her dress showed silver and black velvet, her +stockings and shoes were silver grey. She moved with slow, fashionable +indifference to the door. The porter opened obsequiously for her, and, +at her nod, hurried to the edge of the pavement and whistled for a +taxi. The two lights of a vehicle almost immediately curved round +towards her, like two eyes. + +Gerald had followed in wonder, amid all the booing, not having caught +her misdeed. He heard the Pussum’s voice saying: + +“Go and get it back from her. I never heard of such a thing! Go and get +it back from her. Tell Gerald Crich—there he goes—go and make him give +it up.” + +Gudrun stood at the door of the taxi, which the man held open for her. + +“To the hotel?” she asked, as Gerald came out, hurriedly. + +“Where you like,” he answered. + +“Right!” she said. Then to the driver, “Wagstaff’s—Barton Street.” + +The driver bowed his head, and put down the flag. + +Gudrun entered the taxi, with the deliberate cold movement of a woman +who is well-dressed and contemptuous in her soul. Yet she was frozen +with overwrought feelings. Gerald followed her. + +“You’ve forgotten the man,” she said cooly, with a slight nod of her +hat. Gerald gave the porter a shilling. The man saluted. They were in +motion. + +“What was all the row about?” asked Gerald, in wondering excitement. + +“I walked away with Birkin’s letter,” she said, and he saw the crushed +paper in her hand. + +His eyes glittered with satisfaction. + +“Ah!” he said. “Splendid! A set of jackasses!” + +“I could have _killed_ them!” she cried in passion. “_Dogs!_—they are +dogs! Why is Rupert such a _fool_ as to write such letters to them? Why +does he give himself away to such _canaille?_ It’s a thing that _cannot +be borne._” + +Gerald wondered over her strange passion. + +And she could not rest any longer in London. They must go by the +morning train from Charing Cross. As they drew over the bridge, in the +train, having glimpses of the river between the great iron girders, she +cried: + +“I feel I could _never_ see this foul town again—I couldn’t _bear_ to +come back to it.” + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX. +CONTINENTAL + + +Ursula went on in an unreal suspense, the last weeks before going away. +She was not herself,—she was not anything. She was something that is +going to be—soon—soon—very soon. But as yet, she was only imminent. + +She went to see her parents. It was a rather stiff, sad meeting, more +like a verification of separateness than a reunion. But they were all +vague and indefinite with one another, stiffened in the fate that moved +them apart. + +She did not really come to until she was on the ship crossing from +Dover to Ostend. Dimly she had come down to London with Birkin, London +had been a vagueness, so had the train-journey to Dover. It was all +like a sleep. + +And now, at last, as she stood in the stern of the ship, in a +pitch-dark, rather blowy night, feeling the motion of the sea, and +watching the small, rather desolate little lights that twinkled on the +shores of England, as on the shores of nowhere, watched them sinking +smaller and smaller on the profound and living darkness, she felt her +soul stirring to awake from its anæsthetic sleep. + +“Let us go forward, shall we?” said Birkin. He wanted to be at the tip +of their projection. So they left off looking at the faint sparks that +glimmered out of nowhere, in the far distance, called England, and +turned their faces to the unfathomed night in front. + +They went right to the bows of the softly plunging vessel. In the +complete obscurity, Birkin found a comparatively sheltered nook, where +a great rope was coiled up. It was quite near the very point of the +ship, near the black, unpierced space ahead. There they sat down, +folded together, folded round with the same rug, creeping in nearer and +ever nearer to one another, till it seemed they had crept right into +each other, and become one substance. It was very cold, and the +darkness was palpable. + +One of the ship’s crew came along the deck, dark as the darkness, not +really visible. They then made out the faintest pallor of his face. He +felt their presence, and stopped, unsure—then bent forward. When his +face was near them, he saw the faint pallor of their faces. Then he +withdrew like a phantom. And they watched him without making any sound. + +They seemed to fall away into the profound darkness. There was no sky, +no earth, only one unbroken darkness, into which, with a soft, sleeping +motion, they seemed to fall like one closed seed of life falling +through dark, fathomless space. + +They had forgotten where they were, forgotten all that was and all that +had been, conscious only in their heart, and there conscious only of +this pure trajectory through the surpassing darkness. The ship’s prow +cleaved on, with a faint noise of cleavage, into the complete night, +without knowing, without seeing, only surging on. + +In Ursula the sense of the unrealised world ahead triumphed over +everything. In the midst of this profound darkness, there seemed to +glow on her heart the effulgence of a paradise unknown and unrealised. +Her heart was full of the most wonderful light, golden like honey of +darkness, sweet like the warmth of day, a light which was not shed on +the world, only on the unknown paradise towards which she was going, a +sweetness of habitation, a delight of living quite unknown, but hers +infallibly. In her transport she lifted her face suddenly to him, and +he touched it with his lips. So cold, so fresh, so sea-clear her face +was, it was like kissing a flower that grows near the surf. + +But he did not know the ecstasy of bliss in fore-knowledge that she +knew. To him, the wonder of this transit was overwhelming. He was +falling through a gulf of infinite darkness, like a meteorite plunging +across the chasm between the worlds. The world was torn in two, and he +was plunging like an unlit star through the ineffable rift. What was +beyond was not yet for him. He was overcome by the trajectory. + +In a trance he lay enfolding Ursula round about. His face was against +her fine, fragile hair, he breathed its fragrance with the sea and the +profound night. And his soul was at peace; yielded, as he fell into the +unknown. This was the first time that an utter and absolute peace had +entered his heart, now, in this final transit out of life. + +When there came some stir on the deck, they roused. They stood up. How +stiff and cramped they were, in the night-time! And yet the paradisal +glow on her heart, and the unutterable peace of darkness in his, this +was the all-in-all. + +They stood up and looked ahead. Low lights were seen down the darkness. +This was the world again. It was not the bliss of her heart, nor the +peace of his. It was the superficial unreal world of fact. Yet not +quite the old world. For the peace and the bliss in their hearts was +enduring. + +Strange, and desolate above all things, like disembarking from the Styx +into the desolated underworld, was this landing at night. There was the +raw, half-lighted, covered-in vastness of the dark place, boarded and +hollow underfoot, with only desolation everywhere. Ursula had caught +sight of the big, pallid, mystic letters “OSTEND,” standing in the +darkness. Everybody was hurrying with a blind, insect-like intentness +through the dark grey air, porters were calling in un-English English, +then trotting with heavy bags, their colourless blouses looking ghostly +as they disappeared; Ursula stood at a long, low, zinc-covered barrier, +along with hundreds of other spectral people, and all the way down the +vast, raw darkness was this low stretch of open bags and spectral +people, whilst, on the other side of the barrier, pallid officials in +peaked caps and moustaches were turning the underclothing in the bags, +then scrawling a chalk-mark. + +It was done. Birkin snapped the hand bags, off they went, the porter +coming behind. They were through a great doorway, and in the open night +again—ah, a railway platform! Voices were still calling in inhuman +agitation through the dark-grey air, spectres were running along the +darkness between the train. + +“Köln—Berlin—” Ursula made out on the boards hung on the high train on +one side. + +“Here we are,” said Birkin. And on her side she saw: +“Elsass—Lothringen—Luxembourg, Metz—Basle.” + +“That was it, Basle!” + +The porter came up. + +“_À Bâle—deuxième classe?—Voilà!_” And he clambered into the high +train. They followed. The compartments were already some of them taken. +But many were dim and empty. The luggage was stowed, the porter was +tipped. + +“_Nous avons encore—?_” said Birkin, looking at his watch and at the +porter. + +“_Encore une demi-heure._” With which, in his blue blouse, he +disappeared. He was ugly and insolent. + +“Come,” said Birkin. “It is cold. Let us eat.” + +There was a coffee-wagon on the platform. They drank hot, watery +coffee, and ate the long rolls, split, with ham between, which were +such a wide bite that it almost dislocated Ursula’s jaw; and they +walked beside the high trains. It was all so strange, so extremely +desolate, like the underworld, grey, grey, dirt grey, desolate, +forlorn, nowhere—grey, dreary nowhere. + +At last they were moving through the night. In the darkness Ursula made +out the flat fields, the wet flat dreary darkness of the Continent. +They pulled up surprisingly soon—Bruges! Then on through the level +darkness, with glimpses of sleeping farms and thin poplar trees and +deserted high-roads. She sat dismayed, hand in hand with Birkin. He +pale, immobile like a _revenant_ himself, looked sometimes out of the +window, sometimes closed his eyes. Then his eyes opened again, dark as +the darkness outside. + +A flash of a few lights on the darkness—Ghent station! A few more +spectres moving outside on the platform—then the bell—then motion again +through the level darkness. Ursula saw a man with a lantern come out of +a farm by the railway, and cross to the dark farm-buildings. She +thought of the Marsh, the old, intimate farm-life at Cossethay. My God, +how far was she projected from her childhood, how far was she still to +go! In one life-time one travelled through æons. The great chasm of +memory from her childhood in the intimate country surroundings of +Cossethay and the Marsh Farm—she remembered the servant Tilly, who used +to give her bread and butter sprinkled with brown sugar, in the old +living-room where the grandfather clock had two pink roses in a basket +painted above the figures on the face—and now when she was travelling +into the unknown with Birkin, an utter stranger—was so great, that it +seemed she had no identity, that the child she had been, playing in +Cossethay churchyard, was a little creature of history, not really +herself. + +They were at Brussels—half an hour for breakfast. They got down. On the +great station clock it said six o’clock. They had coffee and rolls and +honey in the vast desert refreshment room, so dreary, always so dreary, +dirty, so spacious, such desolation of space. But she washed her face +and hands in hot water, and combed her hair—that was a blessing. + +Soon they were in the train again and moving on. The greyness of dawn +began. There were several people in the compartment, large florid +Belgian business-men with long brown beards, talking incessantly in an +ugly French she was too tired to follow. + +It seemed the train ran by degrees out of the darkness into a faint +light, then beat after beat into the day. Ah, how weary it was! +Faintly, the trees showed, like shadows. Then a house, white, had a +curious distinctness. How was it? Then she saw a village—there were +always houses passing. + +This was an old world she was still journeying through, winter-heavy +and dreary. There was plough-land and pasture, and copses of bare +trees, copses of bushes, and homesteads naked and work-bare. No new +earth had come to pass. + +She looked at Birkin’s face. It was white and still and eternal, too +eternal. She linked her fingers imploringly in his, under the cover of +her rug. His fingers responded, his eyes looked back at her. How dark, +like a night, his eyes were, like another world beyond! Oh, if he were +the world as well, if only the world were he! If only he could call a +world into being, that should be their own world! + +The Belgians left, the train ran on, through Luxembourg, through +Alsace-Lorraine, through Metz. But she was blind, she could see no +more. Her soul did not look out. + +They came at last to Basle, to the hotel. It was all a drifting trance, +from which she never came to. They went out in the morning, before the +train departed. She saw the street, the river, she stood on the bridge. +But it all meant nothing. She remembered some shops—one full of +pictures, one with orange velvet and ermine. But what did these +signify?—nothing. + +She was not at ease till they were in the train again. Then she was +relieved. So long as they were moving onwards, she was satisfied. They +came to Zürich, then, before very long, ran under the mountains, that +were deep in snow. At last she was drawing near. This was the other +world now. + +Innsbruck was wonderful, deep in snow, and evening. They drove in an +open sledge over the snow: the train had been so hot and stifling. And +the hotel, with the golden light glowing under the porch, seemed like a +home. + +They laughed with pleasure when they were in the hall. The place seemed +full and busy. + +“Do you know if Mr and Mrs Crich—English—from Paris, have arrived?” +Birkin asked in German. + +The porter reflected a moment, and was just going to answer, when +Ursula caught sight of Gudrun sauntering down the stairs, wearing her +dark glossy coat, with grey fur. + +“Gudrun! Gudrun!” she called, waving up the well of the staircase. +“Shu-hu!” + +Gudrun looked over the rail, and immediately lost her sauntering, +diffident air. Her eyes flashed. + +“Really—Ursula!” she cried. And she began to move downstairs as Ursula +ran up. They met at a turn and kissed with laughter and exclamations +inarticulate and stirring. + +“But!” cried Gudrun, mortified. “We thought it was _tomorrow_ you were +coming! I wanted to come to the station.” + +“No, we’ve come today!” cried Ursula. “Isn’t it lovely here!” + +“Adorable!” said Gudrun. “Gerald’s just gone out to get something. +Ursula, aren’t you _fearfully_ tired?” + +“No, not so very. But I look a filthy sight, don’t I!” + +“No, you don’t. You look almost perfectly fresh. I like that fur cap +_immensely!_” She glanced over Ursula, who wore a big soft coat with a +collar of deep, soft, blond fur, and a soft blond cap of fur. + +“And you!” cried Ursula. “What do you think _you_ look like!” + +Gudrun assumed an unconcerned, expressionless face. + +“Do you like it?” she said. + +“It’s _very_ fine!” cried Ursula, perhaps with a touch of satire. + +“Go up—or come down,” said Birkin. For there the sisters stood, Gudrun +with her hand on Ursula’s arm, on the turn of the stairs half way to +the first landing, blocking the way and affording full entertainment to +the whole of the hall below, from the door porter to the plump Jew in +black clothes. + +The two young women slowly mounted, followed by Birkin and the waiter. + +“First floor?” asked Gudrun, looking back over her shoulder. + +“Second Madam—the lift!” the waiter replied. And he darted to the +elevator to forestall the two women. But they ignored him, as, +chattering without heed, they set to mount the second flight. Rather +chagrined, the waiter followed. + +It was curious, the delight of the sisters in each other, at this +meeting. It was as if they met in exile, and united their solitary +forces against all the world. Birkin looked on with some mistrust and +wonder. + +When they had bathed and changed, Gerald came in. He looked shining +like the sun on frost. + +“Go with Gerald and smoke,” said Ursula to Birkin. “Gudrun and I want +to talk.” + +Then the sisters sat in Gudrun’s bedroom, and talked clothes, and +experiences. Gudrun told Ursula the experience of the Birkin letter in +the café. Ursula was shocked and frightened. + +“Where is the letter?” she asked. + +“I kept it,” said Gudrun. + +“You’ll give it me, won’t you?” she said. + +But Gudrun was silent for some moments, before she replied: + +“Do you really want it, Ursula?” + +“I want to read it,” said Ursula. + +“Certainly,” said Gudrun. + +Even now, she could not admit, to Ursula, that she wanted to keep it, +as a memento, or a symbol. But Ursula knew, and was not pleased. So the +subject was switched off. + +“What did you do in Paris?” asked Ursula. + +“Oh,” said Gudrun laconically—“the usual things. We had a _fine_ party +one night in Fanny Bath’s studio.” + +“Did you? And you and Gerald were there! Who else? Tell me about it.” + +“Well,” said Gudrun. “There’s nothing particular to tell. You know +Fanny is _frightfully_ in love with that painter, Billy Macfarlane. He +was there—so Fanny spared nothing, she spent _very_ freely. It was +really remarkable! Of course, everybody got fearfully drunk—but in an +interesting way, not like that filthy London crowd. The fact is these +were all people that matter, which makes all the difference. There was +a Roumanian, a fine chap. He got completely drunk, and climbed to the +top of a high studio ladder, and gave the most marvellous +address—really, Ursula, it was wonderful! He began in French—_La vie, +c’est une affaire d’âmes impériales_—in a most beautiful voice—he was a +fine-looking chap—but he had got into Roumanian before he had finished, +and not a soul understood. But Donald Gilchrist was worked to a frenzy. +He dashed his glass to the ground, and declared, by God, he was glad he +had been born, by God, it was a miracle to be alive. And do you know, +Ursula, so it was—” Gudrun laughed rather hollowly. + +“But how was Gerald among them all?” asked Ursula. + +“Gerald! Oh, my word, he came out like a dandelion in the sun! _He’s_ a +whole saturnalia in himself, once he is roused. I shouldn’t like to say +whose waist his arm did not go round. Really, Ursula, he seems to reap +the women like a harvest. There wasn’t one that would have resisted +him. It was too amazing! Can you understand it?” + +Ursula reflected, and a dancing light came into her eyes. + +“Yes,” she said. “I can. He is such a whole-hogger.” + +“Whole-hogger! I should think so!” exclaimed Gudrun. “But it is true, +Ursula, every woman in the room was ready to surrender to him. +Chanticleer isn’t in it—even Fanny Bath, who is _genuinely_ in love +with Billy Macfarlane! I never was more amazed in my life! And you +know, afterwards—I felt I was a whole _roomful_ of women. I was no more +myself to him, than I was Queen Victoria. I was a whole roomful of +women at once. It was most astounding! But my eye, I’d caught a Sultan +that time—” + +Gudrun’s eyes were flashing, her cheek was hot, she looked strange, +exotic, satiric. Ursula was fascinated at once—and yet uneasy. + +They had to get ready for dinner. Gudrun came down in a daring gown of +vivid green silk and tissue of gold, with green velvet bodice and a +strange black-and-white band round her hair. She was really brilliantly +beautiful and everybody noticed her. Gerald was in that full-blooded, +gleaming state when he was most handsome. Birkin watched them with +quick, laughing, half-sinister eyes, Ursula quite lost her head. There +seemed a spell, almost a blinding spell, cast round their table, as if +they were lighted up more strongly than the rest of the dining-room. + +“Don’t you love to be in this place?” cried Gudrun. “Isn’t the snow +wonderful! Do you notice how it exalts everything? It is simply +marvellous. One really does feel _übermenschlich_—more than human.” + +“One does,” cried Ursula. “But isn’t that partly the being out of +England?” + +“Oh, of course,” cried Gudrun. “One could never feel like this in +England, for the simple reason that the damper is _never_ lifted off +one, there. It is quite impossible really to let go, in England, of +that I am assured.” + +And she turned again to the food she was eating. She was fluttering +with vivid intensity. + +“It’s quite true,” said Gerald, “it never is quite the same in England. +But perhaps we don’t want it to be—perhaps it’s like bringing the light +a little too near the powder-magazine, to let go altogether, in +England. One is afraid what might happen, if _everybody else_ let go.” + +“My God!” cried Gudrun. “But wouldn’t it be wonderful, if all England +did suddenly go off like a display of fireworks.” + +“It couldn’t,” said Ursula. “They are all too damp, the powder is damp +in them.” + +“I’m not so sure of that,” said Gerald. + +“Nor I,” said Birkin. “When the English really begin to go off, _en +masse_, it’ll be time to shut your ears and run.” + +“They never will,” said Ursula. + +“We’ll see,” he replied. + +“Isn’t it marvellous,” said Gudrun, “how thankful one can be, to be out +of one’s country. I cannot believe myself, I am so transported, the +moment I set foot on a foreign shore. I say to myself ‘Here steps a new +creature into life.’” + +“Don’t be too hard on poor old England,” said Gerald. “Though we curse +it, we love it really.” + +To Ursula, there seemed a fund of cynicism in these words. + +“We may,” said Birkin. “But it’s a damnably uncomfortable love: like a +love for an aged parent who suffers horribly from a complication of +diseases, for which there is no hope.” + +Gudrun looked at him with dilated dark eyes. + +“You think there is no hope?” she asked, in her pertinent fashion. + +But Birkin backed away. He would not answer such a question. + +“Any hope of England’s becoming real? God knows. It’s a great actual +unreality now, an aggregation into unreality. It might be real, if +there were no Englishmen.” + +“You think the English will have to disappear?” persisted Gudrun. It +was strange, her pointed interest in his answer. It might have been her +own fate she was inquiring after. Her dark, dilated eyes rested on +Birkin, as if she could conjure the truth of the future out of him, as +out of some instrument of divination. + +He was pale. Then, reluctantly, he answered: + +“Well—what else is in front of them, but disappearance? They’ve got to +disappear from their own special brand of Englishness, anyhow.” + +Gudrun watched him as if in a hypnotic state, her eyes wide and fixed +on him. + +“But in what way do you mean, disappear?—” she persisted. + +“Yes, do you mean a change of heart?” put in Gerald. + +“I don’t mean anything, why should I?” said Birkin. “I’m an Englishman, +and I’ve paid the price of it. I can’t talk about England—I can only +speak for myself.” + +“Yes,” said Gudrun slowly, “you love England immensely, _immensely_, +Rupert.” + +“And leave her,” he replied. + +“No, not for good. You’ll come back,” said Gerald, nodding sagely. + +“They say the lice crawl off a dying body,” said Birkin, with a glare +of bitterness. “So I leave England.” + +“Ah, but you’ll come back,” said Gudrun, with a sardonic smile. + +“_Tant pis pour moi_,” he replied. + +“Isn’t he angry with his mother country!” laughed Gerald, amused. + +“Ah, a patriot!” said Gudrun, with something like a sneer. + +Birkin refused to answer any more. + +Gudrun watched him still for a few seconds. Then she turned away. It +was finished, her spell of divination in him. She felt already purely +cynical. She looked at Gerald. He was wonderful like a piece of radium +to her. She felt she could consume herself and know _all_, by means of +this fatal, living metal. She smiled to herself at her fancy. And what +would she do with herself, when she had destroyed herself? For if +spirit, if integral being is destructible, Matter is indestructible. + +He was looking bright and abstracted, puzzled, for the moment. She +stretched out her beautiful arm, with its fluff of green tulle, and +touched his chin with her subtle, artist’s fingers. + +“What are they then?” she asked, with a strange, knowing smile. + +“What?” he replied, his eyes suddenly dilating with wonder. + +“Your thoughts.” + +Gerald looked like a man coming awake. + +“I think I had none,” he said. + +“Really!” she said, with grave laughter in her voice. + +And to Birkin it was as if she killed Gerald, with that touch. + +“Ah but,” cried Gudrun, “let us drink to Britannia—let us drink to +Britannia.” + +It seemed there was wild despair in her voice. Gerald laughed, and +filled the glasses. + +“I think Rupert means,” he said, “that _nationally_ all Englishmen must +die, so that they can exist individually and—” + +“Super-nationally—” put in Gudrun, with a slight ironic grimace, +raising her glass. + +The next day, they descended at the tiny railway station of +Hohenhausen, at the end of the tiny valley railway. It was snow +everywhere, a white, perfect cradle of snow, new and frozen, sweeping +up on either side, black crags, and white sweeps of silver towards the +blue pale heavens. + +As they stepped out on the naked platform, with only snow around and +above, Gudrun shrank as if it chilled her heart. + +“My God, Jerry,” she said, turning to Gerald with sudden intimacy, +“you’ve done it now.” + +“What?” + +She made a faint gesture, indicating the world on either hand. + +“Look at it!” + +She seemed afraid to go on. He laughed. + +They were in the heart of the mountains. From high above, on either +side, swept down the white fold of snow, so that one seemed small and +tiny in a valley of pure concrete heaven, all strangely radiant and +changeless and silent. + +“It makes one feel so small and alone,” said Ursula, turning to Birkin +and laying her hand on his arm. + +“You’re not sorry you’ve come, are you?” said Gerald to Gudrun. + +She looked doubtful. They went out of the station between banks of +snow. + +“Ah,” said Gerald, sniffing the air in elation, “this is perfect. +There’s our sledge. We’ll walk a bit—we’ll run up the road.” + +Gudrun, always doubtful, dropped her heavy coat on the sledge, as he +did his, and they set off. Suddenly she threw up her head and set off +scudding along the road of snow, pulling her cap down over her ears. +Her blue, bright dress fluttered in the wind, her thick scarlet +stockings were brilliant above the whiteness. Gerald watched her: she +seemed to be rushing towards her fate, and leaving him behind. He let +her get some distance, then, loosening his limbs, he went after her. + +Everywhere was deep and silent snow. Great snow-eaves weighed down the +broad-roofed Tyrolese houses, that were sunk to the window-sashes in +snow. Peasant-women, full-skirted, wearing each a cross-over shawl, and +thick snow-boots, turned in the way to look at the soft, determined +girl running with such heavy fleetness from the man, who was overtaking +her, but not gaining any power over her. + +They passed the inn with its painted shutters and balcony, a few +cottages, half buried in the snow; then the snow-buried silent sawmill +by the roofed bridge, which crossed the hidden stream, over which they +ran into the very depth of the untouched sheets of snow. It was a +silence and a sheer whiteness exhilarating to madness. But the perfect +silence was most terrifying, isolating the soul, surrounding the heart +with frozen air. + +“It’s a marvellous place, for all that,” said Gudrun, looking into his +eyes with a strange, meaning look. His soul leapt. + +“Good,” he said. + +A fierce electric energy seemed to flow over all his limbs, his muscles +were surcharged, his hands felt hard with strength. They walked along +rapidly up the snow-road, that was marked by withered branches of trees +stuck in at intervals. He and she were separate, like opposite poles of +one fierce energy. But they felt powerful enough to leap over the +confines of life into the forbidden places, and back again. + +Birkin and Ursula were running along also, over the snow. He had +disposed of the luggage, and they had a little start of the sledges. +Ursula was excited and happy, but she kept turning suddenly to catch +hold of Birkin’s arm, to make sure of him. + +“This is something I never expected,” she said. “It is a different +world, here.” + +They went on into a snow meadow. There they were overtaken by the +sledge, that came tinkling through the silence. It was another mile +before they came upon Gudrun and Gerald on the steep up-climb, beside +the pink, half-buried shrine. + +Then they passed into a gulley, where were walls of black rock and a +river filled with snow, and a still blue sky above. Through a covered +bridge they went, drumming roughly over the boards, crossing the +snow-bed once more, then slowly up and up, the horses walking swiftly, +the driver cracking his long whip as he walked beside, and calling his +strange wild _hue-hue!_, the walls of rock passing slowly by, till they +emerged again between slopes and masses of snow. Up and up, gradually +they went, through the cold shadow-radiance of the afternoon, silenced +by the imminence of the mountains, the luminous, dazing sides of snow +that rose above them and fell away beneath. + +They came forth at last in a little high table-land of snow, where +stood the last peaks of snow like the heart petals of an open rose. In +the midst of the last deserted valleys of heaven stood a lonely +building with brown wooden walls and white heavy roof, deep and +deserted in the waste of snow, like a dream. It stood like a rock that +had rolled down from the last steep slopes, a rock that had taken the +form of a house, and was now half-buried. It was unbelievable that one +could live there uncrushed by all this terrible waste of whiteness and +silence and clear, upper, ringing cold. + +Yet the sledges ran up in fine style, people came to the door laughing +and excited, the floor of the hostel rang hollow, the passage was wet +with snow, it was a real, warm interior. + +The newcomers tramped up the bare wooden stairs, following the serving +woman. Gudrun and Gerald took the first bedroom. In a moment they found +themselves alone in a bare, smallish, close-shut room that was all of +golden-coloured wood, floor, walls, ceiling, door, all of the same warm +gold panelling of oiled pine. There was a window opposite the door, but +low down, because the roof sloped. Under the slope of the ceiling were +the table with wash-hand bowl and jug, and across, another table with +mirror. On either side the door were two beds piled high with an +enormous blue-checked overbolster, enormous. + +This was all—no cupboard, none of the amenities of life. Here they were +shut up together in this cell of golden-coloured wood, with two blue +checked beds. They looked at each other and laughed, frightened by this +naked nearness of isolation. + +A man knocked and came in with the luggage. He was a sturdy fellow with +flattish cheek-bones, rather pale, and with coarse fair moustache. +Gudrun watched him put down the bags, in silence, then tramp heavily +out. + +“It isn’t too rough, is it?” Gerald asked. + +The bedroom was not very warm, and she shivered slightly. + +“It is wonderful,” she equivocated. “Look at the colour of this +panelling—it’s wonderful, like being inside a nut.” + +He was standing watching her, feeling his short-cut moustache, leaning +back slightly and watching her with his keen, undaunted eyes, dominated +by the constant passion, that was like a doom upon him. + +She went and crouched down in front of the window, curious. + +“Oh, but this—!” she cried involuntarily, almost in pain. + +In front was a valley shut in under the sky, the last huge slopes of +snow and black rock, and at the end, like the navel of the earth, a +white-folded wall, and two peaks glimmering in the late light. Straight +in front ran the cradle of silent snow, between the great slopes that +were fringed with a little roughness of pine-trees, like hair, round +the base. But the cradle of snow ran on to the eternal closing-in, +where the walls of snow and rock rose impenetrable, and the mountain +peaks above were in heaven immediate. This was the centre, the knot, +the navel of the world, where the earth belonged to the skies, pure, +unapproachable, impassable. + +It filled Gudrun with a strange rapture. She crouched in front of the +window, clenching her face in her hands, in a sort of trance. At last +she had arrived, she had reached her place. Here at last she folded her +venture and settled down like a crystal in the navel of snow, and was +gone. + +Gerald bent above her and was looking out over her shoulder. Already he +felt he was alone. She was gone. She was completely gone, and there was +icy vapour round his heart. He saw the blind valley, the great +cul-de-sac of snow and mountain peaks, under the heaven. And there was +no way out. The terrible silence and cold and the glamorous whiteness +of the dusk wrapped him round, and she remained crouching before the +window, as at a shrine, a shadow. + +“Do you like it?” he asked, in a voice that sounded detached and +foreign. At least she might acknowledge he was with her. But she only +averted her soft, mute face a little from his gaze. And he knew that +there were tears in her eyes, her own tears, tears of her strange +religion, that put him to nought. + +Quite suddenly, he put his hand under her chin and lifted up her face +to him. Her dark blue eyes, in their wetness of tears, dilated as if +she was startled in her very soul. They looked at him through their +tears in terror and a little horror. His light blue eyes were keen, +small-pupilled and unnatural in their vision. Her lips parted, as she +breathed with difficulty. + +The passion came up in him, stroke after stroke, like the ringing of a +bronze bell, so strong and unflawed and indomitable. His knees +tightened to bronze as he hung above her soft face, whose lips parted +and whose eyes dilated in a strange violation. In the grasp of his hand +her chin was unutterably soft and silken. He felt strong as winter, his +hands were living metal, invincible and not to be turned aside. His +heart rang like a bell clanging inside him. + +He took her up in his arms. She was soft and inert, motionless. All the +while her eyes, in which the tears had not yet dried, were dilated as +if in a kind of swoon of fascination and helplessness. He was +superhumanly strong, and unflawed, as if invested with supernatural +force. + +He lifted her close and folded her against him. Her softness, her +inert, relaxed weight lay against his own surcharged, bronze-like limbs +in a heaviness of desirability that would destroy him, if he were not +fulfilled. She moved convulsively, recoiling away from him. His heart +went up like a flame of ice, he closed over her like steel. He would +destroy her rather than be denied. + +But the overweening power of his body was too much for her. She relaxed +again, and lay loose and soft, panting in a little delirium. And to +him, she was so sweet, she was such bliss of release, that he would +have suffered a whole eternity of torture rather than forego one second +of this pang of unsurpassable bliss. + +“My God,” he said to her, his face drawn and strange, transfigured, +“what next?” + +She lay perfectly still, with a still, child-like face and dark eyes, +looking at him. She was lost, fallen right away. + +“I shall always love you,” he said, looking at her. + +But she did not hear. She lay, looking at him as at something she could +never understand, never: as a child looks at a grown-up person, without +hope of understanding, only submitting. + +He kissed her, kissed her eyes shut, so that she could not look any +more. He wanted something now, some recognition, some sign, some +admission. But she only lay silent and child-like and remote, like a +child that is overcome and cannot understand, only feels lost. He +kissed her again, giving up. + +“Shall we go down and have coffee and _Kuchen?_” he asked. + +The twilight was falling slate-blue at the window. She closed her eyes, +closed away the monotonous level of dead wonder, and opened them again +to the every-day world. + +“Yes,” she said briefly, regaining her will with a click. She went +again to the window. Blue evening had fallen over the cradle of snow +and over the great pallid slopes. But in the heaven the peaks of snow +were rosy, glistening like transcendent, radiant spikes of blossom in +the heavenly upper-world, so lovely and beyond. + +Gudrun saw all their loveliness, she _knew_ how immortally beautiful +they were, great pistils of rose-coloured, snow-fed fire in the blue +twilight of the heaven. She could _see_ it, she knew it, but she was +not of it. She was divorced, debarred, a soul shut out. + +With a last look of remorse, she turned away, and was doing her hair. +He had unstrapped the luggage, and was waiting, watching her. She knew +he was watching her. It made her a little hasty and feverish in her +precipitation. + +They went downstairs, both with a strange other-world look on their +faces, and with a glow in their eyes. They saw Birkin and Ursula +sitting at the long table in a corner, waiting for them. + +“How good and simple they look together,” Gudrun thought, jealously. +She envied them some spontaneity, a childish sufficiency to which she +herself could never approach. They seemed such children to her. + +“Such good _Kranzkuchen!_” cried Ursula greedily. “So good!” + +“Right,” said Gudrun. “Can we have _Kaffee mit Kranzkuchen?_” she added +to the waiter. + +And she seated herself on the bench beside Gerald. Birkin, looking at +them, felt a pain of tenderness for them. + +“I think the place is really wonderful, Gerald,” he said; “_prachtvoll_ +and _wunderbar_ and _wunderschön_ and _unbeschreiblich_ and all the +other German adjectives.” + +Gerald broke into a slight smile. + +“_I_ like it,” he said. + +The tables, of white scrubbed wood, were placed round three sides of +the room, as in a Gasthaus. Birkin and Ursula sat with their backs to +the wall, which was of oiled wood, and Gerald and Gudrun sat in the +corner next them, near to the stove. It was a fairly large place, with +a tiny bar, just like a country inn, but quite simple and bare, and all +of oiled wood, ceilings and walls and floor, the only furniture being +the tables and benches going round three sides, the great green stove, +and the bar and the doors on the fourth side. The windows were double, +and quite uncurtained. It was early evening. + +The coffee came—hot and good—and a whole ring of cake. + +“A whole _Kuchen!_” cried Ursula. “They give you more than us! I want +some of yours.” + +There were other people in the place, ten altogether, so Birkin had +found out: two artists, three students, a man and wife, and a Professor +and two daughters—all Germans. The four English people, being +newcomers, sat in their coign of vantage to watch. The Germans peeped +in at the door, called a word to the waiter, and went away again. It +was not meal-time, so they did not come into this dining-room, but +betook themselves, when their boots were changed, to the _Reunionsaal._ + +The English visitors could hear the occasional twanging of a zither, +the strumming of a piano, snatches of laughter and shouting and +singing, a faint vibration of voices. The whole building being of wood, +it seemed to carry every sound, like a drum, but instead of increasing +each particular noise, it decreased it, so that the sound of the zither +seemed tiny, as if a diminutive zither were playing somewhere, and it +seemed the piano must be a small one, like a little spinet. + +The host came when the coffee was finished. He was a Tyrolese, broad, +rather flat-cheeked, with a pale, pock-marked skin and flourishing +moustaches. + +“Would you like to go to the _Reunionsaal_ to be introduced to the +other ladies and gentlemen?” he asked, bending forward and smiling, +showing his large, strong teeth. His blue eyes went quickly from one to +the other—he was not quite sure of his ground with these English +people. He was unhappy too because he spoke no English and he was not +sure whether to try his French. + +“Shall we go to the _Reunionsaal_, and be introduced to the other +people?” repeated Gerald, laughing. + +There was a moment’s hesitation. + +“I suppose we’d better—better break the ice,” said Birkin. + +The women rose, rather flushed. And the Wirt’s black, beetle-like, +broad-shouldered figure went on ignominiously in front, towards the +noise. He opened the door and ushered the four strangers into the +play-room. + +Instantly a silence fell, a slight embarrassment came over the company. +The newcomers had a sense of many blond faces looking their way. Then, +the host was bowing to a short, energetic-looking man with large +moustaches, and saying in a low voice: + +“_Herr Professor, darf ich vorstellen_—” + +The Herr Professor was prompt and energetic. He bowed low to the +English people, smiling, and began to be a comrade at once. + +“_Nehmen die Herrschaften teil an unserer Unterhaltung?_” he said, with +a vigorous suavity, his voice curling up in the question. + +The four English people smiled, lounging with an attentive uneasiness +in the middle of the room. Gerald, who was spokesman, said that they +would willingly take part in the entertainment. Gudrun and Ursula, +laughing, excited, felt the eyes of all the men upon them, and they +lifted their heads and looked nowhere, and felt royal. + +The Professor announced the names of those present, _sans cérémonie_. +There was a bowing to the wrong people and to the right people. +Everybody was there, except the man and wife. The two tall, +clear-skinned, athletic daughters of the professor, with their +plain-cut, dark blue blouses and loden skirts, their rather long, +strong necks, their clear blue eyes and carefully banded hair, and +their blushes, bowed and stood back; the three students bowed very low, +in the humble hope of making an impression of extreme good-breeding; +then there was a thin, dark-skinned man with full eyes, an odd +creature, like a child, and like a troll, quick, detached; he bowed +slightly; his companion, a large fair young man, stylishly dressed, +blushed to the eyes and bowed very low. + +It was over. + +“Herr Loerke was giving us a recitation in the Cologne dialect,” said +the Professor. + +“He must forgive us for interrupting him,” said Gerald, “we should like +very much to hear it.” + +There was instantly a bowing and an offering of seats. Gudrun and +Ursula, Gerald and Birkin sat in the deep sofas against the wall. The +room was of naked oiled panelling, like the rest of the house. It had a +piano, sofas and chairs, and a couple of tables with books and +magazines. In its complete absence of decoration, save for the big, +blue stove, it was cosy and pleasant. + +Herr Loerke was the little man with the boyish figure, and the round, +full, sensitive-looking head, and the quick, full eyes, like a mouse’s. +He glanced swiftly from one to the other of the strangers, and held +himself aloof. + +“Please go on with the recitation,” said the Professor, suavely, with +his slight authority. Loerke, who was sitting hunched on the piano +stool, blinked and did not answer. + +“It would be a great pleasure,” said Ursula, who had been getting the +sentence ready, in German, for some minutes. + +Then, suddenly, the small, unresponding man swung aside, towards his +previous audience and broke forth, exactly as he had broken off; in a +controlled, mocking voice, giving an imitation of a quarrel between an +old Cologne woman and a railway guard. + +His body was slight and unformed, like a boy’s, but his voice was +mature, sardonic, its movement had the flexibility of essential energy, +and of a mocking penetrating understanding. Gudrun could not understand +a word of his monologue, but she was spell-bound, watching him. He must +be an artist, nobody else could have such fine adjustment and +singleness. The Germans were doubled up with laughter, hearing his +strange droll words, his droll phrases of dialect. And in the midst of +their paroxysms, they glanced with deference at the four English +strangers, the elect. Gudrun and Ursula were forced to laugh. The room +rang with shouts of laughter. The blue eyes of the Professor’s +daughters were swimming over with laughter-tears, their clear cheeks +were flushed crimson with mirth, their father broke out in the most +astonishing peals of hilarity, the students bowed their heads on their +knees in excess of joy. Ursula looked round amazed, the laughter was +bubbling out of her involuntarily. She looked at Gudrun. Gudrun looked +at her, and the two sisters burst out laughing, carried away. Loerke +glanced at them swiftly, with his full eyes. Birkin was sniggering +involuntarily. Gerald Crich sat erect, with a glistening look of +amusement on his face. And the laughter crashed out again, in wild +paroxysms, the Professor’s daughters were reduced to shaking +helplessness, the veins of the Professor’s neck were swollen, his face +was purple, he was strangled in ultimate, silent spasms of laughter. +The students were shouting half-articulated words that tailed off in +helpless explosions. Then suddenly the rapid patter of the artist +ceased, there were little whoops of subsiding mirth, Ursula and Gudrun +were wiping their eyes, and the Professor was crying loudly. + +“_Das war ausgezeichnet, das war famos_—” + +“_Wirklich famos_,” echoed his exhausted daughters, faintly. + +“And we couldn’t understand it,” cried Ursula. + +“_Oh leider, leider!_” cried the Professor. + +“You couldn’t understand it?” cried the Students, let loose at last in +speech with the newcomers. “_Ja, das ist wirklich schade, das ist +schade, gnädige Frau. Wissen Sie_—” + +The mixture was made, the newcomers were stirred into the party, like +new ingredients, the whole room was alive. Gerald was in his element, +he talked freely and excitedly, his face glistened with a strange +amusement. Perhaps even Birkin, in the end, would break forth. He was +shy and withheld, though full of attention. + +Ursula was prevailed upon to sing “Annie Lowrie,” as the Professor +called it. There was a hush of _extreme_ deference. She had never been +so flattered in her life. Gudrun accompanied her on the piano, playing +from memory. + +Ursula had a beautiful ringing voice, but usually no confidence, she +spoiled everything. This evening she felt conceited and untrammelled. +Birkin was well in the background, she shone almost in reaction, the +Germans made her feel fine and infallible, she was liberated into +overweening self-confidence. She felt like a bird flying in the air, as +her voice soared out, enjoying herself extremely in the balance and +flight of the song, like the motion of a bird’s wings that is up in the +wind, sliding and playing on the air, she played with sentimentality, +supported by rapturous attention. She was very happy, singing that song +by herself, full of a conceit of emotion and power, working upon all +those people, and upon herself, exerting herself with gratification, +giving immeasurable gratification to the Germans. + +At the end, the Germans were all touched with admiring, delicious +melancholy, they praised her in soft, reverent voices, they could not +say too much. + +“_Wie schön, wie rührend! Ach, die Schottischen Lieder, sie haben so +viel Stimmung! Aber die gnädige Frau hat eine wunderbare Stimme; die +gnädige Frau ist wirklich eine Künstlerin, aber wirklich!_” + +She was dilated and brilliant, like a flower in the morning sun. She +felt Birkin looking at her, as if he were jealous of her, and her +breasts thrilled, her veins were all golden. She was as happy as the +sun that has just opened above clouds. And everybody seemed so admiring +and radiant, it was perfect. + +After dinner she wanted to go out for a minute, to look at the world. +The company tried to dissuade her—it was so terribly cold. But just to +look, she said. + +They all four wrapped up warmly, and found themselves in a vague, +unsubstantial outdoors of dim snow and ghosts of an upper-world, that +made strange shadows before the stars. It was indeed cold, bruisingly, +frighteningly, unnaturally cold. Ursula could not believe the air in +her nostrils. It seemed conscious, malevolent, purposive in its intense +murderous coldness. + +Yet it was wonderful, an intoxication, a silence of dim, unrealised +snow, of the invisible intervening between her and the visible, between +her and the flashing stars. She could see Orion sloping up. How +wonderful he was, wonderful enough to make one cry aloud. + +And all around was this cradle of snow, and there was firm snow +underfoot, that struck with heavy cold through her boot-soles. It was +night, and silence. She imagined she could hear the stars. She imagined +distinctly she could hear the celestial, musical motion of the stars, +quite near at hand. She seemed like a bird flying amongst their +harmonious motion. + +And she clung close to Birkin. Suddenly she realised she did not know +what he was thinking. She did not know where he was ranging. + +“My love!” she said, stopping to look at him. + +His face was pale, his eyes dark, there was a faint spark of starlight +on them. And he saw her face soft and upturned to him, very near. He +kissed her softly. + +“What then?” he asked. + +“Do you love me?” she asked. + +“Too much,” he answered quietly. + +She clung a little closer. + +“Not too much,” she pleaded. + +“Far too much,” he said, almost sadly. + +“And does it make you sad, that I am everything to you?” she asked, +wistful. He held her close to him, kissing her, and saying, scarcely +audible: + +“No, but I feel like a beggar—I feel poor.” + +She was silent, looking at the stars now. Then she kissed him. + +“Don’t be a beggar,” she pleaded, wistfully. “It isn’t ignominious that +you love me.” + +“It is ignominious to feel poor, isn’t it?” he replied. + +“Why? Why should it be?” she asked. He only stood still, in the +terribly cold air that moved invisibly over the mountain tops, folding +her round with his arms. + +“I couldn’t bear this cold, eternal place without you,” he said. “I +couldn’t bear it, it would kill the quick of my life.” + +She kissed him again, suddenly. + +“Do you hate it?” she asked, puzzled, wondering. + +“If I couldn’t come near to you, if you weren’t here, I should hate it. +I couldn’t bear it,” he answered. + +“But the people are nice,” she said. + +“I mean the stillness, the cold, the frozen eternality,” he said. + +She wondered. Then her spirit came home to him, nestling unconscious in +him. + +“Yes, it is good we are warm and together,” she said. + +And they turned home again. They saw the golden lights of the hotel +glowing out in the night of snow-silence, small in the hollow, like a +cluster of yellow berries. It seemed like a bunch of sun-sparks, tiny +and orange in the midst of the snow-darkness. Behind, was a high shadow +of a peak, blotting out the stars, like a ghost. + +They drew near to their home. They saw a man come from the dark +building, with a lighted lantern which swung golden, and made that his +dark feet walked in a halo of snow. He was a small, dark figure in the +darkened snow. He unlatched the door of an outhouse. A smell of cows, +hot, animal, almost like beef, came out on the heavily cold air. There +was a glimpse of two cattle in their dark stalls, then the door was +shut again, and not a chink of light showed. It had reminded Ursula +again of home, of the Marsh, of her childhood, and of the journey to +Brussels, and, strangely, of Anton Skrebensky. + +Oh, God, could one bear it, this past which was gone down the abyss? +Could she bear, that it ever had been! She looked round this silent, +upper world of snow and stars and powerful cold. There was another +world, like views on a magic lantern; The Marsh, Cossethay, Ilkeston, +lit up with a common, unreal light. There was a shadowy unreal Ursula, +a whole shadow-play of an unreal life. It was as unreal, and +circumscribed, as a magic-lantern show. She wished the slides could all +be broken. She wished it could be gone for ever, like a lantern-slide +which was broken. She wanted to have no past. She wanted to have come +down from the slopes of heaven to this place, with Birkin, not to have +toiled out of the murk of her childhood and her upbringing, slowly, all +soiled. She felt that memory was a dirty trick played upon her. What +was this decree, that she should ‘remember’! Why not a bath of pure +oblivion, a new birth, without any recollections or blemish of a past +life. She was with Birkin, she had just come into life, here in the +high snow, against the stars. What had she to do with parents and +antecedents? She knew herself new and unbegotten, she had no father, no +mother, no anterior connections, she was herself, pure and silvery, she +belonged only to the oneness with Birkin, a oneness that struck deeper +notes, sounding into the heart of the universe, the heart of reality, +where she had never existed before. + +Even Gudrun was a separate unit, separate, separate, having nothing to +do with this self, this Ursula, in her new world of reality. That old +shadow-world, the actuality of the past—ah, let it go! She rose free on +the wings of her new condition. + +Gudrun and Gerald had not come in. They had walked up the valley +straight in front of the house, not like Ursula and Birkin, on to the +little hill at the right. Gudrun was driven by a strange desire. She +wanted to plunge on and on, till she came to the end of the valley of +snow. Then she wanted to climb the wall of white finality, climb over, +into the peaks that sprang up like sharp petals in the heart of the +frozen, mysterious navel of the world. She felt that there, over the +strange blind, terrible wall of rocky snow, there in the navel of the +mystic world, among the final cluster of peaks, there, in the infolded +navel of it all, was her consummation. If she could but come there, +alone, and pass into the infolded navel of eternal snow and of +uprising, immortal peaks of snow and rock, she would be a oneness with +all, she would be herself the eternal, infinite silence, the sleeping, +timeless, frozen centre of the All. + +They went back to the house, to the _Reunionsaal_. She was curious to +see what was going on. The men there made her alert, roused her +curiosity. It was a new taste of life for her, they were so prostrate +before her, yet so full of life. + +The party was boisterous; they were dancing all together, dancing the +_Schuhplatteln_, the Tyrolese dance of the clapping hands and tossing +the partner in the air at the crisis. The Germans were all +proficient—they were from Munich chiefly. Gerald also was quite +passable. There were three zithers twanging away in a corner. It was a +scene of great animation and confusion. The Professor was initiating +Ursula into the dance, stamping, clapping, and swinging her high, with +amazing force and zest. When the crisis came even Birkin was behaving +manfully with one of the Professor’s fresh, strong daughters, who was +exceedingly happy. Everybody was dancing, there was the most boisterous +turmoil. + +Gudrun looked on with delight. The solid wooden floor resounded to the +knocking heels of the men, the air quivered with the clapping hands and +the zither music, there was a golden dust about the hanging lamps. + +Suddenly the dance finished, Loerke and the students rushed out to +bring in drinks. There was an excited clamour of voices, a clinking of +mug-lids, a great crying of “_Prosit—Prosit!_” Loerke was everywhere at +once, like a gnome, suggesting drinks for the women, making an obscure, +slightly risky joke with the men, confusing and mystifying the waiter. + +He wanted very much to dance with Gudrun. From the first moment he had +seen her, he wanted to make a connection with her. Instinctively she +felt this, and she waited for him to come up. But a kind of sulkiness +kept him away from her, so she thought he disliked her. + +“Will you _schuhplätteln, gnädige Frau?_” said the large, fair youth, +Loerke’s companion. He was too soft, too humble for Gudrun’s taste. But +she wanted to dance, and the fair youth, who was called Leitner, was +handsome enough in his uneasy, slightly abject fashion, a humility that +covered a certain fear. She accepted him as a partner. + +The zithers sounded out again, the dance began. Gerald led them, +laughing, with one of the Professor’s daughters. Ursula danced with one +of the students, Birkin with the other daughter of the Professor, the +Professor with Frau Kramer, and the rest of the men danced together, +with quite as much zest as if they had had women partners. + +Because Gudrun had danced with the well-built, soft youth, his +companion, Loerke, was more pettish and exasperated than ever, and +would not even notice her existence in the room. This piqued her, but +she made up to herself by dancing with the Professor, who was strong as +a mature, well-seasoned bull, and as full of coarse energy. She could +not bear him, critically, and yet she enjoyed being rushed through the +dance, and tossed up into the air, on his coarse, powerful impetus. The +Professor enjoyed it too, he eyed her with strange, large blue eyes, +full of galvanic fire. She hated him for the seasoned, semi-paternal +animalism with which he regarded her, but she admired his weight of +strength. + +The room was charged with excitement and strong, animal emotion. Loerke +was kept away from Gudrun, to whom he wanted to speak, as by a hedge of +thorns, and he felt a sardonic ruthless hatred for this young +love-companion, Leitner, who was his penniless dependent. He mocked the +youth, with an acid ridicule, that made Leitner red in the face and +impotent with resentment. + +Gerald, who had now got the dance perfectly, was dancing again with the +younger of the Professor’s daughters, who was almost dying of virgin +excitement, because she thought Gerald so handsome, so superb. He had +her in his power, as if she were a palpitating bird, a fluttering, +flushing, bewildered creature. And it made him smile, as she shrank +convulsively between his hands, violently, when he must throw her into +the air. At the end, she was so overcome with prostrate love for him, +that she could scarcely speak sensibly at all. + +Birkin was dancing with Ursula. There were odd little fires playing in +his eyes, he seemed to have turned into something wicked and +flickering, mocking, suggestive, quite impossible. Ursula was +frightened of him, and fascinated. Clear, before her eyes, as in a +vision, she could see the sardonic, licentious mockery of his eyes, he +moved towards her with subtle, animal, indifferent approach. The +strangeness of his hands, which came quick and cunning, inevitably to +the vital place beneath her breasts, and, lifting with mocking, +suggestive impulse, carried her through the air as if without strength, +through blackmagic, made her swoon with fear. For a moment she +revolted, it was horrible. She would break the spell. But before the +resolution had formed she had submitted again, yielded to her fear. He +knew all the time what he was doing, she could see it in his smiling, +concentrated eyes. It was his responsibility, she would leave it to +him. + +When they were alone in the darkness, she felt the strange, +licentiousness of him hovering upon her. She was troubled and repelled. +Why should he turn like this? + +“What is it?” she asked in dread. + +But his face only glistened on her, unknown, horrible. And yet she was +fascinated. Her impulse was to repel him violently, break from this +spell of mocking brutishness. But she was too fascinated, she wanted to +submit, she wanted to know. What would he do to her? + +He was so attractive, and so repulsive at one. The sardonic +suggestivity that flickered over his face and looked from his narrowed +eyes, made her want to hide, to hide herself away from him and watch +him from somewhere unseen. + +“Why are you like this?” she demanded again, rousing against him with +sudden force and animosity. + +The flickering fires in his eyes concentrated as he looked into her +eyes. Then the lids drooped with a faint motion of satiric contempt. +Then they rose again to the same remorseless suggestivity. And she gave +way, he might do as he would. His licentiousness was repulsively +attractive. But he was self-responsible, she would see what it was. + +They might do as they liked—this she realised as she went to sleep. How +could anything that gave one satisfaction be excluded? What was +degrading? Who cared? Degrading things were real, with a different +reality. And he was so unabashed and unrestrained. Wasn’t it rather +horrible, a man who could be so soulful and spiritual, now to be so—she +balked at her own thoughts and memories: then she added—so bestial? So +bestial, they two!—so degraded! She winced. But after all, why not? She +exulted as well. Why not be bestial, and go the whole round of +experience? She exulted in it. She was bestial. How good it was to be +really shameful! There would be no shameful thing she had not +experienced. Yet she was unabashed, she was herself. Why not? She was +free, when she knew everything, and no dark shameful things were denied +her. + +Gudrun, who had been watching Gerald in the _Reunionsaal_, suddenly +thought: + +“He should have all the women he can—it is his nature. It is absurd to +call him monogamous—he is naturally promiscuous. That is his nature.” + +The thought came to her involuntarily. It shocked her somewhat. It was +as if she had seen some new _Mene! Mene!_ upon the wall. Yet it was +merely true. A voice seemed to have spoken it to her so clearly, that +for the moment she believed in inspiration. + +“It is really true,” she said to herself again. + +She knew quite well she had believed it all along. She knew it +implicitly. But she must keep it dark—almost from herself. She must +keep it completely secret. It was knowledge for her alone, and scarcely +even to be admitted to herself. + +The deep resolve formed in her, to combat him. One of them must triumph +over the other. Which should it be? Her soul steeled itself with +strength. Almost she laughed within herself, at her confidence. It woke +a certain keen, half contemptuous pity, tenderness for him: she was so +ruthless. + +Everybody retired early. The Professor and Loerke went into a small +lounge to drink. They both watched Gudrun go along the landing by the +railing upstairs. + +“_Ein schönes Frauenzimmer_,” said the Professor. + +“_Ja!_” asserted Loerke, shortly. + +Gerald walked with his queer, long wolf-steps across the bedroom to the +window, stooped and looked out, then rose again, and turned to Gudrun, +his eyes sharp with an abstract smile. He seemed very tall to her, she +saw the glisten of his whitish eyebrows, that met between his brows. + +“How do you like it?” he said. + +He seemed to be laughing inside himself, quite unconsciously. She +looked at him. He was a phenomenon to her, not a human being: a sort of +creature, greedy. + +“I like it very much,” she replied. + +“Who do you like best downstairs?” he asked, standing tall and +glistening above her, with his glistening stiff hair erect. + +“Who do I like best?” she repeated, wanting to answer his question, and +finding it difficult to collect herself. “Why I don’t know, I don’t +know enough about them yet, to be able to say. Who do _you_ like best?” + +“Oh, I don’t care—I don’t like or dislike any of them. It doesn’t +matter about me. I wanted to know about you.” + +“But why?” she asked, going rather pale. The abstract, unconscious +smile in his eyes was intensified. + +“I wanted to know,” he said. + +She turned aside, breaking the spell. In some strange way, she felt he +was getting power over her. + +“Well, I can’t tell you already,” she said. + +She went to the mirror to take out the hairpins from her hair. She +stood before the mirror every night for some minutes, brushing her fine +dark hair. It was part of the inevitable ritual of her life. + +He followed her, and stood behind her. She was busy with bent head, +taking out the pins and shaking her warm hair loose. When she looked +up, she saw him in the glass standing behind her, watching +unconsciously, not consciously seeing her, and yet watching, with +finepupilled eyes that _seemed_ to smile, and which were not really +smiling. + +She started. It took all her courage for her to continue brushing her +hair, as usual, for her to pretend she was at her ease. She was far, +far from being at her ease with him. She beat her brains wildly for +something to say to him. + +“What are your plans for tomorrow?” she asked nonchalantly, whilst her +heart was beating so furiously, her eyes were so bright with strange +nervousness, she felt he could not but observe. But she knew also that +he was completely blind, blind as a wolf looking at her. It was a +strange battle between her ordinary consciousness and his uncanny, +black-art consciousness. + +“I don’t know,” he replied, “what would you like to do?” + +He spoke emptily, his mind was sunk away. + +“Oh,” she said, with easy protestation, “I’m ready for +anything—anything will be fine for _me_, I’m sure.” + +And to herself she was saying: “God, why am I so nervous—why are you so +nervous, you fool. If he sees it I’m done for forever—you _know_ you’re +done for forever, if he sees the absurd state you’re in.” + +And she smiled to herself as if it were all child’s play. Meanwhile her +heart was plunging, she was almost fainting. She could see him, in the +mirror, as he stood there behind her, tall and over-arching—blond and +terribly frightening. She glanced at his reflection with furtive eyes, +willing to give anything to save him from knowing she could see him. He +did not know she could see his reflection. He was looking +unconsciously, glisteningly down at her head, from which the hair fell +loose, as she brushed it with wild, nervous hand. She held her head +aside and brushed and brushed her hair madly. For her life, she could +not turn round and face him. For her life, _she could not_. And the +knowledge made her almost sink to the ground in a faint, helpless, +spent. She was aware of his frightening, impending figure standing +close behind her, she was aware of his hard, strong, unyielding chest, +close upon her back. And she felt she could not bear it any more, in a +few minutes she would fall down at his feet, grovelling at his feet, +and letting him destroy her. + +The thought pricked up all her sharp intelligence and presence of mind. +She dared not turn round to him—and there he stood motionless, +unbroken. Summoning all her strength, she said, in a full, resonant, +nonchalant voice, that was forced out with all her remaining +self-control: + +“Oh, would you mind looking in that bag behind there and giving me my—” + +Here her power fell inert. “My what—my what—?” she screamed in silence +to herself. + +But he had started round, surprised and startled that she should ask +him to look in her bag, which she always kept so _very_ private to +herself. + +She turned now, her face white, her dark eyes blazing with uncanny, +overwrought excitement. She saw him stooping to the bag, undoing the +loosely buckled strap, unattentive. + +“Your what?” he asked. + +“Oh, a little enamel box—yellow—with a design of a cormorant plucking +her breast—” + +She went towards him, stooping her beautiful, bare arm, and deftly +turned some of her things, disclosing the box, which was exquisitely +painted. + +“That is it, see,” she said, taking it from under his eyes. + +And he was baffled now. He was left to fasten up the bag, whilst she +swiftly did up her hair for the night, and sat down to unfasten her +shoes. She would not turn her back to him any more. + +He was baffled, frustrated, but unconscious. She had the whip hand over +him now. She knew he had not realised her terrible panic. Her heart was +beating heavily still. Fool, fool that she was, to get into such a +state! How she thanked God for Gerald’s obtuse blindness. Thank God he +could see nothing. + +She sat slowly unlacing her shoes, and he too commenced to undress. +Thank God that crisis was over. She felt almost fond of him now, almost +in love with him. + +“Ah, Gerald,” she laughed, caressively, teasingly, “Ah, what a fine +game you played with the Professor’s daughter—didn’t you now?” + +“What game?” he asked, looking round. + +“_Isn’t_ she in love with you—oh _dear_, isn’t she in love with you!” +said Gudrun, in her gayest, most attractive mood. + +“I shouldn’t think so,” he said. + +“Shouldn’t think so!” she teased. “Why the poor girl is lying at this +moment overwhelmed, dying with love for you. She thinks you’re +_wonderful_—oh marvellous, beyond what man has ever been. _really_, +isn’t it funny?” + +“Why funny, what is funny?” he asked. + +“Why to see you working it on her,” she said, with a half reproach that +confused the male conceit in him. “Really Gerald, the poor girl—!” + +“I did nothing to her,” he said. + +“Oh, it was too shameful, the way you simply swept her off her feet.” + +“That was _Schuhplatteln_,” he replied, with a bright grin. + +“Ha—ha—ha!” laughed Gudrun. + +Her mockery quivered through his muscles with curious re-echoes. When +he slept he seemed to crouch down in the bed, lapped up in his own +strength, that yet was hollow. + +And Gudrun slept strongly, a victorious sleep. Suddenly, she was almost +fiercely awake. The small timber room glowed with the dawn, that came +upwards from the low window. She could see down the valley when she +lifted her head: the snow with a pinkish, half-revealed magic, the +fringe of pine-trees at the bottom of the slope. And one tiny figure +moved over the vaguely-illuminated space. + +She glanced at his watch; it was seven o’clock. He was still completely +asleep. And she was so hard awake, it was almost frightening—a hard, +metallic wakefulness. She lay looking at him. + +He slept in the subjection of his own health and defeat. She was +overcome by a sincere regard for him. Till now, she was afraid before +him. She lay and thought about him, what he was, what he represented in +the world. A fine, independent will, he had. She thought of the +revolution he had worked in the mines, in so short a time. She knew +that, if he were confronted with any problem, any hard actual +difficulty, he would overcome it. If he laid hold of any idea, he would +carry it through. He had the faculty of making order out of confusion. +Only let him grip hold of a situation, and he would bring to pass an +inevitable conclusion. + +For a few moments she was borne away on the wild wings of ambition. +Gerald, with his force of will and his power for comprehending the +actual world, should be set to solve the problems of the day, the +problem of industrialism in the modern world. She knew he would, in the +course of time, effect the changes he desired, he could re-organise the +industrial system. She knew he could do it. As an instrument, in these +things, he was marvellous, she had never seen any man with his +potentiality. He was unaware of it, but she knew. + +He only needed to be hitched on, he needed that his hand should be set +to the task, because he was so unconscious. And this she could do. She +would marry him, he would go into Parliament in the Conservative +interest, he would clear up the great muddle of labour and industry. He +was so superbly fearless, masterful, he knew that every problem could +be worked out, in life as in geometry. And he would care neither about +himself nor about anything but the pure working out of the problem. He +was very pure, really. + +Her heart beat fast, she flew away on wings of elation, imagining a +future. He would be a Napoleon of peace, or a Bismarck—and she the +woman behind him. She had read Bismarck’s letters, and had been deeply +moved by them. And Gerald would be freer, more dauntless than Bismarck. + +But even as she lay in fictitious transport, bathed in the strange, +false sunshine of hope in life, something seemed to snap in her, and a +terrible cynicism began to gain upon her, blowing in like a wind. +Everything turned to irony with her: the last flavour of everything was +ironical. When she felt her pang of undeniable reality, this was when +she knew the hard irony of hopes and ideas. + +She lay and looked at him, as he slept. He was sheerly beautiful, he +was a perfect instrument. To her mind, he was a pure, inhuman, almost +superhuman instrument. His instrumentality appealed so strongly to her, +she wished she were God, to use him as a tool. + +And at the same instant, came the ironical question: “What for?” She +thought of the colliers’ wives, with their linoleum and their lace +curtains and their little girls in high-laced boots. She thought of the +wives and daughters of the pit-managers, their tennis-parties, and +their terrible struggles to be superior each to the other, in the +social scale. There was Shortlands with its meaningless distinction, +the meaningless crowd of the Criches. There was London, the House of +Commons, the extant social world. My God! + +Young as she was, Gudrun had touched the whole pulse of social England. +She had no ideas of rising in the world. She knew, with the perfect +cynicism of cruel youth, that to rise in the world meant to have one +outside show instead of another, the advance was like having a spurious +half-crown instead of a spurious penny. The whole coinage of valuation +was spurious. Yet of course, her cynicism knew well enough that, in a +world where spurious coin was current, a bad sovereign was better than +a bad farthing. But rich and poor, she despised both alike. + +Already she mocked at herself for her dreams. They could be fulfilled +easily enough. But she recognised too well, in her spirit, the mockery +of her own impulses. What did she care, that Gerald had created a +richly-paying industry out of an old worn-out concern? What did she +care? The worn-out concern and the rapid, splendidly organised +industry, they were bad money. Yet of course, she cared a great deal, +outwardly—and outwardly was all that mattered, for inwardly was a bad +joke. + +Everything was intrinsically a piece of irony to her. She leaned over +Gerald and said in her heart, with compassion: + +“Oh, my dear, my dear, the game isn’t worth even you. You are a fine +thing really—why should you be used on such a poor show!” + +Her heart was breaking with pity and grief for him. And at the same +moment, a grimace came over her mouth, of mocking irony at her own +unspoken tirade. Ah, what a farce it was! She thought of Parnell and +Katherine O’Shea. Parnell! After all, who can take the nationalisation +of Ireland seriously? Who can take political Ireland really seriously, +whatever it does? And who can take political England seriously? Who +can? Who can care a straw, really, how the old patched-up Constitution +is tinkered at any more? Who cares a button for our national ideas, any +more than for our national bowler hat? Aha, it is all old hat, it is +all old bowler hat! + +That’s all it is, Gerald, my young hero. At any rate we’ll spare +ourselves the nausea of stirring the old broth any more. You be +beautiful, my Gerald, and reckless. There _are_ perfect moments. Wake +up, Gerald, wake up, convince me of the perfect moments. Oh, convince +me, I need it. + +He opened his eyes, and looked at her. She greeted him with a mocking, +enigmatic smile in which was a poignant gaiety. Over his face went the +reflection of the smile, he smiled, too, purely unconsciously. + +That filled her with extraordinary delight, to see the smile cross his +face, reflected from her face. She remembered that was how a baby +smiled. It filled her with extraordinary radiant delight. + +“You’ve done it,” she said. + +“What?” he asked, dazed. + +“Convinced me.” + +And she bent down, kissing him passionately, passionately, so that he +was bewildered. He did not ask her of what he had convinced her, though +he meant to. He was glad she was kissing him. She seemed to be feeling +for his very heart to touch the quick of him. And he wanted her to +touch the quick of his being, he wanted that most of all. + +Outside, somebody was singing, in a manly, reckless handsome voice: + +“Mach mir auf, mach mir auf, du Stolze, +Mach mir ein Feuer von Holze. +Vom Regen bin ich nass +Vom Regen bin ich nass—” + +Gudrun knew that that song would sound through her eternity, sung in a +manly, reckless, mocking voice. It marked one of her supreme moments, +the supreme pangs of her nervous gratification. There it was, fixed in +eternity for her. + +The day came fine and bluish. There was a light wind blowing among the +mountain tops, keen as a rapier where it touched, carrying with it a +fine dust of snow-powder. Gerald went out with the fine, blind face of +a man who is in his state of fulfilment. Gudrun and he were in perfect +static unity this morning, but unseeing and unwitting. They went out +with a toboggan, leaving Ursula and Birkin to follow. + +Gudrun was all scarlet and royal blue—a scarlet jersey and cap, and a +royal blue skirt and stockings. She went gaily over the white snow, +with Gerald beside her, in white and grey, pulling the little toboggan. +They grew small in the distance of snow, climbing the steep slope. + +For Gudrun herself, she seemed to pass altogether into the whiteness of +the snow, she became a pure, thoughtless crystal. When she reached the +top of the slope, in the wind, she looked round, and saw peak beyond +peak of rock and snow, bluish, transcendent in heaven. And it seemed to +her like a garden, with the peaks for pure flowers, and her heart +gathering them. She had no separate consciousness for Gerald. + +She held on to him as they went sheering down over the keen slope. She +felt as if her senses were being whetted on some fine grindstone, that +was keen as flame. The snow sprinted on either side, like sparks from a +blade that is being sharpened, the whiteness round about ran swifter, +swifter, in pure flame the white slope flew against her, and she fused +like one molten, dancing globule, rushed through a white intensity. +Then there was a great swerve at the bottom, when they swung as it were +in a fall to earth, in the diminishing motion. + +They came to rest. But when she rose to her feet, she could not stand. +She gave a strange cry, turned and clung to him, sinking her face on +his breast, fainting in him. Utter oblivion came over her, as she lay +for a few moments abandoned against him. + +“What is it?” he was saying. “Was it too much for you?” + +But she heard nothing. + +When she came to, she stood up and looked round, astonished. Her face +was white, her eyes brilliant and large. + +“What is it?” he repeated. “Did it upset you?” + +She looked at him with her brilliant eyes that seemed to have undergone +some transfiguration, and she laughed, with a terrible merriment. + +“No,” she cried, with triumphant joy. “It was the complete moment of my +life.” + +And she looked at him with her dazzling, overweening laughter, like one +possessed. A fine blade seemed to enter his heart, but he did not care, +or take any notice. + +But they climbed up the slope again, and they flew down through the +white flame again, splendidly, splendidly. Gudrun was laughing and +flashing, powdered with snow-crystals, Gerald worked perfectly. He felt +he could guide the toboggan to a hair-breadth, almost he could make it +pierce into the air and right into the very heart of the sky. It seemed +to him the flying sledge was but his strength spread out, he had but to +move his arms, the motion was his own. They explored the great slopes, +to find another slide. He felt there must be something better than they +had known. And he found what he desired, a perfect long, fierce sweep, +sheering past the foot of a rock and into the trees at the base. It was +dangerous, he knew. But then he knew also he would direct the sledge +between his fingers. + +The first days passed in an ecstasy of physical motion, sleighing, +skiing, skating, moving in an intensity of speed and white light that +surpassed life itself, and carried the souls of the human beings beyond +into an inhuman abstraction of velocity and weight and eternal, frozen +snow. + +Gerald’s eyes became hard and strange, and as he went by on his skis he +was more like some powerful, fateful sigh than a man, his muscles +elastic in a perfect, soaring trajectory, his body projected in pure +flight, mindless, soulless, whirling along one perfect line of force. + +Luckily there came a day of snow, when they must all stay indoors: +otherwise Birkin said, they would all lose their faculties, and begin +to utter themselves in cries and shrieks, like some strange, unknown +species of snow-creatures. + +It happened in the afternoon that Ursula sat in the _Reunionsaal_ +talking to Loerke. The latter had seemed unhappy lately. He was lively +and full of mischievous humour, as usual. + +But Ursula had thought he was sulky about something. His partner, too, +the big, fair, good-looking youth, was ill at ease, going about as if +he belonged to nowhere, and was kept in some sort of subjection, +against which he was rebelling. + +Loerke had hardly talked to Gudrun. His associate, on the other hand, +had paid her constantly a soft, over-deferential attention. Gudrun +wanted to talk to Loerke. He was a sculptor, and she wanted to hear his +view of his art. And his figure attracted her. There was the look of a +little wastrel about him, that intrigued her, and an old man’s look, +that interested her, and then, beside this, an uncanny singleness, a +quality of being by himself, not in contact with anybody else, that +marked out an artist to her. He was a chatterer, a magpie, a maker of +mischievous word-jokes, that were sometimes very clever, but which +often were not. And she could see in his brown, gnome’s eyes, the black +look of inorganic misery, which lay behind all his small buffoonery. + +His figure interested her—the figure of a boy, almost a street arab. He +made no attempt to conceal it. He always wore a simple loden suit, with +knee breeches. His legs were thin, and he made no attempt to disguise +the fact: which was of itself remarkable, in a German. And he never +ingratiated himself anywhere, not in the slightest, but kept to +himself, for all his apparent playfulness. + +Leitner, his companion, was a great sportsman, very handsome with his +big limbs and his blue eyes. Loerke would go toboganning or skating, in +little snatches, but he was indifferent. And his fine, thin nostrils, +the nostrils of a pure-bred street arab, would quiver with contempt at +Leitner’s splothering gymnastic displays. It was evident that the two +men who had travelled and lived together, sharing the same bedroom, had +now reached the stage of loathing. Leitner hated Loerke with an +injured, writhing, impotent hatred, and Loerke treated Leitner with a +fine-quivering contempt and sarcasm. Soon the two would have to go +apart. + +Already they were rarely together. Leitner ran attaching himself to +somebody or other, always deferring, Loerke was a good deal alone. Out +of doors he wore a Westphalian cap, a close brown-velvet head with big +brown velvet flaps down over his ears, so that he looked like a +lop-eared rabbit, or a troll. His face was brown-red, with a dry, +bright skin, that seemed to crinkle with his mobile expressions. His +eyes were arresting—brown, full, like a rabbit’s, or like a troll’s, or +like the eyes of a lost being, having a strange, dumb, depraved look of +knowledge, and a quick spark of uncanny fire. Whenever Gudrun had tried +to talk to him he had shied away unresponsive, looking at her with his +watchful dark eyes, but entering into no relation with her. He had made +her feel that her slow French and her slower German, were hateful to +him. As for his own inadequate English, he was much too awkward to try +it at all. But he understood a good deal of what was said, +nevertheless. And Gudrun, piqued, left him alone. + +This afternoon, however, she came into the lounge as he was talking to +Ursula. His fine, black hair somehow reminded her of a bat, thin as it +was on his full, sensitive-looking head, and worn away at the temples. +He sat hunched up, as if his spirit were bat-like. And Gudrun could see +he was making some slow confidence to Ursula, unwilling, a slow, +grudging, scanty self-revelation. She went and sat by her sister. + +He looked at her, then looked away again, as if he took no notice of +her. But as a matter of fact, she interested him deeply. + +“Isn’t it interesting, Prune,” said Ursula, turning to her sister, +“Herr Loerke is doing a great frieze for a factory in Cologne, for the +outside, the street.” + +She looked at him, at his thin, brown, nervous hands, that were +prehensile, and somehow like talons, like “griffes,” inhuman. + +“What _in?_” she asked. + +“_Aus was?_” repeated Ursula. + +“_Granit_,” he replied. + +It had become immediately a laconic series of question and answer +between fellow craftsmen. + +“What is the relief?” asked Gudrun. + +“_Alto relievo._” + +“And at what height?” + +It was very interesting to Gudrun to think of his making the great +granite frieze for a great granite factory in Cologne. She got from him +some notion of the design. It was a representation of a fair, with +peasants and artisans in an orgy of enjoyment, drunk and absurd in +their modern dress, whirling ridiculously in roundabouts, gaping at +shows, kissing and staggering and rolling in knots, swinging in +swing-boats, and firing down shooting galleries, a frenzy of chaotic +motion. + +There was a swift discussion of technicalities. Gudrun was very much +impressed. + +“But how wonderful, to have such a factory!” cried Ursula. “Is the +whole building fine?” + +“Oh yes,” he replied. “The frieze is part of the whole architecture. +Yes, it is a colossal thing.” + +Then he seemed to stiffen, shrugged his shoulders, and went on: + +“Sculpture and architecture must go together. The day for irrelevant +statues, as for wall pictures, is over. As a matter of fact sculpture +is always part of an architectural conception. And since churches are +all museum stuff, since industry is our business, now, then let us make +our places of industry our art—our factory-area our Parthenon, _ecco!_” + +Ursula pondered. + +“I suppose,” she said, “there is no _need_ for our great works to be so +hideous.” + +Instantly he broke into motion. + +“There you are!” he cried, “there you are! There is not only _no need_ +for our places of work to be ugly, but their ugliness ruins the work, +in the end. Men will not go on submitting to such intolerable ugliness. +In the end it will hurt too much, and they will wither because of it. +And this will wither the _work_ as well. They will think the work +itself is ugly: the machines, the very act of labour. Whereas the +machinery and the acts of labour are extremely, maddeningly beautiful. +But this will be the end of our civilisation, when people will not work +because work has become so intolerable to their senses, it nauseates +them too much, they would rather starve. _Then_ we shall see the hammer +used only for smashing, then we shall see it. Yet here we are—we have +the opportunity to make beautiful factories, beautiful +machine-houses—we have the opportunity—” + +Gudrun could only partly understand. She could have cried with +vexation. + +“What does he say?” she asked Ursula. And Ursula translated, stammering +and brief. Loerke watched Gudrun’s face, to see her judgment. + +“And do you think then,” said Gudrun, “that art should serve industry?” + +“Art should _interpret_ industry, as art once interpreted religion,” he +said. + +“But does your fair interpret industry?” she asked him. + +“Certainly. What is man doing, when he is at a fair like this? He is +fulfilling the counterpart of labour—the machine works him, instead of +he the machine. He enjoys the mechanical motion, in his own body.” + +“But is there nothing but work—mechanical work?” said Gudrun. + +“Nothing but work!” he repeated, leaning forward, his eyes two +darknesses, with needle-points of light. “No, it is nothing but this, +serving a machine, or enjoying the motion of a machine—motion, that is +all. You have never worked for hunger, or you would know what god +governs us.” + +Gudrun quivered and flushed. For some reason she was almost in tears. + +“No, I have not worked for hunger,” she replied, “but I have worked!” + +“_Travaillé—lavorato?_” he asked. “_E che lavoro—che lavoro? Quel +travail est-ce que vous avez fait?_” + +He broke into a mixture of Italian and French, instinctively using a +foreign language when he spoke to her. + +“You have never worked as the world works,” he said to her, with +sarcasm. + +“Yes,” she said. “I have. And I do—I work now for my daily bread.” + +He paused, looked at her steadily, then dropped the subject entirely. +She seemed to him to be trifling. + +“But have _you_ ever worked as the world works?” Ursula asked him. + +He looked at her untrustful. + +“Yes,” he replied, with a surly bark. “I have known what it was to lie +in bed for three days, because I had nothing to eat.” + +Gudrun was looking at him with large, grave eyes, that seemed to draw +the confession from him as the marrow from his bones. All his nature +held him back from confessing. And yet her large, grave eyes upon him +seemed to open some valve in his veins, and involuntarily he was +telling. + +“My father was a man who did not like work, and we had no mother. We +lived in Austria, Polish Austria. How did we live? Ha!—somehow! Mostly +in a room with three other families—one set in each corner—and the W.C. +in the middle of the room—a pan with a plank on it—ha! I had two +brothers and a sister—and there might be a woman with my father. He was +a free being, in his way—would fight with any man in the town—a +garrison town—and was a little man too. But he wouldn’t work for +anybody—set his heart against it, and wouldn’t.” + +“And how did you live then?” asked Ursula. + +He looked at her—then, suddenly, at Gudrun. + +“Do you understand?” he asked. + +“Enough,” she replied. + +Their eyes met for a moment. Then he looked away. He would say no more. + +“And how did you become a sculptor?” asked Ursula. + +“How did I become a sculptor—” he paused. “_Dunque_—” he resumed, in a +changed manner, and beginning to speak French—“I became old enough—I +used to steal from the market-place. Later I went to work—imprinted the +stamp on clay bottles, before they were baked. It was an +earthenware-bottle factory. There I began making models. One day, I had +had enough. I lay in the sun and did not go to work. Then I walked to +Munich—then I walked to Italy—begging, begging everything.” + +“The Italians were very good to me—they were good and honourable to me. +From Bozen to Rome, almost every night I had a meal and a bed, perhaps +of straw, with some peasant. I love the Italian people, with all my +heart. + +“_Dunque, adesso—maintenant_—I earn a thousand pounds in a year, or I +earn two thousand—” + +He looked down at the ground, his voice tailing off into silence. + +Gudrun looked at his fine, thin, shiny skin, reddish-brown from the +sun, drawn tight over his full temples; and at his thin hair—and at the +thick, coarse, brush-like moustache, cut short about his mobile, rather +shapeless mouth. + +“How old are you?” she asked. + +He looked up at her with his full, elfin eyes startled. + +“_Wie alt?_” he repeated. And he hesitated. It was evidently one of his +reticencies. + +“How old are _you?_” he replied, without answering. + +“I am twenty-six,” she answered. + +“Twenty-six,” he repeated, looking into her eyes. He paused. Then he +said: + +“_Und Ihr Herr Gemahl, wie alt ist er?_” + +“Who?” asked Gudrun. + +“Your husband,” said Ursula, with a certain irony. + +“I haven’t got a husband,” said Gudrun in English. In German she +answered, + +“He is thirty-one.” + +But Loerke was watching closely, with his uncanny, full, suspicious +eyes. Something in Gudrun seemed to accord with him. He was really like +one of the “little people’ who have no soul, who has found his mate in +a human being. But he suffered in his discovery. She too was fascinated +by him, fascinated, as if some strange creature, a rabbit or a bat, or +a brown seal, had begun to talk to her. But also, she knew what he was +unconscious of, his tremendous power of understanding, of apprehending +her living motion. He did not know his own power. He did not know how, +with his full, submerged, watchful eyes, he could look into her and see +her, what she was, see her secrets. He would only want her to be +herself—he knew her verily, with a subconscious, sinister knowledge, +devoid of illusions and hopes. + +To Gudrun, there was in Loerke the rock-bottom of all life. Everybody +else had their illusion, must have their illusion, their before and +after. But he, with a perfect stoicism, did without any before and +after, dispensed with all illusion. He did not deceive himself in the +last issue. In the last issue he cared about nothing, he was troubled +about nothing, he made not the slightest attempt to be at one with +anything. He existed a pure, unconnected will, stoical and +momentaneous. There was only his work. + +It was curious too, how his poverty, the degradation of his earlier +life, attracted her. There was something insipid and tasteless to her, +in the idea of a gentleman, a man who had gone the usual course through +school and university. A certain violent sympathy, however, came up in +her for this mud-child. He seemed to be the very stuff of the +underworld of life. There was no going beyond him. + +Ursula too was attracted by Loerke. In both sisters he commanded a +certain homage. But there were moments when to Ursula he seemed +indescribably inferior, false, a vulgarism. + +Both Birkin and Gerald disliked him, Gerald ignoring him with some +contempt, Birkin exasperated. + +“What do the women find so impressive in that little brat?” Gerald +asked. + +“God alone knows,” replied Birkin, “unless it’s some sort of appeal he +makes to them, which flatters them and has such a power over them.” + +Gerald looked up in surprise. + +“_Does_ he make an appeal to them?” he asked. + +“Oh yes,” replied Birkin. “He is the perfectly subjected being, +existing almost like a criminal. And the women rush towards that, like +a current of air towards a vacuum.” + +“Funny they should rush to that,” said Gerald. + +“Makes one mad, too,” said Birkin. “But he has the fascination of pity +and repulsion for them, a little obscene monster of the darkness that +he is.” + +Gerald stood still, suspended in thought. + +“What _do_ women want, at the bottom?” he asked. + +Birkin shrugged his shoulders. + +“God knows,” he said. “Some satisfaction in basic repulsion, it seems +to me. They seem to creep down some ghastly tunnel of darkness, and +will never be satisfied till they’ve come to the end.” + +Gerald looked out into the mist of fine snow that was blowing by. +Everywhere was blind today, horribly blind. + +“And what is the end?” he asked. + +Birkin shook his head. + +“I’ve not got there yet, so I don’t know. Ask Loerke, he’s pretty near. +He is a good many stages further than either you or I can go.” + +“Yes, but stages further in what?” cried Gerald, irritated. + +Birkin sighed, and gathered his brows into a knot of anger. + +“Stages further in social hatred,” he said. “He lives like a rat, in +the river of corruption, just where it falls over into the bottomless +pit. He’s further on than we are. He hates the ideal more acutely. He +_hates_ the ideal utterly, yet it still dominates him. I expect he is a +Jew—or part Jewish.” + +“Probably,” said Gerald. + +“He is a gnawing little negation, gnawing at the roots of life.” + +“But why does anybody care about him?” cried Gerald. + +“Because they hate the ideal also, in their souls. They want to explore +the sewers, and he’s the wizard rat that swims ahead.” + +Still Gerald stood and stared at the blind haze of snow outside. + +“I don’t understand your terms, really,” he said, in a flat, doomed +voice. “But it sounds a rum sort of desire.” + +“I suppose we want the same,” said Birkin. “Only we want to take a +quick jump downwards, in a sort of ecstasy—and he ebbs with the stream, +the sewer stream.” + +Meanwhile Gudrun and Ursula waited for the next opportunity to talk to +Loerke. It was no use beginning when the men were there. Then they +could get into no touch with the isolated little sculptor. He had to be +alone with them. And he preferred Ursula to be there, as a sort of +transmitter to Gudrun. + +“Do you do nothing but architectural sculpture?” Gudrun asked him one +evening. + +“Not now,” he replied. “I have done all sorts—except portraits—I never +did portraits. But other things—” + +“What kind of things?” asked Gudrun. + +He paused a moment, then rose, and went out of the room. He returned +almost immediately with a little roll of paper, which he handed to her. +She unrolled it. It was a photogravure reproduction of a statuette, +signed F. Loerke. + +“That is quite an early thing—_not_ mechanical,” he said, “more +popular.” + +The statuette was of a naked girl, small, finely made, sitting on a +great naked horse. The girl was young and tender, a mere bud. She was +sitting sideways on the horse, her face in her hands, as if in shame +and grief, in a little abandon. Her hair, which was short and must be +flaxen, fell forward, divided, half covering her hands. + +Her limbs were young and tender. Her legs, scarcely formed yet, the +legs of a maiden just passing towards cruel womanhood, dangled +childishly over the side of the powerful horse, pathetically, the small +feet folded one over the other, as if to hide. But there was no hiding. +There she was exposed naked on the naked flank of the horse. + +The horse stood stock still, stretched in a kind of start. It was a +massive, magnificent stallion, rigid with pent-up power. Its neck was +arched and terrible, like a sickle, its flanks were pressed back, rigid +with power. + +Gudrun went pale, and a darkness came over her eyes, like shame, she +looked up with a certain supplication, almost slave-like. He glanced at +her, and jerked his head a little. + +“How big is it?” she asked, in a toneless voice, persisting in +appearing casual and unaffected. + +“How big?” he replied, glancing again at her. “Without pedestal—so +high—” he measured with his hand—“with pedestal, so—” + +He looked at her steadily. There was a little brusque, turgid contempt +for her in his swift gesture, and she seemed to cringe a little. + +“And what is it done in?” she asked, throwing back her head and looking +at him with affected coldness. + +He still gazed at her steadily, and his dominance was not shaken. + +“Bronze—green bronze.” + +“Green bronze!” repeated Gudrun, coldly accepting his challenge. She +was thinking of the slender, immature, tender limbs of the girl, smooth +and cold in green bronze. + +“Yes, beautiful,” she murmured, looking up at him with a certain dark +homage. + +He closed his eyes and looked aside, triumphant. + +“Why,” said Ursula, “did you make the horse so stiff? It is as stiff as +a block.” + +“Stiff?” he repeated, in arms at once. + +“Yes. _Look_ how stock and stupid and brutal it is. Horses are +sensitive, quite delicate and sensitive, really.” + +He raised his shoulders, spread his hands in a shrug of slow +indifference, as much as to inform her she was an amateur and an +impertinent nobody. + +“_Wissen Sie_,” he said, with an insulting patience and condescension +in his voice, “that horse is a certain _form_, part of a whole form. It +is part of a work of art, a piece of form. It is not a picture of a +friendly horse to which you give a lump of sugar, do you see—it is part +of a work of art, it has no relation to anything outside that work of +art.” + +Ursula, angry at being treated quite so insultingly _de haut en bas_, +from the height of esoteric art to the depth of general exoteric +amateurism, replied, hotly, flushing and lifting her face. + +“But it _is_ a picture of a horse, nevertheless.” + +He lifted his shoulders in another shrug. + +“As you like—it is not a picture of a cow, certainly.” + +Here Gudrun broke in, flushed and brilliant, anxious to avoid any more +of this, any more of Ursula’s foolish persistence in giving herself +away. + +“What do you mean by ‘it is a picture of a horse?’” she cried at her +sister. “What do you mean by a horse? You mean an idea you have in +_your_ head, and which you want to see represented. There is another +idea altogether, quite another idea. Call it a horse if you like, or +say it is not a horse. I have just as much right to say that _your_ +horse isn’t a horse, that it is a falsity of your own make-up.” + +Ursula wavered, baffled. Then her words came. + +“But why does he have this idea of a horse?” she said. “I know it is +his idea. I know it is a picture of himself, really—” + +Loerke snorted with rage. + +“A picture of myself!” he repeated, in derision. “_Wissen sie, gnädige +Frau_, that is a _Kunstwerk_, a work of art. It is a work of art, it is +a picture of nothing, of absolutely nothing. It has nothing to do with +anything but itself, it has no relation with the everyday world of this +and other, there is no connection between them, absolutely none, they +are two different and distinct planes of existence, and to translate +one into the other is worse than foolish, it is a darkening of all +counsel, a making confusion everywhere. Do you see, you _must not_ +confuse the relative work of action, with the absolute world of art. +That you _must not do_.” + +“That is quite true,” cried Gudrun, let loose in a sort of rhapsody. +“The two things are quite and permanently apart, they have nothing to +do with one another. _I_ and my art, they have _nothing_ to do with +each other. My art stands in another world, I am in this world.” + +Her face was flushed and transfigured. Loerke who was sitting with his +head ducked, like some creature at bay, looked up at her, swiftly, +almost furtively, and murmured, + +“_Ja—so ist es, so ist es._” + +Ursula was silent after this outburst. She was furious. She wanted to +poke a hole into them both. + +“It isn’t a word of it true, of all this harangue you have made me,” +she replied flatly. “The horse is a picture of your own stock, stupid +brutality, and the girl was a girl you loved and tortured and then +ignored.” + +He looked up at her with a small smile of contempt in his eyes. He +would not trouble to answer this last charge. + +Gudrun too was silent in exasperated contempt. Ursula _was_ such an +insufferable outsider, rushing in where angels would fear to tread. But +then—fools must be suffered, if not gladly. + +But Ursula was persistent too. + +“As for your world of art and your world of reality,” she replied, “you +have to separate the two, because you can’t bear to know what you are. +You can’t bear to realise what a stock, stiff, hide-bound brutality you +_are_ really, so you say ‘it’s the world of art.’ The world of art is +only the truth about the real world, that’s all—but you are too far +gone to see it.” + +She was white and trembling, intent. Gudrun and Loerke sat in stiff +dislike of her. Gerald too, who had come up in the beginning of the +speech, stood looking at her in complete disapproval and opposition. He +felt she was undignified, she put a sort of vulgarity over the +esotericism which gave man his last distinction. He joined his forces +with the other two. They all three wanted her to go away. But she sat +on in silence, her soul weeping, throbbing violently, her fingers +twisting her handkerchief. + +The others maintained a dead silence, letting the display of Ursula’s +obtrusiveness pass by. Then Gudrun asked, in a voice that was quite +cool and casual, as if resuming a casual conversation: + +“Was the girl a model?” + +“_Nein, sie war kein Modell. Sie war eine kleine Malschülerin._” + +“An art-student!” replied Gudrun. + +And how the situation revealed itself to her! She saw the girl +art-student, unformed and of pernicious recklessness, too young, her +straight flaxen hair cut short, hanging just into her neck, curving +inwards slightly, because it was rather thick; and Loerke, the +well-known master-sculptor, and the girl, probably well-brought-up, and +of good family, thinking herself so great to be his mistress. Oh how +well she knew the common callousness of it all. Dresden, Paris, or +London, what did it matter? She knew it. + +“Where is she now?” Ursula asked. + +Loerke raised his shoulders, to convey his complete ignorance and +indifference. + +“That is already six years ago,” he said; “she will be twenty-three +years old, no more good.” + +Gerald had picked up the picture and was looking at it. It attracted +him also. He saw on the pedestal, that the piece was called “Lady +Godiva.” + +“But this isn’t Lady Godiva,” he said, smiling good-humouredly. “She +was the middle-aged wife of some Earl or other, who covered herself +with her long hair.” + +“_À la_ Maud Allan,” said Gudrun with a mocking grimace. + +“Why Maud Allan?” he replied. “Isn’t it so? I always thought the legend +was that.” + +“Yes, Gerald dear, I’m quite _sure_ you’ve got the legend perfectly.” + +She was laughing at him, with a little, mock-caressive contempt. + +“To be sure, I’d rather see the woman than the hair,” he laughed in +return. + +“Wouldn’t you just!” mocked Gudrun. + +Ursula rose and went away, leaving the three together. + +Gudrun took the picture again from Gerald, and sat looking at it +closely. + +“Of course,” she said, turning to tease Loerke now, “you _understood_ +your little _Malschülerin_.” + +He raised his eyebrows and his shoulders in a complacent shrug. + +“The little girl?” asked Gerald, pointing to the figure. + +Gudrun was sitting with the picture in her lap. She looked up at +Gerald, full into his eyes, so that he seemed to be blinded. + +“_Didn’t_ he understand her!” she said to Gerald, in a slightly +mocking, humorous playfulness. “You’ve only to look at the +feet—_aren’t_ they darling, so pretty and tender—oh, they’re really +wonderful, they are really—” + +She lifted her eyes slowly, with a hot, flaming look into Loerke’s +eyes. His soul was filled with her burning recognition, he seemed to +grow more uppish and lordly. + +Gerald looked at the small, sculptured feet. They were turned together, +half covering each other in pathetic shyness and fear. He looked at +them a long time, fascinated. Then, in some pain, he put the picture +away from him. He felt full of barrenness. + +“What was her name?” Gudrun asked Loerke. + +“Annette von Weck,” Loerke replied reminiscent. “_Ja, sie war hübsch._ +She was pretty—but she was tiresome. She was a nuisance,—not for a +minute would she keep still—not until I’d slapped her hard and made her +cry—then she’d sit for five minutes.” + +He was thinking over the work, his work, the all important to him. + +“Did you really slap her?” asked Gudrun, coolly. + +He glanced back at her, reading her challenge. + +“Yes, I did,” he said, nonchalant, “harder than I have ever beat +anything in my life. I had to, I had to. It was the only way I got the +work done.” + +Gudrun watched him with large, dark-filled eyes, for some moments. She +seemed to be considering his very soul. Then she looked down, in +silence. + +“Why did you have such a young Godiva then?” asked Gerald. “She is so +small, besides, on the horse—not big enough for it—such a child.” + +A queer spasm went over Loerke’s face. + +“Yes,” he said. “I don’t like them any bigger, any older. Then they are +beautiful, at sixteen, seventeen, eighteen—after that, they are no use +to me.” + +There was a moment’s pause. + +“Why not?” asked Gerald. + +Loerke shrugged his shoulders. + +“I don’t find them interesting—or beautiful—they are no good to me, for +my work.” + +“Do you mean to say a woman isn’t beautiful after she is twenty?” asked +Gerald. + +“For me, no. Before twenty, she is small and fresh and tender and +slight. After that—let her be what she likes, she has nothing for me. +The Venus of Milo is a bourgeoise—so are they all.” + +“And you don’t care for women at all after twenty?” asked Gerald. + +“They are no good to me, they are of no use in my art,” Loerke repeated +impatiently. “I don’t find them beautiful.” + +“You are an epicure,” said Gerald, with a slight sarcastic laugh. + +“And what about men?” asked Gudrun suddenly. + +“Yes, they are good at all ages,” replied Loerke. “A man should be big +and powerful—whether he is old or young is of no account, so he has the +size, something of massiveness and—and stupid form.” + +Ursula went out alone into the world of pure, new snow. But the +dazzling whiteness seemed to beat upon her till it hurt her, she felt +the cold was slowly strangling her soul. Her head felt dazed and numb. + +Suddenly she wanted to go away. It occurred to her, like a miracle, +that she might go away into another world. She had felt so doomed up +here in the eternal snow, as if there were no beyond. + +Now suddenly, as by a miracle she remembered that away beyond, below +her, lay the dark fruitful earth, that towards the south there were +stretches of land dark with orange trees and cypress, grey with olives, +that ilex trees lifted wonderful plumy tufts in shadow against a blue +sky. Miracle of miracles!—this utterly silent, frozen world of the +mountain-tops was not universal! One might leave it and have done with +it. One might go away. + +She wanted to realise the miracle at once. She wanted at this instant +to have done with the snow-world, the terrible, static ice-built +mountain tops. She wanted to see the dark earth, to smell its earthy +fecundity, to see the patient wintry vegetation, to feel the sunshine +touch a response in the buds. + +She went back gladly to the house, full of hope. Birkin was reading, +lying in bed. + +“Rupert,” she said, bursting in on him. “I want to go away.” + +He looked up at her slowly. + +“Do you?” he replied mildly. + +She sat by him und put her arms round his neck. It surprised her that +he was so little surprised. + +“Don’t _you?_” she asked troubled. + +“I hadn’t thought about it,” he said. “But I’m sure I do.” + +She sat up, suddenly erect. + +“I hate it,” she said. “I hate the snow, and the unnaturalness of it, +the unnatural light it throws on everybody, the ghastly glamour, the +unnatural feelings it makes everybody have.” + +He lay still and laughed, meditating. + +“Well,” he said, “we can go away—we can go tomorrow. We’ll go tomorrow +to Verona, and find Romeo and Juliet, and sit in the amphitheatre—shall +we?” + +Suddenly she hid her face against his shoulder with perplexity and +shyness. He lay so untrammelled. + +“Yes,” she said softly, filled with relief. She felt her soul had new +wings, now he was so uncaring. “I shall love to be Romeo and Juliet,” +she said. “My love!” + +“Though a fearfully cold wind blows in Verona,” he said, “from out of +the Alps. We shall have the smell of the snow in our noses.” + +She sat up and looked at him. + +“Are you glad to go?” she asked, troubled. + +His eyes were inscrutable and laughing. She hid her face against his +neck, clinging close to him, pleading: + +“Don’t laugh at me—don’t laugh at me.” + +“Why how’s that?” he laughed, putting his arms round her. + +“Because I don’t want to be laughed at,” she whispered. + +He laughed more, as he kissed her delicate, finely perfumed hair. + +“Do you love me?” she whispered, in wild seriousness. + +“Yes,” he answered, laughing. + +Suddenly she lifted her mouth to be kissed. Her lips were taut and +quivering and strenuous, his were soft, deep and delicate. He waited a +few moments in the kiss. Then a shade of sadness went over his soul. + +“Your mouth is so hard,” he said, in faint reproach. + +“And yours is so soft and nice,” she said gladly. + +“But why do you always grip your lips?” he asked, regretful. + +“Never mind,” she said swiftly. “It is my way.” + +She knew he loved her; she was sure of him. Yet she could not let go a +certain hold over herself, she could not bear him to question her. She +gave herself up in delight to being loved by him. She knew that, in +spite of his joy when she abandoned herself, he was a little bit +saddened too. She could give herself up to his activity. But she could +not be herself, she _dared_ not come forth quite nakedly to his +nakedness, abandoning all adjustment, lapsing in pure faith with him. +She abandoned herself to _him_, or she took hold of him and gathered +her joy of him. And she enjoyed him fully. But they were never _quite_ +together, at the same moment, one was always a little left out. +Nevertheless she was glad in hope, glorious and free, full of life and +liberty. And he was still and soft and patient, for the time. + +They made their preparations to leave the next day. First they went to +Gudrun’s room, where she and Gerald were just dressed ready for the +evening indoors. + +“Prune,” said Ursula, “I think we shall go away tomorrow. I can’t stand +the snow any more. It hurts my skin and my soul.” + +“Does it really hurt your soul, Ursula?” asked Gudrun, in some +surprise. “I can believe quite it hurts your skin—it is _terrible_. But +I thought it was _admirable_ for the soul.” + +“No, not for mine. It just injures it,” said Ursula. + +“Really!” cried Gudrun. + +There was a silence in the room. And Ursula and Birkin could feel that +Gudrun and Gerald were relieved by their going. + +“You will go south?” said Gerald, a little ring of uneasiness in his +voice. + +“Yes,” said Birkin, turning away. There was a queer, indefinable +hostility between the two men, lately. Birkin was on the whole dim and +indifferent, drifting along in a dim, easy flow, unnoticing and +patient, since he came abroad, whilst Gerald on the other hand, was +intense and gripped into white light, agonistes. The two men revoked +one another. + +Gerald and Gudrun were very kind to the two who were departing, +solicitous for their welfare as if they were two children. Gudrun came +to Ursula’s bedroom with three pairs of the coloured stockings for +which she was notorious, and she threw them on the bed. But these were +thick silk stockings, vermilion, cornflower blue, and grey, bought in +Paris. The grey ones were knitted, seamless and heavy. Ursula was in +raptures. She knew Gudrun must be feeling _very_ loving, to give away +such treasures. + +“I can’t take them from you, Prune,” she cried. “I can’t possibly +deprive you of them—the jewels.” + +“_Aren’t_ they jewels!” cried Gudrun, eyeing her gifts with an envious +eye. “_Aren’t_ they real lambs!” + +“Yes, you _must_ keep them,” said Ursula. + +“I don’t _want_ them, I’ve got three more pairs. I _want_ you to keep +them—I want you to have them. They’re yours, there—” + +And with trembling, excited hands she put the coveted stockings under +Ursula’s pillow. + +“One gets the greatest joy of all out of really lovely stockings,” said +Ursula. + +“One does,” replied Gudrun; “the greatest joy of all.” + +And she sat down in the chair. It was evident she had come for a last +talk. Ursula, not knowing what she wanted, waited in silence. + +“Do you _feel_, Ursula,” Gudrun began, rather sceptically, that you are +going-away-for-ever, never-to-return, sort of thing?” + +“Oh, we shall come back,” said Ursula. “It isn’t a question of +train-journeys.” + +“Yes, I know. But spiritually, so to speak, you are going away from us +all?” + +Ursula quivered. + +“I don’t know a bit what is going to happen,” she said. “I only know we +are going somewhere.” + +Gudrun waited. + +“And you are glad?” she asked. + +Ursula meditated for a moment. + +“I believe I am _very_ glad,” she replied. + +But Gudrun read the unconscious brightness on her sister’s face, rather +than the uncertain tones of her speech. + +“But don’t you think you’ll _want_ the old connection with the +world—father and the rest of us, and all that it means, England and the +world of thought—don’t you think you’ll _need_ that, really to make a +world?” + +Ursula was silent, trying to imagine. + +“I think,” she said at length, involuntarily, “that Rupert is right—one +wants a new space to be in, and one falls away from the old.” + +Gudrun watched her sister with impassive face and steady eyes. + +“One wants a new space to be in, I quite agree,” she said. “But _I_ +think that a new world is a development from this world, and that to +isolate oneself with one other person, isn’t to find a new world at +all, but only to secure oneself in one’s illusions.” + +Ursula looked out of the window. In her soul she began to wrestle, and +she was frightened. She was always frightened of words, because she +knew that mere word-force could always make her believe what she did +not believe. + +“Perhaps,” she said, full of mistrust, of herself and everybody. “But,” +she added, “I do think that one can’t have anything new whilst one +cares for the old—do you know what I mean?—even fighting the old is +belonging to it. I know, one is tempted to stop with the world, just to +fight it. But then it isn’t worth it.” + +Gudrun considered herself. + +“Yes,” she said. “In a way, one is of the world if one lives in it. But +isn’t it really an illusion to think you can get out of it? After all, +a cottage in the Abruzzi, or wherever it may be, isn’t a new world. No, +the only thing to do with the world, is to see it through.” + +Ursula looked away. She was so frightened of argument. + +“But there _can_ be something else, can’t there?” she said. “One can +see it through in one’s soul, long enough before it sees itself through +in actuality. And then, when one has seen one’s soul, one is something +else.” + +“_Can_ one see it through in one’s soul?” asked Gudrun. “If you mean +that you can see to the end of what will happen, I don’t agree. I +really can’t agree. And anyhow, you can’t suddenly fly off on to a new +planet, because you think you can see to the end of this.” + +Ursula suddenly straightened herself. + +“Yes,” she said. “Yes—one knows. One has no more connections here. One +has a sort of other self, that belongs to a new planet, not to this. +You’ve got to hop off.” + +Gudrun reflected for a few moments. Then a smile of ridicule, almost of +contempt, came over her face. + +“And what will happen when you find yourself in space?” she cried in +derision. “After all, the great ideas of the world are the same there. +You above everybody can’t get away from the fact that love, for +instance, is the supreme thing, in space as well as on earth.” + +“No,” said Ursula, “it isn’t. Love is too human and little. I believe +in something inhuman, of which love is only a little part. I believe +what we must fulfil comes out of the unknown to us, and it is something +infinitely more than love. It isn’t so merely _human_.” + +Gudrun looked at Ursula with steady, balancing eyes. She admired and +despised her sister so much, both! Then, suddenly she averted her face, +saying coldly, uglily: + +“Well, I’ve got no further than love, yet.” + +Over Ursula’s mind flashed the thought: “Because you never _have_ +loved, you can’t get beyond it.” + +Gudrun rose, came over to Ursula and put her arm round her neck. + +“Go and find your new world, dear,” she said, her voice clanging with +false benignity. “After all, the happiest voyage is the quest of +Rupert’s Blessed Isles.” + +Her arm rested round Ursula’s neck, her fingers on Ursula’s cheek for a +few moments. Ursula was supremely uncomfortable meanwhile. There was an +insult in Gudrun’s protective patronage that was really too hurting. +Feeling her sister’s resistance, Gudrun drew awkwardly away, turned +over the pillow, and disclosed the stockings again. + +“Ha—ha!” she laughed, rather hollowly. “How we do talk indeed—new +worlds and old—!” + +And they passed to the familiar worldly subjects. + +Gerald and Birkin had walked on ahead, waiting for the sledge to +overtake them, conveying the departing guests. + +“How much longer will you stay here?” asked Birkin, glancing up at +Gerald’s very red, almost blank face. + +“Oh, I can’t say,” Gerald replied. “Till we get tired of it.” + +“You’re not afraid of the snow melting first?” asked Birkin. + +Gerald laughed. + +“Does it melt?” he said. + +“Things are all right with you then?” said Birkin. + +Gerald screwed up his eyes a little. + +“All right?” he said. “I never know what those common words mean. All +right and all wrong, don’t they become synonymous, somewhere?” + +“Yes, I suppose. How about going back?” asked Birkin. + +“Oh, I don’t know. We may never get back. I don’t look before and +after,” said Gerald. + +“_Nor_ pine for what is not,” said Birkin. + +Gerald looked into the distance, with the small-pupilled, abstract eyes +of a hawk. + +“No. There’s something final about this. And Gudrun seems like the end, +to me. I don’t know—but she seems so soft, her skin like silk, her arms +heavy and soft. And it withers my consciousness, somehow, it burns the +pith of my mind.” He went on a few paces, staring ahead, his eyes +fixed, looking like a mask used in ghastly religions of the barbarians. +“It blasts your soul’s eye,” he said, “and leaves you sightless. Yet +you _want_ to be sightless, you _want_ to be blasted, you don’t want it +any different.” + +He was speaking as if in a trance, verbal and blank. Then suddenly he +braced himself up with a kind of rhapsody, and looked at Birkin with +vindictive, cowed eyes, saying: + +“Do you know what it is to suffer when you are with a woman? She’s so +beautiful, so perfect, you find her _so good_, it tears you like a +silk, and every stroke and bit cuts hot—ha, that perfection, when you +blast yourself, you blast yourself! And then—” he stopped on the snow +and suddenly opened his clenched hands—“it’s nothing—your brain might +have gone charred as rags—and—” he looked round into the air with a +queer histrionic movement “it’s blasting—you understand what I mean—it +is a great experience, something final—and then—you’re shrivelled as if +struck by electricity.” He walked on in silence. It seemed like +bragging, but like a man in extremity bragging truthfully. + +“Of course,” he resumed, “I wouldn’t _not_ have had it! It’s a complete +experience. And she’s a wonderful woman. But—how I hate her somewhere! +It’s curious—” + +Birkin looked at him, at his strange, scarcely conscious face. Gerald +seemed blank before his own words. + +“But you’ve had enough now?” said Birkin. “You have had your +experience. Why work on an old wound?” + +“Oh,” said Gerald, “I don’t know. It’s not finished—” + +And the two walked on. + +“I’ve loved you, as well as Gudrun, don’t forget,” said Birkin +bitterly. Gerald looked at him strangely, abstractedly. + +“Have you?” he said, with icy scepticism. “Or do you think you have?” +He was hardly responsible for what he said. + +The sledge came. Gudrun dismounted and they all made their farewell. +They wanted to go apart, all of them. Birkin took his place, and the +sledge drove away leaving Gudrun and Gerald standing on the snow, +waving. Something froze Birkin’s heart, seeing them standing there in +the isolation of the snow, growing smaller and more isolated. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX. +SNOWED UP + + +When Ursula and Birkin were gone, Gudrun felt herself free in her +contest with Gerald. As they grew more used to each other, he seemed to +press upon her more and more. At first she could manage him, so that +her own will was always left free. But very soon, he began to ignore +her female tactics, he dropped his respect for her whims and her +privacies, he began to exert his own will blindly, without submitting +to hers. + +Already a vital conflict had set in, which frightened them both. But he +was alone, whilst already she had begun to cast round for external +resource. + +When Ursula had gone, Gudrun felt her own existence had become stark +and elemental. She went and crouched alone in her bedroom, looking out +of the window at the big, flashing stars. In front was the faint shadow +of the mountain-knot. That was the pivot. She felt strange and +inevitable, as if she were centred upon the pivot of all existence, +there was no further reality. + +Presently Gerald opened the door. She knew he would not be long before +he came. She was rarely alone, he pressed upon her like a frost, +deadening her. + +“Are you alone in the dark?” he said. And she could tell by his tone he +resented it, he resented this isolation she had drawn round herself. +Yet, feeling static and inevitable, she was kind towards him. + +“Would you like to light the candle?” she asked. + +He did not answer, but came and stood behind her, in the darkness. + +“Look,” she said, “at that lovely star up there. Do you know its name?” + +He crouched beside her, to look through the low window. + +“No,” he said. “It is very fine.” + +“_Isn’t_ it beautiful! Do you notice how it darts different coloured +fires—it flashes really superbly—” + +They remained in silence. With a mute, heavy gesture she put her hand +on his knee, and took his hand. + +“Are you regretting Ursula?” he asked. + +“No, not at all,” she said. Then, in a slow mood, she asked: + +“How much do you love me?” + +He stiffened himself further against her. + +“How much do you think I do?” he asked. + +“I don’t know,” she replied. + +“But what is your opinion?” he asked. + +There was a pause. At length, in the darkness, came her voice, hard and +indifferent: + +“Very little indeed,” she said coldly, almost flippant. + +His heart went icy at the sound of her voice. + +“Why don’t I love you?” he asked, as if admitting the truth of her +accusation, yet hating her for it. + +“I don’t know why you don’t—I’ve been good to you. You were in a +_fearful_ state when you came to me.” + +Her heart was beating to suffocate her, yet she was strong and +unrelenting. + +“When was I in a fearful state?” he asked. + +“When you first came to me. I _had_ to take pity on you. But it was +never love.” + +It was that statement “It was never love,” which sounded in his ears +with madness. + +“Why must you repeat it so often, that there is no love?” he said in a +voice strangled with rage. + +“Well you don’t _think_ you love, do you?” she asked. + +He was silent with cold passion of anger. + +“You don’t think you _can_ love me, do you?” she repeated almost with a +sneer. + +“No,” he said. + +“You know you never _have_ loved me, don’t you?” + +“I don’t know what you mean by the word “love,” he replied. + +“Yes, you do. You know all right that you have never loved me. Have +you, do you think?” + +“No,” he said, prompted by some barren spirit of truthfulness and +obstinacy. + +“And you never _will_ love me,” she said finally, “will you?” + +There was a diabolic coldness in her, too much to bear. + +“No,” he said. + +“Then,” she replied, “what have you against me!” + +He was silent in cold, frightened rage and despair. “If only I could +kill her,” his heart was whispering repeatedly. “If only I could kill +her—I should be free.” + +It seemed to him that death was the only severing of this Gordian knot. + +“Why do you torture me?” he said. + +She flung her arms round his neck. + +“Ah, I don’t want to torture you,” she said pityingly, as if she were +comforting a child. The impertinence made his veins go cold, he was +insensible. She held her arms round his neck, in a triumph of pity. And +her pity for him was as cold as stone, its deepest motive was hate of +him, and fear of his power over her, which she must always counterfoil. + +“Say you love me,” she pleaded. “Say you will love me for ever—won’t +you—won’t you?” + +But it was her voice only that coaxed him. Her senses were entirely +apart from him, cold and destructive of him. It was her overbearing +_will_ that insisted. + +“Won’t you say you’ll love me always?” she coaxed. “Say it, even if it +isn’t true—say it Gerald, do.” + +“I will love you always,” he repeated, in real agony, forcing the words +out. + +She gave him a quick kiss. + +“Fancy your actually having said it,” she said with a touch of +raillery. + +He stood as if he had been beaten. + +“Try to love me a little more, and to want me a little less,” she said, +in a half contemptuous, half coaxing tone. + +The darkness seemed to be swaying in waves across his mind, great waves +of darkness plunging across his mind. It seemed to him he was degraded +at the very quick, made of no account. + +“You mean you don’t want me?” he said. + +“You are so insistent, and there is so little grace in you, so little +fineness. You are so crude. You break me—you only waste me—it is +horrible to me.” + +“Horrible to you?” he repeated. + +“Yes. Don’t you think I might have a room to myself, now Ursula has +gone? You can say you want a dressing room.” + +“You do as you like—you can leave altogether if you like,” he managed +to articulate. + +“Yes, I know that,” she replied. “So can you. You can leave me whenever +you like—without notice even.” + +The great tides of darkness were swinging across his mind, he could +hardly stand upright. A terrible weariness overcame him, he felt he +must lie on the floor. Dropping off his clothes, he got into bed, and +lay like a man suddenly overcome by drunkenness, the darkness lifting +and plunging as if he were lying upon a black, giddy sea. He lay still +in this strange, horrific reeling for some time, purely unconscious. + +At length she slipped from her own bed and came over to him. He +remained rigid, his back to her. He was all but unconscious. + +She put her arms round his terrifying, insentient body, and laid her +cheek against his hard shoulder. + +“Gerald,” she whispered. “Gerald.” + +There was no change in him. She caught him against her. She pressed her +breasts against his shoulders, she kissed his shoulder, through the +sleeping jacket. Her mind wondered, over his rigid, unliving body. She +was bewildered, and insistent, only her will was set for him to speak +to her. + +“Gerald, my dear!” she whispered, bending over him, kissing his ear. + +Her warm breath playing, flying rhythmically over his ear, seemed to +relax the tension. She could feel his body gradually relaxing a little, +losing its terrifying, unnatural rigidity. Her hands clutched his +limbs, his muscles, going over him spasmodically. + +The hot blood began to flow again through his veins, his limbs relaxed. + +“Turn round to me,” she whispered, forlorn with insistence and triumph. + +So at last he was given again, warm and flexible. He turned and +gathered her in his arms. And feeling her soft against him, so +perfectly and wondrously soft and recipient, his arms tightened on her. +She was as if crushed, powerless in him. His brain seemed hard and +invincible now like a jewel, there was no resisting him. + +His passion was awful to her, tense and ghastly, and impersonal, like a +destruction, ultimate. She felt it would kill her. She was being +killed. + +“My God, my God,” she cried, in anguish, in his embrace, feeling her +life being killed within her. And when he was kissing her, soothing +her, her breath came slowly, as if she were really spent, dying. + +“Shall I die, shall I die?” she repeated to herself. + +And in the night, and in him, there was no answer to the question. + +And yet, next day, the fragment of her which was not destroyed remained +intact and hostile, she did not go away, she remained to finish the +holiday, admitting nothing. He scarcely ever left her alone, but +followed her like a shadow, he was like a doom upon her, a continual +“thou shalt,” “thou shalt not.” Sometimes it was he who seemed +strongest, whist she was almost gone, creeping near the earth like a +spent wind; sometimes it was the reverse. But always it was this +eternal see-saw, one destroyed that the other might exist, one ratified +because the other was nulled. + +“In the end,” she said to herself, “I shall go away from him.” + +“I can be free of her,” he said to himself in his paroxysms of +suffering. + +And he set himself to be free. He even prepared to go away, to leave +her in the lurch. But for the first time there was a flaw in his will. + +“Where shall I go?” he asked himself. + +“Can’t you be self-sufficient?” he replied to himself, putting himself +upon his pride. + +“Self-sufficient!” he repeated. + +It seemed to him that Gudrun was sufficient unto herself, closed round +and completed, like a thing in a case. In the calm, static reason of +his soul, he recognised this, and admitted it was her right, to be +closed round upon herself, self-complete, without desire. He realised +it, he admitted it, it only needed one last effort on his own part, to +win for himself the same completeness. He knew that it only needed one +convulsion of his will for him to be able to turn upon himself also, to +close upon himself as a stone fixes upon itself, and is impervious, +self-completed, a thing isolated. + +This knowledge threw him into a terrible chaos. Because, however much +he might mentally _will_ to be immune and self-complete, the desire for +this state was lacking, and he could not create it. He could see that, +to exist at all, he must be perfectly free of Gudrun, leave her if she +wanted to be left, demand nothing of her, have no claim upon her. + +But then, to have no claim upon her, he must stand by himself, in sheer +nothingness. And his brain turned to nought at the idea. It was a state +of nothingness. On the other hand, he might give in, and fawn to her. +Or, finally, he might kill her. Or he might become just indifferent, +purposeless, dissipated, momentaneous. But his nature was too serious, +not gay enough or subtle enough for mocking licentiousness. + +A strange rent had been torn in him; like a victim that is torn open +and given to the heavens, so he had been torn apart and given to +Gudrun. How should he close again? This wound, this strange, +infinitely-sensitive opening of his soul, where he was exposed, like an +open flower, to all the universe, and in which he was given to his +complement, the other, the unknown, this wound, this disclosure, this +unfolding of his own covering, leaving him incomplete, limited, +unfinished, like an open flower under the sky, this was his cruellest +joy. Why then should he forego it? Why should he close up and become +impervious, immune, like a partial thing in a sheath, when he had +broken forth, like a seed that has germinated, to issue forth in being, +embracing the unrealised heavens. + +He would keep the unfinished bliss of his own yearning even through the +torture she inflicted upon him. A strange obstinacy possessed him. He +would not go away from her whatever she said or did. A strange, deathly +yearning carried him along with her. She was the determinating +influence of his very being, though she treated him with contempt, +repeated rebuffs, and denials, still he would never be gone, since in +being near her, even, he felt the quickening, the going forth in him, +the release, the knowledge of his own limitation and the magic of the +promise, as well as the mystery of his own destruction and +annihilation. + +She tortured the open heart of him even as he turned to her. And she +was tortured herself. It may have been her will was stronger. She felt, +with horror, as if he tore at the bud of her heart, tore it open, like +an irreverent persistent being. Like a boy who pulls off a fly’s wings, +or tears open a bud to see what is in the flower, he tore at her +privacy, at her very life, he would destroy her as an immature bud, +torn open, is destroyed. + +She might open towards him, a long while hence, in her dreams, when she +was a pure spirit. But now she was not to be violated and ruined. She +closed against him fiercely. + +They climbed together, at evening, up the high slope, to see the +sunset. In the finely breathing, keen wind they stood and watched the +yellow sun sink in crimson and disappear. Then in the east the peaks +and ridges glowed with living rose, incandescent like immortal flowers +against a brown-purple sky, a miracle, whilst down below the world was +a bluish shadow, and above, like an annunciation, hovered a rosy +transport in mid-air. + +To her it was so beautiful, it was a delirium, she wanted to gather the +glowing, eternal peaks to her breast, and die. He saw them, saw they +were beautiful. But there arose no clamour in his breast, only a +bitterness that was visionary in itself. He wished the peaks were grey +and unbeautiful, so that she should not get her support from them. Why +did she betray the two of them so terribly, in embracing the glow of +the evening? Why did she leave him standing there, with the ice-wind +blowing through his heart, like death, to gratify herself among the +rosy snow-tips? + +“What does the twilight matter?” he said. “Why do you grovel before it? +Is it so important to you?” + +She winced in violation and in fury. + +“Go away,” she cried, “and leave me to it. It is beautiful, beautiful,” +she sang in strange, rhapsodic tones. “It is the most beautiful thing I +have ever seen in my life. Don’t try to come between it and me. Take +yourself away, you are out of place—” + +He stood back a little, and left her standing there, statue-like, +transported into the mystic glowing east. Already the rose was fading, +large white stars were flashing out. He waited. He would forego +everything but the yearning. + +“That was the most perfect thing I have ever seen,” she said in cold, +brutal tones, when at last she turned round to him. “It amazes me that +you should want to destroy it. If you can’t see it yourself, why try to +debar me?” But in reality, he had destroyed it for her, she was +straining after a dead effect. + +“One day,” he said, softly, looking up at her, “I shall destroy _you_, +as you stand looking at the sunset; because you are such a liar.” + +There was a soft, voluptuous promise to himself in the words. She was +chilled but arrogant. + +“Ha!” she said. “I am not afraid of your threats!” She denied herself +to him, she kept her room rigidly private to herself. But he waited on, +in a curious patience, belonging to his yearning for her. + +“In the end,” he said to himself with real voluptuous promise, “when it +reaches that point, I shall do away with her.” And he trembled +delicately in every limb, in anticipation, as he trembled in his most +violent accesses of passionate approach to her, trembling with too much +desire. + +She had a curious sort of allegiance with Loerke, all the while, now, +something insidious and traitorous. Gerald knew of it. But in the +unnatural state of patience, and the unwillingness to harden himself +against her, in which he found himself, he took no notice, although her +soft kindliness to the other man, whom he hated as a noxious insect, +made him shiver again with an access of the strange shuddering that +came over him repeatedly. + +He left her alone only when he went skiing, a sport he loved, and which +she did not practise. Then he seemed to sweep out of life, to be a +projectile into the beyond. And often, when he went away, she talked to +the little German sculptor. They had an invariable topic, in their art. + +They were almost of the same ideas. He hated Mestrovic, was not +satisfied with the Futurists, he liked the West African wooden figures, +the Aztec art, Mexican and Central American. He saw the grotesque, and +a curious sort of mechanical motion intoxicated him, a confusion in +nature. They had a curious game with each other, Gudrun and Loerke, of +infinite suggestivity, strange and leering, as if they had some +esoteric understanding of life, that they alone were initiated into the +fearful central secrets, that the world dared not know. Their whole +correspondence was in a strange, barely comprehensible suggestivity, +they kindled themselves at the subtle lust of the Egyptians or the +Mexicans. The whole game was one of subtle inter-suggestivity, and they +wanted to keep it on the plane of suggestion. From their verbal and +physical nuances they got the highest satisfaction in the nerves, from +a queer interchange of half-suggested ideas, looks, expressions and +gestures, which were quite intolerable, though incomprehensible, to +Gerald. He had no terms in which to think of their commerce, his terms +were much too gross. + +The suggestion of primitive art was their refuge, and the inner +mysteries of sensation their object of worship. Art and Life were to +them the Reality and the Unreality. + +“Of course,” said Gudrun, “life doesn’t _really_ matter—it is one’s art +which is central. What one does in one’s life has _peu de rapport_, it +doesn’t signify much.” + +“Yes, that is so, exactly,” replied the sculptor. “What one does in +one’s art, that is the breath of one’s being. What one does in one’s +life, that is a bagatelle for the outsiders to fuss about.” + +It was curious what a sense of elation and freedom Gudrun found in this +communication. She felt established for ever. Of course Gerald was +_bagatelle_. Love was one of the temporal things in her life, except in +so far as she was an artist. She thought of Cleopatra—Cleopatra must +have been an artist; she reaped the essential from a man, she harvested +the ultimate sensation, and threw away the husk; and Mary Stuart, and +the great Rachel, panting with her lovers after the theatre, these were +the exoteric exponents of love. After all, what was the lover but fuel +for the transport of this subtle knowledge, for a female art, the art +of pure, perfect knowledge in sensuous understanding. + +One evening Gerald was arguing with Loerke about Italy and Tripoli. The +Englishman was in a strange, inflammable state, the German was excited. +It was a contest of words, but it meant a conflict of spirit between +the two men. And all the while Gudrun could see in Gerald an arrogant +English contempt for a foreigner. Although Gerald was quivering, his +eyes flashing, his face flushed, in his argument there was a +brusqueness, a savage contempt in his manner, that made Gudrun’s blood +flare up, and made Loerke keen and mortified. For Gerald came down like +a sledge-hammer with his assertions, anything the little German said +was merely contemptible rubbish. + +At last Loerke turned to Gudrun, raising his hands in helpless irony, a +shrug of ironical dismissal, something appealing and child-like. + +“_Sehen sie, gnädige Frau_—” he began. + +“_Bitte sagen Sie nicht immer, gnädige Frau_,” cried Gudrun, her eyes +flashing, her cheeks burning. She looked like a vivid Medusa. Her voice +was loud and clamorous, the other people in the room were startled. + +“Please don’t call me Mrs Crich,” she cried aloud. + +The name, in Loerke’s mouth particularly, had been an intolerable +humiliation and constraint upon her, these many days. + +The two men looked at her in amazement. Gerald went white at the +cheek-bones. + +“What shall I say, then?” asked Loerke, with soft, mocking insinuation. + +“_Sagen Sie nur nicht das_,” she muttered, her cheeks flushed crimson. +“Not that, at least.” + +She saw, by the dawning look on Loerke’s face, that he had understood. +She was _not_ Mrs Crich! So-o-, that explained a great deal. + +“_Soll ich Fräulein sagen?_” he asked, malevolently. + +“I am not married,” she said, with some hauteur. + +Her heart was fluttering now, beating like a bewildered bird. She knew +she had dealt a cruel wound, and she could not bear it. + +Gerald sat erect, perfectly still, his face pale and calm, like the +face of a statue. He was unaware of her, or of Loerke or anybody. He +sat perfectly still, in an unalterable calm. Loerke, meanwhile, was +crouching and glancing up from under his ducked head. + +Gudrun was tortured for something to say, to relieve the suspense. She +twisted her face in a smile, and glanced knowingly, almost sneering, at +Gerald. + +“Truth is best,” she said to him, with a grimace. + +But now again she was under his domination; now, because she had dealt +him this blow; because she had destroyed him, and she did not know how +he had taken it. She watched him. He was interesting to her. She had +lost her interest in Loerke. + +Gerald rose at length, and went over in a leisurely still movement, to +the Professor. The two began a conversation on Goethe. + +She was rather piqued by the simplicity of Gerald’s demeanour this +evening. He did not seem angry or disgusted, only he looked curiously +innocent and pure, really beautiful. Sometimes it came upon him, this +look of clear distance, and it always fascinated her. + +She waited, troubled, throughout the evening. She thought he would +avoid her, or give some sign. But he spoke to her simply and +unemotionally, as he would to anyone else in the room. A certain peace, +an abstraction possessed his soul. + +She went to his room, hotly, violently in love with him. He was so +beautiful and inaccessible. He kissed her, he was a lover to her. And +she had extreme pleasure of him. But he did not come to, he remained +remote and candid, unconscious. She wanted to speak to him. But this +innocent, beautiful state of unconsciousness that had come upon him +prevented her. She felt tormented and dark. + +In the morning, however, he looked at her with a little aversion, some +horror and some hatred darkening into his eyes. She withdrew on to her +old ground. But still he would not gather himself together, against +her. + +Loerke was waiting for her now. The little artist, isolated in his own +complete envelope, felt that here at last was a woman from whom he +could get something. He was uneasy all the while, waiting to talk with +her, subtly contriving to be near her. Her presence filled him with +keenness and excitement, he gravitated cunningly towards her, as if she +had some unseen force of attraction. + +He was not in the least doubtful of himself, as regards Gerald. Gerald +was one of the outsiders. Loerke only hated him for being rich and +proud and of fine appearance. All these things, however, riches, pride +of social standing, handsome physique, were externals. When it came to +the relation with a woman such as Gudrun, he, Loerke, had an approach +and a power that Gerald never dreamed of. + +How should Gerald hope to satisfy a woman of Gudrun’s calibre? Did he +think that pride or masterful will or physical strength would help him? +Loerke knew a secret beyond these things. The greatest power is the one +that is subtle and adjusts itself, not one which blindly attacks. And +he, Loerke, had understanding where Gerald was a calf. He, Loerke, +could penetrate into depths far out of Gerald’s knowledge. Gerald was +left behind like a postulant in the ante-room of this temple of +mysteries, this woman. But he Loerke, could he not penetrate into the +inner darkness, find the spirit of the woman in its inner recess, and +wrestle with it there, the central serpent that is coiled at the core +of life. + +What was it, after all, that a woman wanted? Was it mere social effect, +fulfilment of ambition in the social world, in the community of +mankind? Was it even a union in love and goodness? Did she want +“goodness”? Who but a fool would accept this of Gudrun? This was but +the street view of her wants. Cross the threshold, and you found her +completely, completely cynical about the social world and its +advantages. Once inside the house of her soul and there was a pungent +atmosphere of corrosion, an inflamed darkness of sensation, and a +vivid, subtle, critical consciousness, that saw the world distorted, +horrific. + +What then, what next? Was it sheer blind force of passion that would +satisfy her now? Not this, but the subtle thrills of extreme sensation +in reduction. It was an unbroken will reacting against her unbroken +will in a myriad subtle thrills of reduction, the last subtle +activities of analysis and breaking down, carried out in the darkness +of her, whilst the outside form, the individual, was utterly unchanged, +even sentimental in its poses. + +But between two particular people, any two people on earth, the range +of pure sensational experience is limited. The climax of sensual +reaction, once reached in any direction, is reached finally, there is +no going on. There is only repetition possible, or the going apart of +the two protagonists, or the subjugating of the one will to the other, +or death. + +Gerald had penetrated all the outer places of Gudrun’s soul. He was to +her the most crucial instance of the existing world, the _ne plus +ultra_ of the world of man as it existed for her. In him she knew the +world, and had done with it. Knowing him finally she was the Alexander +seeking new worlds. But there _were_ no new worlds, there were no more +_men_, there were only creatures, little, ultimate _creatures_ like +Loerke. The world was finished now, for her. There was only the inner, +individual darkness, sensation within the ego, the obscene religious +mystery of ultimate reduction, the mystic frictional activities of +diabolic reducing down, disintegrating the vital organic body of life. + +All this Gudrun knew in her subconsciousness, not in her mind. She knew +her next step—she knew what she should move on to, when she left +Gerald. She was afraid of Gerald, that he might kill her. But she did +not intend to be killed. A fine thread still united her to him. It +should not be _her_ death which broke it. She had further to go, a +further, slow exquisite experience to reap, unthinkable subtleties of +sensation to know, before she was finished. + +Of the last series of subtleties, Gerald was not capable. He could not +touch the quick of her. But where his ruder blows could not penetrate, +the fine, insinuating blade of Loerke’s insect-like comprehension +could. At least, it was time for her now to pass over to the other, the +creature, the final craftsman. She knew that Loerke, in his innermost +soul, was detached from everything, for him there was neither heaven +nor earth nor hell. He admitted no allegiance, he gave no adherence +anywhere. He was single and, by abstraction from the rest, absolute in +himself. + +Whereas in Gerald’s soul there still lingered some attachment to the +rest, to the whole. And this was his limitation. He was limited, +_borné_, subject to his necessity, in the last issue, for goodness, for +righteousness, for oneness with the ultimate purpose. That the ultimate +purpose might be the perfect and subtle experience of the process of +death, the will being kept unimpaired, that was not allowed in him. And +this was his limitation. + +There was a hovering triumph in Loerke, since Gudrun had denied her +marriage with Gerald. The artist seemed to hover like a creature on the +wing, waiting to settle. He did not approach Gudrun violently, he was +never ill-timed. But carried on by a sure instinct in the complete +darkness of his soul, he corresponded mystically with her, +imperceptibly, but palpably. + +For two days, he talked to her, continued the discussions of art, of +life, in which they both found such pleasure. They praised the by-gone +things, they took a sentimental, childish delight in the achieved +perfections of the past. Particularly they liked the late eighteenth +century, the period of Goethe and of Shelley, and Mozart. + +They played with the past, and with the great figures of the past, a +sort of little game of chess, or marionettes, all to please themselves. +They had all the great men for their marionettes, and they two were the +God of the show, working it all. As for the future, that they never +mentioned except one laughed out some mocking dream of the destruction +of the world by a ridiculous catastrophe of man’s invention: a man +invented such a perfect explosive that it blew the earth in two, and +the two halves set off in different directions through space, to the +dismay of the inhabitants: or else the people of the world divided into +two halves, and each half decided _it_ was perfect and right, the other +half was wrong and must be destroyed; so another end of the world. Or +else, Loerke’s dream of fear, the world went cold, and snow fell +everywhere, and only white creatures, polar-bears, white foxes, and men +like awful white snow-birds, persisted in ice cruelty. + +Apart from these stories, they never talked of the future. They +delighted most either in mocking imaginations of destruction, or in +sentimental, fine marionette-shows of the past. It was a sentimental +delight to reconstruct the world of Goethe at Weimar, or of Schiller +and poverty and faithful love, or to see again Jean Jacques in his +quakings, or Voltaire at Ferney, or Frederick the Great reading his own +poetry. + +They talked together for hours, of literature and sculpture and +painting, amusing themselves with Flaxman and Blake and Fuseli, with +tenderness, and with Feuerbach and Böcklin. It would take them a +life-time, they felt to live again, _in petto_, the lives of the great +artists. But they preferred to stay in the eighteenth and the +nineteenth centuries. + +They talked in a mixture of languages. The ground-work was French, in +either case. But he ended most of his sentences in a stumble of English +and a conclusion of German, she skilfully wove herself to her end in +whatever phrase came to her. She took a peculiar delight in this +conversation. It was full of odd, fantastic expression, of double +meanings, of evasions, of suggestive vagueness. It was a real physical +pleasure to her to make this thread of conversation out of the +different-coloured strands of three languages. + +And all the while they two were hovering, hesitating round the flame of +some invisible declaration. He wanted it, but was held back by some +inevitable reluctance. She wanted it also, but she wanted to put it +off, to put it off indefinitely, she still had some pity for Gerald, +some connection with him. And the most fatal of all, she had the +reminiscent sentimental compassion for herself in connection with him. +Because of what _had_ been, she felt herself held to him by immortal, +invisible threads—because of what _had_ been, because of his coming to +her that first night, into her own house, in his extremity, because— + +Gerald was gradually overcome with a revulsion of loathing for Loerke. +He did not take the man seriously, he despised him merely, except as he +felt in Gudrun’s veins the influence of the little creature. It was +this that drove Gerald wild, the feeling in Gudrun’s veins of Loerke’s +presence, Loerke’s being, flowing dominant through her. + +“What makes you so smitten with that little vermin?” he asked, really +puzzled. For he, man-like, could not see anything attractive or +important _at all_ in Loerke. Gerald expected to find some handsomeness +or nobleness, to account for a woman’s subjection. But he saw none +here, only an insect-like repulsiveness. + +Gudrun flushed deeply. It was these attacks she would never forgive. + +“What do you mean?” she replied. “My God, what a mercy I am _not_ +married to you!” + +Her voice of flouting and contempt scotched him. He was brought up +short. But he recovered himself. + +“Tell me, only tell me,” he reiterated in a dangerous narrowed +voice—“tell me what it is that fascinates you in him.” + +“I am not fascinated,” she said, with cold repelling innocence. + +“Yes, you are. You are fascinated by that little dry snake, like a bird +gaping ready to fall down its throat.” + +She looked at him with black fury. + +“I don’t choose to be discussed by you,” she said. + +“It doesn’t matter whether you choose or not,” he replied, “that +doesn’t alter the fact that you are ready to fall down and kiss the +feet of that little insect. And I don’t want to prevent you—do it, fall +down and kiss his feet. But I want to know, what it is that fascinates +you—what is it?” + +She was silent, suffused with black rage. + +“How _dare_ you come brow-beating me,” she cried, “how dare you, you +little squire, you bully. What right have you over me, do you think?” + +His face was white and gleaming, she knew by the light in his eyes that +she was in his power—the wolf. And because she was in his power, she +hated him with a power that she wondered did not kill him. In her will +she killed him as he stood, effaced him. + +“It is not a question of right,” said Gerald, sitting down on a chair. +She watched the change in his body. She saw his clenched, mechanical +body moving there like an obsession. Her hatred of him was tinged with +fatal contempt. + +“It’s not a question of my right over you—though I _have_ some right, +remember. I want to know, I only want to know what it is that +subjugates you to that little scum of a sculptor downstairs, what it is +that brings you down like a humble maggot, in worship of him. I want to +know what you creep after.” + +She stood over against the window, listening. Then she turned round. + +“Do you?” she said, in her most easy, most cutting voice. “Do you want +to know what it is in him? It’s because he has some understanding of a +woman, because he is not stupid. That’s why it is.” + +A queer, sinister, animal-like smile came over Gerald’s face. + +“But what understanding is it?” he said. “The understanding of a flea, +a hopping flea with a proboscis. Why should you crawl abject before the +understanding of a flea?” + +There passed through Gudrun’s mind Blake’s representation of the soul +of a flea. She wanted to fit it to Loerke. Blake was a clown too. But +it was necessary to answer Gerald. + +“Don’t you think the understanding of a flea is more interesting than +the understanding of a fool?” she asked. + +“A fool!” he repeated. + +“A fool, a conceited fool—a _Dummkopf_,” she replied, adding the German +word. + +“Do you call me a fool?” he replied. “Well, wouldn’t I rather be the +fool I am, than that flea downstairs?” + +She looked at him. A certain blunt, blind stupidity in him palled on +her soul, limiting her. + +“You give yourself away by that last,” she said. + +He sat and wondered. + +“I shall go away soon,” he said. + +She turned on him. + +“Remember,” she said, “I am completely independent of you—completely. +You make your arrangements, I make mine.” + +He pondered this. + +“You mean we are strangers from this minute?” he asked. + +She halted and flushed. He was putting her in a trap, forcing her hand. +She turned round on him. + +“Strangers,” she said, “we can never be. But if you _want_ to make any +movement apart from me, then I wish you to know you are perfectly free +to do so. Do not consider me in the slightest.” + +Even so slight an implication that she needed him and was depending on +him still was sufficient to rouse his passion. As he sat a change came +over his body, the hot, molten stream mounted involuntarily through his +veins. He groaned inwardly, under its bondage, but he loved it. He +looked at her with clear eyes, waiting for her. + +She knew at once, and was shaken with cold revulsion. _How_ could he +look at her with those clear, warm, waiting eyes, waiting for her, even +now? What had been said between them, was it not enough to put them +worlds asunder, to freeze them forever apart! And yet he was all +transfused and roused, waiting for her. + +It confused her. Turning her head aside, she said: + +“I shall always _tell_ you, whenever I am going to make any change—” + +And with this she moved out of the room. + +He sat suspended in a fine recoil of disappointment, that seemed +gradually to be destroying his understanding. But the unconscious state +of patience persisted in him. He remained motionless, without thought +or knowledge, for a long time. Then he rose, and went downstairs, to +play at chess with one of the students. His face was open and clear, +with a certain innocent _laisser-aller_ that troubled Gudrun most, made +her almost afraid of him, whilst she disliked him deeply for it. + +It was after this that Loerke, who had never yet spoken to her +personally, began to ask her of her state. + +“You are not married at all, are you?” he asked. + +She looked full at him. + +“Not in the least,” she replied, in her measured way. Loerke laughed, +wrinkling up his face oddly. There was a thin wisp of his hair straying +on his forehead, she noticed that his skin was of a clear brown colour, +his hands, his wrists. And his hands seemed closely prehensile. He +seemed like topaz, so strangely brownish and pellucid. + +“Good,” he said. + +Still it needed some courage for him to go on. + +“Was Mrs Birkin your sister?” he asked. + +“Yes.” + +“And was _she_ married?” + +“She was married.” + +“Have you parents, then?” + +“Yes,” said Gudrun, “we have parents.” + +And she told him, briefly, laconically, her position. He watched her +closely, curiously all the while. + +“So!” he exclaimed, with some surprise. “And the Herr Crich, is he +rich?” + +“Yes, he is rich, a coal owner.” + +“How long has your friendship with him lasted?” + +“Some months.” + +There was a pause. + +“Yes, I am surprised,” he said at length. “The English, I thought they +were so—cold. And what do you think to do when you leave here?” + +“What do I think to do?” she repeated. + +“Yes. You cannot go back to the teaching. No—” he shrugged his +shoulders—“that is impossible. Leave that to the _canaille_ who can do +nothing else. You, for your part—you know, you are a remarkable woman, +_eine seltsame Frau_. Why deny it—why make any question of it? You are +an extraordinary woman, why should you follow the ordinary course, the +ordinary life?” + +Gudrun sat looking at her hands, flushed. She was pleased that he said, +so simply, that she was a remarkable woman. He would not say that to +flatter her—he was far too self-opinionated and objective by nature. He +said it as he would say a piece of sculpture was remarkable, because he +knew it was so. + +And it gratified her to hear it from him. Other people had such a +passion to make everything of one degree, of one pattern. In England it +was chic to be perfectly ordinary. And it was a relief to her to be +acknowledged extraordinary. Then she need not fret about the common +standards. + +“You see,” she said, “I have no money whatsoever.” + +“Ach, money!” he cried, lifting his shoulders. “When one is grown up, +money is lying about at one’s service. It is only when one is young +that it is rare. Take no thought for money—that always lies to hand.” + +“Does it?” she said, laughing. + +“Always. The Gerald will give you a sum, if you ask him for it—” + +She flushed deeply. + +“I will ask anybody else,” she said, with some difficulty—“but not +him.” + +Loerke looked closely at her. + +“Good,” he said. “Then let it be somebody else. Only don’t go back to +that England, that school. No, that is stupid.” + +Again there was a pause. He was afraid to ask her outright to go with +him, he was not even quite sure he wanted her; and she was afraid to be +asked. He begrudged his own isolation, was _very_ chary of sharing his +life, even for a day. + +“The only other place I know is Paris,” she said, “and I can’t stand +that.” + +She looked with her wide, steady eyes full at Loerke. He lowered his +head and averted his face. + +“Paris, no!” he said. “Between the _réligion d’amour_, and the latest +’ism, and the new turning to Jesus, one had better ride on a carrousel +all day. But come to Dresden. I have a studio there—I can give you +work,—oh, that would be easy enough. I haven’t seen any of your things, +but I believe in you. Come to Dresden—that is a fine town to be in, and +as good a life as you can expect of a town. You have everything there, +without the foolishness of Paris or the beer of Munich.” + +He sat and looked at her, coldly. What she liked about him was that he +spoke to her simple and flat, as to himself. He was a fellow craftsman, +a fellow being to her, first. + +“No—Paris,” he resumed, “it makes me sick. Pah—_l’amour_. I detest it. +_L’amour, l’amore, die Liebe_—I detest it in every language. Women and +love, there is no greater tedium,” he cried. + +She was slightly offended. And yet, this was her own basic feeling. +Men, and love—there was no greater tedium. + +“I think the same,” she said. + +“A bore,” he repeated. “What does it matter whether I wear this hat or +another. So love. I needn’t wear a hat at all, only for convenience. +Neither need I love except for convenience. I tell you what, _gnädige +Frau_—” and he leaned towards her—then he made a quick, odd gesture, as +of striking something aside—“_gnädige Fräulein_, never mind—I tell you +what, I would give everything, everything, all your love, for a little +companionship in intelligence—” his eyes flickered darkly, evilly at +her. “You understand?” he asked, with a faint smile. “It wouldn’t +matter if she were a hundred years old, a thousand—it would be all the +same to me, so that she can _understand_.” He shut his eyes with a +little snap. + +Again Gudrun was rather offended. Did he not think her good looking, +then? Suddenly she laughed. + +“I shall have to wait about eighty years to suit you, at that!” she +said. “I am ugly enough, aren’t I?” + +He looked at her with an artist’s sudden, critical, estimating eye. + +“You are beautiful,” he said, “and I am glad of it. But it isn’t +that—it isn’t that,” he cried, with emphasis that flattered her. “It is +that you have a certain wit, it is the kind of understanding. For me, I +am little, _chétif_, insignificant. Good! Do not ask me to be strong +and handsome, then. But it is the _me_—” he put his fingers to his +mouth, oddly—“it is the _me_ that is looking for a mistress, and my +_me_ is waiting for the _thee_ of the mistress, for the match to my +particular intelligence. You understand?” + +“Yes,” she said, “I understand.” + +“As for the other, this _amour_—” he made a gesture, dashing his hand +aside, as if to dash away something troublesome—“it is unimportant, +unimportant. Does it matter, whether I drink white wine this evening, +or whether I drink nothing? It _does not matter_, it does not matter. +So this love, this _amour_, this _baiser_. Yes or no, _soit ou soit +pas_, today, tomorrow, or never, it is all the same, it does not +matter—no more than the white wine.” + +He ended with an odd dropping of the head in a desperate negation. +Gudrun watched him steadily. She had gone pale. + +Suddenly she stretched over and seized his hand in her own. + +“That is true,” she said, in rather a high, vehement voice, “that is +true for me too. It is the understanding that matters.” + +He looked up at her almost frightened, furtive. Then he nodded, a +little sullenly. She let go his hand: he had made not the lightest +response. And they sat in silence. + +“Do you know,” he said, suddenly looking at her with dark, +self-important, prophetic eyes, “your fate and mine, they will run +together, till—” and he broke off in a little grimace. + +“Till when?” she asked, blanched, her lips going white. She was +terribly susceptible to these evil prognostications, but he only shook +his head. + +“I don’t know,” he said, “I don’t know.” + +Gerald did not come in from his skiing until nightfall, he missed the +coffee and cake that she took at four o’clock. The snow was in perfect +condition, he had travelled a long way, by himself, among the snow +ridges, on his skis, he had climbed high, so high that he could see +over the top of the pass, five miles distant, could see the +Marienhütte, the hostel on the crest of the pass, half buried in snow, +and over into the deep valley beyond, to the dusk of the pine trees. +One could go that way home; but he shuddered with nausea at the thought +of home;—one could travel on skis down there, and come to the old +imperial road, below the pass. But why come to any road? He revolted at +the thought of finding himself in the world again. He must stay up +there in the snow forever. He had been happy by himself, high up there +alone, travelling swiftly on skis, taking far flights, and skimming +past the dark rocks veined with brilliant snow. + +But he felt something icy gathering at his heart. This strange mood of +patience and innocence which had persisted in him for some days, was +passing away, he would be left again a prey to the horrible passions +and tortures. + +So he came down reluctantly, snow-burned, snow-estranged, to the house +in the hollow, between the knuckles of the mountain tops. He saw its +lights shining yellow, and he held back, wishing he need not go in, to +confront those people, to hear the turmoil of voices and to feel the +confusion of other presences. He was isolated as if there were a vacuum +round his heart, or a sheath of pure ice. + +The moment he saw Gudrun something jolted in his soul. She was looking +rather lofty and superb, smiling slowly and graciously to the Germans. +A sudden desire leapt in his heart, to kill her. He thought, what a +perfect voluptuous fulfilment it would be, to kill her. His mind was +absent all the evening, estranged by the snow and his passion. But he +kept the idea constant within him, what a perfect voluptuous +consummation it would be to strangle her, to strangle every spark of +life out of her, till she lay completely inert, soft, relaxed for ever, +a soft heap lying dead between his hands, utterly dead. Then he would +have had her finally and for ever; there would be such a perfect +voluptuous finality. + +Gudrun was unaware of what he was feeling, he seemed so quiet and +amiable, as usual. His amiability even made her feel brutal towards +him. + +She went into his room when he was partially undressed. She did not +notice the curious, glad gleam of pure hatred, with which he looked at +her. She stood near the door, with her hand behind her. + +“I have been thinking, Gerald,” she said, with an insulting +nonchalance, “that I shall not go back to England.” + +“Oh,” he said, “where will you go then?” + +But she ignored his question. She had her own logical statement to +make, and it must be made as she had thought it. + +“I can’t see the use of going back,” she continued. “It is over between +me and you—” + +She paused for him to speak. But he said nothing. He was only talking +to himself, saying “Over, is it? I believe it is over. But it isn’t +finished. Remember, it isn’t finished. We must put some sort of a +finish on it. There must be a conclusion, there must be finality.” + +So he talked to himself, but aloud he said nothing whatever. + +“What has been, has been,” she continued. “There is nothing that I +regret. I hope you regret nothing—” + +She waited for him to speak. + +“Oh, I regret nothing,” he said, accommodatingly. + +“Good then,” she answered, “good then. Then neither of us cherishes any +regrets, which is as it should be.” + +“Quite as it should be,” he said aimlessly. + +She paused to gather up her thread again. + +“Our attempt has been a failure,” she said. “But we can try again, +elsewhere.” + +A little flicker of rage ran through his blood. It was as if she were +rousing him, goading him. Why must she do it? + +“Attempt at what?” he asked. + +“At being lovers, I suppose,” she said, a little baffled, yet so +trivial she made it all seem. + +“Our attempt at being lovers has been a failure?” he repeated aloud. + +To himself he was saying, “I ought to kill her here. There is only this +left, for me to kill her.” A heavy, overcharged desire to bring about +her death possessed him. She was unaware. + +“Hasn’t it?” she asked. “Do you think it has been a success?” + +Again the insult of the flippant question ran through his blood like a +current of fire. + +“It had some of the elements of success, our relationship,” he replied. +“It—might have come off.” + +But he paused before concluding the last phrase. Even as he began the +sentence, he did not believe in what he was going to say. He knew it +never could have been a success. + +“No,” she replied. “You cannot love.” + +“And you?” he asked. + +Her wide, dark-filled eyes were fixed on him, like two moons of +darkness. + +“I couldn’t love _you_,” she said, with stark cold truth. + +A blinding flash went over his brain, his body jolted. His heart had +burst into flame. His consciousness was gone into his wrists, into his +hands. He was one blind, incontinent desire, to kill her. His wrists +were bursting, there would be no satisfaction till his hands had closed +on her. + +But even before his body swerved forward on her, a sudden, cunning +comprehension was expressed on her face, and in a flash she was out of +the door. She ran in one flash to her room and locked herself in. She +was afraid, but confident. She knew her life trembled on the edge of an +abyss. But she was curiously sure of her footing. She knew her cunning +could outwit him. + +She trembled, as she stood in her room, with excitement and awful +exhilaration. She knew she could outwit him. She could depend on her +presence of mind, and on her wits. But it was a fight to the death, she +knew it now. One slip, and she was lost. She had a strange, tense, +exhilarated sickness in her body, as one who is in peril of falling +from a great height, but who does not look down, does not admit the +fear. + +“I will go away the day after tomorrow,” she said. + +She only did not want Gerald to think that she was afraid of him, that +she was running away because she was afraid of him. She was not afraid +of him, fundamentally. She knew it was her safeguard to avoid his +physical violence. But even physically she was not afraid of him. She +wanted to prove it to him. When she had proved it, that, whatever he +was, she was not afraid of him; when she had proved _that_, she could +leave him forever. But meanwhile the fight between them, terrible as +she knew it to be, was inconclusive. And she wanted to be confident in +herself. However many terrors she might have, she would be unafraid, +uncowed by him. He could never cow her, nor dominate her, nor have any +right over her; this she would maintain until she had proved it. Once +it was proved, she was free of him forever. + +But she had not proved it yet, neither to him nor to herself. And this +was what still bound her to him. She was bound to him, she could not +live beyond him. She sat up in bed, closely wrapped up, for many hours, +thinking endlessly to herself. It was as if she would never have done +weaving the great provision of her thoughts. + +“It isn’t as if he really loved me,” she said to herself. “He doesn’t. +Every woman he comes across he wants to make her in love with him. He +doesn’t even know that he is doing it. But there he is, before every +woman he unfurls his male attractiveness, displays his great +desirability, he tries to make every woman think how wonderful it would +be to have him for a lover. His very ignoring of the women is part of +the game. He is never _unconscious_ of them. He should have been a +cockerel, so he could strut before fifty females, all his subjects. But +really, his Don Juan does _not_ interest me. I could play Dona Juanita +a million times better than he plays Juan. He bores me, you know. His +maleness bores me. Nothing is so boring, so inherently stupid and +stupidly conceited. Really, the fathomless conceit of these men, it is +ridiculous—the little strutters. + +“They are all alike. Look at Birkin. Built out of the limitation of +conceit they are, and nothing else. Really, nothing but their +ridiculous limitation and intrinsic insignificance could make them so +conceited. + +“As for Loerke, there is a thousand times more in him than in a Gerald. +Gerald is so limited, there is a dead end to him. He would grind on at +the old mills forever. And really, there is no corn between the +millstones any more. They grind on and on, when there is nothing to +grind—saying the same things, believing the same things, acting the +same things. Oh, my God, it would wear out the patience of a stone. + +“I don’t worship Loerke, but at any rate, he is a free individual. He +is not stiff with conceit of his own maleness. He is not grinding +dutifully at the old mills. Oh God, when I think of Gerald, and his +work—those offices at Beldover, and the mines—it makes my heart sick. +What _have_ I to do with it—and him thinking he can be a lover to a +woman! One might as well ask it of a self-satisfied lamp-post. These +men, with their eternal jobs—and their eternal mills of God that keep +on grinding at nothing! It is too boring, just boring. However did I +come to take him seriously at all! + +“At least in Dresden, one will have one’s back to it all. And there +will be amusing things to do. It will be amusing to go to these +eurythmic displays, and the German opera, the German theatre. It _will_ +be amusing to take part in German Bohemian life. And Loerke is an +artist, he is a free individual. One will escape from so much, that is +the chief thing, escape so much hideous boring repetition of vulgar +actions, vulgar phrases, vulgar postures. I don’t delude myself that I +shall find an elixir of life in Dresden. I know I shan’t. But I shall +get away from people who have their own homes and their own children +and their own acquaintances and their own this and their own that. I +shall be among people who _don’t_ own things and who _haven’t_ got a +home and a domestic servant in the background, who haven’t got a +standing and a status and a degree and a circle of friends of the same. +Oh God, the wheels within wheels of people, it makes one’s head tick +like a clock, with a very madness of dead mechanical monotony and +meaninglessness. How I _hate_ life, how I hate it. How I hate the +Geralds, that they can offer one nothing else. + +“Shortlands!—Heavens! Think of living there, one week, then the next, +and _then the third_— + +“No, I won’t think of it—it is too much—” + +And she broke off, really terrified, really unable to bear any more. + +The thought of the mechanical succession of day following day, day +following day, _ad infintum_, was one of the things that made her heart +palpitate with a real approach of madness. The terrible bondage of this +tick-tack of time, this twitching of the hands of the clock, this +eternal repetition of hours and days—oh God, it was too awful to +contemplate. And there was no escape from it, no escape. + +She almost wished Gerald were with her to save her from the terror of +her own thoughts. Oh, how she suffered, lying there alone, confronted +by the terrible clock, with its eternal tick-tack. All life, all life +resolved itself into this: tick-tack, tick-tack, tick-tack; then the +striking of the hour; then the tick-tack, tick-tack, and the twitching +of the clock-fingers. + +Gerald could not save her from it. He, his body, his motion, his +life—it was the same ticking, the same twitching across the dial, a +horrible mechanical twitching forward over the face of the hours. What +were his kisses, his embraces. She could hear their tick-tack, +tick-tack. + +Ha—ha—she laughed to herself, so frightened that she was trying to +laugh it off—ha—ha, how maddening it was, to be sure, to be sure! + +Then, with a fleeting self-conscious motion, she wondered if she would +be very much surprised, on rising in the morning, to realise that her +hair had turned white. She had _felt_ it turning white so often, under +the intolerable burden of her thoughts, und her sensations. Yet there +it remained, brown as ever, and there she was herself, looking a +picture of health. + +Perhaps she was healthy. Perhaps it was only her unabateable health +that left her so exposed to the truth. If she were sickly she would +have her illusions, imaginations. As it was, there was no escape. She +must always see and know and never escape. She could never escape. +There she was, placed before the clock-face of life. And if she turned +round as in a railway station, to look at the bookstall, still she +could see, with her very spine, she could see the clock, always the +great white clock-face. In vain she fluttered the leaves of books, or +made statuettes in clay. She knew she was not _really_ reading. She was +not _really_ working. She was watching the fingers twitch across the +eternal, mechanical, monotonous clock-face of time. She never really +lived, she only watched. Indeed, she was like a little, twelve-hour +clock, vis-à-vis with the enormous clock of eternity—there she was, +like Dignity and Impudence, or Impudence and Dignity. + +The picture pleased her. Didn’t her face really look like a clock +dial—rather roundish and often pale, and impassive. She would have got +up to look, in the mirror, but the thought of the sight of her own +face, that was like a twelve-hour clock-dial, filled her with such deep +terror, that she hastened to think of something else. + +Oh, why wasn’t somebody kind to her? Why wasn’t there somebody who +would take her in their arms, and hold her to their breast, and give +her rest, pure, deep, healing rest. Oh, why wasn’t there somebody to +take her in their arms and fold her safe and perfect, for sleep. She +wanted so much this perfect enfolded sleep. She lay always so +unsheathed in sleep. She would lie always unsheathed in sleep, +unrelieved, unsaved. Oh, how could she bear it, this endless unrelief, +this eternal unrelief. + +Gerald! Could he fold her in his arms and sheathe her in sleep? Ha! He +needed putting to sleep himself—poor Gerald. That was all he needed. +What did he do, he made the burden for her greater, the burden of her +sleep was the more intolerable, when he was there. He was an added +weariness upon her unripening nights, her unfruitful slumbers. Perhaps +he got some repose from her. Perhaps he did. Perhaps this was what he +was always dogging her for, like a child that is famished, crying for +the breast. Perhaps this was the secret of his passion, his forever +unquenched desire for her—that he needed her to put him to sleep, to +give him repose. + +What then! Was she his mother? Had she asked for a child, whom she must +nurse through the nights, for her lover. She despised him, she despised +him, she hardened her heart. An infant crying in the night, this Don +Juan. + +Ooh, but how she hated the infant crying in the night. She would murder +it gladly. She would stifle it and bury it, as Hetty Sorrell did. No +doubt Hetty Sorrell’s infant cried in the night—no doubt Arthur +Donnithorne’s infant would. Ha—the Arthur Donnithornes, the Geralds of +this world. So manly by day, yet all the while, such a crying of +infants in the night. Let them turn into mechanisms, let them. Let them +become instruments, pure machines, pure wills, that work like +clock-work, in perpetual repetition. Let them be this, let them be +taken up entirely in their work, let them be perfect parts of a great +machine, having a slumber of constant repetition. Let Gerald manage his +firm. There he would be satisfied, as satisfied as a wheelbarrow that +goes backwards and forwards along a plank all day—she had seen it. + +The wheel-barrow—the one humble wheel—the unit of the firm. Then the +cart, with two wheels; then the truck, with four; then the +donkey-engine, with eight, then the winding-engine, with sixteen, and +so on, till it came to the miner, with a thousand wheels, and then the +electrician, with three thousand, and the underground manager, with +twenty thousand, and the general manager with a hundred thousand little +wheels working away to complete his make-up, and then Gerald, with a +million wheels and cogs and axles. + +Poor Gerald, such a lot of little wheels to his make-up! He was more +intricate than a chronometer-watch. But oh heavens, what weariness! +What weariness, God above! A chronometer-watch—a beetle—her soul +fainted with utter ennui, from the thought. So many wheels to count and +consider and calculate! Enough, enough—there was an end to man’s +capacity for complications, even. Or perhaps there was no end. + +Meanwhile Gerald sat in his room, reading. When Gudrun was gone, he was +left stupefied with arrested desire. He sat on the side of the bed for +an hour, stupefied, little strands of consciousness appearing and +reappearing. But he did not move, for a long time he remained inert, +his head dropped on his breast. + +Then he looked up and realised that he was going to bed. He was cold. +Soon he was lying down in the dark. + +But what he could not bear was the darkness. The solid darkness +confronting him drove him mad. So he rose, and made a light. He +remained seated for a while, staring in front. He did not think of +Gudrun, he did not think of anything. + +Then suddenly he went downstairs for a book. He had all his life been +in terror of the nights that should come, when he could not sleep. He +knew that this would be too much for him, to have to face nights of +sleeplessness and of horrified watching the hours. + +So he sat for hours in bed, like a statue, reading. His mind, hard and +acute, read on rapidly, his body understood nothing. In a state of +rigid unconsciousness, he read on through the night, till morning, +when, weary and disgusted in spirit, disgusted most of all with +himself, he slept for two hours. + +Then he got up, hard and full of energy. Gudrun scarcely spoke to him, +except at coffee when she said: + +“I shall be leaving tomorrow.” + +“We will go together as far as Innsbruck, for appearance’s sake?” he +asked. + +“Perhaps,” she said. + +She said ‘Perhaps’ between the sips of her coffee. And the sound of her +taking her breath in the word, was nauseous to him. He rose quickly to +be away from her. + +He went and made arrangements for the departure on the morrow. Then, +taking some food, he set out for the day on the skis. Perhaps, he said +to the Wirt, he would go up to the Marienhütte, perhaps to the village +below. + +To Gudrun this day was full of a promise like spring. She felt an +approaching release, a new fountain of life rising up in her. It gave +her pleasure to dawdle through her packing, it gave her pleasure to dip +into books, to try on her different garments, to look at herself in the +glass. She felt a new lease of life was come upon her, and she was +happy like a child, very attractive and beautiful to everybody, with +her soft, luxuriant figure, and her happiness. Yet underneath was death +itself. + +In the afternoon she had to go out with Loerke. Her tomorrow was +perfectly vague before her. This was what gave her pleasure. She might +be going to England with Gerald, she might be going to Dresden with +Loerke, she might be going to Munich, to a girl-friend she had there. +Anything might come to pass on the morrow. And today was the white, +snowy iridescent threshold of all possibility. All possibility—that was +the charm to her, the lovely, iridescent, indefinite charm,—pure +illusion. All possibility—because death was inevitable, and _nothing_ +was possible but death. + +She did not want things to materialise, to take any definite shape. She +wanted, suddenly, at one moment of the journey tomorrow, to be wafted +into an utterly new course, by some utterly unforeseen event, or +motion. So that, although she wanted to go out with Loerke for the last +time into the snow, she did not want to be serious or businesslike. + +And Loerke was not a serious figure. In his brown velvet cap, that made +his head as round as a chestnut, with the brown-velvet flaps loose and +wild over his ears, and a wisp of elf-like, thin black hair blowing +above his full, elf-like dark eyes, the shiny, transparent brown skin +crinkling up into odd grimaces on his small-featured face, he looked an +odd little boy-man, a bat. But in his figure, in the greeny loden suit, +he looked _chétif_ and puny, still strangely different from the rest. + +He had taken a little toboggan, for the two of them, and they trudged +between the blinding slopes of snow, that burned their now hardening +faces, laughing in an endless sequence of quips and jests and polyglot +fancies. The fancies were the reality to both of them, they were both +so happy, tossing about the little coloured balls of verbal humour and +whimsicality. Their natures seemed to sparkle in full interplay, they +were enjoying a pure game. And they wanted to keep it on the level of a +game, their relationship: _such_ a fine game. + +Loerke did not take the toboganning very seriously. He put no fire and +intensity into it, as Gerald did. Which pleased Gudrun. She was weary, +oh so weary of Gerald’s gripped intensity of physical motion. Loerke +let the sledge go wildly, and gaily, like a flying leaf, and when, at a +bend, he pitched both her and him out into the snow, he only waited for +them both to pick themselves up unhurt off the keen white ground, to be +laughing and pert as a pixie. She knew he would be making ironical, +playful remarks as he wandered in hell—if he were in the humour. And +that pleased her immensely. It seemed like a rising above the +dreariness of actuality, the monotony of contingencies. + +They played till the sun went down, in pure amusement, careless and +timeless. Then, as the little sledge twirled riskily to rest at the +bottom of the slope, + +“Wait!” he said suddenly, and he produced from somewhere a large +thermos flask, a packet of Keks, and a bottle of Schnapps. + +“Oh Loerke,” she cried. “What an inspiration! What a _comble de joie +indeed!_ What is the Schnapps?” + +He looked at it, and laughed. + +“_Heidelbeer!_” he said. + +“No! From the bilberries under the snow. Doesn’t it look as if it were +distilled from snow. Can you—” she sniffed, and sniffed at the +bottle—“can you smell bilberries? Isn’t it wonderful? It is exactly as +if one could smell them through the snow.” + +She stamped her foot lightly on the ground. He kneeled down and +whistled, and put his ear to the snow. As he did so his black eyes +twinkled up. + +“Ha! Ha!” she laughed, warmed by the whimsical way in which he mocked +at her verbal extravagances. He was always teasing her, mocking her +ways. But as he in his mockery was even more absurd than she in her +extravagances, what could one do but laugh and feel liberated. + +She could feel their voices, hers and his, ringing silvery like bells +in the frozen, motionless air of the first twilight. How perfect it +was, how _very_ perfect it was, this silvery isolation and interplay. + +She sipped the hot coffee, whose fragrance flew around them like bees +murmuring around flowers, in the snowy air, she drank tiny sips of the +_Heidelbeerwasser_, she ate the cold, sweet, creamy wafers. How good +everything was! How perfect everything tasted and smelled and sounded, +here in this utter stillness of snow and falling twilight. + +“You are going away tomorrow?” his voice came at last. + +“Yes.” + +There was a pause, when the evening seemed to rise in its silent, +ringing pallor infinitely high, to the infinite which was near at hand. + +“_Wohin?_” + +That was the question—_wohin?_ Whither? _Wohin?_ What a lovely word! +She _never_ wanted it answered. Let it chime for ever. + +“I don’t know,” she said, smiling at him. + +He caught the smile from her. + +“One never does,” he said. + +“One never does,” she repeated. + +There was a silence, wherein he ate biscuits rapidly, as a rabbit eats +leaves. + +“But,” he laughed, “where will you take a ticket to?” + +“Oh heaven!” she cried. “One must take a ticket.” + +Here was a blow. She saw herself at the wicket, at the railway station. +Then a relieving thought came to her. She breathed freely. + +“But one needn’t go,” she cried. + +“Certainly not,” he said. + +“I mean one needn’t go where one’s ticket says.” + +That struck him. One might take a ticket, so as not to travel to the +destination it indicated. One might break off, and avoid the +destination. A point located. That was an idea! + +“Then take a ticket to London,” he said. “One should never go there.” + +“Right,” she answered. + +He poured a little coffee into a tin can. + +“You won’t tell me where you will go?” he asked. + +“Really and truly,” she said, “I don’t know. It depends which way the +wind blows.” + +He looked at her quizzically, then he pursed up his lips, like +Zephyrus, blowing across the snow. + +“It goes towards Germany,” he said. + +“I believe so,” she laughed. + +Suddenly, they were aware of a vague white figure near them. It was +Gerald. Gudrun’s heart leapt in sudden terror, profound terror. She +rose to her feet. + +“They told me where you were,” came Gerald’s voice, like a judgment in +the whitish air of twilight. + +“_Maria!_ You come like a ghost,” exclaimed Loerke. + +Gerald did not answer. His presence was unnatural and ghostly to them. + +Loerke shook the flask—then he held it inverted over the snow. Only a +few brown drops trickled out. + +“All gone!” he said. + +To Gerald, the smallish, odd figure of the German was distinct and +objective, as if seen through field glasses. And he disliked the small +figure exceedingly, he wanted it removed. + +Then Loerke rattled the box which held the biscuits. + +“Biscuits there are still,” he said. + +And reaching from his seated posture in the sledge, he handed them to +Gudrun. She fumbled, and took one. He would have held them to Gerald, +but Gerald so definitely did not want to be offered a biscuit, that +Loerke, rather vaguely, put the box aside. Then he took up the small +bottle, and held it to the light. + +“Also there is some Schnapps,” he said to himself. + +Then suddenly, he elevated the battle gallantly in the air, a strange, +grotesque figure leaning towards Gudrun, and said: + +“_Gnädiges Fräulein_,” he said, “_wohl_—” + +There was a crack, the bottle was flying, Loerke had started back, the +three stood quivering in violent emotion. + +Loerke turned to Gerald, a devilish leer on his bright-skinned face. + +“Well done!” he said, in a satirical demoniac frenzy. “_C’est le sport, +sans doute._” + +The next instant he was sitting ludicrously in the snow, Gerald’s fist +having rung against the side of his head. But Loerke pulled himself +together, rose, quivering, looking full at Gerald, his body weak and +furtive, but his eyes demoniacal with satire. + +“_Vive le héros, vive_—” + +But he flinched, as, in a black flash Gerald’s fist came upon him, +banged into the other side of his head, and sent him aside like a +broken straw. + +But Gudrun moved forward. She raised her clenched hand high, and +brought it down, with a great downward stroke on to the face and on to +the breast of Gerald. + +A great astonishment burst upon him, as if the air had broken. Wide, +wide his soul opened, in wonder, feeling the pain. Then it laughed, +turning, with strong hands outstretched, at last to take the apple of +his desire. At last he could finish his desire. + +He took the throat of Gudrun between his hands, that were hard and +indomitably powerful. And her throat was beautifully, so beautifully +soft, save that, within, he could feel the slippery chords of her life. +And this he crushed, this he could crush. What bliss! Oh what bliss, at +last, what satisfaction, at last! The pure zest of satisfaction filled +his soul. He was watching the unconsciousness come unto her swollen +face, watching the eyes roll back. How ugly she was! What a fulfilment, +what a satisfaction! How good this was, oh how good it was, what a +God-given gratification, at last! He was unconscious of her fighting +and struggling. The struggling was her reciprocal lustful passion in +this embrace, the more violent it became, the greater the frenzy of +delight, till the zenith was reached, the crisis, the struggle was +overborne, her movement became softer, appeased. + +Loerke roused himself on the snow, too dazed and hurt to get up. Only +his eyes were conscious. + +“_Monsieur!_” he said, in his thin, roused voice: “_Quand vous aurez +fini_—” + +A revulsion of contempt and disgust came over Gerald’s soul. The +disgust went to the very bottom of him, a nausea. Ah, what was he +doing, to what depths was he letting himself go! As if he cared about +her enough to kill her, to have her life on his hands! + +A weakness ran over his body, a terrible relaxing, a thaw, a decay of +strength. Without knowing, he had let go his grip, and Gudrun had +fallen to her knees. Must he see, must he know? + +A fearful weakness possessed him, his joints were turned to water. He +drifted, as on a wind, veered, and went drifting away. + +“I didn’t want it, really,” was the last confession of disgust in his +soul, as he drifted up the slope, weak, finished, only sheering off +unconsciously from any further contact. “I’ve had enough—I want to go +to sleep. I’ve had enough.” He was sunk under a sense of nausea. + +He was weak, but he did not want to rest, he wanted to go on and on, to +the end. Never again to stay, till he came to the end, that was all the +desire that remained to him. So he drifted on and on, unconscious and +weak, not thinking of anything, so long as he could keep in action. + +The twilight spread a weird, unearthly light overhead, bluish-rose in +colour, the cold blue night sank on the snow. In the valley below, +behind, in the great bed of snow, were two small figures: Gudrun +dropped on her knees, like one executed, and Loerke sitting propped up +near her. That was all. + +Gerald stumbled on up the slope of snow, in the bluish darkness, always +climbing, always unconsciously climbing, weary though he was. On his +left was a steep slope with black rocks and fallen masses of rock and +veins of snow slashing in and about the blackness of rock, veins of +snow slashing vaguely in and about the blackness of rock. Yet there was +no sound, all this made no noise. + +To add to his difficulty, a small bright moon shone brilliantly just +ahead, on the right, a painful brilliant thing that was always there, +unremitting, from which there was no escape. He wanted so to come to +the end—he had had enough. Yet he did not sleep. + +He surged painfully up, sometimes having to cross a slope of black +rock, that was blown bare of snow. Here he was afraid of falling, very +much afraid of falling. And high up here, on the crest, moved a wind +that almost overpowered him with a sleep-heavy iciness. Only it was not +here, the end, and he must still go on. His indefinite nausea would not +let him stay. + +Having gained one ridge, he saw the vague shadow of something higher in +front. Always higher, always higher. He knew he was following the track +towards the summit of the slopes, where was the Marienhütte, and the +descent on the other side. But he was not really conscious. He only +wanted to go on, to go on whilst he could, to move, to keep going, that +was all, to keep going, until it was finished. He had lost all his +sense of place. And yet in the remaining instinct of life, his feet +sought the track where the skis had gone. + +He slithered down a sheer snow slope. That frightened him. He had no +alpenstock, nothing. But having come safely to rest, he began to walk +on, in the illuminated darkness. It was as cold as sleep. He was +between two ridges, in a hollow. So he swerved. Should he climb the +other ridge, or wander along the hollow? How frail the thread of his +being was stretched! He would perhaps climb the ridge. The snow was +firm and simple. He went along. There was something standing out of the +snow. He approached, with dimmest curiosity. + +It was a half-buried Crucifix, a little Christ under a little sloping +hood, at the top of a pole. He sheered away. Somebody was going to +murder him. He had a great dread of being murdered. But it was a dread +which stood outside him, like his own ghost. + +Yet why be afraid? It was bound to happen. To be murdered! He looked +round in terror at the snow, the rocking, pale, shadowy slopes of the +upper world. He was bound to be murdered, he could see it. This was the +moment when the death was uplifted, and there was no escape. + +Lord Jesus, was it then bound to be—Lord Jesus! He could feel the blow +descending, he knew he was murdered. Vaguely wandering forward, his +hands lifted as if to feel what would happen, he was waiting for the +moment when he would stop, when it would cease. It was not over yet. + +He had come to the hollow basin of snow, surrounded by sheer slopes and +precipices, out of which rose a track that brought one to the top of +the mountain. But he wandered unconsciously, till he slipped and fell +down, and as he fell something broke in his soul, and immediately he +went to sleep. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI. +EXEUNT + + +When they brought the body home, the next morning, Gudrun was shut up +in her room. From her window she saw men coming along with a burden, +over the snow. She sat still and let the minutes go by. + +There came a tap at her door. She opened. There stood a woman, saying +softly, oh, far too reverently: + +“They have found him, madam!” + +“_Il est mort?_” + +“Yes—hours ago.” + +Gudrun did not know what to say. What should she say? What should she +feel? What should she do? What did they expect of her? She was coldly +at a loss. + +“Thank you,” she said, and she shut the door of her room. The woman +went away mortified. Not a word, not a tear—ha! Gudrun was cold, a cold +woman. + +Gudrun sat on in her room, her face pale and impassive. What was she to +do? She could not weep and make a scene. She could not alter herself. +She sat motionless, hiding from people. Her one motive was to avoid +actual contact with events. She only wrote out a long telegram to +Ursula and Birkin. + +In the afternoon, however, she rose suddenly to look for Loerke. She +glanced with apprehension at the door of the room that had been +Gerald’s. Not for worlds would she enter there. + +She found Loerke sitting alone in the lounge. She went straight up to +him. + +“It isn’t true, is it?” she said. + +He looked up at her. A small smile of misery twisted his face. He +shrugged his shoulders. + +“True?” he echoed. + +“We haven’t killed him?” she asked. + +He disliked her coming to him in such a manner. He raised his shoulders +wearily. + +“It has happened,” he said. + +She looked at him. He sat crushed and frustrated for the time being, +quite as emotionless and barren as herself. My God! this was a barren +tragedy, barren, barren. + +She returned to her room to wait for Ursula and Birkin. She wanted to +get away, only to get away. She could not think or feel until she had +got away, till she was loosed from this position. + +The day passed, the next day came. She heard the sledge, saw Ursula and +Birkin alight, and she shrank from these also. + +Ursula came straight up to her. + +“Gudrun!” she cried, the tears running down her cheeks. And she took +her sister in her arms. Gudrun hid her face on Ursula’s shoulder, but +still she could not escape the cold devil of irony that froze her soul. + +“Ha, ha!” she thought, “this is the right behaviour.” + +But she could not weep, and the sight of her cold, pale, impassive face +soon stopped the fountain of Ursula’s tears. In a few moments, the +sisters had nothing to say to each other. + +“Was it very vile to be dragged back here again?” Gudrun asked at +length. + +Ursula looked up in some bewilderment. + +“I never thought of it,” she said. + +“I felt a beast, fetching you,” said Gudrun. “But I simply couldn’t see +people. That is too much for me.” + +“Yes,” said Ursula, chilled. + +Birkin tapped and entered. His face was white and expressionless. She +knew he knew. He gave her his hand, saying: + +“The end of _this_ trip, at any rate.” + +Gudrun glanced at him, afraid. + +There was silence between the three of them, nothing to be said. At +length Ursula asked in a small voice: + +“Have you seen him?” + +He looked back at Ursula with a hard, cold look, and did not trouble to +answer. + +“Have you seen him?” she repeated. + +“I have,” he said, coldly. + +Then he looked at Gudrun. + +“Have you done anything?” he said. + +“Nothing,” she replied, “nothing.” + +She shrank in cold disgust from making any statement. + +“Loerke says that Gerald came to you, when you were sitting on the +sledge at the bottom of the Rudelbahn, that you had words, and Gerald +walked away. What were the words about? I had better know, so that I +can satisfy the authorities, if necessary.” + +Gudrun looked up at him, white, childlike, mute with trouble. + +“There weren’t even any words,” she said. “He knocked Loerke down and +stunned him, he half strangled me, then he went away.” + +To herself she was saying: + +“A pretty little sample of the eternal triangle!” And she turned +ironically away, because she knew that the fight had been between +Gerald and herself and that the presence of the third party was a mere +contingency—an inevitable contingency perhaps, but a contingency none +the less. But let them have it as an example of the eternal triangle, +the trinity of hate. It would be simpler for them. + +Birkin went away, his manner cold and abstracted. But she knew he would +do things for her, nevertheless, he would see her through. She smiled +slightly to herself, with contempt. Let him do the work, since he was +so extremely _good_ at looking after other people. + +Birkin went again to Gerald. He had loved him. And yet he felt chiefly +disgust at the inert body lying there. It was so inert, so coldly dead, +a carcase, Birkin’s bowels seemed to turn to ice. He had to stand and +look at the frozen dead body that had been Gerald. + +It was the frozen carcase of a dead male. Birkin remembered a rabbit +which he had once found frozen like a board on the snow. It had been +rigid like a dried board when he picked it up. And now this was Gerald, +stiff as a board, curled up as if for sleep, yet with the horrible +hardness somehow evident. It filled him with horror. The room must be +made warm, the body must be thawed. The limbs would break like glass or +like wood if they had to be straightened. + +He reached and touched the dead face. And the sharp, heavy bruise of +ice bruised his living bowels. He wondered if he himself were freezing +too, freezing from the inside. In the short blond moustache the +life-breath was frozen into a block of ice, beneath the silent +nostrils. And this was Gerald! + +Again he touched the sharp, almost glittering fair hair of the frozen +body. It was icy-cold, hair icy-cold, almost venomous. Birkin’s heart +began to freeze. He had loved Gerald. Now he looked at the shapely, +strange-coloured face, with the small, fine, pinched nose and the manly +cheeks, saw it frozen like an ice-pebble—yet he had loved it. What was +one to think or feel? His brain was beginning to freeze, his blood was +turning to ice-water. So cold, so cold, a heavy, bruising cold pressing +on his arms from outside, and a heavier cold congealing within him, in +his heart and in his bowels. + +He went over the snow slopes, to see where the death had been. At last +he came to the great shallow among the precipices and slopes, near the +summit of the pass. It was a grey day, the third day of greyness and +stillness. All was white, icy, pallid, save for the scoring of black +rocks that jutted like roots sometimes, and sometimes were in naked +faces. In the distance a slope sheered down from a peak, with many +black rock-slides. + +It was like a shallow pot lying among the stone and snow of the upper +world. In this pot Gerald had gone to sleep. At the far end, the guides +had driven iron stakes deep into the snow-wall, so that, by means of +the great rope attached, they could haul themselves up the massive +snow-front, out on to the jagged summit of the pass, naked to heaven, +where the Marienhütte hid among the naked rocks. Round about, spiked, +slashed snow-peaks pricked the heaven. + +Gerald might have found this rope. He might have hauled himself up to +the crest. He might have heard the dogs in the Marienhütte, and found +shelter. He might have gone on, down the steep, steep fall of the +south-side, down into the dark valley with its pines, on to the great +Imperial road leading south to Italy. + +He might! And what then? The Imperial road! The south? Italy? What +then? Was it a way out? It was only a way in again. Birkin stood high +in the painful air, looking at the peaks, and the way south. Was it any +good going south, to Italy? Down the old, old Imperial road? + +He turned away. Either the heart would break, or cease to care. Best +cease to care. Whatever the mystery which has brought forth man and the +universe, it is a non-human mystery, it has its own great ends, man is +not the criterion. Best leave it all to the vast, creative, non-human +mystery. Best strive with oneself only, not with the universe. + +“God cannot do without man.” It was a saying of some great French +religious teacher. But surely this is false. God can do without man. +God could do without the ichthyosauri and the mastodon. These monsters +failed creatively to develop, so God, the creative mystery, dispensed +with them. In the same way the mystery could dispense with man, should +he too fail creatively to change and develop. The eternal creative +mystery could dispose of man, and replace him with a finer created +being. Just as the horse has taken the place of the mastodon. + +It was very consoling to Birkin, to think this. If humanity ran into a +_cul de sac_ and expended itself, the timeless creative mystery would +bring forth some other being, finer, more wonderful, some new, more +lovely race, to carry on the embodiment of creation. The game was never +up. The mystery of creation was fathomless, infallible, inexhaustible, +forever. Races came and went, species passed away, but ever new species +arose, more lovely, or equally lovely, always surpassing wonder. The +fountain-head was incorruptible and unsearchable. It had no limits. It +could bring forth miracles, create utter new races and new species, in +its own hour, new forms of consciousness, new forms of body, new units +of being. To be man was as nothing compared to the possibilities of the +creative mystery. To have one’s pulse beating direct from the mystery, +this was perfection, unutterable satisfaction. Human or inhuman +mattered nothing. The perfect pulse throbbed with indescribable being, +miraculous unborn species. + +Birkin went home again to Gerald. He went into the room, and sat down +on the bed. Dead, dead and cold! + +Imperial Caesar dead, and turned to clay +Would stop a hole to keep the wind away. + +There was no response from that which had been Gerald. Strange, +congealed, icy substance—no more. No more! + +Terribly weary, Birkin went away, about the day’s business. He did it +all quietly, without bother. To rant, to rave, to be tragic, to make +situations—it was all too late. Best be quiet, and bear one’s soul in +patience and in fullness. + +But when he went in again, at evening, to look at Gerald between the +candles, because of his heart’s hunger, suddenly his heart contracted, +his own candle all but fell from his hand, as, with a strange +whimpering cry, the tears broke out. He sat down in a chair, shaken by +a sudden access. Ursula who had followed him, recoiled aghast from him, +as he sat with sunken head and body convulsively shaken, making a +strange, horrible sound of tears. + +“I didn’t want it to be like this—I didn’t want it to be like this,” he +cried to himself. Ursula could but think of the Kaiser’s: “_Ich habe es +nicht gewollt._” She looked almost with horror on Birkin. + +Suddenly he was silent. But he sat with his head dropped, to hide his +face. Then furtively he wiped his face with his fingers. Then suddenly +he lifted his head, and looked straight at Ursula, with dark, almost +vengeful eyes. + +“He should have loved me,” he said. “I offered him.” + +She, afraid, white, with mute lips answered: + +“What difference would it have made!” + +“It would!” he said. “It would.” + +He forgot her, and turned to look at Gerald. With head oddly lifted, +like a man who draws his head back from an insult, half haughtily, he +watched the cold, mute, material face. It had a bluish cast. It sent a +shaft like ice through the heart of the living man. Cold, mute, +material! Birkin remembered how once Gerald had clutched his hand, with +a warm, momentaneous grip of final love. For one second—then let go +again, let go for ever. If he had kept true to that clasp, death would +not have mattered. Those who die, and dying still can love, still +believe, do not die. They live still in the beloved. Gerald might still +have been living in the spirit with Birkin, even after death. He might +have lived with his friend, a further life. + +But now he was dead, like clay, like bluish, corruptible ice. Birkin +looked at the pale fingers, the inert mass. He remembered a dead +stallion he had seen: a dead mass of maleness, repugnant. He remembered +also the beautiful face of one whom he had loved, and who had died +still having the faith to yield to the mystery. That dead face was +beautiful, no one could call it cold, mute, material. No one could +remember it without gaining faith in the mystery, without the soul’s +warming with new, deep life-trust. + +And Gerald! The denier! He left the heart cold, frozen, hardly able to +beat. Gerald’s father had looked wistful, to break the heart: but not +this last terrible look of cold, mute Matter. Birkin watched and +watched. + +Ursula stood aside watching the living man stare at the frozen face of +the dead man. Both faces were unmoved and unmoving. The candle-flames +flickered in the frozen air, in the intense silence. + +“Haven’t you seen enough?” she said. + +He got up. + +“It’s a bitter thing to me,” he said. + +“What—that he’s dead?” she said. + +His eyes just met hers. He did not answer. + +“You’ve got me,” she said. + +He smiled and kissed her. + +“If I die,” he said, “you’ll know I haven’t left you.” + +“And me?” she cried. + +“And you won’t have left me,” he said. “We shan’t have any need to +despair, in death.” + +She took hold of his hand. + +“But need you despair over Gerald?” she said. + +“Yes,” he answered. + +They went away. Gerald was taken to England, to be buried. Birkin and +Ursula accompanied the body, along with one of Gerald’s brothers. It +was the Crich brothers and sisters who insisted on the burial in +England. Birkin wanted to leave the dead man in the Alps, near the +snow. But the family was strident, loudly insistent. + +Gudrun went to Dresden. She wrote no particulars of herself. Ursula +stayed at the Mill with Birkin for a week or two. They were both very +quiet. + +“Did you need Gerald?” she asked one evening. + +“Yes,” he said. + +“Aren’t I enough for you?” she asked. + +“No,” he said. “You are enough for me, as far as a woman is concerned. +You are all women to me. But I wanted a man friend, as eternal as you +and I are eternal.” + +“Why aren’t I enough?” she said. “You are enough for me. I don’t want +anybody else but you. Why isn’t it the same with you?” + +“Having you, I can live all my life without anybody else, any other +sheer intimacy. But to make it complete, really happy, I wanted eternal +union with a man too: another kind of love,” he said. + +“I don’t believe it,” she said. “It’s an obstinacy, a theory, a +perversity.” + +“Well—” he said. + +“You can’t have two kinds of love. Why should you!” + +It seems as if I can’t,” he said. “Yet I wanted it.” + +“You can’t have it, because it’s false, impossible,” she said. + +“I don’t believe that,” he answered. + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WOMEN IN LOVE *** + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the +United States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part +of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm +concept and trademark. 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