"Women in Love\n\n\nby\n\nD. H. Lawrence\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n  CHAPTER I.      Sisters\n  CHAPTER II.     Shortlands\n  CHAPTER III.    Class-room\n  CHAPTER IV.     Diver\n  CHAPTER V.      In the Train\n  CHAPTER VI.     Creme de Menthe\n  CHAPTER VII.    Fetish\n  CHAPTER VIII.   Breadalby\n  CHAPTER IX.     Coal-dust\n  CHAPTER X.      Sketch-book\n  CHAPTER XI.     An Island\n  CHAPTER XII.    Carpeting\n  CHAPTER XIII.   Mino\n  CHAPTER XIV.    Water-party\n  CHAPTER XV.     Sunday Evening\n  CHAPTER XVI.    Man to Man\n  CHAPTER XVII.   The Industrial Magnate\n  CHAPTER XVIII.  Rabbit\n  CHAPTER XIX.    Moony\n  CHAPTER XX.     Gladiatorial\n  CHAPTER XXI.    Threshold\n  CHAPTER XXII.   Woman to Woman\n  CHAPTER XXIII.  Excurse\n  CHAPTER XXIV.   Death and Love\n  CHAPTER XXV.    Marriage or Not\n  CHAPTER XXVI.   A Chair\n  CHAPTER XXVII.  Flitting\n  CHAPTER XXVIII. Gudrun in the Pompadour\n  CHAPTER XXIX.   Continental\n  CHAPTER XXX.    Snowed Up\n  CHAPTER XXXI.   Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nSISTERS\n\n\nUrsula and Gudrun Brangwen sat one morning in the window-bay of their\nfather's house in Beldover, working and talking. Ursula was stitching a\npiece of brightly-coloured embroidery, and Gudrun was drawing upon a\nboard which she held on her knee. They were mostly silent, talking as\ntheir thoughts strayed through their minds.\n\n'Ursula,' said Gudrun, 'don't you REALLY WANT to get married?' Ursula\nlaid her embroidery in her lap and looked up. Her face was calm and\nconsiderate.\n\n'I don't know,' she replied. 'It depends how you mean.'\n\nGudrun was slightly taken aback. She watched her sister for some\nmoments.\n\n'Well,' she said, ironically, 'it usually means one thing! But don't\nyou think anyhow, you'd be--' she darkened slightly--'in a better\nposition than you are in now.'\n\nA shadow came over Ursula's face.\n\n'I might,' she said. 'But I'm not sure.'\n\nAgain Gudrun paused, slightly irritated. She wanted to be quite\ndefinite.\n\n'You don't think one needs the EXPERIENCE of having been married?' she\nasked.\n\n'Do you think it need BE an experience?' replied Ursula.\n\n'Bound to be, in some way or other,' said Gudrun, coolly. 'Possibly\nundesirable, but bound to be an experience of some sort.'\n\n'Not really,' said Ursula. 'More likely to be the end of experience.'\n\nGudrun sat very still, to attend to this.\n\n'Of course,' she said, 'there's THAT to consider.' This brought the\nconversation to a close. Gudrun, almost angrily, took up her rubber and\nbegan to rub out part of her drawing. Ursula stitched absorbedly.\n\n'You wouldn't consider a good offer?' asked Gudrun.\n\n'I think I've rejected several,' said Ursula.\n\n'REALLY!' Gudrun flushed dark--'But anything really worth while? Have\nyou REALLY?'\n\n'A thousand a year, and an awfully nice man. I liked him awfully,' said\nUrsula.\n\n'Really! But weren't you fearfully tempted?'\n\n'In the abstract but not in the concrete,' said Ursula. 'When it comes\nto the point, one isn't even tempted--oh, if I were tempted, I'd marry\nlike a shot. I'm only tempted NOT to.' The faces of both sisters\nsuddenly lit up with amusement.\n\n'Isn't it an amazing thing,' cried Gudrun, 'how strong the temptation\nis, not to!' They both laughed, looking at each other. In their hearts\nthey were frightened.\n\nThere was a long pause, whilst Ursula stitched and Gudrun went on with\nher sketch. The sisters were women, Ursula twenty-six, and Gudrun\ntwenty-five. But both had the remote, virgin look of modern girls,\nsisters of Artemis rather than of Hebe. Gudrun was very beautiful,\npassive, soft-skinned, soft-limbed. She wore a dress of dark-blue silky\nstuff, with ruches of blue and green linen lace in the neck and\nsleeves; and she had emerald-green stockings. Her look of confidence\nand diffidence contrasted with Ursula's sensitive expectancy. The\nprovincial people, intimidated by Gudrun's perfect sang-froid and\nexclusive bareness of manner, said of her: 'She is a smart woman.' She\nhad just come back from London, where she had spent several years,\nworking at an art-school, as a student, and living a studio life.\n\n'I was hoping now for a man to come along,' Gudrun said, suddenly\ncatching her underlip between her teeth, and making a strange grimace,\nhalf sly smiling, half anguish. Ursula was afraid.\n\n'So you have come home, expecting him here?' she laughed.\n\n'Oh my dear,' cried Gudrun, strident, 'I wouldn't go out of my way to\nlook for him. But if there did happen to come along a highly attractive\nindividual of sufficient means--well--' she tailed off ironically. Then\nshe looked searchingly at Ursula, as if to probe her. 'Don't you find\nyourself getting bored?' she asked of her sister. 'Don't you find, that\nthings fail to materialise? NOTHING MATERIALISES! Everything withers in\nthe bud.'\n\n'What withers in the bud?' asked Ursula.\n\n'Oh, everything--oneself--things in general.' There was a pause, whilst\neach sister vaguely considered her fate.\n\n'It does frighten one,' said Ursula, and again there was a pause. 'But\ndo you hope to get anywhere by just marrying?'\n\n'It seems to be the inevitable next step,' said Gudrun. Ursula pondered\nthis, with a little bitterness. She was a class mistress herself, in\nWilley Green Grammar School, as she had been for some years.\n\n'I know,' she said, 'it seems like that when one thinks in the\nabstract. But really imagine it: imagine any man one knows, imagine him\ncoming home to one every evening, and saying \"Hello,\" and giving one a\nkiss--'\n\nThere was a blank pause.\n\n'Yes,' said Gudrun, in a narrowed voice. 'It's just impossible. The man\nmakes it impossible.'\n\n'Of course there's children--' said Ursula doubtfully.\n\nGudrun's face hardened.\n\n'Do you REALLY want children, Ursula?' she asked coldly. A dazzled,\nbaffled look came on Ursula's face.\n\n'One feels it is still beyond one,' she said.\n\n'DO you feel like that?' asked Gudrun. 'I get no feeling whatever from\nthe thought of bearing children.'\n\nGudrun looked at Ursula with a masklike, expressionless face. Ursula\nknitted her brows.\n\n'Perhaps it isn't genuine,' she faltered. 'Perhaps one doesn't really\nwant them, in one's soul--only superficially.' A hardness came over\nGudrun's face. She did not want to be too definite.\n\n'When one thinks of other people's children--' said Ursula.\n\nAgain Gudrun looked at her sister, almost hostile.\n\n'Exactly,' she said, to close the conversation.\n\nThe two sisters worked on in silence, Ursula having always that strange\nbrightness of an essential flame that is caught, meshed, contravened.\nShe lived a good deal by herself, to herself, working, passing on from\nday to day, and always thinking, trying to lay hold on life, to grasp\nit in her own understanding. Her active living was suspended, but\nunderneath, in the darkness, something was coming to pass. If only she\ncould break through the last integuments! She seemed to try and put her\nhands out, like an infant in the womb, and she could not, not yet.\nStill she had a strange prescience, an intimation of something yet to\ncome.\n\nShe laid down her work and looked at her sister. She thought Gudrun so\nCHARMING, so infinitely charming, in her softness and her fine,\nexquisite richness of texture and delicacy of line. There was a certain\nplayfulness about her too, such a piquancy or ironic suggestion, such\nan untouched reserve. Ursula admired her with all her soul.\n\n'Why did you come home, Prune?' she asked.\n\nGudrun knew she was being admired. She sat back from her drawing and\nlooked at Ursula, from under her finely-curved lashes.\n\n'Why did I come back, Ursula?' she repeated. 'I have asked myself a\nthousand times.'\n\n'And don't you know?'\n\n'Yes, I think I do. I think my coming back home was just RECULER POUR\nMIEUX SAUTER.'\n\nAnd she looked with a long, slow look of knowledge at Ursula.\n\n'I know!' cried Ursula, looking slightly dazzled and falsified, and as\nif she did NOT know. 'But where can one jump to?'\n\n'Oh, it doesn't matter,' said Gudrun, somewhat superbly. 'If one jumps\nover the edge, one is bound to land somewhere.'\n\n'But isn't it very risky?' asked Ursula.\n\nA slow mocking smile dawned on Gudrun's face.\n\n'Ah!' she said laughing. 'What is it all but words!' And so again she\nclosed the conversation. But Ursula was still brooding.\n\n'And how do you find home, now you have come back to it?' she asked.\n\nGudrun paused for some moments, coldly, before answering. Then, in a\ncold truthful voice, she said:\n\n'I find myself completely out of it.'\n\n'And father?'\n\nGudrun looked at Ursula, almost with resentment, as if brought to bay.\n\n'I haven't thought about him: I've refrained,' she said coldly.\n\n'Yes,' wavered Ursula; and the conversation was really at an end. The\nsisters found themselves confronted by a void, a terrifying chasm, as\nif they had looked over the edge.\n\nThey worked on in silence for some time, Gudrun's cheek was flushed\nwith repressed emotion. She resented its having been called into being.\n\n'Shall we go out and look at that wedding?' she asked at length, in a\nvoice that was too casual.\n\n'Yes!' cried Ursula, too eagerly, throwing aside her sewing and leaping\nup, as if to escape something, thus betraying the tension of the\nsituation and causing a friction of dislike to go over Gudrun's nerves.\n\nAs she went upstairs, Ursula was aware of the house, of her home round\nabout her. And she loathed it, the sordid, too-familiar place! She was\nafraid at the depth of her feeling against the home, the milieu, the\nwhole atmosphere and condition of this obsolete life. Her feeling\nfrightened her.\n\nThe two girls were soon walking swiftly down the main road of Beldover,\na wide street, part shops, part dwelling-houses, utterly formless and\nsordid, without poverty. Gudrun, new from her life in Chelsea and\nSussex, shrank cruelly from this amorphous ugliness of a small colliery\ntown in the Midlands. Yet forward she went, through the whole sordid\ngamut of pettiness, the long amorphous, gritty street. She was exposed\nto every stare, she passed on through a stretch of torment. It was\nstrange that she should have chosen to come back and test the full\neffect of this shapeless, barren ugliness upon herself. Why had she\nwanted to submit herself to it, did she still want to submit herself to\nit, the insufferable torture of these ugly, meaningless people, this\ndefaced countryside? She felt like a beetle toiling in the dust. She\nwas filled with repulsion.\n\nThey turned off the main road, past a black patch of common-garden,\nwhere sooty cabbage stumps stood shameless. No one thought to be\nashamed. No one was ashamed of it all.\n\n'It is like a country in an underworld,' said Gudrun. 'The colliers\nbring it above-ground with them, shovel it up. Ursula, it's marvellous,\nit's really marvellous--it's really wonderful, another world. The\npeople are all ghouls, and everything is ghostly. Everything is a\nghoulish replica of the real world, a replica, a ghoul, all soiled,\neverything sordid. It's like being mad, Ursula.'\n\nThe sisters were crossing a black path through a dark, soiled field. On\nthe left was a large landscape, a valley with collieries, and opposite\nhills with cornfields and woods, all blackened with distance, as if\nseen through a veil of crape. White and black smoke rose up in steady\ncolumns, magic within the dark air. Near at hand came the long rows of\ndwellings, approaching curved up the hill-slope, in straight lines\nalong the brow of the hill. They were of darkened red brick, brittle,\nwith dark slate roofs. The path on which the sisters walked was black,\ntrodden-in by the feet of the recurrent colliers, and bounded from the\nfield by iron fences; the stile that led again into the road was rubbed\nshiny by the moleskins of the passing miners. Now the two girls were\ngoing between some rows of dwellings, of the poorer sort. Women, their\narms folded over their coarse aprons, standing gossiping at the end of\ntheir block, stared after the Brangwen sisters with that long,\nunwearying stare of aborigines; children called out names.\n\nGudrun went on her way half dazed. If this were human life, if these\nwere human beings, living in a complete world, then what was her own\nworld, outside? She was aware of her grass-green stockings, her large\ngrass-green velour hat, her full soft coat, of a strong blue colour.\nAnd she felt as if she were treading in the air, quite unstable, her\nheart was contracted, as if at any minute she might be precipitated to\nthe ground. She was afraid.\n\nShe clung to Ursula, who, through long usage was inured to this\nviolation of a dark, uncreated, hostile world. But all the time her\nheart was crying, as if in the midst of some ordeal: 'I want to go\nback, I want to go away, I want not to know it, not to know that this\nexists.' Yet she must go forward.\n\nUrsula could feel her suffering.\n\n'You hate this, don't you?' she asked.\n\n'It bewilders me,' stammered Gudrun.\n\n'You won't stay long,' replied Ursula.\n\nAnd Gudrun went along, grasping at release.\n\nThey drew away from the colliery region, over the curve of the hill,\ninto the purer country of the other side, towards Willey Green. Still\nthe faint glamour of blackness persisted over the fields and the wooded\nhills, and seemed darkly to gleam in the air. It was a spring day,\nchill, with snatches of sunshine. Yellow celandines showed out from the\nhedge-bottoms, and in the cottage gardens of Willey Green,\ncurrant-bushes were breaking into leaf, and little flowers were coming\nwhite on the grey alyssum that hung over the stone walls.\n\nTurning, they passed down the high-road, that went between high banks\ntowards the church. There, in the lowest bend of the road, low under\nthe trees, stood a little group of expectant people, waiting to see the\nwedding. The daughter of the chief mine-owner of the district, Thomas\nCrich, was getting married to a naval officer.\n\n'Let us go back,' said Gudrun, swerving away. 'There are all those\npeople.'\n\nAnd she hung wavering in the road.\n\n'Never mind them,' said Ursula, 'they're all right. They all know me,\nthey don't matter.'\n\n'But must we go through them?' asked Gudrun.\n\n'They're quite all right, really,' said Ursula, going forward. And\ntogether the two sisters approached the group of uneasy, watchful\ncommon people. They were chiefly women, colliers' wives of the more\nshiftless sort. They had watchful, underworld faces.\n\nThe two sisters held themselves tense, and went straight towards the\ngate. The women made way for them, but barely sufficient, as if\ngrudging to yield ground. The sisters passed in silence through the\nstone gateway and up the steps, on the red carpet, a policeman\nestimating their progress.\n\n'What price the stockings!' said a voice at the back of Gudrun. A\nsudden fierce anger swept over the girl, violent and murderous. She\nwould have liked them all annihilated, cleared away, so that the world\nwas left clear for her. How she hated walking up the churchyard path,\nalong the red carpet, continuing in motion, in their sight.\n\n'I won't go into the church,' she said suddenly, with such final\ndecision that Ursula immediately halted, turned round, and branched off\nup a small side path which led to the little private gate of the\nGrammar School, whose grounds adjoined those of the church.\n\nJust inside the gate of the school shrubbery, outside the churchyard,\nUrsula sat down for a moment on the low stone wall under the laurel\nbushes, to rest. Behind her, the large red building of the school rose\nup peacefully, the windows all open for the holiday. Over the shrubs,\nbefore her, were the pale roofs and tower of the old church. The\nsisters were hidden by the foliage.\n\nGudrun sat down in silence. Her mouth was shut close, her face averted.\nShe was regretting bitterly that she had ever come back. Ursula looked\nat her, and thought how amazingly beautiful she was, flushed with\ndiscomfiture. But she caused a constraint over Ursula's nature, a\ncertain weariness. Ursula wished to be alone, freed from the tightness,\nthe enclosure of Gudrun's presence.\n\n'Are we going to stay here?' asked Gudrun.\n\n'I was only resting a minute,' said Ursula, getting up as if rebuked.\n'We will stand in the corner by the fives-court, we shall see\neverything from there.'\n\nFor the moment, the sunshine fell brightly into the churchyard, there\nwas a vague scent of sap and of spring, perhaps of violets from off the\ngraves. Some white daisies were out, bright as angels. In the air, the\nunfolding leaves of a copper-beech were blood-red.\n\nPunctually at eleven o'clock, the carriages began to arrive. There was\na stir in the crowd at the gate, a concentration as a carriage drove\nup, wedding guests were mounting up the steps and passing along the red\ncarpet to the church. They were all gay and excited because the sun was\nshining.\n\nGudrun watched them closely, with objective curiosity. She saw each one\nas a complete figure, like a character in a book, or a subject in a\npicture, or a marionette in a theatre, a finished creation. She loved\nto recognise their various characteristics, to place them in their true\nlight, give them their own surroundings, settle them for ever as they\npassed before her along the path to the church. She knew them, they\nwere finished, sealed and stamped and finished with, for her. There was\nnone that had anything unknown, unresolved, until the Criches\nthemselves began to appear. Then her interest was piqued. Here was\nsomething not quite so preconcluded.\n\nThere came the mother, Mrs Crich, with her eldest son Gerald. She was a\nqueer unkempt figure, in spite of the attempts that had obviously been\nmade to bring her into line for the day. Her face was pale, yellowish,\nwith a clear, transparent skin, she leaned forward rather, her features\nwere strongly marked, handsome, with a tense, unseeing, predative look.\nHer colourless hair was untidy, wisps floating down on to her sac coat\nof dark blue silk, from under her blue silk hat. She looked like a\nwoman with a monomania, furtive almost, but heavily proud.\n\nHer son was of a fair, sun-tanned type, rather above middle height,\nwell-made, and almost exaggeratedly well-dressed. But about him also\nwas the strange, guarded look, the unconscious glisten, as if he did\nnot belong to the same creation as the people about him. Gudrun lighted\non him at once. There was something northern about him that magnetised\nher. In his clear northern flesh and his fair hair was a glisten like\nsunshine refracted through crystals of ice. And he looked so new,\nunbroached, pure as an arctic thing. Perhaps he was thirty years old,\nperhaps more. His gleaming beauty, maleness, like a young,\ngood-humoured, smiling wolf, did not blind her to the significant,\nsinister stillness in his bearing, the lurking danger of his unsubdued\ntemper. 'His totem is the wolf,' she repeated to herself. 'His mother\nis an old, unbroken wolf.' And then she experienced a keen paroxyism, a\ntransport, as if she had made some incredible discovery, known to\nnobody else on earth. A strange transport took possession of her, all\nher veins were in a paroxysm of violent sensation. 'Good God!' she\nexclaimed to herself, 'what is this?' And then, a moment after, she was\nsaying assuredly, 'I shall know more of that man.' She was tortured\nwith desire to see him again, a nostalgia, a necessity to see him\nagain, to make sure it was not all a mistake, that she was not deluding\nherself, that she really felt this strange and overwhelming sensation\non his account, this knowledge of him in her essence, this powerful\napprehension of him. 'Am I REALLY singled out for him in some way, is\nthere really some pale gold, arctic light that envelopes only us two?'\nshe asked herself. And she could not believe it, she remained in a\nmuse, scarcely conscious of what was going on around.\n\nThe bridesmaids were here, and yet the bridegroom had not come. Ursula\nwondered if something was amiss, and if the wedding would yet all go\nwrong. She felt troubled, as if it rested upon her. The chief\nbridesmaids had arrived. Ursula watched them come up the steps. One of\nthem she knew, a tall, slow, reluctant woman with a weight of fair hair\nand a pale, long face. This was Hermione Roddice, a friend of the\nCriches. Now she came along, with her head held up, balancing an\nenormous flat hat of pale yellow velvet, on which were streaks of\nostrich feathers, natural and grey. She drifted forward as if scarcely\nconscious, her long blanched face lifted up, not to see the world. She\nwas rich. She wore a dress of silky, frail velvet, of pale yellow\ncolour, and she carried a lot of small rose-coloured cyclamens. Her\nshoes and stockings were of brownish grey, like the feathers on her\nhat, her hair was heavy, she drifted along with a peculiar fixity of\nthe hips, a strange unwilling motion. She was impressive, in her lovely\npale-yellow and brownish-rose, yet macabre, something repulsive. People\nwere silent when she passed, impressed, roused, wanting to jeer, yet\nfor some reason silenced. Her long, pale face, that she carried lifted\nup, somewhat in the Rossetti fashion, seemed almost drugged, as if a\nstrange mass of thoughts coiled in the darkness within her, and she was\nnever allowed to escape.\n\nUrsula watched her with fascination. She knew her a little. She was the\nmost remarkable woman in the Midlands. Her father was a Derbyshire\nBaronet of the old school, she was a woman of the new school, full of\nintellectuality, and heavy, nerve-worn with consciousness. She was\npassionately interested in reform, her soul was given up to the public\ncause. But she was a man's woman, it was the manly world that held her.\n\nShe had various intimacies of mind and soul with various men of\ncapacity. Ursula knew, among these men, only Rupert Birkin, who was one\nof the school-inspectors of the county. But Gudrun had met others, in\nLondon. Moving with her artist friends in different kinds of society,\nGudrun had already come to know a good many people of repute and\nstanding. She had met Hermione twice, but they did not take to each\nother. It would be queer to meet again down here in the Midlands, where\ntheir social standing was so diverse, after they had known each other\non terms of equality in the houses of sundry acquaintances in town. For\nGudrun had been a social success, and had her friends among the slack\naristocracy that keeps touch with the arts.\n\nHermione knew herself to be well-dressed; she knew herself to be the\nsocial equal, if not far the superior, of anyone she was likely to meet\nin Willey Green. She knew she was accepted in the world of culture and\nof intellect. She was a KULTURTRAGER, a medium for the culture of\nideas. With all that was highest, whether in society or in thought or\nin public action, or even in art, she was at one, she moved among the\nforemost, at home with them. No one could put her down, no one could\nmake mock of her, because she stood among the first, and those that\nwere against her were below her, either in rank, or in wealth, or in\nhigh association of thought and progress and understanding. So, she was\ninvulnerable. All her life, she had sought to make herself\ninvulnerable, unassailable, beyond reach of the world's judgment.\n\nAnd yet her soul was tortured, exposed. Even walking up the path to the\nchurch, confident as she was that in every respect she stood beyond all\nvulgar judgment, knowing perfectly that her appearance was complete and\nperfect, according to the first standards, yet she suffered a torture,\nunder her confidence and her pride, feeling herself exposed to wounds\nand to mockery and to despite. She always felt vulnerable, vulnerable,\nthere was always a secret chink in her armour. She did not know herself\nwhat it was. It was a lack of robust self, she had no natural\nsufficiency, there was a terrible void, a lack, a deficiency of being\nwithin her.\n\nAnd she wanted someone to close up this deficiency, to close it up for\never. She craved for Rupert Birkin. When he was there, she felt\ncomplete, she was sufficient, whole. For the rest of time she was\nestablished on the sand, built over a chasm, and, in spite of all her\nvanity and securities, any common maid-servant of positive, robust\ntemper could fling her down this bottomless pit of insufficiency, by\nthe slightest movement of jeering or contempt. And all the while the\npensive, tortured woman piled up her own defences of aesthetic\nknowledge, and culture, and world-visions, and disinterestedness. Yet\nshe could never stop up the terrible gap of insufficiency.\n\nIf only Birkin would form a close and abiding connection with her, she\nwould be safe during this fretful voyage of life. He could make her\nsound and triumphant, triumphant over the very angels of heaven. If\nonly he would do it! But she was tortured with fear, with misgiving.\nShe made herself beautiful, she strove so hard to come to that degree\nof beauty and advantage, when he should be convinced. But always there\nwas a deficiency.\n\nHe was perverse too. He fought her off, he always fought her off. The\nmore she strove to bring him to her, the more he battled her back. And\nthey had been lovers now, for years. Oh, it was so wearying, so aching;\nshe was so tired. But still she believed in herself. She knew he was\ntrying to leave her. She knew he was trying to break away from her\nfinally, to be free. But still she believed in her strength to keep\nhim, she believed in her own higher knowledge. His own knowledge was\nhigh, she was the central touchstone of truth. She only needed his\nconjunction with her.\n\nAnd this, this conjunction with her, which was his highest fulfilment\nalso, with the perverseness of a wilful child he wanted to deny. With\nthe wilfulness of an obstinate child, he wanted to break the holy\nconnection that was between them.\n\nHe would be at this wedding; he was to be groom's man. He would be in\nthe church, waiting. He would know when she came. She shuddered with\nnervous apprehension and desire as she went through the church-door. He\nwould be there, surely he would see how beautiful her dress was, surely\nhe would see how she had made herself beautiful for him. He would\nunderstand, he would be able to see how she was made for him, the\nfirst, how she was, for him, the highest. Surely at last he would be\nable to accept his highest fate, he would not deny her.\n\nIn a little convulsion of too-tired yearning, she entered the church\nand looked slowly along her cheeks for him, her slender body convulsed\nwith agitation. As best man, he would be standing beside the altar. She\nlooked slowly, deferring in her certainty.\n\nAnd then, he was not there. A terrible storm came over her, as if she\nwere drowning. She was possessed by a devastating hopelessness. And she\napproached mechanically to the altar. Never had she known such a pang\nof utter and final hopelessness. It was beyond death, so utterly null,\ndesert.\n\nThe bridegroom and the groom's man had not yet come. There was a\ngrowing consternation outside. Ursula felt almost responsible. She\ncould not bear it that the bride should arrive, and no groom. The\nwedding must not be a fiasco, it must not.\n\nBut here was the bride's carriage, adorned with ribbons and cockades.\nGaily the grey horses curvetted to their destination at the\nchurch-gate, a laughter in the whole movement. Here was the quick of\nall laughter and pleasure. The door of the carriage was thrown open, to\nlet out the very blossom of the day. The people on the roadway murmured\nfaintly with the discontented murmuring of a crowd.\n\nThe father stepped out first into the air of the morning, like a\nshadow. He was a tall, thin, careworn man, with a thin black beard that\nwas touched with grey. He waited at the door of the carriage patiently,\nself-obliterated.\n\nIn the opening of the doorway was a shower of fine foliage and flowers,\na whiteness of satin and lace, and a sound of a gay voice saying:\n\n'How do I get out?'\n\nA ripple of satisfaction ran through the expectant people. They pressed\nnear to receive her, looking with zest at the stooping blond head with\nits flower buds, and at the delicate, white, tentative foot that was\nreaching down to the step of the carriage. There was a sudden foaming\nrush, and the bride like a sudden surf-rush, floating all white beside\nher father in the morning shadow of trees, her veil flowing with\nlaughter.\n\n'That's done it!' she said.\n\nShe put her hand on the arm of her care-worn, sallow father, and\nfrothing her light draperies, proceeded over the eternal red carpet.\nHer father, mute and yellowish, his black beard making him look more\ncareworn, mounted the steps stiffly, as if his spirit were absent; but\nthe laughing mist of the bride went along with him undiminished.\n\nAnd no bridegroom had arrived! It was intolerable for her. Ursula, her\nheart strained with anxiety, was watching the hill beyond; the white,\ndescending road, that should give sight of him. There was a carriage.\nIt was running. It had just come into sight. Yes, it was he. Ursula\nturned towards the bride and the people, and, from her place of\nvantage, gave an inarticulate cry. She wanted to warn them that he was\ncoming. But her cry was inarticulate and inaudible, and she flushed\ndeeply, between her desire and her wincing confusion.\n\nThe carriage rattled down the hill, and drew near. There was a shout\nfrom the people. The bride, who had just reached the top of the steps,\nturned round gaily to see what was the commotion. She saw a confusion\namong the people, a cab pulling up, and her lover dropping out of the\ncarriage, and dodging among the horses and into the crowd.\n\n'Tibs! Tibs!' she cried in her sudden, mocking excitement, standing\nhigh on the path in the sunlight and waving her bouquet. He, dodging\nwith his hat in his hand, had not heard.\n\n'Tibs!' she cried again, looking down to him.\n\nHe glanced up, unaware, and saw the bride and her father standing on\nthe path above him. A queer, startled look went over his face. He\nhesitated for a moment. Then he gathered himself together for a leap,\nto overtake her.\n\n'Ah-h-h!' came her strange, intaken cry, as, on the reflex, she\nstarted, turned and fled, scudding with an unthinkable swift beating of\nher white feet and fraying of her white garments, towards the church.\nLike a hound the young man was after her, leaping the steps and\nswinging past her father, his supple haunches working like those of a\nhound that bears down on the quarry.\n\n'Ay, after her!' cried the vulgar women below, carried suddenly into\nthe sport.\n\nShe, her flowers shaken from her like froth, was steadying herself to\nturn the angle of the church. She glanced behind, and with a wild cry\nof laughter and challenge, veered, poised, and was gone beyond the grey\nstone buttress. In another instant the bridegroom, bent forward as he\nran, had caught the angle of the silent stone with his hand, and had\nswung himself out of sight, his supple, strong loins vanishing in\npursuit.\n\nInstantly cries and exclamations of excitement burst from the crowd at\nthe gate. And then Ursula noticed again the dark, rather stooping\nfigure of Mr Crich, waiting suspended on the path, watching with\nexpressionless face the flight to the church. It was over, and he\nturned round to look behind him, at the figure of Rupert Birkin, who at\nonce came forward and joined him.\n\n'We'll bring up the rear,' said Birkin, a faint smile on his face.\n\n'Ay!' replied the father laconically. And the two men turned together\nup the path.\n\nBirkin was as thin as Mr Crich, pale and ill-looking. His figure was\nnarrow but nicely made. He went with a slight trail of one foot, which\ncame only from self-consciousness. Although he was dressed correctly\nfor his part, yet there was an innate incongruity which caused a slight\nridiculousness in his appearance. His nature was clever and separate,\nhe did not fit at all in the conventional occasion. Yet he subordinated\nhimself to the common idea, travestied himself.\n\nHe affected to be quite ordinary, perfectly and marvellously\ncommonplace. And he did it so well, taking the tone of his\nsurroundings, adjusting himself quickly to his interlocutor and his\ncircumstance, that he achieved a verisimilitude of ordinary\ncommonplaceness that usually propitiated his onlookers for the moment,\ndisarmed them from attacking his singleness.\n\nNow he spoke quite easily and pleasantly to Mr Crich, as they walked\nalong the path; he played with situations like a man on a tight-rope:\nbut always on a tight-rope, pretending nothing but ease.\n\n'I'm sorry we are so late,' he was saying. 'We couldn't find a\nbutton-hook, so it took us a long time to button our boots. But you\nwere to the moment.'\n\n'We are usually to time,' said Mr Crich.\n\n'And I'm always late,' said Birkin. 'But today I was REALLY punctual,\nonly accidentally not so. I'm sorry.'\n\nThe two men were gone, there was nothing more to see, for the time.\nUrsula was left thinking about Birkin. He piqued her, attracted her,\nand annoyed her.\n\nShe wanted to know him more. She had spoken with him once or twice, but\nonly in his official capacity as inspector. She thought he seemed to\nacknowledge some kinship between her and him, a natural, tacit\nunderstanding, a using of the same language. But there had been no time\nfor the understanding to develop. And something kept her from him, as\nwell as attracted her to him. There was a certain hostility, a hidden\nultimate reserve in him, cold and inaccessible.\n\nYet she wanted to know him.\n\n'What do you think of Rupert Birkin?' she asked, a little reluctantly,\nof Gudrun. She did not want to discuss him.\n\n'What do I think of Rupert Birkin?' repeated Gudrun. 'I think he's\nattractive--decidedly attractive. What I can't stand about him is his\nway with other people--his way of treating any little fool as if she\nwere his greatest consideration. One feels so awfully sold, oneself.'\n\n'Why does he do it?' said Ursula.\n\n'Because he has no real critical faculty--of people, at all events,'\nsaid Gudrun. 'I tell you, he treats any little fool as he treats me or\nyou--and it's such an insult.'\n\n'Oh, it is,' said Ursula. 'One must discriminate.'\n\n'One MUST discriminate,' repeated Gudrun. 'But he's a wonderful chap,\nin other respects--a marvellous personality. But you can't trust him.'\n\n'Yes,' said Ursula vaguely. She was always forced to assent to Gudrun's\npronouncements, even when she was not in accord altogether.\n\nThe sisters sat silent, waiting for the wedding party to come out.\nGudrun was impatient of talk. She wanted to think about Gerald Crich.\nShe wanted to see if the strong feeling she had got from him was real.\nShe wanted to have herself ready.\n\nInside the church, the wedding was going on. Hermione Roddice was\nthinking only of Birkin. He stood near her. She seemed to gravitate\nphysically towards him. She wanted to stand touching him. She could\nhardly be sure he was near her, if she did not touch him. Yet she stood\nsubjected through the wedding service.\n\nShe had suffered so bitterly when he did not come, that still she was\ndazed. Still she was gnawed as by a neuralgia, tormented by his\npotential absence from her. She had awaited him in a faint delirium of\nnervous torture. As she stood bearing herself pensively, the rapt look\non her face, that seemed spiritual, like the angels, but which came\nfrom torture, gave her a certain poignancy that tore his heart with\npity. He saw her bowed head, her rapt face, the face of an almost\ndemoniacal ecstatic. Feeling him looking, she lifted her face and\nsought his eyes, her own beautiful grey eyes flaring him a great\nsignal. But he avoided her look, she sank her head in torment and\nshame, the gnawing at her heart going on. And he too was tortured with\nshame, and ultimate dislike, and with acute pity for her, because he\ndid not want to meet her eyes, he did not want to receive her flare of\nrecognition.\n\nThe bride and bridegroom were married, the party went into the vestry.\nHermione crowded involuntarily up against Birkin, to touch him. And he\nendured it.\n\nOutside, Gudrun and Ursula listened for their father's playing on the\norgan. He would enjoy playing a wedding march. Now the married pair\nwere coming! The bells were ringing, making the air shake. Ursula\nwondered if the trees and the flowers could feel the vibration, and\nwhat they thought of it, this strange motion in the air. The bride was\nquite demure on the arm of the bridegroom, who stared up into the sky\nbefore him, shutting and opening his eyes unconsciously, as if he were\nneither here nor there. He looked rather comical, blinking and trying\nto be in the scene, when emotionally he was violated by his exposure to\na crowd. He looked a typical naval officer, manly, and up to his duty.\n\nBirkin came with Hermione. She had a rapt, triumphant look, like the\nfallen angels restored, yet still subtly demoniacal, now she held\nBirkin by the arm. And he was expressionless, neutralised, possessed by\nher as if it were his fate, without question.\n\nGerald Crich came, fair, good-looking, healthy, with a great reserve of\nenergy. He was erect and complete, there was a strange stealth\nglistening through his amiable, almost happy appearance. Gudrun rose\nsharply and went away. She could not bear it. She wanted to be alone,\nto know this strange, sharp inoculation that had changed the whole\ntemper of her blood.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nSHORTLANDS\n\n\nThe Brangwens went home to Beldover, the wedding-party gathered at\nShortlands, the Criches' home. It was a long, low old house, a sort of\nmanor farm, that spread along the top of a slope just beyond the narrow\nlittle lake of Willey Water. Shortlands looked across a sloping meadow\nthat might be a park, because of the large, solitary trees that stood\nhere and there, across the water of the narrow lake, at the wooded hill\nthat successfully hid the colliery valley beyond, but did not quite\nhide the rising smoke. Nevertheless, the scene was rural and\npicturesque, very peaceful, and the house had a charm of its own.\n\nIt was crowded now with the family and the wedding guests. The father,\nwho was not well, withdrew to rest. Gerald was host. He stood in the\nhomely entrance hall, friendly and easy, attending to the men. He\nseemed to take pleasure in his social functions, he smiled, and was\nabundant in hospitality.\n\nThe women wandered about in a little confusion, chased hither and\nthither by the three married daughters of the house. All the while\nthere could be heard the characteristic, imperious voice of one Crich\nwoman or another calling 'Helen, come here a minute,' 'Marjory, I want\nyou--here.' 'Oh, I say, Mrs Witham--.' There was a great rustling of\nskirts, swift glimpses of smartly-dressed women, a child danced through\nthe hall and back again, a maidservant came and went hurriedly.\n\nMeanwhile the men stood in calm little groups, chatting, smoking,\npretending to pay no heed to the rustling animation of the women's\nworld. But they could not really talk, because of the glassy ravel of\nwomen's excited, cold laughter and running voices. They waited, uneasy,\nsuspended, rather bored. But Gerald remained as if genial and happy,\nunaware that he was waiting or unoccupied, knowing himself the very\npivot of the occasion.\n\nSuddenly Mrs Crich came noiselessly into the room, peering about with\nher strong, clear face. She was still wearing her hat, and her sac coat\nof blue silk.\n\n'What is it, mother?' said Gerald.\n\n'Nothing, nothing!' she answered vaguely. And she went straight towards\nBirkin, who was talking to a Crich brother-in-law.\n\n'How do you do, Mr Birkin,' she said, in her low voice, that seemed to\ntake no count of her guests. She held out her hand to him.\n\n'Oh Mrs Crich,' replied Birkin, in his readily-changing voice, 'I\ncouldn't come to you before.'\n\n'I don't know half the people here,' she said, in her low voice. Her\nson-in-law moved uneasily away.\n\n'And you don't like strangers?' laughed Birkin. 'I myself can never see\nwhy one should take account of people, just because they happen to be\nin the room with one: why SHOULD I know they are there?'\n\n'Why indeed, why indeed!' said Mrs Crich, in her low, tense voice.\n'Except that they ARE there. I don't know people whom I find in the\nhouse. The children introduce them to me--\"Mother, this is Mr\nSo-and-so.\" I am no further. What has Mr So-and-so to do with his own\nname?--and what have I to do with either him or his name?'\n\nShe looked up at Birkin. She startled him. He was flattered too that\nshe came to talk to him, for she took hardly any notice of anybody. He\nlooked down at her tense clear face, with its heavy features, but he\nwas afraid to look into her heavy-seeing blue eyes. He noticed instead\nhow her hair looped in slack, slovenly strands over her rather\nbeautiful ears, which were not quite clean. Neither was her neck\nperfectly clean. Even in that he seemed to belong to her, rather than\nto the rest of the company; though, he thought to himself, he was\nalways well washed, at any rate at the neck and ears.\n\nHe smiled faintly, thinking these things. Yet he was tense, feeling\nthat he and the elderly, estranged woman were conferring together like\ntraitors, like enemies within the camp of the other people. He\nresembled a deer, that throws one ear back upon the trail behind, and\none ear forward, to know what is ahead.\n\n'People don't really matter,' he said, rather unwilling to continue.\n\nThe mother looked up at him with sudden, dark interrogation, as if\ndoubting his sincerity.\n\n'How do you mean, MATTER?' she asked sharply.\n\n'Not many people are anything at all,' he answered, forced to go deeper\nthan he wanted to. 'They jingle and giggle. It would be much better if\nthey were just wiped out. Essentially, they don't exist, they aren't\nthere.'\n\nShe watched him steadily while he spoke.\n\n'But we didn't imagine them,' she said sharply.\n\n'There's nothing to imagine, that's why they don't exist.'\n\n'Well,' she said, 'I would hardly go as far as that. There they are,\nwhether they exist or no. It doesn't rest with me to decide on their\nexistence. I only know that I can't be expected to take count of them\nall. You can't expect me to know them, just because they happen to be\nthere. As far as I go they might as well not be there.'\n\n'Exactly,' he replied.\n\n'Mightn't they?' she asked again.\n\n'Just as well,' he repeated. And there was a little pause.\n\n'Except that they ARE there, and that's a nuisance,' she said. 'There\nare my sons-in-law,' she went on, in a sort of monologue. 'Now Laura's\ngot married, there's another. And I really don't know John from James\nyet. They come up to me and call me mother. I know what they will\nsay--\"how are you, mother?\" I ought to say, \"I am not your mother, in\nany sense.\" But what is the use? There they are. I have had children of\nmy own. I suppose I know them from another woman's children.'\n\n'One would suppose so,' he said.\n\nShe looked at him, somewhat surprised, forgetting perhaps that she was\ntalking to him. And she lost her thread.\n\nShe looked round the room, vaguely. Birkin could not guess what she was\nlooking for, nor what she was thinking. Evidently she noticed her sons.\n\n'Are my children all there?' she asked him abruptly.\n\nHe laughed, startled, afraid perhaps.\n\n'I scarcely know them, except Gerald,' he replied.\n\n'Gerald!' she exclaimed. 'He's the most wanting of them all. You'd\nnever think it, to look at him now, would you?'\n\n'No,' said Birkin.\n\nThe mother looked across at her eldest son, stared at him heavily for\nsome time.\n\n'Ay,' she said, in an incomprehensible monosyllable, that sounded\nprofoundly cynical. Birkin felt afraid, as if he dared not realise. And\nMrs Crich moved away, forgetting him. But she returned on her traces.\n\n'I should like him to have a friend,' she said. 'He has never had a\nfriend.'\n\nBirkin looked down into her eyes, which were blue, and watching\nheavily. He could not understand them. 'Am I my brother's keeper?' he\nsaid to himself, almost flippantly.\n\nThen he remembered, with a slight shock, that that was Cain's cry. And\nGerald was Cain, if anybody. Not that he was Cain, either, although he\nhad slain his brother. There was such a thing as pure accident, and the\nconsequences did not attach to one, even though one had killed one's\nbrother in such wise. Gerald as a boy had accidentally killed his\nbrother. What then? Why seek to draw a brand and a curse across the\nlife that had caused the accident? A man can live by accident, and die\nby accident. Or can he not? Is every man's life subject to pure\naccident, is it only the race, the genus, the species, that has a\nuniversal reference? Or is this not true, is there no such thing as\npure accident? Has EVERYTHING that happens a universal significance?\nHas it? Birkin, pondering as he stood there, had forgotten Mrs Crich,\nas she had forgotten him.\n\nHe did not believe that there was any such thing as accident. It all\nhung together, in the deepest sense.\n\nJust as he had decided this, one of the Crich daughters came up,\nsaying:\n\n'Won't you come and take your hat off, mother dear? We shall be sitting\ndown to eat in a minute, and it's a formal occasion, darling, isn't\nit?' She drew her arm through her mother's, and they went away. Birkin\nimmediately went to talk to the nearest man.\n\nThe gong sounded for the luncheon. The men looked up, but no move was\nmade to the dining-room. The women of the house seemed not to feel that\nthe sound had meaning for them. Five minutes passed by. The elderly\nmanservant, Crowther, appeared in the doorway exasperatedly. He looked\nwith appeal at Gerald. The latter took up a large, curved conch shell,\nthat lay on a shelf, and without reference to anybody, blew a\nshattering blast. It was a strange rousing noise, that made the heart\nbeat. The summons was almost magical. Everybody came running, as if at\na signal. And then the crowd in one impulse moved to the dining-room.\n\nGerald waited a moment, for his sister to play hostess. He knew his\nmother would pay no attention to her duties. But his sister merely\ncrowded to her seat. Therefore the young man, slightly too dictatorial,\ndirected the guests to their places.\n\nThere was a moment's lull, as everybody looked at the BORS D'OEUVRES\nthat were being handed round. And out of this lull, a girl of thirteen\nor fourteen, with her long hair down her back, said in a calm,\nself-possessed voice:\n\n'Gerald, you forget father, when you make that unearthly noise.'\n\n'Do I?' he answered. And then, to the company, 'Father is lying down,\nhe is not quite well.'\n\n'How is he, really?' called one of the married daughters, peeping round\nthe immense wedding cake that towered up in the middle of the table\nshedding its artificial flowers.\n\n'He has no pain, but he feels tired,' replied Winifred, the girl with\nthe hair down her back.\n\nThe wine was filled, and everybody was talking boisterously. At the far\nend of the table sat the mother, with her loosely-looped hair. She had\nBirkin for a neighbour. Sometimes she glanced fiercely down the rows of\nfaces, bending forwards and staring unceremoniously. And she would say\nin a low voice to Birkin:\n\n'Who is that young man?'\n\n'I don't know,' Birkin answered discreetly.\n\n'Have I seen him before?' she asked.\n\n'I don't think so. I haven't,' he replied. And she was satisfied. Her\neyes closed wearily, a peace came over her face, she looked like a\nqueen in repose. Then she started, a little social smile came on her\nface, for a moment she looked the pleasant hostess. For a moment she\nbent graciously, as if everyone were welcome and delightful. And then\nimmediately the shadow came back, a sullen, eagle look was on her face,\nshe glanced from under her brows like a sinister creature at bay,\nhating them all.\n\n'Mother,' called Diana, a handsome girl a little older than Winifred,\n'I may have wine, mayn't I?'\n\n'Yes, you may have wine,' replied the mother automatically, for she was\nperfectly indifferent to the question.\n\nAnd Diana beckoned to the footman to fill her glass.\n\n'Gerald shouldn't forbid me,' she said calmly, to the company at large.\n\n'All right, Di,' said her brother amiably. And she glanced challenge at\nhim as she drank from her glass.\n\nThere was a strange freedom, that almost amounted to anarchy, in the\nhouse. It was rather a resistance to authority, than liberty. Gerald\nhad some command, by mere force of personality, not because of any\ngranted position. There was a quality in his voice, amiable but\ndominant, that cowed the others, who were all younger than he.\n\nHermione was having a discussion with the bridegroom about nationality.\n\n'No,' she said, 'I think that the appeal to patriotism is a mistake. It\nis like one house of business rivalling another house of business.'\n\n'Well you can hardly say that, can you?' exclaimed Gerald, who had a\nreal PASSION for discussion. 'You couldn't call a race a business\nconcern, could you?--and nationality roughly corresponds to race, I\nthink. I think it is MEANT to.'\n\nThere was a moment's pause. Gerald and Hermione were always strangely\nbut politely and evenly inimical.\n\n'DO you think race corresponds with nationality?' she asked musingly,\nwith expressionless indecision.\n\nBirkin knew she was waiting for him to participate. And dutifully he\nspoke up.\n\n'I think Gerald is right--race is the essential element in nationality,\nin Europe at least,' he said.\n\nAgain Hermione paused, as if to allow this statement to cool. Then she\nsaid with strange assumption of authority:\n\n'Yes, but even so, is the patriotic appeal an appeal to the racial\ninstinct? Is it not rather an appeal to the proprietory instinct, the\nCOMMERCIAL instinct? And isn't this what we mean by nationality?'\n\n'Probably,' said Birkin, who felt that such a discussion was out of\nplace and out of time.\n\nBut Gerald was now on the scent of argument.\n\n'A race may have its commercial aspect,' he said. 'In fact it must. It\nis like a family. You MUST make provision. And to make provision you\nhave got to strive against other families, other nations. I don't see\nwhy you shouldn't.'\n\nAgain Hermione made a pause, domineering and cold, before she replied:\n'Yes, I think it is always wrong to provoke a spirit of rivalry. It\nmakes bad blood. And bad blood accumulates.'\n\n'But you can't do away with the spirit of emulation altogether?' said\nGerald. 'It is one of the necessary incentives to production and\nimprovement.'\n\n'Yes,' came Hermione's sauntering response. 'I think you can do away\nwith it.'\n\n'I must say,' said Birkin, 'I detest the spirit of emulation.' Hermione\nwas biting a piece of bread, pulling it from between her teeth with her\nfingers, in a slow, slightly derisive movement. She turned to Birkin.\n\n'You do hate it, yes,' she said, intimate and gratified.\n\n'Detest it,' he repeated.\n\n'Yes,' she murmured, assured and satisfied.\n\n'But,' Gerald insisted, 'you don't allow one man to take away his\nneighbour's living, so why should you allow one nation to take away the\nliving from another nation?'\n\nThere was a long slow murmur from Hermione before she broke into\nspeech, saying with a laconic indifference:\n\n'It is not always a question of possessions, is it? It is not all a\nquestion of goods?'\n\nGerald was nettled by this implication of vulgar materialism.\n\n'Yes, more or less,' he retorted. 'If I go and take a man's hat from\noff his head, that hat becomes a symbol of that man's liberty. When he\nfights me for his hat, he is fighting me for his liberty.'\n\nHermione was nonplussed.\n\n'Yes,' she said, irritated. 'But that way of arguing by imaginary\ninstances is not supposed to be genuine, is it? A man does NOT come and\ntake my hat from off my head, does he?'\n\n'Only because the law prevents him,' said Gerald.\n\n'Not only,' said Birkin. 'Ninety-nine men out of a hundred don't want\nmy hat.'\n\n'That's a matter of opinion,' said Gerald.\n\n'Or the hat,' laughed the bridegroom.\n\n'And if he does want my hat, such as it is,' said Birkin, 'why, surely\nit is open to me to decide, which is a greater loss to me, my hat, or\nmy liberty as a free and indifferent man. If I am compelled to offer\nfight, I lose the latter. It is a question which is worth more to me,\nmy pleasant liberty of conduct, or my hat.'\n\n'Yes,' said Hermione, watching Birkin strangely. 'Yes.'\n\n'But would you let somebody come and snatch your hat off your head?'\nthe bride asked of Hermione.\n\nThe face of the tall straight woman turned slowly and as if drugged to\nthis new speaker.\n\n'No,' she replied, in a low inhuman tone, that seemed to contain a\nchuckle. 'No, I shouldn't let anybody take my hat off my head.'\n\n'How would you prevent it?' asked Gerald.\n\n'I don't know,' replied Hermione slowly. 'Probably I should kill him.'\n\nThere was a strange chuckle in her tone, a dangerous and convincing\nhumour in her bearing.\n\n'Of course,' said Gerald, 'I can see Rupert's point. It is a question\nto him whether his hat or his peace of mind is more important.'\n\n'Peace of body,' said Birkin.\n\n'Well, as you like there,' replied Gerald. 'But how are you going to\ndecide this for a nation?'\n\n'Heaven preserve me,' laughed Birkin.\n\n'Yes, but suppose you have to?' Gerald persisted.\n\n'Then it is the same. If the national crown-piece is an old hat, then\nthe thieving gent may have it.'\n\n'But CAN the national or racial hat be an old hat?' insisted Gerald.\n\n'Pretty well bound to be, I believe,' said Birkin.\n\n'I'm not so sure,' said Gerald.\n\n'I don't agree, Rupert,' said Hermione.\n\n'All right,' said Birkin.\n\n'I'm all for the old national hat,' laughed Gerald.\n\n'And a fool you look in it,' cried Diana, his pert sister who was just\nin her teens.\n\n'Oh, we're quite out of our depths with these old hats,' cried Laura\nCrich. 'Dry up now, Gerald. We're going to drink toasts. Let us drink\ntoasts. Toasts--glasses, glasses--now then, toasts! Speech! Speech!'\n\nBirkin, thinking about race or national death, watched his glass being\nfilled with champagne. The bubbles broke at the rim, the man withdrew,\nand feeling a sudden thirst at the sight of the fresh wine, Birkin\ndrank up his glass. A queer little tension in the room roused him. He\nfelt a sharp constraint.\n\n'Did I do it by accident, or on purpose?' he asked himself. And he\ndecided that, according to the vulgar phrase, he had done it\n'accidentally on purpose.' He looked round at the hired footman. And\nthe hired footman came, with a silent step of cold servant-like\ndisapprobation. Birkin decided that he detested toasts, and footmen,\nand assemblies, and mankind altogether, in most of its aspects. Then he\nrose to make a speech. But he was somehow disgusted.\n\nAt length it was over, the meal. Several men strolled out into the\ngarden. There was a lawn, and flower-beds, and at the boundary an iron\nfence shutting off the little field or park. The view was pleasant; a\nhighroad curving round the edge of a low lake, under the trees. In the\nspring air, the water gleamed and the opposite woods were purplish with\nnew life. Charming Jersey cattle came to the fence, breathing hoarsely\nfrom their velvet muzzles at the human beings, expecting perhaps a\ncrust.\n\nBirkin leaned on the fence. A cow was breathing wet hotness on his\nhand.\n\n'Pretty cattle, very pretty,' said Marshall, one of the\nbrothers-in-law. 'They give the best milk you can have.'\n\n'Yes,' said Birkin.\n\n'Eh, my little beauty, eh, my beauty!' said Marshall, in a queer high\nfalsetto voice, that caused the other man to have convulsions of\nlaughter in his stomach.\n\n'Who won the race, Lupton?' he called to the bridegroom, to hide the\nfact that he was laughing.\n\nThe bridegroom took his cigar from his mouth.\n\n'The race?' he exclaimed. Then a rather thin smile came over his face.\nHe did not want to say anything about the flight to the church door.\n'We got there together. At least she touched first, but I had my hand\non her shoulder.'\n\n'What's this?' asked Gerald.\n\nBirkin told him about the race of the bride and the bridegroom.\n\n'H'm!' said Gerald, in disapproval. 'What made you late then?'\n\n'Lupton would talk about the immortality of the soul,' said Birkin,\n'and then he hadn't got a button-hook.'\n\n'Oh God!' cried Marshall. 'The immortality of the soul on your wedding\nday! Hadn't you got anything better to occupy your mind?'\n\n'What's wrong with it?' asked the bridegroom, a clean-shaven naval man,\nflushing sensitively.\n\n'Sounds as if you were going to be executed instead of married. THE\nIMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL!' repeated the brother-in-law, with most\nkilling emphasis.\n\nBut he fell quite flat.\n\n'And what did you decide?' asked Gerald, at once pricking up his ears\nat the thought of a metaphysical discussion.\n\n'You don't want a soul today, my boy,' said Marshall. 'It'd be in your\nroad.'\n\n'Christ! Marshall, go and talk to somebody else,' cried Gerald, with\nsudden impatience.\n\n'By God, I'm willing,' said Marshall, in a temper. 'Too much bloody\nsoul and talk altogether--'\n\nHe withdrew in a dudgeon, Gerald staring after him with angry eyes,\nthat grew gradually calm and amiable as the stoutly-built form of the\nother man passed into the distance.\n\n'There's one thing, Lupton,' said Gerald, turning suddenly to the\nbridegroom. 'Laura won't have brought such a fool into the family as\nLottie did.'\n\n'Comfort yourself with that,' laughed Birkin.\n\n'I take no notice of them,' laughed the bridegroom.\n\n'What about this race then--who began it?' Gerald asked.\n\n'We were late. Laura was at the top of the churchyard steps when our\ncab came up. She saw Lupton bolting towards her. And she fled. But why\ndo you look so cross? Does it hurt your sense of the family dignity?'\n\n'It does, rather,' said Gerald. 'If you're doing a thing, do it\nproperly, and if you're not going to do it properly, leave it alone.'\n\n'Very nice aphorism,' said Birkin.\n\n'Don't you agree?' asked Gerald.\n\n'Quite,' said Birkin. 'Only it bores me rather, when you become\naphoristic.'\n\n'Damn you, Rupert, you want all the aphorisms your own way,' said\nGerald.\n\n'No. I want them out of the way, and you're always shoving them in it.'\n\nGerald smiled grimly at this humorism. Then he made a little gesture of\ndismissal, with his eyebrows.\n\n'You don't believe in having any standard of behaviour at all, do you?'\nhe challenged Birkin, censoriously.\n\n'Standard--no. I hate standards. But they're necessary for the common\nruck. Anybody who is anything can just be himself and do as he likes.'\n\n'But what do you mean by being himself?' said Gerald. 'Is that an\naphorism or a cliche?'\n\n'I mean just doing what you want to do. I think it was perfect good\nform in Laura to bolt from Lupton to the church door. It was almost a\nmasterpiece in good form. It's the hardest thing in the world to act\nspontaneously on one's impulses--and it's the only really gentlemanly\nthing to do--provided you're fit to do it.'\n\n'You don't expect me to take you seriously, do you?' asked Gerald.\n\n'Yes, Gerald, you're one of the very few people I do expect that of.'\n\n'Then I'm afraid I can't come up to your expectations here, at any\nrate. You think people should just do as they like.'\n\n'I think they always do. But I should like them to like the purely\nindividual thing in themselves, which makes them act in singleness. And\nthey only like to do the collective thing.'\n\n'And I,' said Gerald grimly, 'shouldn't like to be in a world of people\nwho acted individually and spontaneously, as you call it. We should\nhave everybody cutting everybody else's throat in five minutes.'\n\n'That means YOU would like to be cutting everybody's throat,' said\nBirkin.\n\n'How does that follow?' asked Gerald crossly.\n\n'No man,' said Birkin, 'cuts another man's throat unless he wants to\ncut it, and unless the other man wants it cutting. This is a complete\ntruth. It takes two people to make a murder: a murderer and a murderee.\nAnd a murderee is a man who is murderable. And a man who is murderable\nis a man who in a profound if hidden lust desires to be murdered.'\n\n'Sometimes you talk pure nonsense,' said Gerald to Birkin. 'As a matter\nof fact, none of us wants our throat cut, and most other people would\nlike to cut it for us--some time or other--'\n\n'It's a nasty view of things, Gerald,' said Birkin, 'and no wonder you\nare afraid of yourself and your own unhappiness.'\n\n'How am I afraid of myself?' said Gerald; 'and I don't think I am\nunhappy.'\n\n'You seem to have a lurking desire to have your gizzard slit, and\nimagine every man has his knife up his sleeve for you,' Birkin said.\n\n'How do you make that out?' said Gerald.\n\n'From you,' said Birkin.\n\nThere was a pause of strange enmity between the two men, that was very\nnear to love. It was always the same between them; always their talk\nbrought them into a deadly nearness of contact, a strange, perilous\nintimacy which was either hate or love, or both. They parted with\napparent unconcern, as if their going apart were a trivial occurrence.\nAnd they really kept it to the level of trivial occurrence. Yet the\nheart of each burned from the other. They burned with each other,\ninwardly. This they would never admit. They intended to keep their\nrelationship a casual free-and-easy friendship, they were not going to\nbe so unmanly and unnatural as to allow any heart-burning between them.\nThey had not the faintest belief in deep relationship between men and\nmen, and their disbelief prevented any development of their powerful\nbut suppressed friendliness.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nCLASS-ROOM\n\n\nA school-day was drawing to a close. In the class-room the last lesson\nwas in progress, peaceful and still. It was elementary botany. The\ndesks were littered with catkins, hazel and willow, which the children\nhad been sketching. But the sky had come overdark, as the end of the\nafternoon approached: there was scarcely light to draw any more. Ursula\nstood in front of the class, leading the children by questions to\nunderstand the structure and the meaning of the catkins.\n\nA heavy, copper-coloured beam of light came in at the west window,\ngilding the outlines of the children's heads with red gold, and falling\non the wall opposite in a rich, ruddy illumination. Ursula, however,\nwas scarcely conscious of it. She was busy, the end of the day was\nhere, the work went on as a peaceful tide that is at flood, hushed to\nretire.\n\nThis day had gone by like so many more, in an activity that was like a\ntrance. At the end there was a little haste, to finish what was in\nhand. She was pressing the children with questions, so that they should\nknow all they were to know, by the time the gong went. She stood in\nshadow in front of the class, with catkins in her hand, and she leaned\ntowards the children, absorbed in the passion of instruction.\n\nShe heard, but did not notice the click of the door. Suddenly she\nstarted. She saw, in the shaft of ruddy, copper-coloured light near\nher, the face of a man. It was gleaming like fire, watching her,\nwaiting for her to be aware. It startled her terribly. She thought she\nwas going to faint. All her suppressed, subconscious fear sprang into\nbeing, with anguish.\n\n'Did I startle you?' said Birkin, shaking hands with her. 'I thought\nyou had heard me come in.'\n\n'No,' she faltered, scarcely able to speak. He laughed, saying he was\nsorry. She wondered why it amused him.\n\n'It is so dark,' he said. 'Shall we have the light?'\n\nAnd moving aside, he switched on the strong electric lights. The\nclass-room was distinct and hard, a strange place after the soft dim\nmagic that filled it before he came. Birkin turned curiously to look at\nUrsula. Her eyes were round and wondering, bewildered, her mouth\nquivered slightly. She looked like one who is suddenly wakened. There\nwas a living, tender beauty, like a tender light of dawn shining from\nher face. He looked at her with a new pleasure, feeling gay in his\nheart, irresponsible.\n\n'You are doing catkins?' he asked, picking up a piece of hazel from a\nscholar's desk in front of him. 'Are they as far out as this? I hadn't\nnoticed them this year.'\n\nHe looked absorbedly at the tassel of hazel in his hand.\n\n'The red ones too!' he said, looking at the flickers of crimson that\ncame from the female bud.\n\nThen he went in among the desks, to see the scholars' books. Ursula\nwatched his intent progress. There was a stillness in his motion that\nhushed the activities of her heart. She seemed to be standing aside in\narrested silence, watching him move in another, concentrated world. His\npresence was so quiet, almost like a vacancy in the corporate air.\n\nSuddenly he lifted his face to her, and her heart quickened at the\nflicker of his voice.\n\n'Give them some crayons, won't you?' he said, 'so that they can make\nthe gynaecious flowers red, and the androgynous yellow. I'd chalk them\nin plain, chalk in nothing else, merely the red and the yellow. Outline\nscarcely matters in this case. There is just the one fact to\nemphasise.'\n\n'I haven't any crayons,' said Ursula.\n\n'There will be some somewhere--red and yellow, that's all you want.'\n\nUrsula sent out a boy on a quest.\n\n'It will make the books untidy,' she said to Birkin, flushing deeply.\n\n'Not very,' he said. 'You must mark in these things obviously. It's the\nfact you want to emphasise, not the subjective impression to record.\nWhat's the fact?--red little spiky stigmas of the female flower,\ndangling yellow male catkin, yellow pollen flying from one to the\nother. Make a pictorial record of the fact, as a child does when\ndrawing a face--two eyes, one nose, mouth with teeth--so--' And he drew\na figure on the blackboard.\n\nAt that moment another vision was seen through the glass panels of the\ndoor. It was Hermione Roddice. Birkin went and opened to her.\n\n'I saw your car,' she said to him. 'Do you mind my coming to find you?\nI wanted to see you when you were on duty.'\n\nShe looked at him for a long time, intimate and playful, then she gave\na short little laugh. And then only she turned to Ursula, who, with all\nthe class, had been watching the little scene between the lovers.\n\n'How do you do, Miss Brangwen,' sang Hermione, in her low, odd, singing\nfashion, that sounded almost as if she were poking fun. 'Do you mind my\ncoming in?'\n\nHer grey, almost sardonic eyes rested all the while on Ursula, as if\nsumming her up.\n\n'Oh no,' said Ursula.\n\n'Are you SURE?' repeated Hermione, with complete sang froid, and an\nodd, half-bullying effrontery.\n\n'Oh no, I like it awfully,' laughed Ursula, a little bit excited and\nbewildered, because Hermione seemed to be compelling her, coming very\nclose to her, as if intimate with her; and yet, how could she be\nintimate?\n\nThis was the answer Hermione wanted. She turned satisfied to Birkin.\n\n'What are you doing?' she sang, in her casual, inquisitive fashion.\n\n'Catkins,' he replied.\n\n'Really!' she said. 'And what do you learn about them?' She spoke all\nthe while in a mocking, half teasing fashion, as if making game of the\nwhole business. She picked up a twig of the catkin, piqued by Birkin's\nattention to it.\n\nShe was a strange figure in the class-room, wearing a large, old cloak\nof greenish cloth, on which was a raised pattern of dull gold. The high\ncollar, and the inside of the cloak, was lined with dark fur. Beneath\nshe had a dress of fine lavender-coloured cloth, trimmed with fur, and\nher hat was close-fitting, made of fur and of the dull, green-and-gold\nfigured stuff. She was tall and strange, she looked as if she had come\nout of some new, bizarre picture.\n\n'Do you know the little red ovary flowers, that produce the nuts? Have\nyou ever noticed them?' he asked her. And he came close and pointed\nthem out to her, on the sprig she held.\n\n'No,' she replied. 'What are they?'\n\n'Those are the little seed-producing flowers, and the long catkins,\nthey only produce pollen, to fertilise them.'\n\n'Do they, do they!' repeated Hermione, looking closely.\n\n'From those little red bits, the nuts come; if they receive pollen from\nthe long danglers.'\n\n'Little red flames, little red flames,' murmured Hermione to herself.\nAnd she remained for some moments looking only at the small buds out of\nwhich the red flickers of the stigma issued.\n\n'Aren't they beautiful? I think they're so beautiful,' she said, moving\nclose to Birkin, and pointing to the red filaments with her long, white\nfinger.\n\n'Had you never noticed them before?' he asked.\n\n'No, never before,' she replied.\n\n'And now you will always see them,' he said.\n\n'Now I shall always see them,' she repeated. 'Thank you so much for\nshowing me. I think they're so beautiful--little red flames--'\n\nHer absorption was strange, almost rhapsodic. Both Birkin and Ursula\nwere suspended. The little red pistillate flowers had some strange,\nalmost mystic-passionate attraction for her.\n\nThe lesson was finished, the books were put away, at last the class was\ndismissed. And still Hermione sat at the table, with her chin in her\nhand, her elbow on the table, her long white face pushed up, not\nattending to anything. Birkin had gone to the window, and was looking\nfrom the brilliantly-lighted room on to the grey, colourless outside,\nwhere rain was noiselessly falling. Ursula put away her things in the\ncupboard.\n\nAt length Hermione rose and came near to her.\n\n'Your sister has come home?' she said.\n\n'Yes,' said Ursula.\n\n'And does she like being back in Beldover?'\n\n'No,' said Ursula.\n\n'No, I wonder she can bear it. It takes all my strength, to bear the\nugliness of this district, when I stay here. Won't you come and see me?\nWon't you come with your sister to stay at Breadalby for a few\ndays?--do--'\n\n'Thank you very much,' said Ursula.\n\n'Then I will write to you,' said Hermione. 'You think your sister will\ncome? I should be so glad. I think she is wonderful. I think some of\nher work is really wonderful. I have two water-wagtails, carved in\nwood, and painted--perhaps you have seen it?'\n\n'No,' said Ursula.\n\n'I think it is perfectly wonderful--like a flash of instinct.'\n\n'Her little carvings ARE strange,' said Ursula.\n\n'Perfectly beautiful--full of primitive passion--'\n\n'Isn't it queer that she always likes little things?--she must always\nwork small things, that one can put between one's hands, birds and tiny\nanimals. She likes to look through the wrong end of the opera glasses,\nand see the world that way--why is it, do you think?'\n\nHermione looked down at Ursula with that long, detached scrutinising\ngaze that excited the younger woman.\n\n'Yes,' said Hermione at length. 'It is curious. The little things seem\nto be more subtle to her--'\n\n'But they aren't, are they? A mouse isn't any more subtle than a lion,\nis it?'\n\nAgain Hermione looked down at Ursula with that long scrutiny, as if she\nwere following some train of thought of her own, and barely attending\nto the other's speech.\n\n'I don't know,' she replied.\n\n'Rupert, Rupert,' she sang mildly, calling him to her. He approached in\nsilence.\n\n'Are little things more subtle than big things?' she asked, with the\nodd grunt of laughter in her voice, as if she were making game of him\nin the question.\n\n'Dunno,' he said.\n\n'I hate subtleties,' said Ursula.\n\nHermione looked at her slowly.\n\n'Do you?' she said.\n\n'I always think they are a sign of weakness,' said Ursula, up in arms,\nas if her prestige were threatened.\n\nHermione took no notice. Suddenly her face puckered, her brow was knit\nwith thought, she seemed twisted in troublesome effort for utterance.\n\n'Do you really think, Rupert,' she asked, as if Ursula were not\npresent, 'do you really think it is worth while? Do you really think\nthe children are better for being roused to consciousness?'\n\nA dark flash went over his face, a silent fury. He was hollow-cheeked\nand pale, almost unearthly. And the woman, with her serious,\nconscience-harrowing question tortured him on the quick.\n\n'They are not roused to consciousness,' he said. 'Consciousness comes\nto them, willy-nilly.'\n\n'But do you think they are better for having it quickened, stimulated?\nIsn't it better that they should remain unconscious of the hazel, isn't\nit better that they should see as a whole, without all this pulling to\npieces, all this knowledge?'\n\n'Would you rather, for yourself, know or not know, that the little red\nflowers are there, putting out for the pollen?' he asked harshly. His\nvoice was brutal, scornful, cruel.\n\nHermione remained with her face lifted up, abstracted. He hung silent\nin irritation.\n\n'I don't know,' she replied, balancing mildly. 'I don't know.'\n\n'But knowing is everything to you, it is all your life,' he broke out.\nShe slowly looked at him.\n\n'Is it?' she said.\n\n'To know, that is your all, that is your life--you have only this, this\nknowledge,' he cried. 'There is only one tree, there is only one fruit,\nin your mouth.'\n\nAgain she was some time silent.\n\n'Is there?' she said at last, with the same untouched calm. And then in\na tone of whimsical inquisitiveness: 'What fruit, Rupert?'\n\n'The eternal apple,' he replied in exasperation, hating his own\nmetaphors.\n\n'Yes,' she said. There was a look of exhaustion about her. For some\nmoments there was silence. Then, pulling herself together with a\nconvulsed movement, Hermione resumed, in a sing-song, casual voice:\n\n'But leaving me apart, Rupert; do you think the children are better,\nricher, happier, for all this knowledge; do you really think they are?\nOr is it better to leave them untouched, spontaneous. Hadn't they\nbetter be animals, simple animals, crude, violent, ANYTHING, rather\nthan this self-consciousness, this incapacity to be spontaneous.'\n\nThey thought she had finished. But with a queer rumbling in her throat\nshe resumed, 'Hadn't they better be anything than grow up crippled,\ncrippled in their souls, crippled in their feelings--so thrown back--so\nturned back on themselves--incapable--' Hermione clenched her fist like\none in a trance--'of any spontaneous action, always deliberate, always\nburdened with choice, never carried away.'\n\nAgain they thought she had finished. But just as he was going to reply,\nshe resumed her queer rhapsody--'never carried away, out of themselves,\nalways conscious, always self-conscious, always aware of themselves.\nIsn't ANYTHING better than this? Better be animals, mere animals with\nno mind at all, than this, this NOTHINGNESS--'\n\n'But do you think it is knowledge that makes us unliving and\nselfconscious?' he asked irritably.\n\nShe opened her eyes and looked at him slowly.\n\n'Yes,' she said. She paused, watching him all the while, her eyes\nvague. Then she wiped her fingers across her brow, with a vague\nweariness. It irritated him bitterly. 'It is the mind,' she said, 'and\nthat is death.' She raised her eyes slowly to him: 'Isn't the mind--'\nshe said, with the convulsed movement of her body, 'isn't it our death?\nDoesn't it destroy all our spontaneity, all our instincts? Are not the\nyoung people growing up today, really dead before they have a chance to\nlive?'\n\n'Not because they have too much mind, but too little,' he said\nbrutally.\n\n'Are you SURE?' she cried. 'It seems to me the reverse. They are\noverconscious, burdened to death with consciousness.'\n\n'Imprisoned within a limited, false set of concepts,' he cried.\n\nBut she took no notice of this, only went on with her own rhapsodic\ninterrogation.\n\n'When we have knowledge, don't we lose everything but knowledge?' she\nasked pathetically. 'If I know about the flower, don't I lose the\nflower and have only the knowledge? Aren't we exchanging the substance\nfor the shadow, aren't we forfeiting life for this dead quality of\nknowledge? And what does it mean to me, after all? What does all this\nknowing mean to me? It means nothing.'\n\n'You are merely making words,' he said; 'knowledge means everything to\nyou. Even your animalism, you want it in your head. You don't want to\nBE an animal, you want to observe your own animal functions, to get a\nmental thrill out of them. It is all purely secondary--and more\ndecadent than the most hide-bound intellectualism. What is it but the\nworst and last form of intellectualism, this love of yours for passion\nand the animal instincts? Passion and the instincts--you want them hard\nenough, but through your head, in your consciousness. It all takes\nplace in your head, under that skull of yours. Only you won't be\nconscious of what ACTUALLY is: you want the lie that will match the\nrest of your furniture.'\n\nHermione set hard and poisonous against this attack. Ursula stood\ncovered with wonder and shame. It frightened her, to see how they hated\neach other.\n\n'It's all that Lady of Shalott business,' he said, in his strong\nabstract voice. He seemed to be charging her before the unseeing air.\n'You've got that mirror, your own fixed will, your immortal\nunderstanding, your own tight conscious world, and there is nothing\nbeyond it. There, in the mirror, you must have everything. But now you\nhave come to all your conclusions, you want to go back and be like a\nsavage, without knowledge. You want a life of pure sensation and\n\"passion.\"'\n\nHe quoted the last word satirically against her. She sat convulsed with\nfury and violation, speechless, like a stricken pythoness of the Greek\noracle.\n\n'But your passion is a lie,' he went on violently. 'It isn't passion at\nall, it is your WILL. It's your bullying will. You want to clutch\nthings and have them in your power. You want to have things in your\npower. And why? Because you haven't got any real body, any dark sensual\nbody of life. You have no sensuality. You have only your will and your\nconceit of consciousness, and your lust for power, to KNOW.'\n\nHe looked at her in mingled hate and contempt, also in pain because she\nsuffered, and in shame because he knew he tortured her. He had an\nimpulse to kneel and plead for forgiveness. But a bitterer red anger\nburned up to fury in him. He became unconscious of her, he was only a\npassionate voice speaking.\n\n'Spontaneous!' he cried. 'You and spontaneity! You, the most deliberate\nthing that ever walked or crawled! You'd be verily deliberately\nspontaneous--that's you. Because you want to have everything in your\nown volition, your deliberate voluntary consciousness. You want it all\nin that loathsome little skull of yours, that ought to be cracked like\na nut. For you'll be the same till it is cracked, like an insect in its\nskin. If one cracked your skull perhaps one might get a spontaneous,\npassionate woman out of you, with real sensuality. As it is, what you\nwant is pornography--looking at yourself in mirrors, watching your\nnaked animal actions in mirrors, so that you can have it all in your\nconsciousness, make it all mental.'\n\nThere was a sense of violation in the air, as if too much was said, the\nunforgivable. Yet Ursula was concerned now only with solving her own\nproblems, in the light of his words. She was pale and abstracted.\n\n'But do you really WANT sensuality?' she asked, puzzled.\n\nBirkin looked at her, and became intent in his explanation.\n\n'Yes,' he said, 'that and nothing else, at this point. It is a\nfulfilment--the great dark knowledge you can't have in your head--the\ndark involuntary being. It is death to one's self--but it is the coming\ninto being of another.'\n\n'But how? How can you have knowledge not in your head?' she asked,\nquite unable to interpret his phrases.\n\n'In the blood,' he answered; 'when the mind and the known world is\ndrowned in darkness everything must go--there must be the deluge. Then\nyou find yourself a palpable body of darkness, a demon--'\n\n'But why should I be a demon--?' she asked.\n\n'\"WOMAN WAILING FOR HER DEMON LOVER\"--' he quoted--'why, I don't know.'\n\nHermione roused herself as from a death--annihilation.\n\n'He is such a DREADFUL satanist, isn't he?' she drawled to Ursula, in a\nqueer resonant voice, that ended on a shrill little laugh of pure\nridicule. The two women were jeering at him, jeering him into\nnothingness. The laugh of the shrill, triumphant female sounded from\nHermione, jeering him as if he were a neuter.\n\n'No,' he said. 'You are the real devil who won't let life exist.'\n\nShe looked at him with a long, slow look, malevolent, supercilious.\n\n'You know all about it, don't you?' she said, with slow, cold, cunning\nmockery.\n\n'Enough,' he replied, his face fixing fine and clear like steel. A\nhorrible despair, and at the same time a sense of release, liberation,\ncame over Hermione. She turned with a pleasant intimacy to Ursula.\n\n'You are sure you will come to Breadalby?' she said, urging.\n\n'Yes, I should like to very much,' replied Ursula.\n\nHermione looked down at her, gratified, reflecting, and strangely\nabsent, as if possessed, as if not quite there.\n\n'I'm so glad,' she said, pulling herself together. 'Some time in about\na fortnight. Yes? I will write to you here, at the school, shall I?\nYes. And you'll be sure to come? Yes. I shall be so glad. Good-bye!\nGood-bye!'\n\nHermione held out her hand and looked into the eyes of the other woman.\nShe knew Ursula as an immediate rival, and the knowledge strangely\nexhilarated her. Also she was taking leave. It always gave her a sense\nof strength, advantage, to be departing and leaving the other behind.\nMoreover she was taking the man with her, if only in hate.\n\nBirkin stood aside, fixed and unreal. But now, when it was his turn to\nbid good-bye, he began to speak again.\n\n'There's the whole difference in the world,' he said, 'between the\nactual sensual being, and the vicious mental-deliberate profligacy our\nlot goes in for. In our night-time, there's always the electricity\nswitched on, we watch ourselves, we get it all in the head, really.\nYou've got to lapse out before you can know what sensual reality is,\nlapse into unknowingness, and give up your volition. You've got to do\nit. You've got to learn not-to-be, before you can come into being.\n\n'But we have got such a conceit of ourselves--that's where it is. We\nare so conceited, and so unproud. We've got no pride, we're all\nconceit, so conceited in our own papier-mache realised selves. We'd\nrather die than give up our little self-righteous self-opinionated\nself-will.'\n\nThere was silence in the room. Both women were hostile and resentful.\nHe sounded as if he were addressing a meeting. Hermione merely paid no\nattention, stood with her shoulders tight in a shrug of dislike.\n\nUrsula was watching him as if furtively, not really aware of what she\nwas seeing. There was a great physical attractiveness in him--a curious\nhidden richness, that came through his thinness and his pallor like\nanother voice, conveying another knowledge of him. It was in the curves\nof his brows and his chin, rich, fine, exquisite curves, the powerful\nbeauty of life itself. She could not say what it was. But there was a\nsense of richness and of liberty.\n\n'But we are sensual enough, without making ourselves so, aren't we?'\nshe asked, turning to him with a certain golden laughter flickering\nunder her greenish eyes, like a challenge. And immediately the queer,\ncareless, terribly attractive smile came over his eyes and brows,\nthough his mouth did not relax.\n\n'No,' he said, 'we aren't. We're too full of ourselves.'\n\n'Surely it isn't a matter of conceit,' she cried.\n\n'That and nothing else.'\n\nShe was frankly puzzled.\n\n'Don't you think that people are most conceited of all about their\nsensual powers?' she asked.\n\n'That's why they aren't sensual--only sensuous--which is another\nmatter. They're ALWAYS aware of themselves--and they're so conceited,\nthat rather than release themselves, and live in another world, from\nanother centre, they'd--'\n\n'You want your tea, don't you,' said Hermione, turning to Ursula with a\ngracious kindliness. 'You've worked all day--'\n\nBirkin stopped short. A spasm of anger and chagrin went over Ursula.\nHis face set. And he bade good-bye, as if he had ceased to notice her.\n\nThey were gone. Ursula stood looking at the door for some moments. Then\nshe put out the lights. And having done so, she sat down again in her\nchair, absorbed and lost. And then she began to cry, bitterly, bitterly\nweeping: but whether for misery or joy, she never knew.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\nDIVER\n\n\nThe week passed away. On the Saturday it rained, a soft drizzling rain\nthat held off at times. In one of the intervals Gudrun and Ursula set\nout for a walk, going towards Willey Water. The atmosphere was grey and\ntranslucent, the birds sang sharply on the young twigs, the earth would\nbe quickening and hastening in growth. The two girls walked swiftly,\ngladly, because of the soft, subtle rush of morning that filled the wet\nhaze. By the road the black-thorn was in blossom, white and wet, its\ntiny amber grains burning faintly in the white smoke of blossom. Purple\ntwigs were darkly luminous in the grey air, high hedges glowed like\nliving shadows, hovering nearer, coming into creation. The morning was\nfull of a new creation.\n\nWhen the sisters came to Willey Water, the lake lay all grey and\nvisionary, stretching into the moist, translucent vista of trees and\nmeadow. Fine electric activity in sound came from the dumbles below the\nroad, the birds piping one against the other, and water mysteriously\nplashing, issuing from the lake.\n\nThe two girls drifted swiftly along. In front of them, at the corner of\nthe lake, near the road, was a mossy boat-house under a walnut tree,\nand a little landing-stage where a boat was moored, wavering like a\nshadow on the still grey water, below the green, decayed poles. All was\nshadowy with coming summer.\n\nSuddenly, from the boat-house, a white figure ran out, frightening in\nits swift sharp transit, across the old landing-stage. It launched in a\nwhite arc through the air, there was a bursting of the water, and among\nthe smooth ripples a swimmer was making out to space, in a centre of\nfaintly heaving motion. The whole otherworld, wet and remote, he had to\nhimself. He could move into the pure translucency of the grey,\nuncreated water.\n\nGudrun stood by the stone wall, watching.\n\n'How I envy him,' she said, in low, desirous tones.\n\n'Ugh!' shivered Ursula. 'So cold!'\n\n'Yes, but how good, how really fine, to swim out there!' The sisters\nstood watching the swimmer move further into the grey, moist, full\nspace of the water, pulsing with his own small, invading motion, and\narched over with mist and dim woods.\n\n'Don't you wish it were you?' asked Gudrun, looking at Ursula.\n\n'I do,' said Ursula. 'But I'm not sure--it's so wet.'\n\n'No,' said Gudrun, reluctantly. She stood watching the motion on the\nbosom of the water, as if fascinated. He, having swum a certain\ndistance, turned round and was swimming on his back, looking along the\nwater at the two girls by the wall. In the faint wash of motion, they\ncould see his ruddy face, and could feel him watching them.\n\n'It is Gerald Crich,' said Ursula.\n\n'I know,' replied Gudrun.\n\nAnd she stood motionless gazing over the water at the face which washed\nup and down on the flood, as he swam steadily. From his separate\nelement he saw them and he exulted to himself because of his own\nadvantage, his possession of a world to himself. He was immune and\nperfect. He loved his own vigorous, thrusting motion, and the violent\nimpulse of the very cold water against his limbs, buoying him up. He\ncould see the girls watching him a way off, outside, and that pleased\nhim. He lifted his arm from the water, in a sign to them.\n\n'He is waving,' said Ursula.\n\n'Yes,' replied Gudrun. They watched him. He waved again, with a strange\nmovement of recognition across the difference.\n\n'Like a Nibelung,' laughed Ursula. Gudrun said nothing, only stood\nstill looking over the water.\n\nGerald suddenly turned, and was swimming away swiftly, with a side\nstroke. He was alone now, alone and immune in the middle of the waters,\nwhich he had all to himself. He exulted in his isolation in the new\nelement, unquestioned and unconditioned. He was happy, thrusting with\nhis legs and all his body, without bond or connection anywhere, just\nhimself in the watery world.\n\nGudrun envied him almost painfully. Even this momentary possession of\npure isolation and fluidity seemed to her so terribly desirable that\nshe felt herself as if damned, out there on the high-road.\n\n'God, what it is to be a man!' she cried.\n\n'What?' exclaimed Ursula in surprise.\n\n'The freedom, the liberty, the mobility!' cried Gudrun, strangely\nflushed and brilliant. 'You're a man, you want to do a thing, you do\nit. You haven't the THOUSAND obstacles a woman has in front of her.'\n\nUrsula wondered what was in Gudrun's mind, to occasion this outburst.\nShe could not understand.\n\n'What do you want to do?' she asked.\n\n'Nothing,' cried Gudrun, in swift refutation. 'But supposing I did.\nSupposing I want to swim up that water. It is impossible, it is one of\nthe impossibilities of life, for me to take my clothes off now and jump\nin. But isn't it RIDICULOUS, doesn't it simply prevent our living!'\n\nShe was so hot, so flushed, so furious, that Ursula was puzzled.\n\nThe two sisters went on, up the road. They were passing between the\ntrees just below Shortlands. They looked up at the long, low house, dim\nand glamorous in the wet morning, its cedar trees slanting before the\nwindows. Gudrun seemed to be studying it closely.\n\n'Don't you think it's attractive, Ursula?' asked Gudrun.\n\n'Very,' said Ursula. 'Very peaceful and charming.'\n\n'It has form, too--it has a period.'\n\n'What period?'\n\n'Oh, eighteenth century, for certain; Dorothy Wordsworth and Jane\nAusten, don't you think?'\n\nUrsula laughed.\n\n'Don't you think so?' repeated Gudrun.\n\n'Perhaps. But I don't think the Criches fit the period. I know Gerald\nis putting in a private electric plant, for lighting the house, and is\nmaking all kinds of latest improvements.'\n\nGudrun shrugged her shoulders swiftly.\n\n'Of course,' she said, 'that's quite inevitable.'\n\n'Quite,' laughed Ursula. 'He is several generations of youngness at one\ngo. They hate him for it. He takes them all by the scruff of the neck,\nand fairly flings them along. He'll have to die soon, when he's made\nevery possible improvement, and there will be nothing more to improve.\nHe's got GO, anyhow.'\n\n'Certainly, he's got go,' said Gudrun. 'In fact I've never seen a man\nthat showed signs of so much. The unfortunate thing is, where does his\nGO go to, what becomes of it?'\n\n'Oh I know,' said Ursula. 'It goes in applying the latest appliances!'\n\n'Exactly,' said Gudrun.\n\n'You know he shot his brother?' said Ursula.\n\n'Shot his brother?' cried Gudrun, frowning as if in disapprobation.\n\n'Didn't you know? Oh yes!--I thought you knew. He and his brother were\nplaying together with a gun. He told his brother to look down the gun,\nand it was loaded, and blew the top of his head off. Isn't it a\nhorrible story?'\n\n'How fearful!' cried Gudrun. 'But it is long ago?'\n\n'Oh yes, they were quite boys,' said Ursula. 'I think it is one of the\nmost horrible stories I know.'\n\n'And he of course did not know that the gun was loaded?'\n\n'Yes. You see it was an old thing that had been lying in the stable for\nyears. Nobody dreamed it would ever go off, and of course, no one\nimagined it was loaded. But isn't it dreadful, that it should happen?'\n\n'Frightful!' cried Gudrun. 'And isn't it horrible too to think of such\na thing happening to one, when one was a child, and having to carry the\nresponsibility of it all through one's life. Imagine it, two boys\nplaying together--then this comes upon them, for no reason\nwhatever--out of the air. Ursula, it's very frightening! Oh, it's one\nof the things I can't bear. Murder, that is thinkable, because there's\na will behind it. But a thing like that to HAPPEN to one--'\n\n'Perhaps there WAS an unconscious will behind it,' said Ursula. 'This\nplaying at killing has some primitive DESIRE for killing in it, don't\nyou think?'\n\n'Desire!' said Gudrun, coldly, stiffening a little. 'I can't see that\nthey were even playing at killing. I suppose one boy said to the other,\n\"You look down the barrel while I pull the trigger, and see what\nhappens.\" It seems to me the purest form of accident.'\n\n'No,' said Ursula. 'I couldn't pull the trigger of the emptiest gun in\nthe world, not if some-one were looking down the barrel. One\ninstinctively doesn't do it--one can't.'\n\nGudrun was silent for some moments, in sharp disagreement.\n\n'Of course,' she said coldly. 'If one is a woman, and grown up, one's\ninstinct prevents one. But I cannot see how that applies to a couple of\nboys playing together.'\n\nHer voice was cold and angry.\n\n'Yes,' persisted Ursula. At that moment they heard a woman's voice a\nfew yards off say loudly:\n\n'Oh damn the thing!' They went forward and saw Laura Crich and Hermione\nRoddice in the field on the other side of the hedge, and Laura Crich\nstruggling with the gate, to get out. Ursula at once hurried up and\nhelped to lift the gate.\n\n'Thanks so much,' said Laura, looking up flushed and amazon-like, yet\nrather confused. 'It isn't right on the hinges.'\n\n'No,' said Ursula. 'And they're so heavy.'\n\n'Surprising!' cried Laura.\n\n'How do you do,' sang Hermione, from out of the field, the moment she\ncould make her voice heard. 'It's nice now. Are you going for a walk?\nYes. Isn't the young green beautiful? So beautiful--quite burning. Good\nmorning--good morning--you'll come and see me?--thank you so much--next\nweek--yes--good-bye, g-o-o-d b-y-e.'\n\nGudrun and Ursula stood and watched her slowly waving her head up and\ndown, and waving her hand slowly in dismissal, smiling a strange\naffected smile, making a tall queer, frightening figure, with her heavy\nfair hair slipping to her eyes. Then they moved off, as if they had\nbeen dismissed like inferiors. The four women parted.\n\nAs soon as they had gone far enough, Ursula said, her cheeks burning,\n\n'I do think she's impudent.'\n\n'Who, Hermione Roddice?' asked Gudrun. 'Why?'\n\n'The way she treats one--impudence!'\n\n'Why, Ursula, what did you notice that was so impudent?' asked Gudrun\nrather coldly.\n\n'Her whole manner. Oh, It's impossible, the way she tries to bully one.\nPure bullying. She's an impudent woman. \"You'll come and see me,\" as if\nwe should be falling over ourselves for the privilege.'\n\n'I can't understand, Ursula, what you are so much put out about,' said\nGudrun, in some exasperation. 'One knows those women are\nimpudent--these free women who have emancipated themselves from the\naristocracy.'\n\n'But it is so UNNECESSARY--so vulgar,' cried Ursula.\n\n'No, I don't see it. And if I did--pour moi, elle n'existe pas. I don't\ngrant her the power to be impudent to me.'\n\n'Do you think she likes you?' asked Ursula.\n\n'Well, no, I shouldn't think she did.'\n\n'Then why does she ask you to go to Breadalby and stay with her?'\n\nGudrun lifted her shoulders in a low shrug.\n\n'After all, she's got the sense to know we're not just the ordinary\nrun,' said Gudrun. 'Whatever she is, she's not a fool. And I'd rather\nhave somebody I detested, than the ordinary woman who keeps to her own\nset. Hermione Roddice does risk herself in some respects.'\n\nUrsula pondered this for a time.\n\n'I doubt it,' she replied. 'Really she risks nothing. I suppose we\nought to admire her for knowing she CAN invite us--school teachers--and\nrisk nothing.'\n\n'Precisely!' said Gudrun. 'Think of the myriads of women that daren't\ndo it. She makes the most of her privileges--that's something. I\nsuppose, really, we should do the same, in her place.'\n\n'No,' said Ursula. 'No. It would bore me. I couldn't spend my time\nplaying her games. It's infra dig.'\n\nThe two sisters were like a pair of scissors, snipping off everything\nthat came athwart them; or like a knife and a whetstone, the one\nsharpened against the other.\n\n'Of course,' cried Ursula suddenly, 'she ought to thank her stars if we\nwill go and see her. You are perfectly beautiful, a thousand times more\nbeautiful than ever she is or was, and to my thinking, a thousand times\nmore beautifully dressed, for she never looks fresh and natural, like a\nflower, always old, thought-out; and we ARE more intelligent than most\npeople.'\n\n'Undoubtedly!' said Gudrun.\n\n'And it ought to be admitted, simply,' said Ursula.\n\n'Certainly it ought,' said Gudrun. 'But you'll find that the really\nchic thing is to be so absolutely ordinary, so perfectly commonplace\nand like the person in the street, that you really are a masterpiece of\nhumanity, not the person in the street actually, but the artistic\ncreation of her--'\n\n'How awful!' cried Ursula.\n\n'Yes, Ursula, it IS awful, in most respects. You daren't be anything\nthat isn't amazingly A TERRE, SO much A TERRE that it is the artistic\ncreation of ordinariness.'\n\n'It's very dull to create oneself into nothing better,' laughed Ursula.\n\n'Very dull!' retorted Gudrun. 'Really Ursula, it is dull, that's just\nthe word. One longs to be high-flown, and make speeches like Corneille,\nafter it.'\n\nGudrun was becoming flushed and excited over her own cleverness.\n\n'Strut,' said Ursula. 'One wants to strut, to be a swan among geese.'\n\n'Exactly,' cried Gudrun, 'a swan among geese.'\n\n'They are all so busy playing the ugly duckling,' cried Ursula, with\nmocking laughter. 'And I don't feel a bit like a humble and pathetic\nugly duckling. I do feel like a swan among geese--I can't help it. They\nmake one feel so. And I don't care what THEY think of me. FE M'EN\nFICHE.'\n\nGudrun looked up at Ursula with a queer, uncertain envy and dislike.\n\n'Of course, the only thing to do is to despise them all--just all,' she\nsaid.\n\nThe sisters went home again, to read and talk and work, and wait for\nMonday, for school. Ursula often wondered what else she waited for,\nbesides the beginning and end of the school week, and the beginning and\nend of the holidays. This was a whole life! Sometimes she had periods\nof tight horror, when it seemed to her that her life would pass away,\nand be gone, without having been more than this. But she never really\naccepted it. Her spirit was active, her life like a shoot that is\ngrowing steadily, but which has not yet come above ground.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\nIN THE TRAIN\n\n\nOne day at this time Birkin was called to London. He was not very fixed\nin his abode. He had rooms in Nottingham, because his work lay chiefly\nin that town. But often he was in London, or in Oxford. He moved about\na great deal, his life seemed uncertain, without any definite rhythm,\nany organic meaning.\n\nOn the platform of the railway station he saw Gerald Crich, reading a\nnewspaper, and evidently waiting for the train. Birkin stood some\ndistance off, among the people. It was against his instinct to approach\nanybody.\n\nFrom time to time, in a manner characteristic of him, Gerald lifted his\nhead and looked round. Even though he was reading the newspaper\nclosely, he must keep a watchful eye on his external surroundings.\nThere seemed to be a dual consciousness running in him. He was thinking\nvigorously of something he read in the newspaper, and at the same time\nhis eye ran over the surfaces of the life round him, and he missed\nnothing. Birkin, who was watching him, was irritated by his duality. He\nnoticed too, that Gerald seemed always to be at bay against everybody,\nin spite of his queer, genial, social manner when roused.\n\nNow Birkin started violently at seeing this genial look flash on to\nGerald's face, at seeing Gerald approaching with hand outstretched.\n\n'Hallo, Rupert, where are you going?'\n\n'London. So are you, I suppose.'\n\n'Yes--'\n\nGerald's eyes went over Birkin's face in curiosity.\n\n'We'll travel together if you like,' he said.\n\n'Don't you usually go first?' asked Birkin.\n\n'I can't stand the crowd,' replied Gerald. 'But third'll be all right.\nThere's a restaurant car, we can have some tea.'\n\nThe two men looked at the station clock, having nothing further to say.\n\n'What were you reading in the paper?' Birkin asked.\n\nGerald looked at him quickly.\n\n'Isn't it funny, what they DO put in the newspapers,' he said. 'Here\nare two leaders--' he held out his DAILY TELEGRAPH, 'full of the\nordinary newspaper cant--' he scanned the columns down--'and then\nthere's this little--I dunno what you'd call it, essay,\nalmost--appearing with the leaders, and saying there must arise a man\nwho will give new values to things, give us new truths, a new attitude\nto life, or else we shall be a crumbling nothingness in a few years, a\ncountry in ruin--'\n\n'I suppose that's a bit of newspaper cant, as well,' said Birkin.\n\n'It sounds as if the man meant it, and quite genuinely,' said Gerald.\n\n'Give it to me,' said Birkin, holding out his hand for the paper.\n\nThe train came, and they went on board, sitting on either side a little\ntable, by the window, in the restaurant car. Birkin glanced over his\npaper, then looked up at Gerald, who was waiting for him.\n\n'I believe the man means it,' he said, 'as far as he means anything.'\n\n'And do you think it's true? Do you think we really want a new gospel?'\nasked Gerald.\n\nBirkin shrugged his shoulders.\n\n'I think the people who say they want a new religion are the last to\naccept anything new. They want novelty right enough. But to stare\nstraight at this life that we've brought upon ourselves, and reject it,\nabsolutely smash up the old idols of ourselves, that we sh'll never do.\nYou've got very badly to want to get rid of the old, before anything\nnew will appear--even in the self.'\n\nGerald watched him closely.\n\n'You think we ought to break up this life, just start and let fly?' he\nasked.\n\n'This life. Yes I do. We've got to bust it completely, or shrivel\ninside it, as in a tight skin. For it won't expand any more.'\n\nThere was a queer little smile in Gerald's eyes, a look of amusement,\ncalm and curious.\n\n'And how do you propose to begin? I suppose you mean, reform the whole\norder of society?' he asked.\n\nBirkin had a slight, tense frown between the brows. He too was\nimpatient of the conversation.\n\n'I don't propose at all,' he replied. 'When we really want to go for\nsomething better, we shall smash the old. Until then, any sort of\nproposal, or making proposals, is no more than a tiresome game for\nself-important people.'\n\nThe little smile began to die out of Gerald's eyes, and he said,\nlooking with a cool stare at Birkin:\n\n'So you really think things are very bad?'\n\n'Completely bad.'\n\nThe smile appeared again.\n\n'In what way?'\n\n'Every way,' said Birkin. 'We are such dreary liars. Our one idea is to\nlie to ourselves. We have an ideal of a perfect world, clean and\nstraight and sufficient. So we cover the earth with foulness; life is a\nblotch of labour, like insects scurrying in filth, so that your collier\ncan have a pianoforte in his parlour, and you can have a butler and a\nmotor-car in your up-to-date house, and as a nation we can sport the\nRitz, or the Empire, Gaby Deslys and the Sunday newspapers. It is very\ndreary.'\n\nGerald took a little time to re-adjust himself after this tirade.\n\n'Would you have us live without houses--return to nature?' he asked.\n\n'I would have nothing at all. People only do what they want to do--and\nwhat they are capable of doing. If they were capable of anything else,\nthere would be something else.'\n\nAgain Gerald pondered. He was not going to take offence at Birkin.\n\n'Don't you think the collier's PIANOFORTE, as you call it, is a symbol\nfor something very real, a real desire for something higher, in the\ncollier's life?'\n\n'Higher!' cried Birkin. 'Yes. Amazing heights of upright grandeur. It\nmakes him so much higher in his neighbouring collier's eyes. He sees\nhimself reflected in the neighbouring opinion, like in a Brocken mist,\nseveral feet taller on the strength of the pianoforte, and he is\nsatisfied. He lives for the sake of that Brocken spectre, the\nreflection of himself in the human opinion. You do the same. If you are\nof high importance to humanity you are of high importance to yourself.\nThat is why you work so hard at the mines. If you can produce coal to\ncook five thousand dinners a day, you are five thousand times more\nimportant than if you cooked only your own dinner.'\n\n'I suppose I am,' laughed Gerald.\n\n'Can't you see,' said Birkin, 'that to help my neighbour to eat is no\nmore than eating myself. \"I eat, thou eatest, he eats, we eat, you eat,\nthey eat\"--and what then? Why should every man decline the whole verb.\nFirst person singular is enough for me.'\n\n'You've got to start with material things,' said Gerald. Which\nstatement Birkin ignored.\n\n'And we've got to live for SOMETHING, we're not just cattle that can\ngraze and have done with it,' said Gerald.\n\n'Tell me,' said Birkin. 'What do you live for?'\n\nGerald's face went baffled.\n\n'What do I live for?' he repeated. 'I suppose I live to work, to\nproduce something, in so far as I am a purposive being. Apart from\nthat, I live because I am living.'\n\n'And what's your work? Getting so many more thousands of tons of coal\nout of the earth every day. And when we've got all the coal we want,\nand all the plush furniture, and pianofortes, and the rabbits are all\nstewed and eaten, and we're all warm and our bellies are filled and\nwe're listening to the young lady performing on the pianoforte--what\nthen? What then, when you've made a real fair start with your material\nthings?'\n\nGerald sat laughing at the words and the mocking humour of the other\nman. But he was cogitating too.\n\n'We haven't got there yet,' he replied. 'A good many people are still\nwaiting for the rabbit and the fire to cook it.'\n\n'So while you get the coal I must chase the rabbit?' said Birkin,\nmocking at Gerald.\n\n'Something like that,' said Gerald.\n\nBirkin watched him narrowly. He saw the perfect good-humoured\ncallousness, even strange, glistening malice, in Gerald, glistening\nthrough the plausible ethics of productivity.\n\n'Gerald,' he said, 'I rather hate you.'\n\n'I know you do,' said Gerald. 'Why do you?'\n\nBirkin mused inscrutably for some minutes.\n\n'I should like to know if you are conscious of hating me,' he said at\nlast. 'Do you ever consciously detest me--hate me with mystic hate?\nThere are odd moments when I hate you starrily.'\n\nGerald was rather taken aback, even a little disconcerted. He did not\nquite know what to say.\n\n'I may, of course, hate you sometimes,' he said. 'But I'm not aware of\nit--never acutely aware of it, that is.'\n\n'So much the worse,' said Birkin.\n\nGerald watched him with curious eyes. He could not quite make him out.\n\n'So much the worse, is it?' he repeated.\n\nThere was a silence between the two men for some time, as the train ran\non. In Birkin's face was a little irritable tension, a sharp knitting\nof the brows, keen and difficult. Gerald watched him warily, carefully,\nrather calculatingly, for he could not decide what he was after.\n\nSuddenly Birkin's eyes looked straight and overpowering into those of\nthe other man.\n\n'What do you think is the aim and object of your life, Gerald?' he\nasked.\n\nAgain Gerald was taken aback. He could not think what his friend was\ngetting at. Was he poking fun, or not?\n\n'At this moment, I couldn't say off-hand,' he replied, with faintly\nironic humour.\n\n'Do you think love is the be-all and the end-all of life?' Birkin\nasked, with direct, attentive seriousness.\n\n'Of my own life?' said Gerald.\n\n'Yes.'\n\nThere was a really puzzled pause.\n\n'I can't say,' said Gerald. 'It hasn't been, so far.'\n\n'What has your life been, so far?'\n\n'Oh--finding out things for myself--and getting experiences--and making\nthings GO.'\n\nBirkin knitted his brows like sharply moulded steel.\n\n'I find,' he said, 'that one needs some one REALLY pure single\nactivity--I should call love a single pure activity. But I DON'T really\nlove anybody--not now.'\n\n'Have you ever really loved anybody?' asked Gerald.\n\n'Yes and no,' replied Birkin.\n\n'Not finally?' said Gerald.\n\n'Finally--finally--no,' said Birkin.\n\n'Nor I,' said Gerald.\n\n'And do you want to?' said Birkin.\n\nGerald looked with a long, twinkling, almost sardonic look into the\neyes of the other man.\n\n'I don't know,' he said.\n\n'I do--I want to love,' said Birkin.\n\n'You do?'\n\n'Yes. I want the finality of love.'\n\n'The finality of love,' repeated Gerald. And he waited for a moment.\n\n'Just one woman?' he added. The evening light, flooding yellow along\nthe fields, lit up Birkin's face with a tense, abstract steadfastness.\nGerald still could not make it out.\n\n'Yes, one woman,' said Birkin.\n\nBut to Gerald it sounded as if he were insistent rather than confident.\n\n'I don't believe a woman, and nothing but a woman, will ever make my\nlife,' said Gerald.\n\n'Not the centre and core of it--the love between you and a woman?'\nasked Birkin.\n\nGerald's eyes narrowed with a queer dangerous smile as he watched the\nother man.\n\n'I never quite feel it that way,' he said.\n\n'You don't? Then wherein does life centre, for you?'\n\n'I don't know--that's what I want somebody to tell me. As far as I can\nmake out, it doesn't centre at all. It is artificially held TOGETHER by\nthe social mechanism.'\n\nBirkin pondered as if he would crack something.\n\n'I know,' he said, 'it just doesn't centre. The old ideals are dead as\nnails--nothing there. It seems to me there remains only this perfect\nunion with a woman--sort of ultimate marriage--and there isn't anything\nelse.'\n\n'And you mean if there isn't the woman, there's nothing?' said Gerald.\n\n'Pretty well that--seeing there's no God.'\n\n'Then we're hard put to it,' said Gerald. And he turned to look out of\nthe window at the flying, golden landscape.\n\nBirkin could not help seeing how beautiful and soldierly his face was,\nwith a certain courage to be indifferent.\n\n'You think its heavy odds against us?' said Birkin.\n\n'If we've got to make our life up out of a woman, one woman, woman\nonly, yes, I do,' said Gerald. 'I don't believe I shall ever make up MY\nlife, at that rate.'\n\nBirkin watched him almost angrily.\n\n'You are a born unbeliever,' he said.\n\n'I only feel what I feel,' said Gerald. And he looked again at Birkin\nalmost sardonically, with his blue, manly, sharp-lighted eyes. Birkin's\neyes were at the moment full of anger. But swiftly they became\ntroubled, doubtful, then full of a warm, rich affectionateness and\nlaughter.\n\n'It troubles me very much, Gerald,' he said, wrinkling his brows.\n\n'I can see it does,' said Gerald, uncovering his mouth in a manly,\nquick, soldierly laugh.\n\nGerald was held unconsciously by the other man. He wanted to be near\nhim, he wanted to be within his sphere of influence. There was\nsomething very congenial to him in Birkin. But yet, beyond this, he did\nnot take much notice. He felt that he, himself, Gerald, had harder and\nmore durable truths than any the other man knew. He felt himself older,\nmore knowing. It was the quick-changing warmth and venality and\nbrilliant warm utterance he loved in his friend. It was the rich play\nof words and quick interchange of feelings he enjoyed. The real content\nof the words he never really considered: he himself knew better.\n\nBirkin knew this. He knew that Gerald wanted to be FOND of him without\ntaking him seriously. And this made him go hard and cold. As the train\nran on, he sat looking at the land, and Gerald fell away, became as\nnothing to him.\n\nBirkin looked at the land, at the evening, and was thinking: 'Well, if\nmankind is destroyed, if our race is destroyed like Sodom, and there is\nthis beautiful evening with the luminous land and trees, I am\nsatisfied. That which informs it all is there, and can never be lost.\nAfter all, what is mankind but just one expression of the\nincomprehensible. And if mankind passes away, it will only mean that\nthis particular expression is completed and done. That which is\nexpressed, and that which is to be expressed, cannot be diminished.\nThere it is, in the shining evening. Let mankind pass away--time it\ndid. The creative utterances will not cease, they will only be there.\nHumanity doesn't embody the utterance of the incomprehensible any more.\nHumanity is a dead letter. There will be a new embodiment, in a new\nway. Let humanity disappear as quick as possible.'\n\nGerald interrupted him by asking,\n\n'Where are you staying in London?'\n\nBirkin looked up.\n\n'With a man in Soho. I pay part of the rent of a flat, and stop there\nwhen I like.'\n\n'Good idea--have a place more or less your own,' said Gerald.\n\n'Yes. But I don't care for it much. I'm tired of the people I am bound\nto find there.'\n\n'What kind of people?'\n\n'Art--music--London Bohemia--the most pettifogging calculating Bohemia\nthat ever reckoned its pennies. But there are a few decent people,\ndecent in some respects. They are really very thorough rejecters of the\nworld--perhaps they live only in the gesture of rejection and\nnegation--but negatively something, at any rate.'\n\n'What are they?--painters, musicians?'\n\n'Painters, musicians, writers--hangers-on, models, advanced young\npeople, anybody who is openly at outs with the conventions, and belongs\nto nowhere particularly. They are often young fellows down from the\nUniversity, and girls who are living their own lives, as they say.'\n\n'All loose?' said Gerald.\n\nBirkin could see his curiosity roused.\n\n'In one way. Most bound, in another. For all their shockingness, all on\none note.'\n\nHe looked at Gerald, and saw how his blue eyes were lit up with a\nlittle flame of curious desire. He saw too how good-looking he was.\nGerald was attractive, his blood seemed fluid and electric. His blue\neyes burned with a keen, yet cold light, there was a certain beauty, a\nbeautiful passivity in all his body, his moulding.\n\n'We might see something of each other--I am in London for two or three\ndays,' said Gerald.\n\n'Yes,' said Birkin, 'I don't want to go to the theatre, or the music\nhall--you'd better come round to the flat, and see what you can make of\nHalliday and his crowd.'\n\n'Thanks--I should like to,' laughed Gerald. 'What are you doing\ntonight?'\n\n'I promised to meet Halliday at the Pompadour. It's a bad place, but\nthere is nowhere else.'\n\n'Where is it?' asked Gerald.\n\n'Piccadilly Circus.'\n\n'Oh yes--well, shall I come round there?'\n\n'By all means, it might amuse you.'\n\nThe evening was falling. They had passed Bedford. Birkin watched the\ncountry, and was filled with a sort of hopelessness. He always felt\nthis, on approaching London.\n\nHis dislike of mankind, of the mass of mankind, amounted almost to an\nillness.\n\n  '\"Where the quiet coloured end of evening smiles\n  Miles and miles--\"'\n\nhe was murmuring to himself, like a man condemned to death. Gerald, who\nwas very subtly alert, wary in all his senses, leaned forward and asked\nsmilingly:\n\n'What were you saying?' Birkin glanced at him, laughed, and repeated:\n\n  '\"Where the quiet coloured end of evening smiles,\n  Miles and miles,\n  Over pastures where the something something sheep\n  Half asleep--\"'\n\n\nGerald also looked now at the country. And Birkin, who, for some reason\nwas now tired and dispirited, said to him:\n\n'I always feel doomed when the train is running into London. I feel\nsuch a despair, so hopeless, as if it were the end of the world.'\n\n'Really!' said Gerald. 'And does the end of the world frighten you?'\n\nBirkin lifted his shoulders in a slow shrug.\n\n'I don't know,' he said. 'It does while it hangs imminent and doesn't\nfall. But people give me a bad feeling--very bad.'\n\nThere was a roused glad smile in Gerald's eyes.\n\n'Do they?' he said. And he watched the other man critically.\n\nIn a few minutes the train was running through the disgrace of\noutspread London. Everybody in the carriage was on the alert, waiting\nto escape. At last they were under the huge arch of the station, in the\ntremendous shadow of the town. Birkin shut himself together--he was in\nnow.\n\nThe two men went together in a taxi-cab.\n\n'Don't you feel like one of the damned?' asked Birkin, as they sat in a\nlittle, swiftly-running enclosure, and watched the hideous great\nstreet.\n\n'No,' laughed Gerald.\n\n'It is real death,' said Birkin.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI.\n\nCREME DE MENTHE\n\n\nThey met again in the cafe several hours later. Gerald went through the\npush doors into the large, lofty room where the faces and heads of the\ndrinkers showed dimly through the haze of smoke, reflected more dimly,\nand repeated ad infinitum in the great mirrors on the walls, so that\none seemed to enter a vague, dim world of shadowy drinkers humming\nwithin an atmosphere of blue tobacco smoke. There was, however, the red\nplush of the seats to give substance within the bubble of pleasure.\n\nGerald moved in his slow, observant, glistening-attentive motion down\nbetween the tables and the people whose shadowy faces looked up as he\npassed. He seemed to be entering in some strange element, passing into\nan illuminated new region, among a host of licentious souls. He was\npleased, and entertained. He looked over all the dim, evanescent,\nstrangely illuminated faces that bent across the tables. Then he saw\nBirkin rise and signal to him.\n\nAt Birkin's table was a girl with dark, soft, fluffy hair cut short in\nthe artist fashion, hanging level and full almost like the Egyptian\nprincess's. She was small and delicately made, with warm colouring and\nlarge, dark hostile eyes. There was a delicacy, almost a beauty in all\nher form, and at the same time a certain attractive grossness of\nspirit, that made a little spark leap instantly alight in Gerald's\neyes.\n\nBirkin, who looked muted, unreal, his presence left out, introduced her\nas Miss Darrington. She gave her hand with a sudden, unwilling\nmovement, looking all the while at Gerald with a dark, exposed stare. A\nglow came over him as he sat down.\n\nThe waiter appeared. Gerald glanced at the glasses of the other two.\nBirkin was drinking something green, Miss Darrington had a small\nliqueur glass that was empty save for a tiny drop.\n\n'Won't you have some more--?'\n\n'Brandy,' she said, sipping her last drop and putting down the glass.\nThe waiter disappeared.\n\n'No,' she said to Birkin. 'He doesn't know I'm back. He'll be terrified\nwhen he sees me here.'\n\nShe spoke her r's like w's, lisping with a slightly babyish\npronunciation which was at once affected and true to her character. Her\nvoice was dull and toneless.\n\n'Where is he then?' asked Birkin.\n\n'He's doing a private show at Lady Snellgrove's,' said the girl.\n'Warens is there too.'\n\nThere was a pause.\n\n'Well, then,' said Birkin, in a dispassionate protective manner, 'what\ndo you intend to do?'\n\nThe girl paused sullenly. She hated the question.\n\n'I don't intend to do anything,' she replied. 'I shall look for some\nsittings tomorrow.'\n\n'Who shall you go to?' asked Birkin.\n\n'I shall go to Bentley's first. But I believe he's angwy with me for\nrunning away.'\n\n'That is from the Madonna?'\n\n'Yes. And then if he doesn't want me, I know I can get work with\nCarmarthen.'\n\n'Carmarthen?'\n\n'Lord Carmarthen--he does photographs.'\n\n'Chiffon and shoulders--'\n\n'Yes. But he's awfully decent.' There was a pause.\n\n'And what are you going to do about Julius?' he asked.\n\n'Nothing,' she said. 'I shall just ignore him.'\n\n'You've done with him altogether?' But she turned aside her face\nsullenly, and did not answer the question.\n\nAnother young man came hurrying up to the table.\n\n'Hallo Birkin! Hallo PUSSUM, when did you come back?' he said eagerly.\n\n'Today.'\n\n'Does Halliday know?'\n\n'I don't know. I don't care either.'\n\n'Ha-ha! The wind still sits in that quarter, does it? Do you mind if I\ncome over to this table?'\n\n'I'm talking to Wupert, do you mind?' she replied, coolly and yet\nappealingly, like a child.\n\n'Open confession--good for the soul, eh?' said the young man. 'Well, so\nlong.'\n\nAnd giving a sharp look at Birkin and at Gerald, the young man moved\noff, with a swing of his coat skirts.\n\nAll this time Gerald had been completely ignored. And yet he felt that\nthe girl was physically aware of his proximity. He waited, listened,\nand tried to piece together the conversation.\n\n'Are you staying at the flat?' the girl asked, of Birkin.\n\n'For three days,' replied Birkin. 'And you?'\n\n'I don't know yet. I can always go to Bertha's.' There was a silence.\n\nSuddenly the girl turned to Gerald, and said, in a rather formal,\npolite voice, with the distant manner of a woman who accepts her\nposition as a social inferior, yet assumes intimate CAMARADERIE with\nthe male she addresses:\n\n'Do you know London well?'\n\n'I can hardly say,' he laughed. 'I've been up a good many times, but I\nwas never in this place before.'\n\n'You're not an artist, then?' she said, in a tone that placed him an\noutsider.\n\n'No,' he replied.\n\n'He's a soldier, and an explorer, and a Napoleon of industry,' said\nBirkin, giving Gerald his credentials for Bohemia.\n\n'Are you a soldier?' asked the girl, with a cold yet lively curiosity.\n\n'No, I resigned my commission,' said Gerald, 'some years ago.'\n\n'He was in the last war,' said Birkin.\n\n'Were you really?' said the girl.\n\n'And then he explored the Amazon,' said Birkin, 'and now he is ruling\nover coal-mines.'\n\nThe girl looked at Gerald with steady, calm curiosity. He laughed,\nhearing himself described. He felt proud too, full of male strength.\nHis blue, keen eyes were lit up with laughter, his ruddy face, with its\nsharp fair hair, was full of satisfaction, and glowing with life. He\npiqued her.\n\n'How long are you staying?' she asked him.\n\n'A day or two,' he replied. 'But there is no particular hurry.'\n\nStill she stared into his face with that slow, full gaze which was so\ncurious and so exciting to him. He was acutely and delightfully\nconscious of himself, of his own attractiveness. He felt full of\nstrength, able to give off a sort of electric power. And he was aware\nof her dark, hot-looking eyes upon him. She had beautiful eyes, dark,\nfully-opened, hot, naked in their looking at him. And on them there\nseemed to float a film of disintegration, a sort of misery and\nsullenness, like oil on water. She wore no hat in the heated cafe, her\nloose, simple jumper was strung on a string round her neck. But it was\nmade of rich peach-coloured crepe-de-chine, that hung heavily and\nsoftly from her young throat and her slender wrists. Her appearance was\nsimple and complete, really beautiful, because of her regularity and\nform, her soft dark hair falling full and level on either side of her\nhead, her straight, small, softened features, Egyptian in the slight\nfulness of their curves, her slender neck and the simple, rich-coloured\nsmock hanging on her slender shoulders. She was very still, almost\nnull, in her manner, apart and watchful.\n\nShe appealed to Gerald strongly. He felt an awful, enjoyable power over\nher, an instinctive cherishing very near to cruelty. For she was a\nvictim. He felt that she was in his power, and he was generous. The\nelectricity was turgid and voluptuously rich, in his limbs. He would be\nable to destroy her utterly in the strength of his discharge. But she\nwas waiting in her separation, given.\n\nThey talked banalities for some time. Suddenly Birkin said:\n\n'There's Julius!' and he half rose to his feet, motioning to the\nnewcomer. The girl, with a curious, almost evil motion, looked round\nover her shoulder without moving her body. Gerald watched her dark,\nsoft hair swing over her ears. He felt her watching intensely the man\nwho was approaching, so he looked too. He saw a pale, full-built young\nman with rather long, solid fair hair hanging from under his black hat,\nmoving cumbrously down the room, his face lit up with a smile at once\nnaive and warm, and vapid. He approached towards Birkin, with a haste\nof welcome.\n\nIt was not till he was quite close that he perceived the girl. He\nrecoiled, went pale, and said, in a high squealing voice:\n\n'Pussum, what are YOU doing here?'\n\nThe cafe looked up like animals when they hear a cry. Halliday hung\nmotionless, an almost imbecile smile flickering palely on his face. The\ngirl only stared at him with a black look in which flared an\nunfathomable hell of knowledge, and a certain impotence. She was\nlimited by him.\n\n'Why have you come back?' repeated Halliday, in the same high,\nhysterical voice. 'I told you not to come back.'\n\nThe girl did not answer, only stared in the same viscous, heavy\nfashion, straight at him, as he stood recoiled, as if for safety,\nagainst the next table.\n\n'You know you wanted her to come back--come and sit down,' said Birkin\nto him.\n\n'No I didn't want her to come back, and I told her not to come back.\nWhat have you come for, Pussum?'\n\n'For nothing from YOU,' she said in a heavy voice of resentment.\n\n'Then why have you come back at ALL?' cried Halliday, his voice rising\nto a kind of squeal.\n\n'She comes as she likes,' said Birkin. 'Are you going to sit down, or\nare you not?'\n\n'No, I won't sit down with Pussum,' cried Halliday.\n\n'I won't hurt you, you needn't be afraid,' she said to him, very\ncurtly, and yet with a sort of protectiveness towards him, in her\nvoice.\n\nHalliday came and sat at the table, putting his hand on his heart, and\ncrying:\n\n'Oh, it's given me such a turn! Pussum, I wish you wouldn't do these\nthings. Why did you come back?'\n\n'Not for anything from you,' she repeated.\n\n'You've said that before,' he cried in a high voice.\n\nShe turned completely away from him, to Gerald Crich, whose eyes were\nshining with a subtle amusement.\n\n'Were you ever vewy much afwaid of the savages?' she asked in her calm,\ndull childish voice.\n\n'No--never very much afraid. On the whole they're harmless--they're not\nborn yet, you can't feel really afraid of them. You know you can manage\nthem.'\n\n'Do you weally? Aren't they very fierce?'\n\n'Not very. There aren't many fierce things, as a matter of fact. There\naren't many things, neither people nor animals, that have it in them to\nbe really dangerous.'\n\n'Except in herds,' interrupted Birkin.\n\n'Aren't there really?' she said. 'Oh, I thought savages were all so\ndangerous, they'd have your life before you could look round.'\n\n'Did you?' he laughed. 'They are over-rated, savages. They're too much\nlike other people, not exciting, after the first acquaintance.'\n\n'Oh, it's not so very wonderfully brave then, to be an explorer?'\n\n'No. It's more a question of hardships than of terrors.'\n\n'Oh! And weren't you ever afraid?'\n\n'In my life? I don't know. Yes, I'm afraid of some things--of being\nshut up, locked up anywhere--or being fastened. I'm afraid of being\nbound hand and foot.'\n\nShe looked at him steadily with her dark eyes, that rested on him and\nroused him so deeply, that it left his upper self quite calm. It was\nrather delicious, to feel her drawing his self-revelations from him, as\nfrom the very innermost dark marrow of his body. She wanted to know.\nAnd her dark eyes seemed to be looking through into his naked organism.\nHe felt, she was compelled to him, she was fated to come into contact\nwith him, must have the seeing him and knowing him. And this roused a\ncurious exultance. Also he felt, she must relinquish herself into his\nhands, and be subject to him. She was so profane, slave-like, watching\nhim, absorbed by him. It was not that she was interested in what he\nsaid; she was absorbed by his self-revelation, by HIM, she wanted the\nsecret of him, the experience of his male being.\n\nGerald's face was lit up with an uncanny smile, full of light and\nrousedness, yet unconscious. He sat with his arms on the table, his\nsunbrowned, rather sinister hands, that were animal and yet very\nshapely and attractive, pushed forward towards her. And they fascinated\nher. And she knew, she watched her own fascination.\n\nOther men had come to the table, to talk with Birkin and Halliday.\nGerald said in a low voice, apart, to Pussum:\n\n'Where have you come back from?'\n\n'From the country,' replied Pussum, in a very low, yet fully resonant\nvoice. Her face closed hard. Continually she glanced at Halliday, and\nthen a black flare came over her eyes. The heavy, fair young man\nignored her completely; he was really afraid of her. For some moments\nshe would be unaware of Gerald. He had not conquered her yet.\n\n'And what has Halliday to do with it?' he asked, his voice still muted.\n\nShe would not answer for some seconds. Then she said, unwillingly:\n\n'He made me go and live with him, and now he wants to throw me over.\nAnd yet he won't let me go to anybody else. He wants me to live hidden\nin the country. And then he says I persecute him, that he can't get rid\nof me.'\n\n'Doesn't know his own mind,' said Gerald.\n\n'He hasn't any mind, so he can't know it,' she said. 'He waits for what\nsomebody tells him to do. He never does anything he wants to do\nhimself--because he doesn't know what he wants. He's a perfect baby.'\n\nGerald looked at Halliday for some moments, watching the soft, rather\ndegenerate face of the young man. Its very softness was an attraction;\nit was a soft, warm, corrupt nature, into which one might plunge with\ngratification.\n\n'But he has no hold over you, has he?' Gerald asked.\n\n'You see he MADE me go and live with him, when I didn't want to,' she\nreplied. 'He came and cried to me, tears, you never saw so many, saying\nHE COULDN'T bear it unless I went back to him. And he wouldn't go away,\nhe would have stayed for ever. He made me go back. Then every time he\nbehaves in this fashion. And now I'm going to have a baby, he wants to\ngive me a hundred pounds and send me into the country, so that he would\nnever see me nor hear of me again. But I'm not going to do it, after--'\n\nA queer look came over Gerald's face.\n\n'Are you going to have a child?' he asked incredulous. It seemed, to\nlook at her, impossible, she was so young and so far in spirit from any\nchild-bearing.\n\nShe looked full into his face, and her dark, inchoate eyes had now a\nfurtive look, and a look of a knowledge of evil, dark and indomitable.\nA flame ran secretly to his heart.\n\n'Yes,' she said. 'Isn't it beastly?'\n\n'Don't you want it?' he asked.\n\n'I don't,' she replied emphatically.\n\n'But--' he said, 'how long have you known?'\n\n'Ten weeks,' she said.\n\nAll the time she kept her dark, inchoate eyes full upon him. He\nremained silent, thinking. Then, switching off and becoming cold, he\nasked, in a voice full of considerate kindness:\n\n'Is there anything we can eat here? Is there anything you would like?'\n\n'Yes,' she said, 'I should adore some oysters.'\n\n'All right,' he said. 'We'll have oysters.' And he beckoned to the\nwaiter.\n\nHalliday took no notice, until the little plate was set before her.\nThen suddenly he cried:\n\n'Pussum, you can't eat oysters when you're drinking brandy.'\n\n'What has it go to do with you?' she asked.\n\n'Nothing, nothing,' he cried. 'But you can't eat oysters when you're\ndrinking brandy.'\n\n'I'm not drinking brandy,' she replied, and she sprinkled the last\ndrops of her liqueur over his face. He gave an odd squeal. She sat\nlooking at him, as if indifferent.\n\n'Pussum, why do you do that?' he cried in panic. He gave Gerald the\nimpression that he was terrified of her, and that he loved his terror.\nHe seemed to relish his own horror and hatred of her, turn it over and\nextract every flavour from it, in real panic. Gerald thought him a\nstrange fool, and yet piquant.\n\n'But Pussum,' said another man, in a very small, quick Eton voice, 'you\npromised not to hurt him.'\n\n'I haven't hurt him,' she answered.\n\n'What will you drink?' the young man asked. He was dark, and\nsmooth-skinned, and full of a stealthy vigour.\n\n'I don't like porter, Maxim,' she replied.\n\n'You must ask for champagne,' came the whispering, gentlemanly voice of\nthe other.\n\nGerald suddenly realised that this was a hint to him.\n\n'Shall we have champagne?' he asked, laughing.\n\n'Yes please, dwy,' she lisped childishly.\n\nGerald watched her eating the oysters. She was delicate and finicking\nin her eating, her fingers were fine and seemed very sensitive in the\ntips, so she put her food apart with fine, small motions, she ate\ncarefully, delicately. It pleased him very much to see her, and it\nirritated Birkin. They were all drinking champagne. Maxim, the prim\nyoung Russian with the smooth, warm-coloured face and black, oiled hair\nwas the only one who seemed to be perfectly calm and sober. Birkin was\nwhite and abstract, unnatural, Gerald was smiling with a constant\nbright, amused, cold light in his eyes, leaning a little protectively\ntowards the Pussum, who was very handsome, and soft, unfolded like some\nred lotus in dreadful flowering nakedness, vainglorious now, flushed\nwith wine and with the excitement of men. Halliday looked foolish. One\nglass of wine was enough to make him drunk and giggling. Yet there was\nalways a pleasant, warm naivete about him, that made him attractive.\n\n'I'm not afwaid of anything except black-beetles,' said the Pussum,\nlooking up suddenly and staring with her black eyes, on which there\nseemed an unseeing film of flame, fully upon Gerald. He laughed\ndangerously, from the blood. Her childish speech caressed his nerves,\nand her burning, filmed eyes, turned now full upon him, oblivious of\nall her antecedents, gave him a sort of licence.\n\n'I'm not,' she protested. 'I'm not afraid of other things. But\nblack-beetles--ugh!' she shuddered convulsively, as if the very thought\nwere too much to bear.\n\n'Do you mean,' said Gerald, with the punctiliousness of a man who has\nbeen drinking, 'that you are afraid of the sight of a black-beetle, or\nyou are afraid of a black-beetle biting you, or doing you some harm?'\n\n'Do they bite?' cried the girl.\n\n'How perfectly loathsome!' exclaimed Halliday.\n\n'I don't know,' replied Gerald, looking round the table. 'Do\nblack-beetles bite? But that isn't the point. Are you afraid of their\nbiting, or is it a metaphysical antipathy?'\n\nThe girl was looking full upon him all the time with inchoate eyes.\n\n'Oh, I think they're beastly, they're horrid,' she cried. 'If I see\none, it gives me the creeps all over. If one were to crawl on me, I'm\nSURE I should die--I'm sure I should.'\n\n'I hope not,' whispered the young Russian.\n\n'I'm sure I should, Maxim,' she asseverated.\n\n'Then one won't crawl on you,' said Gerald, smiling and knowing. In\nsome strange way he understood her.\n\n'It's metaphysical, as Gerald says,' Birkin stated.\n\nThere was a little pause of uneasiness.\n\n'And are you afraid of nothing else, Pussum?' asked the young Russian,\nin his quick, hushed, elegant manner.\n\n'Not weally,' she said. 'I am afwaid of some things, but not weally the\nsame. I'm not afwaid of BLOOD.'\n\n'Not afwaid of blood!' exclaimed a young man with a thick, pale,\njeering face, who had just come to the table and was drinking whisky.\n\nThe Pussum turned on him a sulky look of dislike, low and ugly.\n\n'Aren't you really afraid of blud?' the other persisted, a sneer all\nover his face.\n\n'No, I'm not,' she retorted.\n\n'Why, have you ever seen blood, except in a dentist's spittoon?' jeered\nthe young man.\n\n'I wasn't speaking to you,' she replied rather superbly.\n\n'You can answer me, can't you?' he said.\n\nFor reply, she suddenly jabbed a knife across his thick, pale hand. He\nstarted up with a vulgar curse.\n\n'Show's what you are,' said the Pussum in contempt.\n\n'Curse you,' said the young man, standing by the table and looking down\nat her with acrid malevolence.\n\n'Stop that,' said Gerald, in quick, instinctive command.\n\nThe young man stood looking down at her with sardonic contempt, a\ncowed, self-conscious look on his thick, pale face. The blood began to\nflow from his hand.\n\n'Oh, how horrible, take it away!' squealed Halliday, turning green and\naverting his face.\n\n'D'you feel ill?' asked the sardonic young man, in some concern. 'Do\nyou feel ill, Julius? Garn, it's nothing, man, don't give her the\npleasure of letting her think she's performed a feat--don't give her\nthe satisfaction, man--it's just what she wants.'\n\n'Oh!' squealed Halliday.\n\n'He's going to cat, Maxim,' said the Pussum warningly. The suave young\nRussian rose and took Halliday by the arm, leading him away. Birkin,\nwhite and diminished, looked on as if he were displeased. The wounded,\nsardonic young man moved away, ignoring his bleeding hand in the most\nconspicuous fashion.\n\n'He's an awful coward, really,' said the Pussum to Gerald. 'He's got\nsuch an influence over Julius.'\n\n'Who is he?' asked Gerald.\n\n'He's a Jew, really. I can't bear him.'\n\n'Well, he's quite unimportant. But what's wrong with Halliday?'\n\n'Julius's the most awful coward you've ever seen,' she cried. 'He\nalways faints if I lift a knife--he's tewwified of me.'\n\n'H'm!' said Gerald.\n\n'They're all afwaid of me,' she said. 'Only the Jew thinks he's going\nto show his courage. But he's the biggest coward of them all, really,\nbecause he's afwaid what people will think about him--and Julius\ndoesn't care about that.'\n\n'They've a lot of valour between them,' said Gerald good-humouredly.\n\nThe Pussum looked at him with a slow, slow smile. She was very\nhandsome, flushed, and confident in dreadful knowledge. Two little\npoints of light glinted on Gerald's eyes.\n\n'Why do they call you Pussum, because you're like a cat?' he asked her.\n\n'I expect so,' she said.\n\nThe smile grew more intense on his face.\n\n'You are, rather; or a young, female panther.'\n\n'Oh God, Gerald!' said Birkin, in some disgust.\n\nThey both looked uneasily at Birkin.\n\n'You're silent tonight, Wupert,' she said to him, with a slight\ninsolence, being safe with the other man.\n\nHalliday was coming back, looking forlorn and sick.\n\n'Pussum,' he said, 'I wish you wouldn't do these things--Oh!' He sank\nin his chair with a groan.\n\n'You'd better go home,' she said to him.\n\n'I WILL go home,' he said. 'But won't you all come along. Won't you\ncome round to the flat?' he said to Gerald. 'I should be so glad if you\nwould. Do--that'll be splendid. I say?' He looked round for a waiter.\n'Get me a taxi.' Then he groaned again. 'Oh I do feel--perfectly\nghastly! Pussum, you see what you do to me.'\n\n'Then why are you such an idiot?' she said with sullen calm.\n\n'But I'm not an idiot! Oh, how awful! Do come, everybody, it will be so\nsplendid. Pussum, you are coming. What? Oh but you MUST come, yes, you\nmust. What? Oh, my dear girl, don't make a fuss now, I feel\nperfectly--Oh, it's so ghastly--Ho!--er! Oh!'\n\n'You know you can't drink,' she said to him, coldly.\n\n'I tell you it isn't drink--it's your disgusting behaviour, Pussum,\nit's nothing else. Oh, how awful! Libidnikov, do let us go.'\n\n'He's only drunk one glass--only one glass,' came the rapid, hushed\nvoice of the young Russian.\n\nThey all moved off to the door. The girl kept near to Gerald, and\nseemed to be at one in her motion with him. He was aware of this, and\nfilled with demon-satisfaction that his motion held good for two. He\nheld her in the hollow of his will, and she was soft, secret, invisible\nin her stirring there.\n\nThey crowded five of them into the taxi-cab. Halliday lurched in first,\nand dropped into his seat against the other window. Then the Pussum\ntook her place, and Gerald sat next to her. They heard the young\nRussian giving orders to the driver, then they were all seated in the\ndark, crowded close together, Halliday groaning and leaning out of the\nwindow. They felt the swift, muffled motion of the car.\n\nThe Pussum sat near to Gerald, and she seemed to become soft, subtly to\ninfuse herself into his bones, as if she were passing into him in a\nblack, electric flow. Her being suffused into his veins like a magnetic\ndarkness, and concentrated at the base of his spine like a fearful\nsource of power. Meanwhile her voice sounded out reedy and nonchalant,\nas she talked indifferently with Birkin and with Maxim. Between her and\nGerald was this silence and this black, electric comprehension in the\ndarkness. Then she found his hand, and grasped it in her own firm,\nsmall clasp. It was so utterly dark, and yet such a naked statement,\nthat rapid vibrations ran through his blood and over his brain, he was\nno longer responsible. Still her voice rang on like a bell, tinged with\na tone of mockery. And as she swung her head, her fine mane of hair\njust swept his face, and all his nerves were on fire, as with a subtle\nfriction of electricity. But the great centre of his force held steady,\na magnificent pride to him, at the base of his spine.\n\nThey arrived at a large block of buildings, went up in a lift, and\npresently a door was being opened for them by a Hindu. Gerald looked in\nsurprise, wondering if he were a gentleman, one of the Hindus down from\nOxford, perhaps. But no, he was the man-servant.\n\n'Make tea, Hasan,' said Halliday.\n\n'There is a room for me?' said Birkin.\n\nTo both of which questions the man grinned, and murmured.\n\nHe made Gerald uncertain, because, being tall and slender and reticent,\nhe looked like a gentleman.\n\n'Who is your servant?' he asked of Halliday. 'He looks a swell.'\n\n'Oh yes--that's because he's dressed in another man's clothes. He's\nanything but a swell, really. We found him in the road, starving. So I\ntook him here, and another man gave him clothes. He's anything but what\nhe seems to be--his only advantage is that he can't speak English and\ncan't understand it, so he's perfectly safe.'\n\n'He's very dirty,' said the young Russian swiftly and silently.\n\nDirectly, the man appeared in the doorway.\n\n'What is it?' said Halliday.\n\nThe Hindu grinned, and murmured shyly:\n\n'Want to speak to master.'\n\nGerald watched curiously. The fellow in the doorway was goodlooking and\nclean-limbed, his bearing was calm, he looked elegant, aristocratic.\nYet he was half a savage, grinning foolishly. Halliday went out into\nthe corridor to speak with him.\n\n'What?' they heard his voice. 'What? What do you say? Tell me again.\nWhat? Want money? Want MORE money? But what do you want money for?'\nThere was the confused sound of the Hindu's talking, then Halliday\nappeared in the room, smiling also foolishly, and saying:\n\n'He says he wants money to buy underclothing. Can anybody lend me a\nshilling? Oh thanks, a shilling will do to buy all the underclothes he\nwants.' He took the money from Gerald and went out into the passage\nagain, where they heard him saying, 'You can't want more money, you had\nthree and six yesterday. You mustn't ask for any more. Bring the tea in\nquickly.'\n\nGerald looked round the room. It was an ordinary London sitting-room in\na flat, evidently taken furnished, rather common and ugly. But there\nwere several negro statues, wood-carvings from West Africa, strange and\ndisturbing, the carved negroes looked almost like the foetus of a human\nbeing. One was a woman sitting naked in a strange posture, and looking\ntortured, her abdomen stuck out. The young Russian explained that she\nwas sitting in child-birth, clutching the ends of the band that hung\nfrom her neck, one in each hand, so that she could bear down, and help\nlabour. The strange, transfixed, rudimentary face of the woman again\nreminded Gerald of a foetus, it was also rather wonderful, conveying\nthe suggestion of the extreme of physical sensation, beyond the limits\nof mental consciousness.\n\n'Aren't they rather obscene?' he asked, disapproving.\n\n'I don't know,' murmured the other rapidly. 'I have never defined the\nobscene. I think they are very good.'\n\nGerald turned away. There were one or two new pictures in the room, in\nthe Futurist manner; there was a large piano. And these, with some\nordinary London lodging-house furniture of the better sort, completed\nthe whole.\n\nThe Pussum had taken off her hat and coat, and was seated on the sofa.\nShe was evidently quite at home in the house, but uncertain, suspended.\nShe did not quite know her position. Her alliance for the time being\nwas with Gerald, and she did not know how far this was admitted by any\nof the men. She was considering how she should carry off the situation.\nShe was determined to have her experience. Now, at this eleventh hour,\nshe was not to be baulked. Her face was flushed as with battle, her eye\nwas brooding but inevitable.\n\nThe man came in with tea and a bottle of Kummel. He set the tray on a\nlittle table before the couch.\n\n'Pussum,' said Halliday, 'pour out the tea.'\n\nShe did not move.\n\n'Won't you do it?' Halliday repeated, in a state of nervous\napprehension.\n\n'I've not come back here as it was before,' she said. 'I only came\nbecause the others wanted me to, not for your sake.'\n\n'My dear Pussum, you know you are your own mistress. I don't want you\nto do anything but use the flat for your own convenience--you know it,\nI've told you so many times.'\n\nShe did not reply, but silently, reservedly reached for the tea-pot.\nThey all sat round and drank tea. Gerald could feel the electric\nconnection between him and her so strongly, as she sat there quiet and\nwithheld, that another set of conditions altogether had come to pass.\nHer silence and her immutability perplexed him. HOW was he going to\ncome to her? And yet he felt it quite inevitable. He trusted completely\nto the current that held them. His perplexity was only superficial, new\nconditions reigned, the old were surpassed; here one did as one was\npossessed to do, no matter what it was.\n\nBirkin rose. It was nearly one o'clock.\n\n'I'm going to bed,' he said. 'Gerald, I'll ring you up in the morning\nat your place or you ring me up here.'\n\n'Right,' said Gerald, and Birkin went out.\n\nWhen he was well gone, Halliday said in a stimulated voice, to Gerald:\n\n'I say, won't you stay here--oh do!'\n\n'You can't put everybody up,' said Gerald.\n\n'Oh but I can, perfectly--there are three more beds besides mine--do\nstay, won't you. Everything is quite ready--there is always somebody\nhere--I always put people up--I love having the house crowded.'\n\n'But there are only two rooms,' said the Pussum, in a cold, hostile\nvoice, 'now Rupert's here.'\n\n'I know there are only two rooms,' said Halliday, in his odd, high way\nof speaking. 'But what does that matter?'\n\nHe was smiling rather foolishly, and he spoke eagerly, with an\ninsinuating determination.\n\n'Julius and I will share one room,' said the Russian in his discreet,\nprecise voice. Halliday and he were friends since Eton.\n\n'It's very simple,' said Gerald, rising and pressing back his arms,\nstretching himself. Then he went again to look at one of the pictures.\nEvery one of his limbs was turgid with electric force, and his back was\ntense like a tiger's, with slumbering fire. He was very proud.\n\nThe Pussum rose. She gave a black look at Halliday, black and deadly,\nwhich brought the rather foolishly pleased smile to that young man's\nface. Then she went out of the room, with a cold good-night to them all\ngenerally.\n\nThere was a brief interval, they heard a door close, then Maxim said,\nin his refined voice:\n\n'That's all right.'\n\nHe looked significantly at Gerald, and said again, with a silent nod:\n\n'That's all right--you're all right.'\n\nGerald looked at the smooth, ruddy, comely face, and at the strange,\nsignificant eyes, and it seemed as if the voice of the young Russian,\nso small and perfect, sounded in the blood rather than in the air.\n\n'I'M all right then,' said Gerald.\n\n'Yes! Yes! You're all right,' said the Russian.\n\nHalliday continued to smile, and to say nothing.\n\nSuddenly the Pussum appeared again in the door, her small, childish\nface looking sullen and vindictive.\n\n'I know you want to catch me out,' came her cold, rather resonant\nvoice. 'But I don't care, I don't care how much you catch me out.'\n\nShe turned and was gone again. She had been wearing a loose\ndressing-gown of purple silk, tied round her waist. She looked so small\nand childish and vulnerable, almost pitiful. And yet the black looks of\nher eyes made Gerald feel drowned in some potent darkness that almost\nfrightened him.\n\nThe men lit another cigarette and talked casually.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII.\n\nFETISH\n\n\nIn the morning Gerald woke late. He had slept heavily. Pussum was still\nasleep, sleeping childishly and pathetically. There was something small\nand curled up and defenceless about her, that roused an unsatisfied\nflame of passion in the young man's blood, a devouring avid pity. He\nlooked at her again. But it would be too cruel to wake her. He subdued\nhimself, and went away.\n\nHearing voices coming from the sitting-room, Halliday talking to\nLibidnikov, he went to the door and glanced in. He had on a silk wrap\nof a beautiful bluish colour, with an amethyst hem.\n\nTo his surprise he saw the two young men by the fire, stark naked.\nHalliday looked up, rather pleased.\n\n'Good-morning,' he said. 'Oh--did you want towels?' And stark naked he\nwent out into the hall, striding a strange, white figure between the\nunliving furniture. He came back with the towels, and took his former\nposition, crouching seated before the fire on the fender.\n\n'Don't you love to feel the fire on your skin?' he said.\n\n'It IS rather pleasant,' said Gerald.\n\n'How perfectly splendid it must be to be in a climate where one could\ndo without clothing altogether,' said Halliday.\n\n'Yes,' said Gerald, 'if there weren't so many things that sting and\nbite.'\n\n'That's a disadvantage,' murmured Maxim.\n\nGerald looked at him, and with a slight revulsion saw the human animal,\ngolden skinned and bare, somehow humiliating. Halliday was different.\nHe had a rather heavy, slack, broken beauty, white and firm. He was\nlike a Christ in a Pieta. The animal was not there at all, only the\nheavy, broken beauty. And Gerald realised how Halliday's eyes were\nbeautiful too, so blue and warm and confused, broken also in their\nexpression. The fireglow fell on his heavy, rather bowed shoulders, he\nsat slackly crouched on the fender, his face was uplifted, weak,\nperhaps slightly disintegrate, and yet with a moving beauty of its own.\n\n'Of course,' said Maxim, 'you've been in hot countries where the people\ngo about naked.'\n\n'Oh really!' exclaimed Halliday. 'Where?'\n\n'South America--Amazon,' said Gerald.\n\n'Oh but how perfectly splendid! It's one of the things I want most to\ndo--to live from day to day without EVER putting on any sort of\nclothing whatever. If I could do that, I should feel I had lived.'\n\n'But why?' said Gerald. 'I can't see that it makes so much difference.'\n\n'Oh, I think it would be perfectly splendid. I'm sure life would be\nentirely another thing--entirely different, and perfectly wonderful.'\n\n'But why?' asked Gerald. 'Why should it?'\n\n'Oh--one would FEEL things instead of merely looking at them. I should\nfeel the air move against me, and feel the things I touched, instead of\nhaving only to look at them. I'm sure life is all wrong because it has\nbecome much too visual--we can neither hear nor feel nor understand, we\ncan only see. I'm sure that is entirely wrong.'\n\n'Yes, that is true, that is true,' said the Russian.\n\nGerald glanced at him, and saw him, his suave, golden coloured body\nwith the black hair growing fine and freely, like tendrils, and his\nlimbs like smooth plant-stems. He was so healthy and well-made, why did\nhe make one ashamed, why did one feel repelled? Why should Gerald even\ndislike it, why did it seem to him to detract from his own dignity. Was\nthat all a human being amounted to? So uninspired! thought Gerald.\n\nBirkin suddenly appeared in the doorway, in white pyjamas and wet hair,\nand a towel over his arm. He was aloof and white, and somehow\nevanescent.\n\n'There's the bath-room now, if you want it,' he said generally, and was\ngoing away again, when Gerald called:\n\n'I say, Rupert!'\n\n'What?' The single white figure appeared again, a presence in the room.\n\n'What do you think of that figure there? I want to know,' Gerald asked.\n\nBirkin, white and strangely ghostly, went over to the carved figure of\nthe negro woman in labour. Her nude, protuberant body crouched in a\nstrange, clutching posture, her hands gripping the ends of the band,\nabove her breast.\n\n'It is art,' said Birkin.\n\n'Very beautiful, it's very beautiful,' said the Russian.\n\nThey all drew near to look. Gerald looked at the group of men, the\nRussian golden and like a water-plant, Halliday tall and heavily,\nbrokenly beautiful, Birkin very white and indefinite, not to be\nassigned, as he looked closely at the carven woman. Strangely elated,\nGerald also lifted his eyes to the face of the wooden figure. And his\nheart contracted.\n\nHe saw vividly with his spirit the grey, forward-stretching face of the\nnegro woman, African and tense, abstracted in utter physical stress. It\nwas a terrible face, void, peaked, abstracted almost into\nmeaninglessness by the weight of sensation beneath. He saw the Pussum\nin it. As in a dream, he knew her.\n\n'Why is it art?' Gerald asked, shocked, resentful.\n\n'It conveys a complete truth,' said Birkin. 'It contains the whole\ntruth of that state, whatever you feel about it.'\n\n'But you can't call it HIGH art,' said Gerald.\n\n'High! There are centuries and hundreds of centuries of development in\na straight line, behind that carving; it is an awful pitch of culture,\nof a definite sort.'\n\n'What culture?' Gerald asked, in opposition. He hated the sheer African\nthing.\n\n'Pure culture in sensation, culture in the physical consciousness,\nreally ultimate PHYSICAL consciousness, mindless, utterly sensual. It\nis so sensual as to be final, supreme.'\n\nBut Gerald resented it. He wanted to keep certain illusions, certain\nideas like clothing.\n\n'You like the wrong things, Rupert,' he said, 'things against\nyourself.'\n\n'Oh, I know, this isn't everything,' Birkin replied, moving away.\n\nWhen Gerald went back to his room from the bath, he also carried his\nclothes. He was so conventional at home, that when he was really away,\nand on the loose, as now, he enjoyed nothing so much as full\noutrageousness. So he strode with his blue silk wrap over his arm and\nfelt defiant.\n\nThe Pussum lay in her bed, motionless, her round, dark eyes like black,\nunhappy pools. He could only see the black, bottomless pools of her\neyes. Perhaps she suffered. The sensation of her inchoate suffering\nroused the old sharp flame in him, a mordant pity, a passion almost of\ncruelty.\n\n'You are awake now,' he said to her.\n\n'What time is it?' came her muted voice.\n\nShe seemed to flow back, almost like liquid, from his approach, to sink\nhelplessly away from him. Her inchoate look of a violated slave, whose\nfulfilment lies in her further and further violation, made his nerves\nquiver with acutely desirable sensation. After all, his was the only\nwill, she was the passive substance of his will. He tingled with the\nsubtle, biting sensation. And then he knew, he must go away from her,\nthere must be pure separation between them.\n\nIt was a quiet and ordinary breakfast, the four men all looking very\nclean and bathed. Gerald and the Russian were both correct and COMME IL\nFAUT in appearance and manner, Birkin was gaunt and sick, and looked a\nfailure in his attempt to be a properly dressed man, like Gerald and\nMaxim. Halliday wore tweeds and a green flannel shirt, and a rag of a\ntie, which was just right for him. The Hindu brought in a great deal of\nsoft toast, and looked exactly the same as he had looked the night\nbefore, statically the same.\n\nAt the end of the breakfast the Pussum appeared, in a purple silk wrap\nwith a shimmering sash. She had recovered herself somewhat, but was\nmute and lifeless still. It was a torment to her when anybody spoke to\nher. Her face was like a small, fine mask, sinister too, masked with\nunwilling suffering. It was almost midday. Gerald rose and went away to\nhis business, glad to get out. But he had not finished. He was coming\nback again at evening, they were all dining together, and he had booked\nseats for the party, excepting Birkin, at a music-hall.\n\nAt night they came back to the flat very late again, again flushed with\ndrink. Again the man-servant--who invariably disappeared between the\nhours of ten and twelve at night--came in silently and inscrutably with\ntea, bending in a slow, strange, leopard-like fashion to put the tray\nsoftly on the table. His face was immutable, aristocratic-looking,\ntinged slightly with grey under the skin; he was young and\ngood-looking. But Birkin felt a slight sickness, looking at him, and\nfeeling the slight greyness as an ash or a corruption, in the\naristocratic inscrutability of expression a nauseating, bestial\nstupidity.\n\nAgain they talked cordially and rousedly together. But already a\ncertain friability was coming over the party, Birkin was mad with\nirritation, Halliday was turning in an insane hatred against Gerald,\nthe Pussum was becoming hard and cold, like a flint knife, and Halliday\nwas laying himself out to her. And her intention, ultimately, was to\ncapture Halliday, to have complete power over him.\n\nIn the morning they all stalked and lounged about again. But Gerald\ncould feel a strange hostility to himself, in the air. It roused his\nobstinacy, and he stood up against it. He hung on for two more days.\nThe result was a nasty and insane scene with Halliday on the fourth\nevening. Halliday turned with absurd animosity upon Gerald, in the\ncafe. There was a row. Gerald was on the point of knocking-in\nHalliday's face; when he was filled with sudden disgust and\nindifference, and he went away, leaving Halliday in a foolish state of\ngloating triumph, the Pussum hard and established, and Maxim standing\nclear. Birkin was absent, he had gone out of town again.\n\nGerald was piqued because he had left without giving the Pussum money.\nIt was true, she did not care whether he gave her money or not, and he\nknew it. But she would have been glad of ten pounds, and he would have\nbeen VERY glad to give them to her. Now he felt in a false position. He\nwent away chewing his lips to get at the ends of his short clipped\nmoustache. He knew the Pussum was merely glad to be rid of him. She had\ngot her Halliday whom she wanted. She wanted him completely in her\npower. Then she would marry him. She wanted to marry him. She had set\nher will on marrying Halliday. She never wanted to hear of Gerald\nagain; unless, perhaps, she were in difficulty; because after all,\nGerald was what she called a man, and these others, Halliday,\nLibidnikov, Birkin, the whole Bohemian set, they were only half men.\nBut it was half men she could deal with. She felt sure of herself with\nthem. The real men, like Gerald, put her in her place too much.\n\nStill, she respected Gerald, she really respected him. She had managed\nto get his address, so that she could appeal to him in time of\ndistress. She knew he wanted to give her money. She would perhaps write\nto him on that inevitable rainy day.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII.\n\nBREADALBY\n\n\nBreadalby was a Georgian house with Corinthian pillars, standing among\nthe softer, greener hills of Derbyshire, not far from Cromford. In\nfront, it looked over a lawn, over a few trees, down to a string of\nfish-ponds in the hollow of the silent park. At the back were trees,\namong which were to be found the stables, and the big kitchen garden,\nbehind which was a wood.\n\nIt was a very quiet place, some miles from the high-road, back from the\nDerwent Valley, outside the show scenery. Silent and forsaken, the\ngolden stucco showed between the trees, the house-front looked down the\npark, unchanged and unchanging.\n\nOf late, however, Hermione had lived a good deal at the house. She had\nturned away from London, away from Oxford, towards the silence of the\ncountry. Her father was mostly absent, abroad, she was either alone in\nthe house, with her visitors, of whom there were always several, or she\nhad with her her brother, a bachelor, and a Liberal member of\nParliament. He always came down when the House was not sitting, seemed\nalways to be present in Breadalby, although he was most conscientious\nin his attendance to duty.\n\nThe summer was just coming in when Ursula and Gudrun went to stay the\nsecond time with Hermione. Coming along in the car, after they had\nentered the park, they looked across the dip, where the fish-ponds lay\nin silence, at the pillared front of the house, sunny and small like an\nEnglish drawing of the old school, on the brow of the green hill,\nagainst the trees. There were small figures on the green lawn, women in\nlavender and yellow moving to the shade of the enormous, beautifully\nbalanced cedar tree.\n\n'Isn't it complete!' said Gudrun. 'It is as final as an old aquatint.'\nShe spoke with some resentment in her voice, as if she were captivated\nunwillingly, as if she must admire against her will.\n\n'Do you love it?' asked Ursula.\n\n'I don't LOVE it, but in its way, I think it is quite complete.'\n\nThe motor-car ran down the hill and up again in one breath, and they\nwere curving to the side door. A parlour-maid appeared, and then\nHermione, coming forward with her pale face lifted, and her hands\noutstretched, advancing straight to the new-comers, her voice singing:\n\n'Here you are--I'm so glad to see you--' she kissed Gudrun--'so glad to\nsee you--' she kissed Ursula and remained with her arm round her. 'Are\nyou very tired?'\n\n'Not at all tired,' said Ursula.\n\n'Are you tired, Gudrun?'\n\n'Not at all, thanks,' said Gudrun.\n\n'No--' drawled Hermione. And she stood and looked at them. The two\ngirls were embarrassed because she would not move into the house, but\nmust have her little scene of welcome there on the path. The servants\nwaited.\n\n'Come in,' said Hermione at last, having fully taken in the pair of\nthem. Gudrun was the more beautiful and attractive, she had decided\nagain, Ursula was more physical, more womanly. She admired Gudrun's\ndress more. It was of green poplin, with a loose coat above it, of\nbroad, dark-green and dark-brown stripes. The hat was of a pale,\ngreenish straw, the colour of new hay, and it had a plaited ribbon of\nblack and orange, the stockings were dark green, the shoes black. It\nwas a good get-up, at once fashionable and individual. Ursula, in dark\nblue, was more ordinary, though she also looked well.\n\nHermione herself wore a dress of prune-coloured silk, with coral beads\nand coral coloured stockings. But her dress was both shabby and soiled,\neven rather dirty.\n\n'You would like to see your rooms now, wouldn't you! Yes. We will go up\nnow, shall we?'\n\nUrsula was glad when she could be left alone in her room. Hermione\nlingered so long, made such a stress on one. She stood so near to one,\npressing herself near upon one, in a way that was most embarrassing and\noppressive. She seemed to hinder one's workings.\n\nLunch was served on the lawn, under the great tree, whose thick,\nblackish boughs came down close to the grass. There were present a\nyoung Italian woman, slight and fashionable, a young, athletic-looking\nMiss Bradley, a learned, dry Baronet of fifty, who was always making\nwitticisms and laughing at them heartily in a harsh, horse-laugh, there\nwas Rupert Birkin, and then a woman secretary, a Fraulein Marz, young\nand slim and pretty.\n\nThe food was very good, that was one thing. Gudrun, critical of\neverything, gave it her full approval. Ursula loved the situation, the\nwhite table by the cedar tree, the scent of new sunshine, the little\nvision of the leafy park, with far-off deer feeding peacefully. There\nseemed a magic circle drawn about the place, shutting out the present,\nenclosing the delightful, precious past, trees and deer and silence,\nlike a dream.\n\nBut in spirit she was unhappy. The talk went on like a rattle of small\nartillery, always slightly sententious, with a sententiousness that was\nonly emphasised by the continual crackling of a witticism, the\ncontinual spatter of verbal jest, designed to give a tone of flippancy\nto a stream of conversation that was all critical and general, a canal\nof conversation rather than a stream.\n\nThe attitude was mental and very wearying. Only the elderly\nsociologist, whose mental fibre was so tough as to be insentient,\nseemed to be thoroughly happy. Birkin was down in the mouth. Hermione\nappeared, with amazing persistence, to wish to ridicule him and make\nhim look ignominious in the eyes of everybody. And it was surprising\nhow she seemed to succeed, how helpless he seemed against her. He\nlooked completely insignificant. Ursula and Gudrun, both very unused,\nwere mostly silent, listening to the slow, rhapsodic sing-song of\nHermione, or the verbal sallies of Sir Joshua, or the prattle of\nFraulein, or the responses of the other two women.\n\nLuncheon was over, coffee was brought out on the grass, the party left\nthe table and sat about in lounge chairs, in the shade or in the\nsunshine as they wished. Fraulein departed into the house, Hermione\ntook up her embroidery, the little Contessa took a book, Miss Bradley\nwas weaving a basket out of fine grass, and there they all were on the\nlawn in the early summer afternoon, working leisurely and spattering\nwith half-intellectual, deliberate talk.\n\nSuddenly there was the sound of the brakes and the shutting off of a\nmotor-car.\n\n'There's Salsie!' sang Hermione, in her slow, amusing sing-song. And\nlaying down her work, she rose slowly, and slowly passed over the lawn,\nround the bushes, out of sight.\n\n'Who is it?' asked Gudrun.\n\n'Mr Roddice--Miss Roddice's brother--at least, I suppose it's he,' said\nSir Joshua.\n\n'Salsie, yes, it is her brother,' said the little Contessa, lifting her\nhead for a moment from her book, and speaking as if to give\ninformation, in her slightly deepened, guttural English.\n\nThey all waited. And then round the bushes came the tall form of\nAlexander Roddice, striding romantically like a Meredith hero who\nremembers Disraeli. He was cordial with everybody, he was at once a\nhost, with an easy, offhand hospitality that he had learned for\nHermione's friends. He had just come down from London, from the House.\nAt once the atmosphere of the House of Commons made itself felt over\nthe lawn: the Home Secretary had said such and such a thing, and he,\nRoddice, on the other hand, thought such and such a thing, and had said\nso-and-so to the PM.\n\nNow Hermione came round the bushes with Gerald Crich. He had come along\nwith Alexander. Gerald was presented to everybody, was kept by Hermione\nfor a few moments in full view, then he was led away, still by\nHermione. He was evidently her guest of the moment.\n\nThere had been a split in the Cabinet; the minister for Education had\nresigned owing to adverse criticism. This started a conversation on\neducation.\n\n'Of course,' said Hermione, lifting her face like a rhapsodist, 'there\nCAN be no reason, no EXCUSE for education, except the joy and beauty of\nknowledge in itself.' She seemed to rumble and ruminate with\nsubterranean thoughts for a minute, then she proceeded: 'Vocational\neducation ISN'T education, it is the close of education.'\n\nGerald, on the brink of discussion, sniffed the air with delight and\nprepared for action.\n\n'Not necessarily,' he said. 'But isn't education really like\ngymnastics, isn't the end of education the production of a\nwell-trained, vigorous, energetic mind?'\n\n'Just as athletics produce a healthy body, ready for anything,' cried\nMiss Bradley, in hearty accord.\n\nGudrun looked at her in silent loathing.\n\n'Well--' rumbled Hermione, 'I don't know. To me the pleasure of knowing\nis so great, so WONDERFUL--nothing has meant so much to me in all life,\nas certain knowledge--no, I am sure--nothing.'\n\n'What knowledge, for example, Hermione?' asked Alexander.\n\nHermione lifted her face and rumbled--\n\n'M--m--m--I don't know . . . But one thing was the stars, when I really\nunderstood something about the stars. One feels so UPLIFTED, so\nUNBOUNDED . . .'\n\nBirkin looked at her in a white fury.\n\n'What do you want to feel unbounded for?' he said sarcastically. 'You\ndon't want to BE unbounded.'\n\nHermione recoiled in offence.\n\n'Yes, but one does have that limitless feeling,' said Gerald. 'It's\nlike getting on top of the mountain and seeing the Pacific.'\n\n'Silent upon a peak in Dariayn,' murmured the Italian, lifting her face\nfor a moment from her book.\n\n'Not necessarily in Dariayn,' said Gerald, while Ursula began to laugh.\n\nHermione waited for the dust to settle, and then she said, untouched:\n\n'Yes, it is the greatest thing in life--to KNOW. It is really to be\nhappy, to be FREE.'\n\n'Knowledge is, of course, liberty,' said Mattheson.\n\n'In compressed tabloids,' said Birkin, looking at the dry, stiff little\nbody of the Baronet. Immediately Gudrun saw the famous sociologist as a\nflat bottle, containing tabloids of compressed liberty. That pleased\nher. Sir Joshua was labelled and placed forever in her mind.\n\n'What does that mean, Rupert?' sang Hermione, in a calm snub.\n\n'You can only have knowledge, strictly,' he replied, 'of things\nconcluded, in the past. It's like bottling the liberty of last summer\nin the bottled gooseberries.'\n\n'CAN one have knowledge only of the past?' asked the Baronet,\npointedly. 'Could we call our knowledge of the laws of gravitation for\ninstance, knowledge of the past?'\n\n'Yes,' said Birkin.\n\n'There is a most beautiful thing in my book,' suddenly piped the little\nItalian woman. 'It says the man came to the door and threw his eyes\ndown the street.'\n\nThere was a general laugh in the company. Miss Bradley went and looked\nover the shoulder of the Contessa.\n\n'See!' said the Contessa.\n\n'Bazarov came to the door and threw his eyes hurriedly down the\nstreet,' she read.\n\nAgain there was a loud laugh, the most startling of which was the\nBaronet's, which rattled out like a clatter of falling stones.\n\n'What is the book?' asked Alexander, promptly.\n\n'Fathers and Sons, by Turgenev,' said the little foreigner, pronouncing\nevery syllable distinctly. She looked at the cover, to verify herself.\n\n'An old American edition,' said Birkin.\n\n'Ha!--of course--translated from the French,' said Alexander, with a\nfine declamatory voice. 'Bazarov ouvra la porte et jeta les yeux dans\nla rue.'\n\nHe looked brightly round the company.\n\n'I wonder what the \"hurriedly\" was,' said Ursula.\n\nThey all began to guess.\n\nAnd then, to the amazement of everybody, the maid came hurrying with a\nlarge tea-tray. The afternoon had passed so swiftly.\n\nAfter tea, they were all gathered for a walk.\n\n'Would you like to come for a walk?' said Hermione to each of them, one\nby one. And they all said yes, feeling somehow like prisoners\nmarshalled for exercise. Birkin only refused.\n\n'Will you come for a walk, Rupert?'\n\n'No, Hermione.'\n\n'But are you SURE?'\n\n'Quite sure.' There was a second's hesitation.\n\n'And why not?' sang Hermione's question. It made her blood run sharp,\nto be thwarted in even so trifling a matter. She intended them all to\nwalk with her in the park.\n\n'Because I don't like trooping off in a gang,' he said.\n\nHer voice rumbled in her throat for a moment. Then she said, with a\ncurious stray calm:\n\n'Then we'll leave a little boy behind, if he's sulky.'\n\nAnd she looked really gay, while she insulted him. But it merely made\nhim stiff.\n\nShe trailed off to the rest of the company, only turning to wave her\nhandkerchief to him, and to chuckle with laughter, singing out:\n\n'Good-bye, good-bye, little boy.'\n\n'Good-bye, impudent hag,' he said to himself.\n\nThey all went through the park. Hermione wanted to show them the wild\ndaffodils on a little slope. 'This way, this way,' sang her leisurely\nvoice at intervals. And they had all to come this way. The daffodils\nwere pretty, but who could see them? Ursula was stiff all over with\nresentment by this time, resentment of the whole atmosphere. Gudrun,\nmocking and objective, watched and registered everything.\n\nThey looked at the shy deer, and Hermione talked to the stag, as if he\ntoo were a boy she wanted to wheedle and fondle. He was male, so she\nmust exert some kind of power over him. They trailed home by the\nfish-ponds, and Hermione told them about the quarrel of two male swans,\nwho had striven for the love of the one lady. She chuckled and laughed\nas she told how the ousted lover had sat with his head buried under his\nwing, on the gravel.\n\nWhen they arrived back at the house, Hermione stood on the lawn and\nsang out, in a strange, small, high voice that carried very far:\n\n'Rupert! Rupert!' The first syllable was high and slow, the second\ndropped down. 'Roo-o-opert.'\n\nBut there was no answer. A maid appeared.\n\n'Where is Mr Birkin, Alice?' asked the mild straying voice of Hermione.\nBut under the straying voice, what a persistent, almost insane WILL!\n\n'I think he's in his room, madam.'\n\n'Is he?'\n\nHermione went slowly up the stairs, along the corridor, singing out in\nher high, small call:\n\n'Ru-oo-pert! Ru-oo pert!'\n\nShe came to his door, and tapped, still crying: 'Roo-pert.'\n\n'Yes,' sounded his voice at last.\n\n'What are you doing?'\n\nThe question was mild and curious.\n\nThere was no answer. Then he opened the door.\n\n'We've come back,' said Hermione. 'The daffodils are SO beautiful.'\n\n'Yes,' he said, 'I've seen them.'\n\nShe looked at him with her long, slow, impassive look, along her\ncheeks.\n\n'Have you?' she echoed. And she remained looking at him. She was\nstimulated above all things by this conflict with him, when he was like\na sulky boy, helpless, and she had him safe at Breadalby. But\nunderneath she knew the split was coming, and her hatred of him was\nsubconscious and intense.\n\n'What were you doing?' she reiterated, in her mild, indifferent tone.\nHe did not answer, and she made her way, almost unconsciously into his\nroom. He had taken a Chinese drawing of geese from the boudoir, and was\ncopying it, with much skill and vividness.\n\n'You are copying the drawing,' she said, standing near the table, and\nlooking down at his work. 'Yes. How beautifully you do it! You like it\nvery much, don't you?'\n\n'It's a marvellous drawing,' he said.\n\n'Is it? I'm so glad you like it, because I've always been fond of it.\nThe Chinese Ambassador gave it me.'\n\n'I know,' he said.\n\n'But why do you copy it?' she asked, casual and sing-song. 'Why not do\nsomething original?'\n\n'I want to know it,' he replied. 'One gets more of China, copying this\npicture, than reading all the books.'\n\n'And what do you get?'\n\nShe was at once roused, she laid as it were violent hands on him, to\nextract his secrets from him. She MUST know. It was a dreadful tyranny,\nan obsession in her, to know all he knew. For some time he was silent,\nhating to answer her. Then, compelled, he began:\n\n'I know what centres they live from--what they perceive and feel--the\nhot, stinging centrality of a goose in the flux of cold water and\nmud--the curious bitter stinging heat of a goose's blood, entering\ntheir own blood like an inoculation of corruptive fire--fire of the\ncold-burning mud--the lotus mystery.'\n\nHermione looked at him along her narrow, pallid cheeks. Her eyes were\nstrange and drugged, heavy under their heavy, drooping lids. Her thin\nbosom shrugged convulsively. He stared back at her, devilish and\nunchanging. With another strange, sick convulsion, she turned away, as\nif she were sick, could feel dissolution setting-in in her body. For\nwith her mind she was unable to attend to his words, he caught her, as\nit were, beneath all her defences, and destroyed her with some\ninsidious occult potency.\n\n'Yes,' she said, as if she did not know what she were saying. 'Yes,'\nand she swallowed, and tried to regain her mind. But she could not, she\nwas witless, decentralised. Use all her will as she might, she could\nnot recover. She suffered the ghastliness of dissolution, broken and\ngone in a horrible corruption. And he stood and looked at her unmoved.\nShe strayed out, pallid and preyed-upon like a ghost, like one attacked\nby the tomb-influences which dog us. And she was gone like a corpse,\nthat has no presence, no connection. He remained hard and vindictive.\n\nHermione came down to dinner strange and sepulchral, her eyes heavy and\nfull of sepulchral darkness, strength. She had put on a dress of stiff\nold greenish brocade, that fitted tight and made her look tall and\nrather terrible, ghastly. In the gay light of the drawing-room she was\nuncanny and oppressive. But seated in the half-light of the diningroom,\nsitting stiffly before the shaded candles on the table, she seemed a\npower, a presence. She listened and attended with a drugged attention.\n\nThe party was gay and extravagant in appearance, everybody had put on\nevening dress except Birkin and Joshua Mattheson. The little Italian\nContessa wore a dress of tissue, of orange and gold and black velvet in\nsoft wide stripes, Gudrun was emerald green with strange net-work,\nUrsula was in yellow with dull silver veiling, Miss Bradley was of\ngrey, crimson and jet, Fraulein Marz wore pale blue. It gave Hermione a\nsudden convulsive sensation of pleasure, to see these rich colours\nunder the candle-light. She was aware of the talk going on,\nceaselessly, Joshua's voice dominating; of the ceaseless pitter-patter\nof women's light laughter and responses; of the brilliant colours and\nthe white table and the shadow above and below; and she seemed in a\nswoon of gratification, convulsed with pleasure and yet sick, like a\nREVENANT. She took very little part in the conversation, yet she heard\nit all, it was all hers.\n\nThey all went together into the drawing-room, as if they were one\nfamily, easily, without any attention to ceremony. Fraulein handed the\ncoffee, everybody smoked cigarettes, or else long warden pipes of white\nclay, of which a sheaf was provided.\n\n'Will you smoke?--cigarettes or pipe?' asked Fraulein prettily. There\nwas a circle of people, Sir Joshua with his eighteenth-century\nappearance, Gerald the amused, handsome young Englishman, Alexander\ntall and the handsome politician, democratic and lucid, Hermione\nstrange like a long Cassandra, and the women lurid with colour, all\ndutifully smoking their long white pipes, and sitting in a half-moon in\nthe comfortable, soft-lighted drawing-room, round the logs that\nflickered on the marble hearth.\n\nThe talk was very often political or sociological, and interesting,\ncuriously anarchistic. There was an accumulation of powerful force in\nthe room, powerful and destructive. Everything seemed to be thrown into\nthe melting pot, and it seemed to Ursula they were all witches, helping\nthe pot to bubble. There was an elation and a satisfaction in it all,\nbut it was cruelly exhausting for the new-comers, this ruthless mental\npressure, this powerful, consuming, destructive mentality that emanated\nfrom Joshua and Hermione and Birkin and dominated the rest.\n\nBut a sickness, a fearful nausea gathered possession of Hermione. There\nwas a lull in the talk, as it was arrested by her unconscious but\nall-powerful will.\n\n'Salsie, won't you play something?' said Hermione, breaking off\ncompletely. 'Won't somebody dance? Gudrun, you will dance, won't you? I\nwish you would. Anche tu, Palestra, ballerai?--si, per piacere. You\ntoo, Ursula.'\n\nHermione rose and slowly pulled the gold-embroidered band that hung by\nthe mantel, clinging to it for a moment, then releasing it suddenly.\nLike a priestess she looked, unconscious, sunk in a heavy half-trance.\n\nA servant came, and soon reappeared with armfuls of silk robes and\nshawls and scarves, mostly oriental, things that Hermione, with her\nlove for beautiful extravagant dress, had collected gradually.\n\n'The three women will dance together,' she said.\n\n'What shall it be?' asked Alexander, rising briskly.\n\n'Vergini Delle Rocchette,' said the Contessa at once.\n\n'They are so languid,' said Ursula.\n\n'The three witches from Macbeth,' suggested Fraulein usefully. It was\nfinally decided to do Naomi and Ruth and Orpah. Ursula was Naomi,\nGudrun was Ruth, the Contessa was Orpah. The idea was to make a little\nballet, in the style of the Russian Ballet of Pavlova and Nijinsky.\n\nThe Contessa was ready first, Alexander went to the piano, a space was\ncleared. Orpah, in beautiful oriental clothes, began slowly to dance\nthe death of her husband. Then Ruth came, and they wept together, and\nlamented, then Naomi came to comfort them. It was all done in dumb\nshow, the women danced their emotion in gesture and motion. The little\ndrama went on for a quarter of an hour.\n\nUrsula was beautiful as Naomi. All her men were dead, it remained to\nher only to stand alone in indomitable assertion, demanding nothing.\nRuth, woman-loving, loved her. Orpah, a vivid, sensational, subtle\nwidow, would go back to the former life, a repetition. The interplay\nbetween the women was real and rather frightening. It was strange to\nsee how Gudrun clung with heavy, desperate passion to Ursula, yet\nsmiled with subtle malevolence against her, how Ursula accepted\nsilently, unable to provide any more either for herself or for the\nother, but dangerous and indomitable, refuting her grief.\n\nHermione loved to watch. She could see the Contessa's rapid, stoat-like\nsensationalism, Gudrun's ultimate but treacherous cleaving to the woman\nin her sister, Ursula's dangerous helplessness, as if she were\nhelplessly weighted, and unreleased.\n\n'That was very beautiful,' everybody cried with one accord. But\nHermione writhed in her soul, knowing what she could not know. She\ncried out for more dancing, and it was her will that set the Contessa\nand Birkin moving mockingly in Malbrouk.\n\nGerald was excited by the desperate cleaving of Gudrun to Naomi. The\nessence of that female, subterranean recklessness and mockery\npenetrated his blood. He could not forget Gudrun's lifted, offered,\ncleaving, reckless, yet withal mocking weight. And Birkin, watching\nlike a hermit crab from its hole, had seen the brilliant frustration\nand helplessness of Ursula. She was rich, full of dangerous power. She\nwas like a strange unconscious bud of powerful womanhood. He was\nunconsciously drawn to her. She was his future.\n\nAlexander played some Hungarian music, and they all danced, seized by\nthe spirit. Gerald was marvellously exhilarated at finding himself in\nmotion, moving towards Gudrun, dancing with feet that could not yet\nescape from the waltz and the two-step, but feeling his force stir\nalong his limbs and his body, out of captivity. He did not know yet how\nto dance their convulsive, rag-time sort of dancing, but he knew how to\nbegin. Birkin, when he could get free from the weight of the people\npresent, whom he disliked, danced rapidly and with a real gaiety. And\nhow Hermione hated him for this irresponsible gaiety.\n\n'Now I see,' cried the Contessa excitedly, watching his purely gay\nmotion, which he had all to himself. 'Mr Birkin, he is a changer.'\n\nHermione looked at her slowly, and shuddered, knowing that only a\nforeigner could have seen and have said this.\n\n'Cosa vuol'dire, Palestra?' she asked, sing-song.\n\n'Look,' said the Contessa, in Italian. 'He is not a man, he is a\nchameleon, a creature of change.'\n\n'He is not a man, he is treacherous, not one of us,' said itself over\nin Hermione's consciousness. And her soul writhed in the black\nsubjugation to him, because of his power to escape, to exist, other\nthan she did, because he was not consistent, not a man, less than a\nman. She hated him in a despair that shattered her and broke her down,\nso that she suffered sheer dissolution like a corpse, and was\nunconscious of everything save the horrible sickness of dissolution\nthat was taking place within her, body and soul.\n\nThe house being full, Gerald was given the smaller room, really the\ndressing-room, communicating with Birkin's bedroom. When they all took\ntheir candles and mounted the stairs, where the lamps were burning\nsubduedly, Hermione captured Ursula and brought her into her own\nbedroom, to talk to her. A sort of constraint came over Ursula in the\nbig, strange bedroom. Hermione seemed to be bearing down on her, awful\nand inchoate, making some appeal. They were looking at some Indian silk\nshirts, gorgeous and sensual in themselves, their shape, their almost\ncorrupt gorgeousness. And Hermione came near, and her bosom writhed,\nand Ursula was for a moment blank with panic. And for a moment\nHermione's haggard eyes saw the fear on the face of the other, there\nwas again a sort of crash, a crashing down. And Ursula picked up a\nshirt of rich red and blue silk, made for a young princess of fourteen,\nand was crying mechanically:\n\n'Isn't it wonderful--who would dare to put those two strong colours\ntogether--'\n\nThen Hermione's maid entered silently and Ursula, overcome with dread,\nescaped, carried away by powerful impulse.\n\nBirkin went straight to bed. He was feeling happy, and sleepy. Since he\nhad danced he was happy. But Gerald would talk to him. Gerald, in\nevening dress, sat on Birkin's bed when the other lay down, and must\ntalk.\n\n'Who are those two Brangwens?' Gerald asked.\n\n'They live in Beldover.'\n\n'In Beldover! Who are they then?'\n\n'Teachers in the Grammar School.'\n\nThere was a pause.\n\n'They are!' exclaimed Gerald at length. 'I thought I had seen them\nbefore.'\n\n'It disappoints you?' said Birkin.\n\n'Disappoints me! No--but how is it Hermione has them here?'\n\n'She knew Gudrun in London--that's the younger one, the one with the\ndarker hair--she's an artist--does sculpture and modelling.'\n\n'She's not a teacher in the Grammar School, then--only the other?'\n\n'Both--Gudrun art mistress, Ursula a class mistress.'\n\n'And what's the father?'\n\n'Handicraft instructor in the schools.'\n\n'Really!'\n\n'Class-barriers are breaking down!'\n\nGerald was always uneasy under the slightly jeering tone of the other.\n\n'That their father is handicraft instructor in a school! What does it\nmatter to me?'\n\nBirkin laughed. Gerald looked at his face, as it lay there laughing and\nbitter and indifferent on the pillow, and he could not go away.\n\n'I don't suppose you will see very much more of Gudrun, at least. She\nis a restless bird, she'll be gone in a week or two,' said Birkin.\n\n'Where will she go?'\n\n'London, Paris, Rome--heaven knows. I always expect her to sheer off to\nDamascus or San Francisco; she's a bird of paradise. God knows what\nshe's got to do with Beldover. It goes by contraries, like dreams.'\n\nGerald pondered for a few moments.\n\n'How do you know her so well?' he asked.\n\n'I knew her in London,' he replied, 'in the Algernon Strange set.\nShe'll know about Pussum and Libidnikov and the rest--even if she\ndoesn't know them personally. She was never quite that set--more\nconventional, in a way. I've known her for two years, I suppose.'\n\n'And she makes money, apart from her teaching?' asked Gerald.\n\n'Some--irregularly. She can sell her models. She has a certain\nreclame.'\n\n'How much for?'\n\n'A guinea, ten guineas.'\n\n'And are they good? What are they?'\n\n'I think sometimes they are marvellously good. That is hers, those two\nwagtails in Hermione's boudoir--you've seen them--they are carved in\nwood and painted.'\n\n'I thought it was savage carving again.'\n\n'No, hers. That's what they are--animals and birds, sometimes odd small\npeople in everyday dress, really rather wonderful when they come off.\nThey have a sort of funniness that is quite unconscious and subtle.'\n\n'She might be a well-known artist one day?' mused Gerald.\n\n'She might. But I think she won't. She drops her art if anything else\ncatches her. Her contrariness prevents her taking it seriously--she\nmust never be too serious, she feels she might give herself away. And\nshe won't give herself away--she's always on the defensive. That's what\nI can't stand about her type. By the way, how did things go off with\nPussum after I left you? I haven't heard anything.'\n\n'Oh, rather disgusting. Halliday turned objectionable, and I only just\nsaved myself from jumping in his stomach, in a real old-fashioned row.'\n\nBirkin was silent.\n\n'Of course,' he said, 'Julius is somewhat insane. On the one hand he's\nhad religious mania, and on the other, he is fascinated by obscenity.\nEither he is a pure servant, washing the feet of Christ, or else he is\nmaking obscene drawings of Jesus--action and reaction--and between the\ntwo, nothing. He is really insane. He wants a pure lily, another girl,\nwith a baby face, on the one hand, and on the other, he MUST have the\nPussum, just to defile himself with her.'\n\n'That's what I can't make out,' said Gerald. 'Does he love her, the\nPussum, or doesn't he?'\n\n'He neither does nor doesn't. She is the harlot, the actual harlot of\nadultery to him. And he's got a craving to throw himself into the filth\nof her. Then he gets up and calls on the name of the lily of purity,\nthe baby-faced girl, and so enjoys himself all round. It's the old\nstory--action and reaction, and nothing between.'\n\n'I don't know,' said Gerald, after a pause, 'that he does insult the\nPussum so very much. She strikes me as being rather foul.'\n\n'But I thought you liked her,' exclaimed Birkin. 'I always felt fond of\nher. I never had anything to do with her, personally, that's true.'\n\n'I liked her all right, for a couple of days,' said Gerald. 'But a week\nof her would have turned me over. There's a certain smell about the\nskin of those women, that in the end is sickening beyond words--even if\nyou like it at first.'\n\n'I know,' said Birkin. Then he added, rather fretfully, 'But go to bed,\nGerald. God knows what time it is.'\n\nGerald looked at his watch, and at length rose off the bed, and went to\nhis room. But he returned in a few minutes, in his shirt.\n\n'One thing,' he said, seating himself on the bed again. 'We finished up\nrather stormily, and I never had time to give her anything.'\n\n'Money?' said Birkin. 'She'll get what she wants from Halliday or from\none of her acquaintances.'\n\n'But then,' said Gerald, 'I'd rather give her her dues and settle the\naccount.'\n\n'She doesn't care.'\n\n'No, perhaps not. But one feels the account is left open, and one would\nrather it were closed.'\n\n'Would you?' said Birkin. He was looking at the white legs of Gerald,\nas the latter sat on the side of the bed in his shirt. They were\nwhite-skinned, full, muscular legs, handsome and decided. Yet they\nmoved Birkin with a sort of pathos, tenderness, as if they were\nchildish.\n\n'I think I'd rather close the account,' said Gerald, repeating himself\nvaguely.\n\n'It doesn't matter one way or another,' said Birkin.\n\n'You always say it doesn't matter,' said Gerald, a little puzzled,\nlooking down at the face of the other man affectionately.\n\n'Neither does it,' said Birkin.\n\n'But she was a decent sort, really--'\n\n'Render unto Caesarina the things that are Caesarina's,' said Birkin,\nturning aside. It seemed to him Gerald was talking for the sake of\ntalking. 'Go away, it wearies me--it's too late at night,' he said.\n\n'I wish you'd tell me something that DID matter,' said Gerald, looking\ndown all the time at the face of the other man, waiting for something.\nBut Birkin turned his face aside.\n\n'All right then, go to sleep,' said Gerald, and he laid his hand\naffectionately on the other man's shoulder, and went away.\n\nIn the morning when Gerald awoke and heard Birkin move, he called out:\n'I still think I ought to give the Pussum ten pounds.'\n\n'Oh God!' said Birkin, 'don't be so matter-of-fact. Close the account\nin your own soul, if you like. It is there you can't close it.'\n\n'How do you know I can't?'\n\n'Knowing you.'\n\nGerald meditated for some moments.\n\n'It seems to me the right thing to do, you know, with the Pussums, is\nto pay them.'\n\n'And the right thing for mistresses: keep them. And the right thing for\nwives: live under the same roof with them. Integer vitae scelerisque\npurus--' said Birkin.\n\n'There's no need to be nasty about it,' said Gerald.\n\n'It bores me. I'm not interested in your peccadilloes.'\n\n'And I don't care whether you are or not--I am.'\n\nThe morning was again sunny. The maid had been in and brought the\nwater, and had drawn the curtains. Birkin, sitting up in bed, looked\nlazily and pleasantly out on the park, that was so green and deserted,\nromantic, belonging to the past. He was thinking how lovely, how sure,\nhow formed, how final all the things of the past were--the lovely\naccomplished past--this house, so still and golden, the park slumbering\nits centuries of peace. And then, what a snare and a delusion, this\nbeauty of static things--what a horrible, dead prison Breadalby really\nwas, what an intolerable confinement, the peace! Yet it was better than\nthe sordid scrambling conflict of the present. If only one might create\nthe future after one's own heart--for a little pure truth, a little\nunflinching application of simple truth to life, the heart cried out\nceaselessly.\n\n'I can't see what you will leave me at all, to be interested in,' came\nGerald's voice from the lower room. 'Neither the Pussums, nor the\nmines, nor anything else.'\n\n'You be interested in what you can, Gerald. Only I'm not interested\nmyself,' said Birkin.\n\n'What am I to do at all, then?' came Gerald's voice.\n\n'What you like. What am I to do myself?'\n\nIn the silence Birkin could feel Gerald musing this fact.\n\n'I'm blest if I know,' came the good-humoured answer.\n\n'You see,' said Birkin, 'part of you wants the Pussum, and nothing but\nthe Pussum, part of you wants the mines, the business, and nothing but\nthe business--and there you are--all in bits--'\n\n'And part of me wants something else,' said Gerald, in a queer, quiet,\nreal voice.\n\n'What?' said Birkin, rather surprised.\n\n'That's what I hoped you could tell me,' said Gerald.\n\nThere was a silence for some time.\n\n'I can't tell you--I can't find my own way, let alone yours. You might\nmarry,' Birkin replied.\n\n'Who--the Pussum?' asked Gerald.\n\n'Perhaps,' said Birkin. And he rose and went to the window.\n\n'That is your panacea,' said Gerald. 'But you haven't even tried it on\nyourself yet, and you are sick enough.'\n\n'I am,' said Birkin. 'Still, I shall come right.'\n\n'Through marriage?'\n\n'Yes,' Birkin answered obstinately.\n\n'And no,' added Gerald. 'No, no, no, my boy.'\n\nThere was a silence between them, and a strange tension of hostility.\nThey always kept a gap, a distance between them, they wanted always to\nbe free each of the other. Yet there was a curious heart-straining\ntowards each other.\n\n'Salvator femininus,' said Gerald, satirically.\n\n'Why not?' said Birkin.\n\n'No reason at all,' said Gerald, 'if it really works. But whom will you\nmarry?'\n\n'A woman,' said Birkin.\n\n'Good,' said Gerald.\n\nBirkin and Gerald were the last to come down to breakfast. Hermione\nliked everybody to be early. She suffered when she felt her day was\ndiminished, she felt she had missed her life. She seemed to grip the\nhours by the throat, to force her life from them. She was rather pale\nand ghastly, as if left behind, in the morning. Yet she had her power,\nher will was strangely pervasive. With the entrance of the two young\nmen a sudden tension was felt.\n\nShe lifted her face, and said, in her amused sing-song:\n\n'Good morning! Did you sleep well? I'm so glad.'\n\nAnd she turned away, ignoring them. Birkin, who knew her well, saw that\nshe intended to discount his existence.\n\n'Will you take what you want from the sideboard?' said Alexander, in a\nvoice slightly suggesting disapprobation. 'I hope the things aren't\ncold. Oh no! Do you mind putting out the flame under the chafingdish,\nRupert? Thank you.'\n\nEven Alexander was rather authoritative where Hermione was cool. He\ntook his tone from her, inevitably. Birkin sat down and looked at the\ntable. He was so used to this house, to this room, to this atmosphere,\nthrough years of intimacy, and now he felt in complete opposition to it\nall, it had nothing to do with him. How well he knew Hermione, as she\nsat there, erect and silent and somewhat bemused, and yet so potent, so\npowerful! He knew her statically, so finally, that it was almost like a\nmadness. It was difficult to believe one was not mad, that one was not\na figure in the hall of kings in some Egyptian tomb, where the dead all\nsat immemorial and tremendous. How utterly he knew Joshua Mattheson,\nwho was talking in his harsh, yet rather mincing voice, endlessly,\nendlessly, always with a strong mentality working, always interesting,\nand yet always known, everything he said known beforehand, however\nnovel it was, and clever. Alexander the up-to-date host, so bloodlessly\nfree-and-easy, Fraulein so prettily chiming in just as she should, the\nlittle Italian Countess taking notice of everybody, only playing her\nlittle game, objective and cold, like a weasel watching everything, and\nextracting her own amusement, never giving herself in the slightest;\nthen Miss Bradley, heavy and rather subservient, treated with cool,\nalmost amused contempt by Hermione, and therefore slighted by\neverybody--how known it all was, like a game with the figures set out,\nthe same figures, the Queen of chess, the knights, the pawns, the same\nnow as they were hundreds of years ago, the same figures moving round\nin one of the innumerable permutations that make up the game. But the\ngame is known, its going on is like a madness, it is so exhausted.\n\nThere was Gerald, an amused look on his face; the game pleased him.\nThere was Gudrun, watching with steady, large, hostile eyes; the game\nfascinated her, and she loathed it. There was Ursula, with a slightly\nstartled look on her face, as if she were hurt, and the pain were just\noutside her consciousness.\n\nSuddenly Birkin got up and went out.\n\n'That's enough,' he said to himself involuntarily.\n\nHermione knew his motion, though not in her consciousness. She lifted\nher heavy eyes and saw him lapse suddenly away, on a sudden, unknown\ntide, and the waves broke over her. Only her indomitable will remained\nstatic and mechanical, she sat at the table making her musing, stray\nremarks. But the darkness had covered her, she was like a ship that has\ngone down. It was finished for her too, she was wrecked in the\ndarkness. Yet the unfailing mechanism of her will worked on, she had\nthat activity.\n\n'Shall we bathe this morning?' she said, suddenly looking at them all.\n\n'Splendid,' said Joshua. 'It is a perfect morning.'\n\n'Oh, it is beautiful,' said Fraulein.\n\n'Yes, let us bathe,' said the Italian woman.\n\n'We have no bathing suits,' said Gerald.\n\n'Have mine,' said Alexander. 'I must go to church and read the lessons.\nThey expect me.'\n\n'Are you a Christian?' asked the Italian Countess, with sudden\ninterest.\n\n'No,' said Alexander. 'I'm not. But I believe in keeping up the old\ninstitutions.'\n\n'They are so beautiful,' said Fraulein daintily.\n\n'Oh, they are,' cried Miss Bradley.\n\nThey all trailed out on to the lawn. It was a sunny, soft morning in\nearly summer, when life ran in the world subtly, like a reminiscence.\nThe church bells were ringing a little way off, not a cloud was in the\nsky, the swans were like lilies on the water below, the peacocks walked\nwith long, prancing steps across the shadow and into the sunshine of\nthe grass. One wanted to swoon into the by-gone perfection of it all.\n\n'Good-bye,' called Alexander, waving his gloves cheerily, and he\ndisappeared behind the bushes, on his way to church.\n\n'Now,' said Hermione, 'shall we all bathe?'\n\n'I won't,' said Ursula.\n\n'You don't want to?' said Hermione, looking at her slowly.\n\n'No. I don't want to,' said Ursula.\n\n'Nor I,' said Gudrun.\n\n'What about my suit?' asked Gerald.\n\n'I don't know,' laughed Hermione, with an odd, amused intonation. 'Will\na handkerchief do--a large handkerchief?'\n\n'That will do,' said Gerald.\n\n'Come along then,' sang Hermione.\n\nThe first to run across the lawn was the little Italian, small and like\na cat, her white legs twinkling as she went, ducking slightly her head,\nthat was tied in a gold silk kerchief. She tripped through the gate and\ndown the grass, and stood, like a tiny figure of ivory and bronze, at\nthe water's edge, having dropped off her towelling, watching the swans,\nwhich came up in surprise. Then out ran Miss Bradley, like a large,\nsoft plum in her dark-blue suit. Then Gerald came, a scarlet silk\nkerchief round his loins, his towels over his arms. He seemed to flaunt\nhimself a little in the sun, lingering and laughing, strolling easily,\nlooking white but natural in his nakedness. Then came Sir Joshua, in an\novercoat, and lastly Hermione, striding with stiff grace from out of a\ngreat mantle of purple silk, her head tied up in purple and gold.\nHandsome was her stiff, long body, her straight-stepping white legs,\nthere was a static magnificence about her as she let the cloak float\nloosely away from her striding. She crossed the lawn like some strange\nmemory, and passed slowly and statelily towards the water.\n\nThere were three ponds, in terraces descending the valley, large and\nsmooth and beautiful, lying in the sun. The water ran over a little\nstone wall, over small rocks, splashing down from one pond to the level\nbelow. The swans had gone out on to the opposite bank, the reeds\nsmelled sweet, a faint breeze touched the skin.\n\nGerald had dived in, after Sir Joshua, and had swum to the end of the\npond. There he climbed out and sat on the wall. There was a dive, and\nthe little Countess was swimming like a rat, to join him. They both sat\nin the sun, laughing and crossing their arms on their breasts. Sir\nJoshua swam up to them, and stood near them, up to his arm-pits in the\nwater. Then Hermione and Miss Bradley swam over, and they sat in a row\non the embankment.\n\n'Aren't they terrifying? Aren't they really terrifying?' said Gudrun.\n'Don't they look saurian? They are just like great lizards. Did you\never see anything like Sir Joshua? But really, Ursula, he belongs to\nthe primeval world, when great lizards crawled about.'\n\nGudrun looked in dismay on Sir Joshua, who stood up to the breast in\nthe water, his long, greyish hair washed down into his eyes, his neck\nset into thick, crude shoulders. He was talking to Miss Bradley, who,\nseated on the bank above, plump and big and wet, looked as if she might\nroll and slither in the water almost like one of the slithering\nsealions in the Zoo.\n\nUrsula watched in silence. Gerald was laughing happily, between\nHermione and the Italian. He reminded her of Dionysos, because his hair\nwas really yellow, his figure so full and laughing. Hermione, in her\nlarge, stiff, sinister grace, leaned near him, frightening, as if she\nwere not responsible for what she might do. He knew a certain danger in\nher, a convulsive madness. But he only laughed the more, turning often\nto the little Countess, who was flashing up her face at him.\n\nThey all dropped into the water, and were swimming together like a\nshoal of seals. Hermione was powerful and unconscious in the water,\nlarge and slow and powerful. Palestra was quick and silent as a water\nrat, Gerald wavered and flickered, a white natural shadow. Then, one\nafter the other, they waded out, and went up to the house.\n\nBut Gerald lingered a moment to speak to Gudrun.\n\n'You don't like the water?' he said.\n\nShe looked at him with a long, slow inscrutable look, as he stood\nbefore her negligently, the water standing in beads all over his skin.\n\n'I like it very much,' she replied.\n\nHe paused, expecting some sort of explanation.\n\n'And you swim?'\n\n'Yes, I swim.'\n\nStill he would not ask her why she would not go in then. He could feel\nsomething ironic in her. He walked away, piqued for the first time.\n\n'Why wouldn't you bathe?' he asked her again, later, when he was once\nmore the properly-dressed young Englishman.\n\nShe hesitated a moment before answering, opposing his persistence.\n\n'Because I didn't like the crowd,' she replied.\n\nHe laughed, her phrase seemed to re-echo in his consciousness. The\nflavour of her slang was piquant to him. Whether he would or not, she\nsignified the real world to him. He wanted to come up to her standards,\nfulfil her expectations. He knew that her criterion was the only one\nthat mattered. The others were all outsiders, instinctively, whatever\nthey might be socially. And Gerald could not help it, he was bound to\nstrive to come up to her criterion, fulfil her idea of a man and a\nhuman-being.\n\nAfter lunch, when all the others had withdrawn, Hermione and Gerald and\nBirkin lingered, finishing their talk. There had been some discussion,\non the whole quite intellectual and artificial, about a new state, a\nnew world of man. Supposing this old social state WERE broken and\ndestroyed, then, out of the chaos, what then?\n\nThe great social idea, said Sir Joshua, was the SOCIAL equality of man.\nNo, said Gerald, the idea was, that every man was fit for his own\nlittle bit of a task--let him do that, and then please himself. The\nunifying principle was the work in hand. Only work, the business of\nproduction, held men together. It was mechanical, but then society WAS\na mechanism. Apart from work they were isolated, free to do as they\nliked.\n\n'Oh!' cried Gudrun. 'Then we shan't have names any more--we shall be\nlike the Germans, nothing but Herr Obermeister and Herr Untermeister. I\ncan imagine it--\"I am Mrs Colliery-Manager Crich--I am Mrs\nMember-of-Parliament Roddice. I am Miss Art-Teacher Brangwen.\" Very\npretty that.'\n\n'Things would work very much better, Miss Art-Teacher Brangwen,' said\nGerald.\n\n'What things, Mr Colliery-Manager Crich? The relation between you and\nme, PAR EXEMPLE?'\n\n'Yes, for example,' cried the Italian. 'That which is between men and\nwomen--!'\n\n'That is non-social,' said Birkin, sarcastically.\n\n'Exactly,' said Gerald. 'Between me and a woman, the social question\ndoes not enter. It is my own affair.'\n\n'A ten-pound note on it,' said Birkin.\n\n'You don't admit that a woman is a social being?' asked Ursula of\nGerald.\n\n'She is both,' said Gerald. 'She is a social being, as far as society\nis concerned. But for her own private self, she is a free agent, it is\nher own affair, what she does.'\n\n'But won't it be rather difficult to arrange the two halves?' asked\nUrsula.\n\n'Oh no,' replied Gerald. 'They arrange themselves naturally--we see it\nnow, everywhere.'\n\n'Don't you laugh so pleasantly till you're out of the wood,' said\nBirkin.\n\nGerald knitted his brows in momentary irritation.\n\n'Was I laughing?' he said.\n\n'IF,' said Hermione at last, 'we could only realise, that in the SPIRIT\nwe are all one, all equal in the spirit, all brothers there--the rest\nwouldn't matter, there would be no more of this carping and envy and\nthis struggle for power, which destroys, only destroys.'\n\nThis speech was received in silence, and almost immediately the party\nrose from the table. But when the others had gone, Birkin turned round\nin bitter declamation, saying:\n\n'It is just the opposite, just the contrary, Hermione. We are all\ndifferent and unequal in spirit--it is only the SOCIAL differences that\nare based on accidental material conditions. We are all abstractly or\nmathematically equal, if you like. Every man has hunger and thirst, two\neyes, one nose and two legs. We're all the same in point of number. But\nspiritually, there is pure difference and neither equality nor\ninequality counts. It is upon these two bits of knowledge that you must\nfound a state. Your democracy is an absolute lie--your brotherhood of\nman is a pure falsity, if you apply it further than the mathematical\nabstraction. We all drank milk first, we all eat bread and meat, we all\nwant to ride in motor-cars--therein lies the beginning and the end of\nthe brotherhood of man. But no equality.\n\n'But I, myself, who am myself, what have I to do with equality with any\nother man or woman? In the spirit, I am as separate as one star is from\nanother, as different in quality and quantity. Establish a state on\nTHAT. One man isn't any better than another, not because they are\nequal, but because they are intrinsically OTHER, that there is no term\nof comparison. The minute you begin to compare, one man is seen to be\nfar better than another, all the inequality you can imagine is there by\nnature. I want every man to have his share in the world's goods, so\nthat I am rid of his importunity, so that I can tell him: \"Now you've\ngot what you want--you've got your fair share of the world's gear. Now,\nyou one-mouthed fool, mind yourself and don't obstruct me.\"'\n\nHermione was looking at him with leering eyes, along her cheeks. He\ncould feel violent waves of hatred and loathing of all he said, coming\nout of her. It was dynamic hatred and loathing, coming strong and black\nout of the unconsciousness. She heard his words in her unconscious\nself, CONSCIOUSLY she was as if deafened, she paid no heed to them.\n\n'It SOUNDS like megalomania, Rupert,' said Gerald, genially.\n\nHermione gave a queer, grunting sound. Birkin stood back.\n\n'Yes, let it,' he said suddenly, the whole tone gone out of his voice,\nthat had been so insistent, bearing everybody down. And he went away.\n\nBut he felt, later, a little compunction. He had been violent, cruel\nwith poor Hermione. He wanted to recompense her, to make it up. He had\nhurt her, he had been vindictive. He wanted to be on good terms with\nher again.\n\nHe went into her boudoir, a remote and very cushiony place. She was\nsitting at her table writing letters. She lifted her face abstractedly\nwhen he entered, watched him go to the sofa, and sit down. Then she\nlooked down at her paper again.\n\nHe took up a large volume which he had been reading before, and became\nminutely attentive to his author. His back was towards Hermione. She\ncould not go on with her writing. Her whole mind was a chaos, darkness\nbreaking in upon it, and herself struggling to gain control with her\nwill, as a swimmer struggles with the swirling water. But in spite of\nher efforts she was borne down, darkness seemed to break over her, she\nfelt as if her heart was bursting. The terrible tension grew stronger\nand stronger, it was most fearful agony, like being walled up.\n\nAnd then she realised that his presence was the wall, his presence was\ndestroying her. Unless she could break out, she must die most\nfearfully, walled up in horror. And he was the wall. She must break\ndown the wall--she must break him down before her, the awful\nobstruction of him who obstructed her life to the last. It must be\ndone, or she must perish most horribly.\n\nTerribly shocks ran over her body, like shocks of electricity, as if\nmany volts of electricity suddenly struck her down. She was aware of\nhim sitting silently there, an unthinkable evil obstruction. Only this\nblotted out her mind, pressed out her very breathing, his silent,\nstooping back, the back of his head.\n\nA terrible voluptuous thrill ran down her arms--she was going to know\nher voluptuous consummation. Her arms quivered and were strong,\nimmeasurably and irresistibly strong. What delight, what delight in\nstrength, what delirium of pleasure! She was going to have her\nconsummation of voluptuous ecstasy at last. It was coming! In utmost\nterror and agony, she knew it was upon her now, in extremity of bliss.\nHer hand closed on a blue, beautiful ball of lapis lazuli that stood on\nher desk for a paper-weight. She rolled it round in her hand as she\nrose silently. Her heart was a pure flame in her breast, she was purely\nunconscious in ecstasy. She moved towards him and stood behind him for\na moment in ecstasy. He, closed within the spell, remained motionless\nand unconscious.\n\nThen swiftly, in a flame that drenched down her body like fluid\nlightning and gave her a perfect, unutterable consummation, unutterable\nsatisfaction, she brought down the ball of jewel stone with all her\nforce, crash on his head. But her fingers were in the way and deadened\nthe blow. Nevertheless, down went his head on the table on which his\nbook lay, the stone slid aside and over his ear, it was one convulsion\nof pure bliss for her, lit up by the crushed pain of her fingers. But\nit was not somehow complete. She lifted her arm high to aim once more,\nstraight down on the head that lay dazed on the table. She must smash\nit, it must be smashed before her ecstasy was consummated, fulfilled\nfor ever. A thousand lives, a thousand deaths mattered nothing now,\nonly the fulfilment of this perfect ecstasy.\n\nShe was not swift, she could only move slowly. A strong spirit in him\nwoke him and made him lift his face and twist to look at her. Her arm\nwas raised, the hand clasping the ball of lapis lazuli. It was her left\nhand, he realised again with horror that she was left-handed.\nHurriedly, with a burrowing motion, he covered his head under the thick\nvolume of Thucydides, and the blow came down, almost breaking his neck,\nand shattering his heart.\n\nHe was shattered, but he was not afraid. Twisting round to face her he\npushed the table over and got away from her. He was like a flask that\nis smashed to atoms, he seemed to himself that he was all fragments,\nsmashed to bits. Yet his movements were perfectly coherent and clear,\nhis soul was entire and unsurprised.\n\n'No you don't, Hermione,' he said in a low voice. 'I don't let you.'\n\nHe saw her standing tall and livid and attentive, the stone clenched\ntense in her hand.\n\n'Stand away and let me go,' he said, drawing near to her.\n\nAs if pressed back by some hand, she stood away, watching him all the\ntime without changing, like a neutralised angel confronting him.\n\n'It is not good,' he said, when he had gone past her. 'It isn't I who\nwill die. You hear?'\n\nHe kept his face to her as he went out, lest she should strike again.\nWhile he was on his guard, she dared not move. And he was on his guard,\nshe was powerless. So he had gone, and left her standing.\n\nShe remained perfectly rigid, standing as she was for a long time. Then\nshe staggered to the couch and lay down, and went heavily to sleep.\nWhen she awoke, she remembered what she had done, but it seemed to her,\nshe had only hit him, as any woman might do, because he tortured her.\nShe was perfectly right. She knew that, spiritually, she was right. In\nher own infallible purity, she had done what must be done. She was\nright, she was pure. A drugged, almost sinister religious expression\nbecame permanent on her face.\n\nBirkin, barely conscious, and yet perfectly direct in his motion, went\nout of the house and straight across the park, to the open country, to\nthe hills. The brilliant day had become overcast, spots of rain were\nfalling. He wandered on to a wild valley-side, where were thickets of\nhazel, many flowers, tufts of heather, and little clumps of young\nfirtrees, budding with soft paws. It was rather wet everywhere, there\nwas a stream running down at the bottom of the valley, which was\ngloomy, or seemed gloomy. He was aware that he could not regain his\nconsciousness, that he was moving in a sort of darkness.\n\nYet he wanted something. He was happy in the wet hillside, that was\novergrown and obscure with bushes and flowers. He wanted to touch them\nall, to saturate himself with the touch of them all. He took off his\nclothes, and sat down naked among the primroses, moving his feet softly\namong the primroses, his legs, his knees, his arms right up to the\narm-pits, lying down and letting them touch his belly, his breasts. It\nwas such a fine, cool, subtle touch all over him, he seemed to saturate\nhimself with their contact.\n\nBut they were too soft. He went through the long grass to a clump of\nyoung fir-trees, that were no higher than a man. The soft sharp boughs\nbeat upon him, as he moved in keen pangs against them, threw little\ncold showers of drops on his belly, and beat his loins with their\nclusters of soft-sharp needles. There was a thistle which pricked him\nvividly, but not too much, because all his movements were too\ndiscriminate and soft. To lie down and roll in the sticky, cool young\nhyacinths, to lie on one's belly and cover one's back with handfuls of\nfine wet grass, soft as a breath, soft and more delicate and more\nbeautiful than the touch of any woman; and then to sting one's thigh\nagainst the living dark bristles of the fir-boughs; and then to feel\nthe light whip of the hazel on one's shoulders, stinging, and then to\nclasp the silvery birch-trunk against one's breast, its smoothness, its\nhardness, its vital knots and ridges--this was good, this was all very\ngood, very satisfying. Nothing else would do, nothing else would\nsatisfy, except this coolness and subtlety of vegetation travelling\ninto one's blood. How fortunate he was, that there was this lovely,\nsubtle, responsive vegetation, waiting for him, as he waited for it;\nhow fulfilled he was, how happy!\n\nAs he dried himself a little with his handkerchief, he thought about\nHermione and the blow. He could feel a pain on the side of his head.\nBut after all, what did it matter? What did Hermione matter, what did\npeople matter altogether? There was this perfect cool loneliness, so\nlovely and fresh and unexplored. Really, what a mistake he had made,\nthinking he wanted people, thinking he wanted a woman. He did not want\na woman--not in the least. The leaves and the primroses and the trees,\nthey were really lovely and cool and desirable, they really came into\nthe blood and were added on to him. He was enrichened now immeasurably,\nand so glad.\n\nIt was quite right of Hermione to want to kill him. What had he to do\nwith her? Why should he pretend to have anything to do with human\nbeings at all? Here was his world, he wanted nobody and nothing but the\nlovely, subtle, responsive vegetation, and himself, his own living\nself.\n\nIt was necessary to go back into the world. That was true. But that did\nnot matter, so one knew where one belonged. He knew now where he\nbelonged. This was his place, his marriage place. The world was\nextraneous.\n\nHe climbed out of the valley, wondering if he were mad. But if so, he\npreferred his own madness, to the regular sanity. He rejoiced in his\nown madness, he was free. He did not want that old sanity of the world,\nwhich was become so repulsive. He rejoiced in the new-found world of\nhis madness. It was so fresh and delicate and so satisfying.\n\nAs for the certain grief he felt at the same time, in his soul, that\nwas only the remains of an old ethic, that bade a human being adhere to\nhumanity. But he was weary of the old ethic, of the human being, and of\nhumanity. He loved now the soft, delicate vegetation, that was so cool\nand perfect. He would overlook the old grief, he would put away the old\nethic, he would be free in his new state.\n\nHe was aware of the pain in his head becoming more and more difficult\nevery minute. He was walking now along the road to the nearest station.\nIt was raining and he had no hat. But then plenty of cranks went out\nnowadays without hats, in the rain.\n\nHe wondered again how much of his heaviness of heart, a certain\ndepression, was due to fear, fear lest anybody should have seen him\nnaked lying against the vegetation. What a dread he had of mankind, of\nother people! It amounted almost to horror, to a sort of dream\nterror--his horror of being observed by some other people. If he were\non an island, like Alexander Selkirk, with only the creatures and the\ntrees, he would be free and glad, there would be none of this\nheaviness, this misgiving. He could love the vegetation and be quite\nhappy and unquestioned, by himself.\n\nHe had better send a note to Hermione: she might trouble about him, and\nhe did not want the onus of this. So at the station, he wrote saying:\n\nI will go on to town--I don't want to come back to Breadalby for the\npresent. But it is quite all right--I don't want you to mind having\nbiffed me, in the least. Tell the others it is just one of my moods.\nYou were quite right, to biff me--because I know you wanted to. So\nthere's the end of it.\n\nIn the train, however, he felt ill. Every motion was insufferable pain,\nand he was sick. He dragged himself from the station into a cab,\nfeeling his way step by step, like a blind man, and held up only by a\ndim will.\n\nFor a week or two he was ill, but he did not let Hermione know, and she\nthought he was sulking; there was a complete estrangement between them.\nShe became rapt, abstracted in her conviction of exclusive\nrighteousness. She lived in and by her own self-esteem, conviction of\nher own rightness of spirit.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX.\n\nCOAL-DUST\n\n\nGoing home from school in the afternoon, the Brangwen girls descended\nthe hill between the picturesque cottages of Willey Green till they\ncame to the railway crossing. There they found the gate shut, because\nthe colliery train was rumbling nearer. They could hear the small\nlocomotive panting hoarsely as it advanced with caution between the\nembankments. The one-legged man in the little signal-hut by the road\nstared out from his security, like a crab from a snail-shell.\n\nWhilst the two girls waited, Gerald Crich trotted up on a red Arab\nmare. He rode well and softly, pleased with the delicate quivering of\nthe creature between his knees. And he was very picturesque, at least\nin Gudrun's eyes, sitting soft and close on the slender red mare, whose\nlong tail flowed on the air. He saluted the two girls, and drew up at\nthe crossing to wait for the gate, looking down the railway for the\napproaching train. In spite of her ironic smile at his picturesqueness,\nGudrun liked to look at him. He was well-set and easy, his face with\nits warm tan showed up his whitish, coarse moustache, and his blue eyes\nwere full of sharp light as he watched the distance.\n\nThe locomotive chuffed slowly between the banks, hidden. The mare did\nnot like it. She began to wince away, as if hurt by the unknown noise.\nBut Gerald pulled her back and held her head to the gate. The sharp\nblasts of the chuffing engine broke with more and more force on her.\nThe repeated sharp blows of unknown, terrifying noise struck through\nher till she was rocking with terror. She recoiled like a spring let\ngo. But a glistening, half-smiling look came into Gerald's face. He\nbrought her back again, inevitably.\n\nThe noise was released, the little locomotive with her clanking steel\nconnecting-rod emerged on the highroad, clanking sharply. The mare\nrebounded like a drop of water from hot iron. Ursula and Gudrun pressed\nback into the hedge, in fear. But Gerald was heavy on the mare, and\nforced her back. It seemed as if he sank into her magnetically, and\ncould thrust her back against herself.\n\n'The fool!' cried Ursula loudly. 'Why doesn't he ride away till it's\ngone by?'\n\nGudrun was looking at him with black-dilated, spellbound eyes. But he\nsat glistening and obstinate, forcing the wheeling mare, which spun and\nswerved like a wind, and yet could not get out of the grasp of his\nwill, nor escape from the mad clamour of terror that resounded through\nher, as the trucks thumped slowly, heavily, horrifying, one after the\nother, one pursuing the other, over the rails of the crossing.\n\nThe locomotive, as if wanting to see what could be done, put on the\nbrakes, and back came the trucks rebounding on the iron buffers,\nstriking like horrible cymbals, clashing nearer and nearer in frightful\nstrident concussions. The mare opened her mouth and rose slowly, as if\nlifted up on a wind of terror. Then suddenly her fore feet struck out,\nas she convulsed herself utterly away from the horror. Back she went,\nand the two girls clung to each other, feeling she must fall backwards\non top of him. But he leaned forward, his face shining with fixed\namusement, and at last he brought her down, sank her down, and was\nbearing her back to the mark. But as strong as the pressure of his\ncompulsion was the repulsion of her utter terror, throwing her back\naway from the railway, so that she spun round and round, on two legs,\nas if she were in the centre of some whirlwind. It made Gudrun faint\nwith poignant dizziness, which seemed to penetrate to her heart.\n\n'No--! No--! Let her go! Let her go, you fool, you FOOL--!' cried\nUrsula at the top of her voice, completely outside herself. And Gudrun\nhated her bitterly for being outside herself. It was unendurable that\nUrsula's voice was so powerful and naked.\n\nA sharpened look came on Gerald's face. He bit himself down on the mare\nlike a keen edge biting home, and FORCED her round. She roared as she\nbreathed, her nostrils were two wide, hot holes, her mouth was apart,\nher eyes frenzied. It was a repulsive sight. But he held on her\nunrelaxed, with an almost mechanical relentlessness, keen as a sword\npressing in to her. Both man and horse were sweating with violence. Yet\nhe seemed calm as a ray of cold sunshine.\n\nMeanwhile the eternal trucks were rumbling on, very slowly, treading\none after the other, one after the other, like a disgusting dream that\nhas no end. The connecting chains were grinding and squeaking as the\ntension varied, the mare pawed and struck away mechanically now, her\nterror fulfilled in her, for now the man encompassed her; her paws were\nblind and pathetic as she beat the air, the man closed round her, and\nbrought her down, almost as if she were part of his own physique.\n\n'And she's bleeding! She's bleeding!' cried Ursula, frantic with\nopposition and hatred of Gerald. She alone understood him perfectly, in\npure opposition.\n\nGudrun looked and saw the trickles of blood on the sides of the mare,\nand she turned white. And then on the very wound the bright spurs came\ndown, pressing relentlessly. The world reeled and passed into\nnothingness for Gudrun, she could not know any more.\n\nWhen she recovered, her soul was calm and cold, without feeling. The\ntrucks were still rumbling by, and the man and the mare were still\nfighting. But she herself was cold and separate, she had no more\nfeeling for them. She was quite hard and cold and indifferent.\n\nThey could see the top of the hooded guard's-van approaching, the sound\nof the trucks was diminishing, there was hope of relief from the\nintolerable noise. The heavy panting of the half-stunned mare sounded\nautomatically, the man seemed to be relaxing confidently, his will\nbright and unstained. The guard's-van came up, and passed slowly, the\nguard staring out in his transition on the spectacle in the road. And,\nthrough the man in the closed wagon, Gudrun could see the whole scene\nspectacularly, isolated and momentary, like a vision isolated in\neternity.\n\nLovely, grateful silence seemed to trail behind the receding train. How\nsweet the silence is! Ursula looked with hatred on the buffers of the\ndiminishing wagon. The gatekeeper stood ready at the door of his hut,\nto proceed to open the gate. But Gudrun sprang suddenly forward, in\nfront of the struggling horse, threw off the latch and flung the gates\nasunder, throwing one-half to the keeper, and running with the other\nhalf, forwards. Gerald suddenly let go the horse and leaped forwards,\nalmost on to Gudrun. She was not afraid. As he jerked aside the mare's\nhead, Gudrun cried, in a strange, high voice, like a gull, or like a\nwitch screaming out from the side of the road:\n\n'I should think you're proud.'\n\nThe words were distinct and formed. The man, twisting aside on his\ndancing horse, looked at her in some surprise, some wondering interest.\nThen the mare's hoofs had danced three times on the drum-like sleepers\nof the crossing, and man and horse were bounding springily, unequally\nup the road.\n\nThe two girls watched them go. The gate-keeper hobbled thudding over\nthe logs of the crossing, with his wooden leg. He had fastened the\ngate. Then he also turned, and called to the girls:\n\n'A masterful young jockey, that; 'll have his own road, if ever anybody\nwould.'\n\n'Yes,' cried Ursula, in her hot, overbearing voice. 'Why couldn't he\ntake the horse away, till the trucks had gone by? He's a fool, and a\nbully. Does he think it's manly, to torture a horse? It's a living\nthing, why should he bully it and torture it?'\n\nThere was a pause, then the gate-keeper shook his head, and replied:\n\n'Yes, it's as nice a little mare as you could set eyes on--beautiful\nlittle thing, beautiful. Now you couldn't see his father treat any\nanimal like that--not you. They're as different as they welly can be,\nGerald Crich and his father--two different men, different made.'\n\nThen there was a pause.\n\n'But why does he do it?' cried Ursula, 'why does he? Does he think he's\ngrand, when he's bullied a sensitive creature, ten times as sensitive\nas himself?'\n\nAgain there was a cautious pause. Then again the man shook his head, as\nif he would say nothing, but would think the more.\n\n'I expect he's got to train the mare to stand to anything,' he replied.\n'A pure-bred Harab--not the sort of breed as is used to round\nhere--different sort from our sort altogether. They say as he got her\nfrom Constantinople.'\n\n'He would!' said Ursula. 'He'd better have left her to the Turks, I'm\nsure they would have had more decency towards her.'\n\nThe man went in to drink his can of tea, the girls went on down the\nlane, that was deep in soft black dust. Gudrun was as if numbed in her\nmind by the sense of indomitable soft weight of the man, bearing down\ninto the living body of the horse: the strong, indomitable thighs of\nthe blond man clenching the palpitating body of the mare into pure\ncontrol; a sort of soft white magnetic domination from the loins and\nthighs and calves, enclosing and encompassing the mare heavily into\nunutterable subordination, soft blood-subordination, terrible.\n\nOn the left, as the girls walked silently, the coal-mine lifted its\ngreat mounds and its patterned head-stocks, the black railway with the\ntrucks at rest looked like a harbour just below, a large bay of\nrailroad with anchored wagons.\n\nNear the second level-crossing, that went over many bright rails, was a\nfarm belonging to the collieries, and a great round globe of iron, a\ndisused boiler, huge and rusty and perfectly round, stood silently in a\npaddock by the road. The hens were pecking round it, some chickens were\nbalanced on the drinking trough, wagtails flew away in among trucks,\nfrom the water.\n\nOn the other side of the wide crossing, by the road-side, was a heap of\npale-grey stones for mending the roads, and a cart standing, and a\nmiddle-aged man with whiskers round his face was leaning on his shovel,\ntalking to a young man in gaiters, who stood by the horse's head. Both\nmen were facing the crossing.\n\nThey saw the two girls appear, small, brilliant figures in the near\ndistance, in the strong light of the late afternoon. Both wore light,\ngay summer dresses, Ursula had an orange-coloured knitted coat, Gudrun\na pale yellow, Ursula wore canary yellow stockings, Gudrun bright rose,\nthe figures of the two women seemed to glitter in progress over the\nwide bay of the railway crossing, white and orange and yellow and rose\nglittering in motion across a hot world silted with coal-dust.\n\nThe two men stood quite still in the heat, watching. The elder was a\nshort, hard-faced energetic man of middle age, the younger a labourer\nof twenty-three or so. They stood in silence watching the advance of\nthe sisters. They watched whilst the girls drew near, and whilst they\npassed, and whilst they receded down the dusty road, that had dwellings\non one side, and dusty young corn on the other.\n\nThen the elder man, with the whiskers round his face, said in a\nprurient manner to the young man:\n\n'What price that, eh? She'll do, won't she?'\n\n'Which?' asked the young man, eagerly, with laugh.\n\n'Her with the red stockings. What d'you say? I'd give my week's wages\nfor five minutes; what!--just for five minutes.'\n\nAgain the young man laughed.\n\n'Your missis 'ud have summat to say to you,' he replied.\n\nGudrun had turned round and looked at the two men. They were to her\nsinister creatures, standing watching after her, by the heap of pale\ngrey slag. She loathed the man with whiskers round his face.\n\n'You're first class, you are,' the man said to her, and to the\ndistance.\n\n'Do you think it would be worth a week's wages?' said the younger man,\nmusing.\n\n'Do I? I'd put 'em bloody-well down this second--'\n\nThe younger man looked after Gudrun and Ursula objectively, as if he\nwished to calculate what there might be, that was worth his week's\nwages. He shook his head with fatal misgiving.\n\n'No,' he said. 'It's not worth that to me.'\n\n'Isn't?' said the old man. 'By God, if it isn't to me!'\n\nAnd he went on shovelling his stones.\n\nThe girls descended between the houses with slate roofs and blackish\nbrick walls. The heavy gold glamour of approaching sunset lay over all\nthe colliery district, and the ugliness overlaid with beauty was like a\nnarcotic to the senses. On the roads silted with black dust, the rich\nlight fell more warmly, more heavily, over all the amorphous squalor a\nkind of magic was cast, from the glowing close of day.\n\n'It has a foul kind of beauty, this place,' said Gudrun, evidently\nsuffering from fascination. 'Can't you feel in some way, a thick, hot\nattraction in it? I can. And it quite stupifies me.'\n\nThey were passing between blocks of miners' dwellings. In the back\nyards of several dwellings, a miner could be seen washing himself in\nthe open on this hot evening, naked down to the loins, his great\ntrousers of moleskin slipping almost away. Miners already cleaned were\nsitting on their heels, with their backs near the walls, talking and\nsilent in pure physical well-being, tired, and taking physical rest.\nTheir voices sounded out with strong intonation, and the broad dialect\nwas curiously caressing to the blood. It seemed to envelop Gudrun in a\nlabourer's caress, there was in the whole atmosphere a resonance of\nphysical men, a glamorous thickness of labour and maleness, surcharged\nin the air. But it was universal in the district, and therefore\nunnoticed by the inhabitants.\n\nTo Gudrun, however, it was potent and half-repulsive. She could never\ntell why Beldover was so utterly different from London and the south,\nwhy one's whole feelings were different, why one seemed to live in\nanother sphere. Now she realised that this was the world of powerful,\nunderworld men who spent most of their time in the darkness. In their\nvoices she could hear the voluptuous resonance of darkness, the strong,\ndangerous underworld, mindless, inhuman. They sounded also like strange\nmachines, heavy, oiled. The voluptuousness was like that of machinery,\ncold and iron.\n\nIt was the same every evening when she came home, she seemed to move\nthrough a wave of disruptive force, that was given off from the\npresence of thousands of vigorous, underworld, half-automatised\ncolliers, and which went to the brain and the heart, awaking a fatal\ndesire, and a fatal callousness.\n\nThere came over her a nostalgia for the place. She hated it, she knew\nhow utterly cut off it was, how hideous and how sickeningly mindless.\nSometimes she beat her wings like a new Daphne, turning not into a tree\nbut a machine. And yet, she was overcome by the nostalgia. She\nstruggled to get more and more into accord with the atmosphere of the\nplace, she craved to get her satisfaction of it.\n\nShe felt herself drawn out at evening into the main street of the town,\nthat was uncreated and ugly, and yet surcharged with this same potent\natmosphere of intense, dark callousness. There were always miners\nabout. They moved with their strange, distorted dignity, a certain\nbeauty, and unnatural stillness in their bearing, a look of abstraction\nand half resignation in their pale, often gaunt faces. They belonged to\nanother world, they had a strange glamour, their voices were full of an\nintolerable deep resonance, like a machine's burring, a music more\nmaddening than the siren's long ago.\n\nShe found herself, with the rest of the common women, drawn out on\nFriday evenings to the little market. Friday was pay-day for the\ncolliers, and Friday night was market night. Every woman was abroad,\nevery man was out, shopping with his wife, or gathering with his pals.\nThe pavements were dark for miles around with people coming in, the\nlittle market-place on the crown of the hill, and the main street of\nBeldover were black with thickly-crowded men and women.\n\nIt was dark, the market-place was hot with kerosene flares, which threw\na ruddy light on the grave faces of the purchasing wives, and on the\npale abstract faces of the men. The air was full of the sound of criers\nand of people talking, thick streams of people moved on the pavements\ntowards the solid crowd of the market. The shops were blazing and\npacked with women, in the streets were men, mostly men, miners of all\nages. Money was spent with almost lavish freedom.\n\nThe carts that came could not pass through. They had to wait, the\ndriver calling and shouting, till the dense crowd would make way.\nEverywhere, young fellows from the outlying districts were making\nconversation with the girls, standing in the road and at the corners.\nThe doors of the public-houses were open and full of light, men passed\nin and out in a continual stream, everywhere men were calling out to\none another, or crossing to meet one another, or standing in little\ngangs and circles, discussing, endlessly discussing. The sense of talk,\nbuzzing, jarring, half-secret, the endless mining and political\nwrangling, vibrated in the air like discordant machinery. And it was\ntheir voices which affected Gudrun almost to swooning. They aroused a\nstrange, nostalgic ache of desire, something almost demoniacal, never\nto be fulfilled.\n\nLike any other common girl of the district, Gudrun strolled up and\ndown, up and down the length of the brilliant two-hundred paces of the\npavement nearest the market-place. She knew it was a vulgar thing to\ndo; her father and mother could not bear it; but the nostalgia came\nover her, she must be among the people. Sometimes she sat among the\nlouts in the cinema: rakish-looking, unattractive louts they were. Yet\nshe must be among them.\n\nAnd, like any other common lass, she found her 'boy.' It was an\nelectrician, one of the electricians introduced according to Gerald's\nnew scheme. He was an earnest, clever man, a scientist with a passion\nfor sociology. He lived alone in a cottage, in lodgings, in Willey\nGreen. He was a gentleman, and sufficiently well-to-do. His landlady\nspread the reports about him; he WOULD have a large wooden tub in his\nbedroom, and every time he came in from work, he WOULD have pails and\npails of water brought up, to bathe in, then he put on clean shirt and\nunder-clothing EVERY day, and clean silk socks; fastidious and exacting\nhe was in these respects, but in every other way, most ordinary and\nunassuming.\n\nGudrun knew all these things. The Brangwen's house was one to which the\ngossip came naturally and inevitably. Palmer was in the first place a\nfriend of Ursula's. But in his pale, elegant, serious face there showed\nthe same nostalgia that Gudrun felt. He too must walk up and down the\nstreet on Friday evening. So he walked with Gudrun, and a friendship\nwas struck up between them. But he was not in love with Gudrun; he\nREALLY wanted Ursula, but for some strange reason, nothing could happen\nbetween her and him. He liked to have Gudrun about, as a\nfellow-mind--but that was all. And she had no real feeling for him. He\nwas a scientist, he had to have a woman to back him. But he was really\nimpersonal, he had the fineness of an elegant piece of machinery. He\nwas too cold, too destructive to care really for women, too great an\negoist. He was polarised by the men. Individually he detested and\ndespised them. In the mass they fascinated him, as machinery fascinated\nhim. They were a new sort of machinery to him--but incalculable,\nincalculable.\n\nSo Gudrun strolled the streets with Palmer, or went to the cinema with\nhim. And his long, pale, rather elegant face flickered as he made his\nsarcastic remarks. There they were, the two of them: two elegants in\none sense: in the other sense, two units, absolutely adhering to the\npeople, teeming with the distorted colliers. The same secret seemed to\nbe working in the souls of all alike, Gudrun, Palmer, the rakish young\nbloods, the gaunt, middle-aged men. All had a secret sense of power,\nand of inexpressible destructiveness, and of fatal half-heartedness, a\nsort of rottenness in the will.\n\nSometimes Gudrun would start aside, see it all, see how she was sinking\nin. And then she was filled with a fury of contempt and anger. She felt\nshe was sinking into one mass with the rest--all so close and\nintermingled and breathless. It was horrible. She stifled. She prepared\nfor flight, feverishly she flew to her work. But soon she let go. She\nstarted off into the country--the darkish, glamorous country. The spell\nwas beginning to work again.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X.\n\nSKETCH-BOOK\n\n\nOne morning the sisters were sketching by the side of Willey Water, at\nthe remote end of the lake. Gudrun had waded out to a gravelly shoal,\nand was seated like a Buddhist, staring fixedly at the water-plants\nthat rose succulent from the mud of the low shores. What she could see\nwas mud, soft, oozy, watery mud, and from its festering chill,\nwater-plants rose up, thick and cool and fleshy, very straight and\nturgid, thrusting out their leaves at right angles, and having dark\nlurid colours, dark green and blotches of black-purple and bronze. But\nshe could feel their turgid fleshy structure as in a sensuous vision,\nshe KNEW how they rose out of the mud, she KNEW how they thrust out\nfrom themselves, how they stood stiff and succulent against the air.\n\nUrsula was watching the butterflies, of which there were dozens near\nthe water, little blue ones suddenly snapping out of nothingness into a\njewel-life, a large black-and-red one standing upon a flower and\nbreathing with his soft wings, intoxicatingly, breathing pure, ethereal\nsunshine; two white ones wrestling in the low air; there was a halo\nround them; ah, when they came tumbling nearer they were orangetips,\nand it was the orange that had made the halo. Ursula rose and drifted\naway, unconscious like the butterflies.\n\nGudrun, absorbed in a stupor of apprehension of surging water-plants,\nsat crouched on the shoal, drawing, not looking up for a long time, and\nthen staring unconsciously, absorbedly at the rigid, naked, succulent\nstems. Her feet were bare, her hat lay on the bank opposite.\n\nShe started out of her trance, hearing the knocking of oars. She looked\nround. There was a boat with a gaudy Japanese parasol, and a man in\nwhite, rowing. The woman was Hermione, and the man was Gerald. She knew\nit instantly. And instantly she perished in the keen FRISSON of\nanticipation, an electric vibration in her veins, intense, much more\nintense than that which was always humming low in the atmosphere of\nBeldover.\n\nGerald was her escape from the heavy slough of the pale, underworld,\nautomatic colliers. He started out of the mud. He was master. She saw\nhis back, the movement of his white loins. But not that--it was the\nwhiteness he seemed to enclose as he bent forwards, rowing. He seemed\nto stoop to something. His glistening, whitish hair seemed like the\nelectricity of the sky.\n\n'There's Gudrun,' came Hermione's voice floating distinct over the\nwater. 'We will go and speak to her. Do you mind?'\n\nGerald looked round and saw the girl standing by the water's edge,\nlooking at him. He pulled the boat towards her, magnetically, without\nthinking of her. In his world, his conscious world, she was still\nnobody. He knew that Hermione had a curious pleasure in treading down\nall the social differences, at least apparently, and he left it to her.\n\n'How do you do, Gudrun?' sang Hermione, using the Christian name in the\nfashionable manner. 'What are you doing?'\n\n'How do you do, Hermione? I WAS sketching.'\n\n'Were you?' The boat drifted nearer, till the keel ground on the bank.\n'May we see? I should like to SO much.'\n\nIt was no use resisting Hermione's deliberate intention.\n\n'Well--' said Gudrun reluctantly, for she always hated to have her\nunfinished work exposed--'there's nothing in the least interesting.'\n\n'Isn't there? But let me see, will you?'\n\nGudrun reached out the sketch-book, Gerald stretched from the boat to\ntake it. And as he did so, he remembered Gudrun's last words to him,\nand her face lifted up to him as he sat on the swerving horse. An\nintensification of pride went over his nerves, because he felt, in some\nway she was compelled by him. The exchange of feeling between them was\nstrong and apart from their consciousness.\n\nAnd as if in a spell, Gudrun was aware of his body, stretching and\nsurging like the marsh-fire, stretching towards her, his hand coming\nstraight forward like a stem. Her voluptuous, acute apprehension of him\nmade the blood faint in her veins, her mind went dim and unconscious.\nAnd he rocked on the water perfectly, like the rocking of\nphosphorescence. He looked round at the boat. It was drifting off a\nlittle. He lifted the oar to bring it back. And the exquisite pleasure\nof slowly arresting the boat, in the heavy-soft water, was complete as\na swoon.\n\n'THAT'S what you have done,' said Hermione, looking searchingly at the\nplants on the shore, and comparing with Gudrun's drawing. Gudrun looked\nround in the direction of Hermione's long, pointing finger. 'That is\nit, isn't it?' repeated Hermione, needing confirmation.\n\n'Yes,' said Gudrun automatically, taking no real heed.\n\n'Let me look,' said Gerald, reaching forward for the book. But Hermione\nignored him, he must not presume, before she had finished. But he, his\nwill as unthwarted and as unflinching as hers, stretched forward till\nhe touched the book. A little shock, a storm of revulsion against him,\nshook Hermione unconsciously. She released the book when he had not\nproperly got it, and it tumbled against the side of the boat and\nbounced into the water.\n\n'There!' sang Hermione, with a strange ring of malevolent victory. 'I'm\nso sorry, so awfully sorry. Can't you get it, Gerald?'\n\nThis last was said in a note of anxious sneering that made Gerald's\nveins tingle with fine hate for her. He leaned far out of the boat,\nreaching down into the water. He could feel his position was\nridiculous, his loins exposed behind him.\n\n'It is of no importance,' came the strong, clanging voice of Gudrun.\nShe seemed to touch him. But he reached further, the boat swayed\nviolently. Hermione, however, remained unperturbed. He grasped the\nbook, under the water, and brought it up, dripping.\n\n'I'm so dreadfully sorry--dreadfully sorry,' repeated Hermione. 'I'm\nafraid it was all my fault.'\n\n'It's of no importance--really, I assure you--it doesn't matter in the\nleast,' said Gudrun loudly, with emphasis, her face flushed scarlet.\nAnd she held out her hand impatiently for the wet book, to have done\nwith the scene. Gerald gave it to her. He was not quite himself.\n\n'I'm so dreadfully sorry,' repeated Hermione, till both Gerald and\nGudrun were exasperated. 'Is there nothing that can be done?'\n\n'In what way?' asked Gudrun, with cool irony.\n\n'Can't we save the drawings?'\n\nThere was a moment's pause, wherein Gudrun made evident all her\nrefutation of Hermione's persistence.\n\n'I assure you,' said Gudrun, with cutting distinctness, 'the drawings\nare quite as good as ever they were, for my purpose. I want them only\nfor reference.'\n\n'But can't I give you a new book? I wish you'd let me do that. I feel\nso truly sorry. I feel it was all my fault.'\n\n'As far as I saw,' said Gudrun, 'it wasn't your fault at all. If there\nwas any FAULT, it was Mr Crich's. But the whole thing is ENTIRELY\ntrivial, and it really is ridiculous to take any notice of it.'\n\nGerald watched Gudrun closely, whilst she repulsed Hermione. There was\na body of cold power in her. He watched her with an insight that\namounted to clairvoyance. He saw her a dangerous, hostile spirit, that\ncould stand undiminished and unabated. It was so finished, and of such\nperfect gesture, moreover.\n\n'I'm awfully glad if it doesn't matter,' he said; 'if there's no real\nharm done.'\n\nShe looked back at him, with her fine blue eyes, and signalled full\ninto his spirit, as she said, her voice ringing with intimacy almost\ncaressive now it was addressed to him:\n\n'Of course, it doesn't matter in the LEAST.'\n\nThe bond was established between them, in that look, in her tone. In\nher tone, she made the understanding clear--they were of the same kind,\nhe and she, a sort of diabolic freemasonry subsisted between them.\nHenceforward, she knew, she had her power over him. Wherever they met,\nthey would be secretly associated. And he would be helpless in the\nassociation with her. Her soul exulted.\n\n'Good-bye! I'm so glad you forgive me. Gooood-bye!'\n\nHermione sang her farewell, and waved her hand. Gerald automatically\ntook the oar and pushed off. But he was looking all the time, with a\nglimmering, subtly-smiling admiration in his eyes, at Gudrun, who stood\non the shoal shaking the wet book in her hand. She turned away and\nignored the receding boat. But Gerald looked back as he rowed,\nbeholding her, forgetting what he was doing.\n\n'Aren't we going too much to the left?' sang Hermione, as she sat\nignored under her coloured parasol.\n\nGerald looked round without replying, the oars balanced and glancing in\nthe sun.\n\n'I think it's all right,' he said good-humouredly, beginning to row\nagain without thinking of what he was doing. And Hermione disliked him\nextremely for his good-humoured obliviousness, she was nullified, she\ncould not regain ascendancy.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI.\n\nAN ISLAND\n\n\nMeanwhile Ursula had wandered on from Willey Water along the course of\nthe bright little stream. The afternoon was full of larks' singing. On\nthe bright hill-sides was a subdued smoulder of gorse. A few\nforget-me-nots flowered by the water. There was a rousedness and a\nglancing everywhere.\n\nShe strayed absorbedly on, over the brooks. She wanted to go to the\nmill-pond above. The big mill-house was deserted, save for a labourer\nand his wife who lived in the kitchen. So she passed through the empty\nfarm-yard and through the wilderness of a garden, and mounted the bank\nby the sluice. When she got to the top, to see the old, velvety surface\nof the pond before her, she noticed a man on the bank, tinkering with a\npunt. It was Birkin sawing and hammering away.\n\nShe stood at the head of the sluice, looking at him. He was unaware of\nanybody's presence. He looked very busy, like a wild animal, active and\nintent. She felt she ought to go away, he would not want her. He seemed\nto be so much occupied. But she did not want to go away. Therefore she\nmoved along the bank till he would look up.\n\nWhich he soon did. The moment he saw her, he dropped his tools and came\nforward, saying:\n\n'How do you do? I'm making the punt water-tight. Tell me if you think\nit is right.'\n\nShe went along with him.\n\n'You are your father's daughter, so you can tell me if it will do,' he\nsaid.\n\nShe bent to look at the patched punt.\n\n'I am sure I am my father's daughter,' she said, fearful of having to\njudge. 'But I don't know anything about carpentry. It LOOKS right,\ndon't you think?'\n\n'Yes, I think. I hope it won't let me to the bottom, that's all. Though\neven so, it isn't a great matter, I should come up again. Help me to\nget it into the water, will you?'\n\nWith combined efforts they turned over the heavy punt and set it\nafloat.\n\n'Now,' he said, 'I'll try it and you can watch what happens. Then if it\ncarries, I'll take you over to the island.'\n\n'Do,' she cried, watching anxiously.\n\nThe pond was large, and had that perfect stillness and the dark lustre\nof very deep water. There were two small islands overgrown with bushes\nand a few trees, towards the middle. Birkin pushed himself off, and\nveered clumsily in the pond. Luckily the punt drifted so that he could\ncatch hold of a willow bough, and pull it to the island.\n\n'Rather overgrown,' he said, looking into the interior, 'but very nice.\nI'll come and fetch you. The boat leaks a little.'\n\nIn a moment he was with her again, and she stepped into the wet punt.\n\n'It'll float us all right,' he said, and manoeuvred again to the\nisland.\n\nThey landed under a willow tree. She shrank from the little jungle of\nrank plants before her, evil-smelling figwort and hemlock. But he\nexplored into it.\n\n'I shall mow this down,' he said, 'and then it will be romantic--like\nPaul et Virginie.'\n\n'Yes, one could have lovely Watteau picnics here,' cried Ursula with\nenthusiasm.\n\nHis face darkened.\n\n'I don't want Watteau picnics here,' he said.\n\n'Only your Virginie,' she laughed.\n\n'Virginie enough,' he smiled wryly. 'No, I don't want her either.'\n\nUrsula looked at him closely. She had not seen him since Breadalby. He\nwas very thin and hollow, with a ghastly look in his face.\n\n'You have been ill; haven't you?' she asked, rather repulsed.\n\n'Yes,' he replied coldly.\n\nThey had sat down under the willow tree, and were looking at the pond,\nfrom their retreat on the island.\n\n'Has it made you frightened?' she asked.\n\n'What of?' he asked, turning his eyes to look at her. Something in him,\ninhuman and unmitigated, disturbed her, and shook her out of her\nordinary self.\n\n'It IS frightening to be very ill, isn't it?' she said.\n\n'It isn't pleasant,' he said. 'Whether one is really afraid of death,\nor not, I have never decided. In one mood, not a bit, in another, very\nmuch.'\n\n'But doesn't it make you feel ashamed? I think it makes one so ashamed,\nto be ill--illness is so terribly humiliating, don't you think?'\n\nHe considered for some minutes.\n\n'May-be,' he said. 'Though one knows all the time one's life isn't\nreally right, at the source. That's the humiliation. I don't see that\nthe illness counts so much, after that. One is ill because one doesn't\nlive properly--can't. It's the failure to live that makes one ill, and\nhumiliates one.'\n\n'But do you fail to live?' she asked, almost jeering.\n\n'Why yes--I don't make much of a success of my days. One seems always\nto be bumping one's nose against the blank wall ahead.'\n\nUrsula laughed. She was frightened, and when she was frightened she\nalways laughed and pretended to be jaunty.\n\n'Your poor nose!' she said, looking at that feature of his face.\n\n'No wonder it's ugly,' he replied.\n\nShe was silent for some minutes, struggling with her own\nself-deception. It was an instinct in her, to deceive herself.\n\n'But I'M happy--I think life is AWFULLY jolly,' she said.\n\n'Good,' he answered, with a certain cold indifference.\n\nShe reached for a bit of paper which had wrapped a small piece of\nchocolate she had found in her pocket, and began making a boat. He\nwatched her without heeding her. There was something strangely pathetic\nand tender in her moving, unconscious finger-tips, that were agitated\nand hurt, really.\n\n'I DO enjoy things--don't you?' she asked.\n\n'Oh yes! But it infuriates me that I can't get right, at the really\ngrowing part of me. I feel all tangled and messed up, and I CAN'T get\nstraight anyhow. I don't know what really to DO. One must do something\nsomewhere.'\n\n'Why should you always be DOING?' she retorted. 'It is so plebeian. I\nthink it is much better to be really patrician, and to do nothing but\njust be oneself, like a walking flower.'\n\n'I quite agree,' he said, 'if one has burst into blossom. But I can't\nget my flower to blossom anyhow. Either it is blighted in the bud, or\nhas got the smother-fly, or it isn't nourished. Curse it, it isn't even\na bud. It is a contravened knot.'\n\nAgain she laughed. He was so very fretful and exasperated. But she was\nanxious and puzzled. How was one to get out, anyhow. There must be a\nway out somewhere.\n\nThere was a silence, wherein she wanted to cry. She reached for another\nbit of chocolate paper, and began to fold another boat.\n\n'And why is it,' she asked at length, 'that there is no flowering, no\ndignity of human life now?'\n\n'The whole idea is dead. Humanity itself is dry-rotten, really. There\nare myriads of human beings hanging on the bush--and they look very\nnice and rosy, your healthy young men and women. But they are apples of\nSodom, as a matter of fact, Dead Sea Fruit, gall-apples. It isn't true\nthat they have any significance--their insides are full of bitter,\ncorrupt ash.'\n\n'But there ARE good people,' protested Ursula.\n\n'Good enough for the life of today. But mankind is a dead tree, covered\nwith fine brilliant galls of people.'\n\nUrsula could not help stiffening herself against this, it was too\npicturesque and final. But neither could she help making him go on.\n\n'And if it is so, WHY is it?' she asked, hostile. They were rousing\neach other to a fine passion of opposition.\n\n'Why, why are people all balls of bitter dust? Because they won't fall\noff the tree when they're ripe. They hang on to their old positions\nwhen the position is over-past, till they become infested with little\nworms and dry-rot.'\n\nThere was a long pause. His voice had become hot and very sarcastic.\nUrsula was troubled and bewildered, they were both oblivious of\neverything but their own immersion.\n\n'But even if everybody is wrong--where are you right?' she cried,\n'where are you any better?'\n\n'I?--I'm not right,' he cried back. 'At least my only rightness lies in\nthe fact that I know it. I detest what I am, outwardly. I loathe myself\nas a human being. Humanity is a huge aggregate lie, and a huge lie is\nless than a small truth. Humanity is less, far less than the\nindividual, because the individual may sometimes be capable of truth,\nand humanity is a tree of lies. And they say that love is the greatest\nthing; they persist in SAYING this, the foul liars, and just look at\nwhat they do! Look at all the millions of people who repeat every\nminute that love is the greatest, and charity is the greatest--and see\nwhat they are doing all the time. By their works ye shall know them,\nfor dirty liars and cowards, who daren't stand by their own actions,\nmuch less by their own words.'\n\n'But,' said Ursula sadly, 'that doesn't alter the fact that love is the\ngreatest, does it? What they DO doesn't alter the truth of what they\nsay, does it?'\n\n'Completely, because if what they say WERE true, then they couldn't\nhelp fulfilling it. But they maintain a lie, and so they run amok at\nlast. It's a lie to say that love is the greatest. You might as well\nsay that hate is the greatest, since the opposite of everything\nbalances. What people want is hate--hate and nothing but hate. And in\nthe name of righteousness and love, they get it. They distil themselves\nwith nitroglycerine, all the lot of them, out of very love. It's the\nlie that kills. If we want hate, let us have it--death, murder,\ntorture, violent destruction--let us have it: but not in the name of\nlove. But I abhor humanity, I wish it was swept away. It could go, and\nthere would be no ABSOLUTE loss, if every human being perished\ntomorrow. The reality would be untouched. Nay, it would be better. The\nreal tree of life would then be rid of the most ghastly, heavy crop of\nDead Sea Fruit, the intolerable burden of myriad simulacra of people,\nan infinite weight of mortal lies.'\n\n'So you'd like everybody in the world destroyed?' said Ursula.\n\n'I should indeed.'\n\n'And the world empty of people?'\n\n'Yes truly. You yourself, don't you find it a beautiful clean thought,\na world empty of people, just uninterrupted grass, and a hare sitting\nup?'\n\nThe pleasant sincerity of his voice made Ursula pause to consider her\nown proposition. And really it WAS attractive: a clean, lovely,\nhumanless world. It was the REALLY desirable. Her heart hesitated, and\nexulted. But still, she was dissatisfied with HIM.\n\n'But,' she objected, 'you'd be dead yourself, so what good would it do\nyou?'\n\n'I would die like a shot, to know that the earth would really be\ncleaned of all the people. It is the most beautiful and freeing\nthought. Then there would NEVER be another foul humanity created, for a\nuniversal defilement.'\n\n'No,' said Ursula, 'there would be nothing.'\n\n'What! Nothing? Just because humanity was wiped out? You flatter\nyourself. There'd be everything.'\n\n'But how, if there were no people?'\n\n'Do you think that creation depends on MAN! It merely doesn't. There\nare the trees and the grass and birds. I much prefer to think of the\nlark rising up in the morning upon a human-less world. Man is a\nmistake, he must go. There is the grass, and hares and adders, and the\nunseen hosts, actual angels that go about freely when a dirty humanity\ndoesn't interrupt them--and good pure-tissued demons: very nice.'\n\nIt pleased Ursula, what he said, pleased her very much, as a phantasy.\nOf course it was only a pleasant fancy. She herself knew too well the\nactuality of humanity, its hideous actuality. She knew it could not\ndisappear so cleanly and conveniently. It had a long way to go yet, a\nlong and hideous way. Her subtle, feminine, demoniacal soul knew it\nwell.\n\n'If only man was swept off the face of the earth, creation would go on\nso marvellously, with a new start, non-human. Man is one of the\nmistakes of creation--like the ichthyosauri. If only he were gone\nagain, think what lovely things would come out of the liberated\ndays;--things straight out of the fire.'\n\n'But man will never be gone,' she said, with insidious, diabolical\nknowledge of the horrors of persistence. 'The world will go with him.'\n\n'Ah no,' he answered, 'not so. I believe in the proud angels and the\ndemons that are our fore-runners. They will destroy us, because we are\nnot proud enough. The ichthyosauri were not proud: they crawled and\nfloundered as we do. And besides, look at elder-flowers and\nbluebells--they are a sign that pure creation takes place--even the\nbutterfly. But humanity never gets beyond the caterpillar stage--it\nrots in the chrysalis, it never will have wings. It is anti-creation,\nlike monkeys and baboons.'\n\nUrsula watched him as he talked. There seemed a certain impatient fury\nin him, all the while, and at the same time a great amusement in\neverything, and a final tolerance. And it was this tolerance she\nmistrusted, not the fury. She saw that, all the while, in spite of\nhimself, he would have to be trying to save the world. And this\nknowledge, whilst it comforted her heart somewhere with a little\nself-satisfaction, stability, yet filled her with a certain sharp\ncontempt and hate of him. She wanted him to herself, she hated the\nSalvator Mundi touch. It was something diffuse and generalised about\nhim, which she could not stand. He would behave in the same way, say\nthe same things, give himself as completely to anybody who came along,\nanybody and everybody who liked to appeal to him. It was despicable, a\nvery insidious form of prostitution.\n\n'But,' she said, 'you believe in individual love, even if you don't\nbelieve in loving humanity--?'\n\n'I don't believe in love at all--that is, any more than I believe in\nhate, or in grief. Love is one of the emotions like all the others--and\nso it is all right whilst you feel it But I can't see how it becomes an\nabsolute. It is just part of human relationships, no more. And it is\nonly part of ANY human relationship. And why one should be required\nALWAYS to feel it, any more than one always feels sorrow or distant\njoy, I cannot conceive. Love isn't a desideratum--it is an emotion you\nfeel or you don't feel, according to circumstance.'\n\n'Then why do you care about people at all?' she asked, 'if you don't\nbelieve in love? Why do you bother about humanity?'\n\n'Why do I? Because I can't get away from it.'\n\n'Because you love it,' she persisted.\n\nIt irritated him.\n\n'If I do love it,' he said, 'it is my disease.'\n\n'But it is a disease you don't want to be cured of,' she said, with\nsome cold sneering.\n\nHe was silent now, feeling she wanted to insult him.\n\n'And if you don't believe in love, what DO you believe in?' she asked\nmocking. 'Simply in the end of the world, and grass?'\n\nHe was beginning to feel a fool.\n\n'I believe in the unseen hosts,' he said.\n\n'And nothing else? You believe in nothing visible, except grass and\nbirds? Your world is a poor show.'\n\n'Perhaps it is,' he said, cool and superior now he was offended,\nassuming a certain insufferable aloof superiority, and withdrawing into\nhis distance.\n\nUrsula disliked him. But also she felt she had lost something. She\nlooked at him as he sat crouched on the bank. There was a certain\npriggish Sunday-school stiffness over him, priggish and detestable. And\nyet, at the same time, the moulding of him was so quick and attractive,\nit gave such a great sense of freedom: the moulding of his brows, his\nchin, his whole physique, something so alive, somewhere, in spite of\nthe look of sickness.\n\nAnd it was this duality in feeling which he created in her, that made a\nfine hate of him quicken in her bowels. There was his wonderful,\ndesirable life-rapidity, the rare quality of an utterly desirable man:\nand there was at the same time this ridiculous, mean effacement into a\nSalvator Mundi and a Sunday-school teacher, a prig of the stiffest\ntype.\n\nHe looked up at her. He saw her face strangely enkindled, as if\nsuffused from within by a powerful sweet fire. His soul was arrested in\nwonder. She was enkindled in her own living fire. Arrested in wonder\nand in pure, perfect attraction, he moved towards her. She sat like a\nstrange queen, almost supernatural in her glowing smiling richness.\n\n'The point about love,' he said, his consciousness quickly adjusting\nitself, 'is that we hate the word because we have vulgarised it. It\nought to be prescribed, tabooed from utterance, for many years, till we\nget a new, better idea.'\n\nThere was a beam of understanding between them.\n\n'But it always means the same thing,' she said.\n\n'Ah God, no, let it not mean that any more,' he cried. 'Let the old\nmeanings go.'\n\n'But still it is love,' she persisted. A strange, wicked yellow light\nshone at him in her eyes.\n\nHe hesitated, baffled, withdrawing.\n\n'No,' he said, 'it isn't. Spoken like that, never in the world. You've\nno business to utter the word.'\n\n'I must leave it to you, to take it out of the Ark of the Covenant at\nthe right moment,' she mocked.\n\nAgain they looked at each other. She suddenly sprang up, turned her\nback to him, and walked away. He too rose slowly and went to the\nwater's edge, where, crouching, he began to amuse himself\nunconsciously. Picking a daisy he dropped it on the pond, so that the\nstem was a keel, the flower floated like a little water lily, staring\nwith its open face up to the sky. It turned slowly round, in a slow,\nslow Dervish dance, as it veered away.\n\nHe watched it, then dropped another daisy into the water, and after\nthat another, and sat watching them with bright, absolved eyes,\ncrouching near on the bank. Ursula turned to look. A strange feeling\npossessed her, as if something were taking place. But it was all\nintangible. And some sort of control was being put on her. She could\nnot know. She could only watch the brilliant little discs of the\ndaisies veering slowly in travel on the dark, lustrous water. The\nlittle flotilla was drifting into the light, a company of white specks\nin the distance.\n\n'Do let us go to the shore, to follow them,' she said, afraid of being\nany longer imprisoned on the island. And they pushed off in the punt.\n\nShe was glad to be on the free land again. She went along the bank\ntowards the sluice. The daisies were scattered broadcast on the pond,\ntiny radiant things, like an exaltation, points of exaltation here and\nthere. Why did they move her so strongly and mystically?\n\n'Look,' he said, 'your boat of purple paper is escorting them, and they\nare a convoy of rafts.'\n\nSome of the daisies came slowly towards her, hesitating, making a shy\nbright little cotillion on the dark clear water. Their gay bright\ncandour moved her so much as they came near, that she was almost in\ntears.\n\n'Why are they so lovely,' she cried. 'Why do I think them so lovely?'\n\n'They are nice flowers,' he said, her emotional tones putting a\nconstraint on him.\n\n'You know that a daisy is a company of florets, a concourse, become\nindividual. Don't the botanists put it highest in the line of\ndevelopment? I believe they do.'\n\n'The compositae, yes, I think so,' said Ursula, who was never very sure\nof anything. Things she knew perfectly well, at one moment, seemed to\nbecome doubtful the next.\n\n'Explain it so, then,' he said. 'The daisy is a perfect little\ndemocracy, so it's the highest of flowers, hence its charm.'\n\n'No,' she cried, 'no--never. It isn't democratic.'\n\n'No,' he admitted. 'It's the golden mob of the proletariat, surrounded\nby a showy white fence of the idle rich.'\n\n'How hateful--your hateful social orders!' she cried.\n\n'Quite! It's a daisy--we'll leave it alone.'\n\n'Do. Let it be a dark horse for once,' she said: 'if anything can be a\ndark horse to you,' she added satirically.\n\nThey stood aside, forgetful. As if a little stunned, they both were\nmotionless, barely conscious. The little conflict into which they had\nfallen had torn their consciousness and left them like two impersonal\nforces, there in contact.\n\nHe became aware of the lapse. He wanted to say something, to get on to\na new more ordinary footing.\n\n'You know,' he said, 'that I am having rooms here at the mill? Don't\nyou think we can have some good times?'\n\n'Oh are you?' she said, ignoring all his implication of admitted\nintimacy.\n\nHe adjusted himself at once, became normally distant.\n\n'If I find I can live sufficiently by myself,' he continued, 'I shall\ngive up my work altogether. It has become dead to me. I don't believe\nin the humanity I pretend to be part of, I don't care a straw for the\nsocial ideals I live by, I hate the dying organic form of social\nmankind--so it can't be anything but trumpery, to work at education. I\nshall drop it as soon as I am clear enough--tomorrow perhaps--and be by\nmyself.'\n\n'Have you enough to live on?' asked Ursula.\n\n'Yes--I've about four hundred a year. That makes it easy for me.'\n\nThere was a pause.\n\n'And what about Hermione?' asked Ursula.\n\n'That's over, finally--a pure failure, and never could have been\nanything else.'\n\n'But you still know each other?'\n\n'We could hardly pretend to be strangers, could we?'\n\nThere was a stubborn pause.\n\n'But isn't that a half-measure?' asked Ursula at length.\n\n'I don't think so,' he said. 'You'll be able to tell me if it is.'\n\nAgain there was a pause of some minutes' duration. He was thinking.\n\n'One must throw everything away, everything--let everything go, to get\nthe one last thing one wants,' he said.\n\n'What thing?' she asked in challenge.\n\n'I don't know--freedom together,' he said.\n\nShe had wanted him to say 'love.'\n\nThere was heard a loud barking of the dogs below. He seemed disturbed\nby it. She did not notice. Only she thought he seemed uneasy.\n\n'As a matter of fact,' he said, in rather a small voice, 'I believe\nthat is Hermione come now, with Gerald Crich. She wanted to see the\nrooms before they are furnished.'\n\n'I know,' said Ursula. 'She will superintend the furnishing for you.'\n\n'Probably. Does it matter?'\n\n'Oh no, I should think not,' said Ursula. 'Though personally, I can't\nbear her. I think she is a lie, if you like, you who are always talking\nabout lies.' Then she ruminated for a moment, when she broke out: 'Yes,\nand I do mind if she furnishes your rooms--I do mind. I mind that you\nkeep her hanging on at all.'\n\nHe was silent now, frowning.\n\n'Perhaps,' he said. 'I don't WANT her to furnish the rooms here--and I\ndon't keep her hanging on. Only, I needn't be churlish to her, need I?\nAt any rate, I shall have to go down and see them now. You'll come,\nwon't you?'\n\n'I don't think so,' she said coldly and irresolutely.\n\n'Won't you? Yes do. Come and see the rooms as well. Do come.'\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII.\n\nCARPETING\n\n\nHe set off down the bank, and she went unwillingly with him. Yet she\nwould not have stayed away, either.\n\n'We know each other well, you and I, already,' he said. She did not\nanswer.\n\nIn the large darkish kitchen of the mill, the labourer's wife was\ntalking shrilly to Hermione and Gerald, who stood, he in white and she\nin a glistening bluish foulard, strangely luminous in the dusk of the\nroom; whilst from the cages on the walls, a dozen or more canaries sang\nat the top of their voices. The cages were all placed round a small\nsquare window at the back, where the sunshine came in, a beautiful\nbeam, filtering through green leaves of a tree. The voice of Mrs Salmon\nshrilled against the noise of the birds, which rose ever more wild and\ntriumphant, and the woman's voice went up and up against them, and the\nbirds replied with wild animation.\n\n'Here's Rupert!' shouted Gerald in the midst of the din. He was\nsuffering badly, being very sensitive in the ear.\n\n'O-o-h them birds, they won't let you speak--!' shrilled the labourer's\nwife in disgust. 'I'll cover them up.'\n\nAnd she darted here and there, throwing a duster, an apron, a towel, a\ntable-cloth over the cages of the birds.\n\n'Now will you stop it, and let a body speak for your row,' she said,\nstill in a voice that was too high.\n\nThe party watched her. Soon the cages were covered, they had a strange\nfunereal look. But from under the towels odd defiant trills and\nbubblings still shook out.\n\n'Oh, they won't go on,' said Mrs Salmon reassuringly. 'They'll go to\nsleep now.'\n\n'Really,' said Hermione, politely.\n\n'They will,' said Gerald. 'They will go to sleep automatically, now the\nimpression of evening is produced.'\n\n'Are they so easily deceived?' cried Ursula.\n\n'Oh, yes,' replied Gerald. 'Don't you know the story of Fabre, who,\nwhen he was a boy, put a hen's head under her wing, and she straight\naway went to sleep? It's quite true.'\n\n'And did that make him a naturalist?' asked Birkin.\n\n'Probably,' said Gerald.\n\nMeanwhile Ursula was peeping under one of the cloths. There sat the\ncanary in a corner, bunched and fluffed up for sleep.\n\n'How ridiculous!' she cried. 'It really thinks the night has come! How\nabsurd! Really, how can one have any respect for a creature that is so\neasily taken in!'\n\n'Yes,' sang Hermione, coming also to look. She put her hand on Ursula's\narm and chuckled a low laugh. 'Yes, doesn't he look comical?' she\nchuckled. 'Like a stupid husband.'\n\nThen, with her hand still on Ursula's arm, she drew her away, saying,\nin her mild sing-song:\n\n'How did you come here? We saw Gudrun too.'\n\n'I came to look at the pond,' said Ursula, 'and I found Mr Birkin\nthere.'\n\n'Did you? This is quite a Brangwen land, isn't it!'\n\n'I'm afraid I hoped so,' said Ursula. 'I ran here for refuge, when I\nsaw you down the lake, just putting off.'\n\n'Did you! And now we've run you to earth.'\n\nHermione's eyelids lifted with an uncanny movement, amused but\noverwrought. She had always her strange, rapt look, unnatural and\nirresponsible.\n\n'I was going on,' said Ursula. 'Mr Birkin wanted me to see the rooms.\nIsn't it delightful to live here? It is perfect.'\n\n'Yes,' said Hermione, abstractedly. Then she turned right away from\nUrsula, ceased to know her existence.\n\n'How do you feel, Rupert?' she sang in a new, affectionate tone, to\nBirkin.\n\n'Very well,' he replied.\n\n'Were you quite comfortable?' The curious, sinister, rapt look was on\nHermione's face, she shrugged her bosom in a convulsed movement, and\nseemed like one half in a trance.\n\n'Quite comfortable,' he replied.\n\nThere was a long pause, whilst Hermione looked at him for a long time,\nfrom under her heavy, drugged eyelids.\n\n'And you think you'll be happy here?' she said at last.\n\n'I'm sure I shall.'\n\n'I'm sure I shall do anything for him as I can,' said the labourer's\nwife. 'And I'm sure our master will; so I HOPE he'll find himself\ncomfortable.'\n\nHermione turned and looked at her slowly.\n\n'Thank you so much,' she said, and then she turned completely away\nagain. She recovered her position, and lifting her face towards him,\nand addressing him exclusively, she said:\n\n'Have you measured the rooms?'\n\n'No,' he said, 'I've been mending the punt.'\n\n'Shall we do it now?' she said slowly, balanced and dispassionate.\n\n'Have you got a tape measure, Mrs Salmon?' he said, turning to the\nwoman.\n\n'Yes sir, I think I can find one,' replied the woman, bustling\nimmediately to a basket. 'This is the only one I've got, if it will\ndo.'\n\nHermione took it, though it was offered to him.\n\n'Thank you so much,' she said. 'It will do very nicely. Thank you so\nmuch.' Then she turned to Birkin, saying with a little gay movement:\n'Shall we do it now, Rupert?'\n\n'What about the others, they'll be bored,' he said reluctantly.\n\n'Do you mind?' said Hermione, turning to Ursula and Gerald vaguely.\n\n'Not in the least,' they replied.\n\n'Which room shall we do first?' she said, turning again to Birkin, with\nthe same gaiety, now she was going to DO something with him.\n\n'We'll take them as they come,' he said.\n\n'Should I be getting your teas ready, while you do that?' said the\nlabourer's wife, also gay because SHE had something to do.\n\n'Would you?' said Hermione, turning to her with the curious motion of\nintimacy that seemed to envelop the woman, draw her almost to\nHermione's breast, and which left the others standing apart. 'I should\nbe so glad. Where shall we have it?'\n\n'Where would you like it? Shall it be in here, or out on the grass?'\n\n'Where shall we have tea?' sang Hermione to the company at large.\n\n'On the bank by the pond. And WE'LL carry the things up, if you'll just\nget them ready, Mrs Salmon,' said Birkin.\n\n'All right,' said the pleased woman.\n\nThe party moved down the passage into the front room. It was empty, but\nclean and sunny. There was a window looking on to the tangled front\ngarden.\n\n'This is the dining room,' said Hermione. 'We'll measure it this way,\nRupert--you go down there--'\n\n'Can't I do it for you,' said Gerald, coming to take the end of the\ntape.\n\n'No, thank you,' cried Hermione, stooping to the ground in her bluish,\nbrilliant foulard. It was a great joy to her to DO things, and to have\nthe ordering of the job, with Birkin. He obeyed her subduedly. Ursula\nand Gerald looked on. It was a peculiarity of Hermione's, that at every\nmoment, she had one intimate, and turned all the rest of those present\ninto onlookers. This raised her into a state of triumph.\n\nThey measured and discussed in the dining-room, and Hermione decided\nwhat the floor coverings must be. It sent her into a strange, convulsed\nanger, to be thwarted. Birkin always let her have her way, for the\nmoment.\n\nThen they moved across, through the hall, to the other front room, that\nwas a little smaller than the first.\n\n'This is the study,' said Hermione. 'Rupert, I have a rug that I want\nyou to have for here. Will you let me give it to you? Do--I want to\ngive it you.'\n\n'What is it like?' he asked ungraciously.\n\n'You haven't seen it. It is chiefly rose red, then blue, a metallic,\nmid-blue, and a very soft dark blue. I think you would like it. Do you\nthink you would?'\n\n'It sounds very nice,' he replied. 'What is it? Oriental? With a pile?'\n\n'Yes. Persian! It is made of camel's hair, silky. I think it is called\nBergamos--twelve feet by seven--. Do you think it will do?'\n\n'It would DO,' he said. 'But why should you give me an expensive rug? I\ncan manage perfectly well with my old Oxford Turkish.'\n\n'But may I give it to you? Do let me.'\n\n'How much did it cost?'\n\nShe looked at him, and said:\n\n'I don't remember. It was quite cheap.'\n\nHe looked at her, his face set.\n\n'I don't want to take it, Hermione,' he said.\n\n'Do let me give it to the rooms,' she said, going up to him and putting\nher hand on his arm lightly, pleadingly. 'I shall be so disappointed.'\n\n'You know I don't want you to give me things,' he repeated helplessly.\n\n'I don't want to give you THINGS,' she said teasingly. 'But will you\nhave this?'\n\n'All right,' he said, defeated, and she triumphed.\n\nThey went upstairs. There were two bedrooms to correspond with the\nrooms downstairs. One of them was half furnished, and Birkin had\nevidently slept there. Hermione went round the room carefully, taking\nin every detail, as if absorbing the evidence of his presence, in all\nthe inanimate things. She felt the bed and examined the coverings.\n\n'Are you SURE you were quite comfortable?' she said, pressing the\npillow.\n\n'Perfectly,' he replied coldly.\n\n'And were you warm? There is no down quilt. I am sure you need one. You\nmustn't have a great pressure of clothes.'\n\n'I've got one,' he said. 'It is coming down.'\n\nThey measured the rooms, and lingered over every consideration. Ursula\nstood at the window and watched the woman carrying the tea up the bank\nto the pond. She hated the palaver Hermione made, she wanted to drink\ntea, she wanted anything but this fuss and business.\n\nAt last they all mounted the grassy bank, to the picnic. Hermione\npoured out tea. She ignored now Ursula's presence. And Ursula,\nrecovering from her ill-humour, turned to Gerald saying:\n\n'Oh, I hated you so much the other day, Mr Crich,'\n\n'What for?' said Gerald, wincing slightly away.\n\n'For treating your horse so badly. Oh, I hated you so much!'\n\n'What did he do?' sang Hermione.\n\n'He made his lovely sensitive Arab horse stand with him at the\nrailway-crossing whilst a horrible lot of trucks went by; and the poor\nthing, she was in a perfect frenzy, a perfect agony. It was the most\nhorrible sight you can imagine.'\n\n'Why did you do it, Gerald?' asked Hermione, calm and interrogative.\n\n'She must learn to stand--what use is she to me in this country, if she\nshies and goes off every time an engine whistles.'\n\n'But why inflict unnecessary torture?' said Ursula. 'Why make her stand\nall that time at the crossing? You might just as well have ridden back\nup the road, and saved all that horror. Her sides were bleeding where\nyou had spurred her. It was too horrible--!'\n\nGerald stiffened.\n\n'I have to use her,' he replied. 'And if I'm going to be sure of her at\nALL, she'll have to learn to stand noises.'\n\n'Why should she?' cried Ursula in a passion. 'She is a living creature,\nwhy should she stand anything, just because you choose to make her? She\nhas as much right to her own being, as you have to yours.'\n\n'There I disagree,' said Gerald. 'I consider that mare is there for my\nuse. Not because I bought her, but because that is the natural order.\nIt is more natural for a man to take a horse and use it as he likes,\nthan for him to go down on his knees to it, begging it to do as it\nwishes, and to fulfil its own marvellous nature.'\n\nUrsula was just breaking out, when Hermione lifted her face and began,\nin her musing sing-song:\n\n'I do think--I do really think we must have the COURAGE to use the\nlower animal life for our needs. I do think there is something wrong,\nwhen we look on every living creature as if it were ourselves. I do\nfeel, that it is false to project our own feelings on every animate\ncreature. It is a lack of discrimination, a lack of criticism.'\n\n'Quite,' said Birkin sharply. 'Nothing is so detestable as the maudlin\nattributing of human feelings and consciousness to animals.'\n\n'Yes,' said Hermione, wearily, 'we must really take a position. Either\nwe are going to use the animals, or they will use us.'\n\n'That's a fact,' said Gerald. 'A horse has got a will like a man,\nthough it has no MIND strictly. And if your will isn't master, then the\nhorse is master of you. And this is a thing I can't help. I can't help\nbeing master of the horse.'\n\n'If only we could learn how to use our will,' said Hermione, 'we could\ndo anything. The will can cure anything, and put anything right. That I\nam convinced of--if only we use the will properly, intelligibly.'\n\n'What do you mean by using the will properly?' said Birkin.\n\n'A very great doctor taught me,' she said, addressing Ursula and Gerald\nvaguely. 'He told me for instance, that to cure oneself of a bad habit,\none should FORCE oneself to do it, when one would not do it--make\noneself do it--and then the habit would disappear.'\n\n'How do you mean?' said Gerald.\n\n'If you bite your nails, for example. Then, when you don't want to bite\nyour nails, bite them, make yourself bite them. And you would find the\nhabit was broken.'\n\n'Is that so?' said Gerald.\n\n'Yes. And in so many things, I have MADE myself well. I was a very\nqueer and nervous girl. And by learning to use my will, simply by using\nmy will, I MADE myself right.'\n\nUrsula looked all the white at Hermione, as she spoke in her slow,\ndispassionate, and yet strangely tense voice. A curious thrill went\nover the younger woman. Some strange, dark, convulsive power was in\nHermione, fascinating and repelling.\n\n'It is fatal to use the will like that,' cried Birkin harshly,\n'disgusting. Such a will is an obscenity.'\n\nHermione looked at him for a long time, with her shadowed, heavy eyes.\nHer face was soft and pale and thin, almost phosphorescent, her jaw was\nlean.\n\n'I'm sure it isn't,' she said at length. There always seemed an\ninterval, a strange split between what she seemed to feel and\nexperience, and what she actually said and thought. She seemed to catch\nher thoughts at length from off the surface of a maelstrom of chaotic\nblack emotions and reactions, and Birkin was always filled with\nrepulsion, she caught so infallibly, her will never failed her. Her\nvoice was always dispassionate and tense, and perfectly confident. Yet\nshe shuddered with a sense of nausea, a sort of seasickness that always\nthreatened to overwhelm her mind. But her mind remained unbroken, her\nwill was still perfect. It almost sent Birkin mad. But he would never,\nnever dare to break her will, and let loose the maelstrom of her\nsubconsciousness, and see her in her ultimate madness. Yet he was\nalways striking at her.\n\n'And of course,' he said to Gerald, 'horses HAVEN'T got a complete\nwill, like human beings. A horse has no ONE will. Every horse,\nstrictly, has two wills. With one will, it wants to put itself in the\nhuman power completely--and with the other, it wants to be free, wild.\nThe two wills sometimes lock--you know that, if ever you've felt a\nhorse bolt, while you've been driving it.'\n\n'I have felt a horse bolt while I was driving it,' said Gerald, 'but it\ndidn't make me know it had two wills. I only knew it was frightened.'\n\nHermione had ceased to listen. She simply became oblivious when these\nsubjects were started.\n\n'Why should a horse want to put itself in the human power?' asked\nUrsula. 'That is quite incomprehensible to me. I don't believe it ever\nwanted it.'\n\n'Yes it did. It's the last, perhaps highest, love-impulse: resign your\nwill to the higher being,' said Birkin.\n\n'What curious notions you have of love,' jeered Ursula.\n\n'And woman is the same as horses: two wills act in opposition inside\nher. With one will, she wants to subject herself utterly. With the\nother she wants to bolt, and pitch her rider to perdition.'\n\n'Then I'm a bolter,' said Ursula, with a burst of laughter.\n\n'It's a dangerous thing to domesticate even horses, let alone women,'\nsaid Birkin. 'The dominant principle has some rare antagonists.'\n\n'Good thing too,' said Ursula.\n\n'Quite,' said Gerald, with a faint smile. 'There's more fun.'\n\nHermione could bear no more. She rose, saying in her easy sing-song:\n\n'Isn't the evening beautiful! I get filled sometimes with such a great\nsense of beauty, that I feel I can hardly bear it.'\n\nUrsula, to whom she had appealed, rose with her, moved to the last\nimpersonal depths. And Birkin seemed to her almost a monster of hateful\narrogance. She went with Hermione along the bank of the pond, talking\nof beautiful, soothing things, picking the gentle cowslips.\n\n'Wouldn't you like a dress,' said Ursula to Hermione, 'of this yellow\nspotted with orange--a cotton dress?'\n\n'Yes,' said Hermione, stopping and looking at the flower, letting the\nthought come home to her and soothe her. 'Wouldn't it be pretty? I\nshould LOVE it.'\n\nAnd she turned smiling to Ursula, in a feeling of real affection.\n\nBut Gerald remained with Birkin, wanting to probe him to the bottom, to\nknow what he meant by the dual will in horses. A flicker of excitement\ndanced on Gerald's face.\n\nHermione and Ursula strayed on together, united in a sudden bond of\ndeep affection and closeness.\n\n'I really do not want to be forced into all this criticism and analysis\nof life. I really DO want to see things in their entirety, with their\nbeauty left to them, and their wholeness, their natural holiness. Don't\nyou feel it, don't you feel you CAN'T be tortured into any more\nknowledge?' said Hermione, stopping in front of Ursula, and turning to\nher with clenched fists thrust downwards.\n\n'Yes,' said Ursula. 'I do. I am sick of all this poking and prying.'\n\n'I'm so glad you are. Sometimes,' said Hermione, again stopping\narrested in her progress and turning to Ursula, 'sometimes I wonder if\nI OUGHT to submit to all this realisation, if I am not being weak in\nrejecting it. But I feel I CAN'T--I CAN'T. It seems to destroy\nEVERYTHING. All the beauty and the--and the true holiness is\ndestroyed--and I feel I can't live without them.'\n\n'And it would be simply wrong to live without them,' cried Ursula. 'No,\nit is so IRREVERENT to think that everything must be realised in the\nhead. Really, something must be left to the Lord, there always is and\nalways will be.'\n\n'Yes,' said Hermione, reassured like a child, 'it should, shouldn't it?\nAnd Rupert--' she lifted her face to the sky, in a muse--'he CAN only\ntear things to pieces. He really IS like a boy who must pull everything\nto pieces to see how it is made. And I can't think it is right--it does\nseem so irreverent, as you say.'\n\n'Like tearing open a bud to see what the flower will be like,' said\nUrsula.\n\n'Yes. And that kills everything, doesn't it? It doesn't allow any\npossibility of flowering.'\n\n'Of course not,' said Ursula. 'It is purely destructive.'\n\n'It is, isn't it!'\n\nHermione looked long and slow at Ursula, seeming to accept confirmation\nfrom her. Then the two women were silent. As soon as they were in\naccord, they began mutually to mistrust each other. In spite of\nherself, Ursula felt herself recoiling from Hermione. It was all she\ncould do to restrain her revulsion.\n\nThey returned to the men, like two conspirators who have withdrawn to\ncome to an agreement. Birkin looked up at them. Ursula hated him for\nhis cold watchfulness. But he said nothing.\n\n'Shall we be going?' said Hermione. 'Rupert, you are coming to\nShortlands to dinner? Will you come at once, will you come now, with\nus?'\n\n'I'm not dressed,' replied Birkin. 'And you know Gerald stickles for\nconvention.'\n\n'I don't stickle for it,' said Gerald. 'But if you'd got as sick as I\nhave of rowdy go-as-you-please in the house, you'd prefer it if people\nwere peaceful and conventional, at least at meals.'\n\n'All right,' said Birkin.\n\n'But can't we wait for you while you dress?' persisted Hermione.\n\n'If you like.'\n\nHe rose to go indoors. Ursula said she would take her leave.\n\n'Only,' she said, turning to Gerald, 'I must say that, however man is\nlord of the beast and the fowl, I still don't think he has any right to\nviolate the feelings of the inferior creation. I still think it would\nhave been much more sensible and nice of you if you'd trotted back up\nthe road while the train went by, and been considerate.'\n\n'I see,' said Gerald, smiling, but somewhat annoyed. 'I must remember\nanother time.'\n\n'They all think I'm an interfering female,' thought Ursula to herself,\nas she went away. But she was in arms against them.\n\nShe ran home plunged in thought. She had been very much moved by\nHermione, she had really come into contact with her, so that there was\na sort of league between the two women. And yet she could not bear her.\nBut she put the thought away. 'She's really good,' she said to herself.\n'She really wants what is right.' And she tried to feel at one with\nHermione, and to shut off from Birkin. She was strictly hostile to him.\nBut she was held to him by some bond, some deep principle. This at once\nirritated her and saved her.\n\nOnly now and again, violent little shudders would come over her, out of\nher subconsciousness, and she knew it was the fact that she had stated\nher challenge to Birkin, and he had, consciously or unconsciously,\naccepted. It was a fight to the death between them--or to new life:\nthough in what the conflict lay, no one could say.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII.\n\nMINO\n\n\nThe days went by, and she received no sign. Was he going to ignore her,\nwas he going to take no further notice of her secret? A dreary weight\nof anxiety and acrid bitterness settled on her. And yet Ursula knew she\nwas only deceiving herself, and that he would proceed. She said no word\nto anybody.\n\nThen, sure enough, there came a note from him, asking if she would come\nto tea with Gudrun, to his rooms in town.\n\n'Why does he ask Gudrun as well?' she asked herself at once. 'Does he\nwant to protect himself, or does he think I would not go alone?' She\nwas tormented by the thought that he wanted to protect himself. But at\nthe end of all, she only said to herself:\n\n'I don't want Gudrun to be there, because I want him to say something\nmore to me. So I shan't tell Gudrun anything about it, and I shall go\nalone. Then I shall know.'\n\nShe found herself sitting on the tram-car, mounting up the hill going\nout of the town, to the place where he had his lodging. She seemed to\nhave passed into a kind of dream world, absolved from the conditions of\nactuality. She watched the sordid streets of the town go by beneath\nher, as if she were a spirit disconnected from the material universe.\nWhat had it all to do with her? She was palpitating and formless within\nthe flux of the ghost life. She could not consider any more, what\nanybody would say of her or think about her. People had passed out of\nher range, she was absolved. She had fallen strange and dim, out of the\nsheath of the material life, as a berry falls from the only world it\nhas ever known, down out of the sheath on to the real unknown.\n\nBirkin was standing in the middle of the room, when she was shown in by\nthe landlady. He too was moved outside himself. She saw him agitated\nand shaken, a frail, unsubstantial body silent like the node of some\nviolent force, that came out from him and shook her almost into a\nswoon.\n\n'You are alone?' he said.\n\n'Yes--Gudrun could not come.'\n\nHe instantly guessed why.\n\nAnd they were both seated in silence, in the terrible tension of the\nroom. She was aware that it was a pleasant room, full of light and very\nrestful in its form--aware also of a fuchsia tree, with dangling\nscarlet and purple flowers.\n\n'How nice the fuchsias are!' she said, to break the silence.\n\n'Aren't they! Did you think I had forgotten what I said?'\n\nA swoon went over Ursula's mind.\n\n'I don't want you to remember it--if you don't want to,' she struggled\nto say, through the dark mist that covered her.\n\nThere was silence for some moments.\n\n'No,' he said. 'It isn't that. Only--if we are going to know each\nother, we must pledge ourselves for ever. If we are going to make a\nrelationship, even of friendship, there must be something final and\ninfallible about it.'\n\nThere was a clang of mistrust and almost anger in his voice. She did\nnot answer. Her heart was too much contracted. She could not have\nspoken.\n\nSeeing she was not going to reply, he continued, almost bitterly,\ngiving himself away:\n\n'I can't say it is love I have to offer--and it isn't love I want. It\nis something much more impersonal and harder--and rarer.'\n\nThere was a silence, out of which she said:\n\n'You mean you don't love me?'\n\nShe suffered furiously, saying that.\n\n'Yes, if you like to put it like that. Though perhaps that isn't true.\nI don't know. At any rate, I don't feel the emotion of love for\nyou--no, and I don't want to. Because it gives out in the last issues.'\n\n'Love gives out in the last issues?' she asked, feeling numb to the\nlips.\n\n'Yes, it does. At the very last, one is alone, beyond the influence of\nlove. There is a real impersonal me, that is beyond love, beyond any\nemotional relationship. So it is with you. But we want to delude\nourselves that love is the root. It isn't. It is only the branches. The\nroot is beyond love, a naked kind of isolation, an isolated me, that\ndoes NOT meet and mingle, and never can.'\n\nShe watched him with wide, troubled eyes. His face was incandescent in\nits abstract earnestness.\n\n'And you mean you can't love?' she asked, in trepidation.\n\n'Yes, if you like. I have loved. But there is a beyond, where there is\nnot love.'\n\nShe could not submit to this. She felt it swooning over her. But she\ncould not submit.\n\n'But how do you know--if you have never REALLY loved?' she asked.\n\n'It is true, what I say; there is a beyond, in you, in me, which is\nfurther than love, beyond the scope, as stars are beyond the scope of\nvision, some of them.'\n\n'Then there is no love,' cried Ursula.\n\n'Ultimately, no, there is something else. But, ultimately, there IS no\nlove.'\n\nUrsula was given over to this statement for some moments. Then she half\nrose from her chair, saying, in a final, repellent voice:\n\n'Then let me go home--what am I doing here?'\n\n'There is the door,' he said. 'You are a free agent.'\n\nHe was suspended finely and perfectly in this extremity. She hung\nmotionless for some seconds, then she sat down again.\n\n'If there is no love, what is there?' she cried, almost jeering.\n\n'Something,' he said, looking at her, battling with his soul, with all\nhis might.\n\n'What?'\n\nHe was silent for a long time, unable to be in communication with her\nwhile she was in this state of opposition.\n\n'There is,' he said, in a voice of pure abstraction; 'a final me which\nis stark and impersonal and beyond responsibility. So there is a final\nyou. And it is there I would want to meet you--not in the emotional,\nloving plane--but there beyond, where there is no speech and no terms\nof agreement. There we are two stark, unknown beings, two utterly\nstrange creatures, I would want to approach you, and you me. And there\ncould be no obligation, because there is no standard for action there,\nbecause no understanding has been reaped from that plane. It is quite\ninhuman,--so there can be no calling to book, in any form\nwhatsoever--because one is outside the pale of all that is accepted,\nand nothing known applies. One can only follow the impulse, taking that\nwhich lies in front, and responsible for nothing, asked for nothing,\ngiving nothing, only each taking according to the primal desire.'\n\nUrsula listened to this speech, her mind dumb and almost senseless,\nwhat he said was so unexpected and so untoward.\n\n'It is just purely selfish,' she said.\n\n'If it is pure, yes. But it isn't selfish at all. Because I don't KNOW\nwhat I want of you. I deliver MYSELF over to the unknown, in coming to\nyou, I am without reserves or defences, stripped entirely, into the\nunknown. Only there needs the pledge between us, that we will both cast\noff everything, cast off ourselves even, and cease to be, so that that\nwhich is perfectly ourselves can take place in us.'\n\nShe pondered along her own line of thought.\n\n'But it is because you love me, that you want me?' she persisted.\n\n'No it isn't. It is because I believe in you--if I DO believe in you.'\n\n'Aren't you sure?' she laughed, suddenly hurt.\n\nHe was looking at her steadfastly, scarcely heeding what she said.\n\n'Yes, I must believe in you, or else I shouldn't be here saying this,'\nhe replied. 'But that is all the proof I have. I don't feel any very\nstrong belief at this particular moment.'\n\nShe disliked him for this sudden relapse into weariness and\nfaithlessness.\n\n'But don't you think me good-looking?' she persisted, in a mocking\nvoice.\n\nHe looked at her, to see if he felt that she was good-looking.\n\n'I don't FEEL that you're good-looking,' he said.\n\n'Not even attractive?' she mocked, bitingly.\n\nHe knitted his brows in sudden exasperation.\n\n'Don't you see that it's not a question of visual appreciation in the\nleast,' he cried. 'I don't WANT to see you. I've seen plenty of women,\nI'm sick and weary of seeing them. I want a woman I don't see.'\n\n'I'm sorry I can't oblige you by being invisible,' she laughed.\n\n'Yes,' he said, 'you are invisible to me, if you don't force me to be\nvisually aware of you. But I don't want to see you or hear you.'\n\n'What did you ask me to tea for, then?' she mocked.\n\nBut he would take no notice of her. He was talking to himself.\n\n'I want to find you, where you don't know your own existence, the you\nthat your common self denies utterly. But I don't want your good looks,\nand I don't want your womanly feelings, and I don't want your thoughts\nnor opinions nor your ideas--they are all bagatelles to me.'\n\n'You are very conceited, Monsieur,' she mocked. 'How do you know what\nmy womanly feelings are, or my thoughts or my ideas? You don't even\nknow what I think of you now.'\n\n'Nor do I care in the slightest.'\n\n'I think you are very silly. I think you want to tell me you love me,\nand you go all this way round to do it.'\n\n'All right,' he said, looking up with sudden exasperation. 'Now go away\nthen, and leave me alone. I don't want any more of your meretricious\npersiflage.'\n\n'Is it really persiflage?' she mocked, her face really relaxing into\nlaughter. She interpreted it, that he had made a deep confession of\nlove to her. But he was so absurd in his words, also.\n\nThey were silent for many minutes, she was pleased and elated like a\nchild. His concentration broke, he began to look at her simply and\nnaturally.\n\n'What I want is a strange conjunction with you--' he said quietly; 'not\nmeeting and mingling--you are quite right--but an equilibrium, a pure\nbalance of two single beings--as the stars balance each other.'\n\nShe looked at him. He was very earnest, and earnestness was always\nrather ridiculous, commonplace, to her. It made her feel unfree and\nuncomfortable. Yet she liked him so much. But why drag in the stars.\n\n'Isn't this rather sudden?' she mocked.\n\nHe began to laugh.\n\n'Best to read the terms of the contract, before we sign,' he said.\n\nA young grey cat that had been sleeping on the sofa jumped down and\nstretched, rising on its long legs, and arching its slim back. Then it\nsat considering for a moment, erect and kingly. And then, like a dart,\nit had shot out of the room, through the open window-doors, and into\nthe garden.\n\n'What's he after?' said Birkin, rising.\n\nThe young cat trotted lordly down the path, waving his tail. He was an\nordinary tabby with white paws, a slender young gentleman. A crouching,\nfluffy, brownish-grey cat was stealing up the side of the fence. The\nMino walked statelily up to her, with manly nonchalance. She crouched\nbefore him and pressed herself on the ground in humility, a fluffy soft\noutcast, looking up at him with wild eyes that were green and lovely as\ngreat jewels. He looked casually down on her. So she crept a few inches\nfurther, proceeding on her way to the back door, crouching in a\nwonderful, soft, self-obliterating manner, and moving like a shadow.\n\nHe, going statelily on his slim legs, walked after her, then suddenly,\nfor pure excess, he gave her a light cuff with his paw on the side of\nher face. She ran off a few steps, like a blown leaf along the ground,\nthen crouched unobtrusively, in submissive, wild patience. The Mino\npretended to take no notice of her. He blinked his eyes superbly at the\nlandscape. In a minute she drew herself together and moved softly, a\nfleecy brown-grey shadow, a few paces forward. She began to quicken her\npace, in a moment she would be gone like a dream, when the young grey\nlord sprang before her, and gave her a light handsome cuff. She\nsubsided at once, submissively.\n\n'She is a wild cat,' said Birkin. 'She has come in from the woods.'\n\nThe eyes of the stray cat flared round for a moment, like great green\nfires staring at Birkin. Then she had rushed in a soft swift rush, half\nway down the garden. There she paused to look round. The Mino turned\nhis face in pure superiority to his master, and slowly closed his eyes,\nstanding in statuesque young perfection. The wild cat's round, green,\nwondering eyes were staring all the while like uncanny fires. Then\nagain, like a shadow, she slid towards the kitchen.\n\nIn a lovely springing leap, like a wind, the Mino was upon her, and had\nboxed her twice, very definitely, with a white, delicate fist. She sank\nand slid back, unquestioning. He walked after her, and cuffed her once\nor twice, leisurely, with sudden little blows of his magic white paws.\n\n'Now why does he do that?' cried Ursula in indignation.\n\n'They are on intimate terms,' said Birkin.\n\n'And is that why he hits her?'\n\n'Yes,' laughed Birkin, 'I think he wants to make it quite obvious to\nher.'\n\n'Isn't it horrid of him!' she cried; and going out into the garden she\ncalled to the Mino:\n\n'Stop it, don't bully. Stop hitting her.'\n\nThe stray cat vanished like a swift, invisible shadow. The Mino glanced\nat Ursula, then looked from her disdainfully to his master.\n\n'Are you a bully, Mino?' Birkin asked.\n\nThe young slim cat looked at him, and slowly narrowed its eyes. Then it\nglanced away at the landscape, looking into the distance as if\ncompletely oblivious of the two human beings.\n\n'Mino,' said Ursula, 'I don't like you. You are a bully like all\nmales.'\n\n'No,' said Birkin, 'he is justified. He is not a bully. He is only\ninsisting to the poor stray that she shall acknowledge him as a sort of\nfate, her own fate: because you can see she is fluffy and promiscuous\nas the wind. I am with him entirely. He wants superfine stability.'\n\n'Yes, I know!' cried Ursula. 'He wants his own way--I know what your\nfine words work down to--bossiness, I call it, bossiness.'\n\nThe young cat again glanced at Birkin in disdain of the noisy woman.\n\n'I quite agree with you, Miciotto,' said Birkin to the cat. 'Keep your\nmale dignity, and your higher understanding.'\n\nAgain the Mino narrowed his eyes as if he were looking at the sun.\nThen, suddenly affecting to have no connection at all with the two\npeople, he went trotting off, with assumed spontaneity and gaiety, his\ntail erect, his white feet blithe.\n\n'Now he will find the belle sauvage once more, and entertain her with\nhis superior wisdom,' laughed Birkin.\n\nUrsula looked at the man who stood in the garden with his hair blowing\nand his eyes smiling ironically, and she cried:\n\n'Oh it makes me so cross, this assumption of male superiority! And it\nis such a lie! One wouldn't mind if there were any justification for\nit.'\n\n'The wild cat,' said Birkin, 'doesn't mind. She perceives that it is\njustified.'\n\n'Does she!' cried Ursula. 'And tell it to the Horse Marines.'\n\n'To them also.'\n\n'It is just like Gerald Crich with his horse--a lust for bullying--a\nreal Wille zur Macht--so base, so petty.'\n\n'I agree that the Wille zur Macht is a base and petty thing. But with\nthe Mino, it is the desire to bring this female cat into a pure stable\nequilibrium, a transcendent and abiding RAPPORT with the single male.\nWhereas without him, as you see, she is a mere stray, a fluffy sporadic\nbit of chaos. It is a volonte de pouvoir, if you like, a will to\nability, taking pouvoir as a verb.'\n\n'Ah--! Sophistries! It's the old Adam.'\n\n'Oh yes. Adam kept Eve in the indestructible paradise, when he kept her\nsingle with himself, like a star in its orbit.'\n\n'Yes--yes--' cried Ursula, pointing her finger at him. 'There you\nare--a star in its orbit! A satellite--a satellite of Mars--that's what\nshe is to be! There--there--you've given yourself away! You want a\nsatellite, Mars and his satellite! You've said it--you've said\nit--you've dished yourself!'\n\nHe stood smiling in frustration and amusement and irritation and\nadmiration and love. She was so quick, and so lambent, like discernible\nfire, and so vindictive, and so rich in her dangerous flamy\nsensitiveness.\n\n'I've not said it at all,' he replied, 'if you will give me a chance to\nspeak.'\n\n'No, no!' she cried. 'I won't let you speak. You've said it, a\nsatellite, you're not going to wriggle out of it. You've said it.'\n\n'You'll never believe now that I HAVEN'T said it,' he answered. 'I\nneither implied nor indicated nor mentioned a satellite, nor intended a\nsatellite, never.'\n\n'YOU PREVARICATOR!' she cried, in real indignation.\n\n'Tea is ready, sir,' said the landlady from the doorway.\n\nThey both looked at her, very much as the cats had looked at them, a\nlittle while before.\n\n'Thank you, Mrs Daykin.'\n\nAn interrupted silence fell over the two of them, a moment of breach.\n\n'Come and have tea,' he said.\n\n'Yes, I should love it,' she replied, gathering herself together.\n\nThey sat facing each other across the tea table.\n\n'I did not say, nor imply, a satellite. I meant two single equal stars\nbalanced in conjunction--'\n\n'You gave yourself away, you gave away your little game completely,'\nshe cried, beginning at once to eat. He saw that she would take no\nfurther heed of his expostulation, so he began to pour the tea.\n\n'What GOOD things to eat!' she cried.\n\n'Take your own sugar,' he said.\n\nHe handed her her cup. He had everything so nice, such pretty cups and\nplates, painted with mauve-lustre and green, also shapely bowls and\nglass plates, and old spoons, on a woven cloth of pale grey and black\nand purple. It was very rich and fine. But Ursula could see Hermione's\ninfluence.\n\n'Your things are so lovely!' she said, almost angrily.\n\n'I like them. It gives me real pleasure to use things that are\nattractive in themselves--pleasant things. And Mrs Daykin is good. She\nthinks everything is wonderful, for my sake.'\n\n'Really,' said Ursula, 'landladies are better than wives, nowadays.\nThey certainly CARE a great deal more. It is much more beautiful and\ncomplete here now, than if you were married.'\n\n'But think of the emptiness within,' he laughed.\n\n'No,' she said. 'I am jealous that men have such perfect landladies and\nsuch beautiful lodgings. There is nothing left them to desire.'\n\n'In the house-keeping way, we'll hope not. It is disgusting, people\nmarrying for a home.'\n\n'Still,' said Ursula, 'a man has very little need for a woman now, has\nhe?'\n\n'In outer things, maybe--except to share his bed and bear his children.\nBut essentially, there is just the same need as there ever was. Only\nnobody takes the trouble to be essential.'\n\n'How essential?' she said.\n\n'I do think,' he said, 'that the world is only held together by the\nmystic conjunction, the ultimate unison between people--a bond. And the\nimmediate bond is between man and woman.'\n\n'But it's such old hat,' said Ursula. 'Why should love be a bond? No,\nI'm not having any.'\n\n'If you are walking westward,' he said, 'you forfeit the northern and\neastward and southern direction. If you admit a unison, you forfeit all\nthe possibilities of chaos.'\n\n'But love is freedom,' she declared.\n\n'Don't cant to me,' he replied. 'Love is a direction which excludes all\nother directions. It's a freedom TOGETHER, if you like.'\n\n'No,' she said, 'love includes everything.'\n\n'Sentimental cant,' he replied. 'You want the state of chaos, that's\nall. It is ultimate nihilism, this freedom-in-love business, this\nfreedom which is love and love which is freedom. As a matter of fact,\nif you enter into a pure unison, it is irrevocable, and it is never\npure till it is irrevocable. And when it is irrevocable, it is one way,\nlike the path of a star.'\n\n'Ha!' she cried bitterly. 'It is the old dead morality.'\n\n'No,' he said, 'it is the law of creation. One is committed. One must\ncommit oneself to a conjunction with the other--for ever. But it is not\nselfless--it is a maintaining of the self in mystic balance and\nintegrity--like a star balanced with another star.'\n\n'I don't trust you when you drag in the stars,' she said. 'If you were\nquite true, it wouldn't be necessary to be so far-fetched.'\n\n'Don't trust me then,' he said, angry. 'It is enough that I trust\nmyself.'\n\n'And that is where you make another mistake,' she replied. 'You DON'T\ntrust yourself. You don't fully believe yourself what you are saying.\nYou don't really want this conjunction, otherwise you wouldn't talk so\nmuch about it, you'd get it.'\n\nHe was suspended for a moment, arrested.\n\n'How?' he said.\n\n'By just loving,' she retorted in defiance.\n\nHe was still a moment, in anger. Then he said:\n\n'I tell you, I don't believe in love like that. I tell you, you want\nlove to administer to your egoism, to subserve you. Love is a process\nof subservience with you--and with everybody. I hate it.'\n\n'No,' she cried, pressing back her head like a cobra, her eyes\nflashing. 'It is a process of pride--I want to be proud--'\n\n'Proud and subservient, proud and subservient, I know you,' he retorted\ndryly. 'Proud and subservient, then subservient to the proud--I know\nyou and your love. It is a tick-tack, tick-tack, a dance of opposites.'\n\n'Are you sure?' she mocked wickedly, 'what my love is?'\n\n'Yes, I am,' he retorted.\n\n'So cocksure!' she said. 'How can anybody ever be right, who is so\ncocksure? It shows you are wrong.'\n\nHe was silent in chagrin.\n\nThey had talked and struggled till they were both wearied out.\n\n'Tell me about yourself and your people,' he said.\n\nAnd she told him about the Brangwens, and about her mother, and about\nSkrebensky, her first love, and about her later experiences. He sat\nvery still, watching her as she talked. And he seemed to listen with\nreverence. Her face was beautiful and full of baffled light as she told\nhim all the things that had hurt her or perplexed her so deeply. He\nseemed to warm and comfort his soul at the beautiful light of her\nnature.\n\n'If she REALLY could pledge herself,' he thought to himself, with\npassionate insistence but hardly any hope. Yet a curious little\nirresponsible laughter appeared in his heart.\n\n'We have all suffered so much,' he mocked, ironically.\n\nShe looked up at him, and a flash of wild gaiety went over her face, a\nstrange flash of yellow light coming from her eyes.\n\n'Haven't we!' she cried, in a high, reckless cry. 'It is almost absurd,\nisn't it?'\n\n'Quite absurd,' he said. 'Suffering bores me, any more.'\n\n'So it does me.'\n\nHe was almost afraid of the mocking recklessness of her splendid face.\nHere was one who would go to the whole lengths of heaven or hell,\nwhichever she had to go. And he mistrusted her, he was afraid of a\nwoman capable of such abandon, such dangerous thoroughness of\ndestructivity. Yet he chuckled within himself also.\n\nShe came over to him and put her hand on his shoulder, looking down at\nhim with strange golden-lighted eyes, very tender, but with a curious\ndevilish look lurking underneath.\n\n'Say you love me, say \"my love\" to me,' she pleaded\n\nHe looked back into her eyes, and saw. His face flickered with sardonic\ncomprehension.\n\n'I love you right enough,' he said, grimly. 'But I want it to be\nsomething else.'\n\n'But why? But why?' she insisted, bending her wonderful luminous face\nto him. 'Why isn't it enough?'\n\n'Because we can go one better,' he said, putting his arms round her.\n\n'No, we can't,' she said, in a strong, voluptuous voice of yielding.\n'We can only love each other. Say \"my love\" to me, say it, say it.'\n\nShe put her arms round his neck. He enfolded her, and kissed her\nsubtly, murmuring in a subtle voice of love, and irony, and submission:\n\n'Yes,--my love, yes,--my love. Let love be enough then. I love you\nthen--I love you. I'm bored by the rest.'\n\n'Yes,' she murmured, nestling very sweet and close to him.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIV.\n\nWATER-PARTY\n\n\nEvery year Mr Crich gave a more or less public water-party on the lake.\nThere was a little pleasure-launch on Willey Water and several rowing\nboats, and guests could take tea either in the marquee that was set up\nin the grounds of the house, or they could picnic in the shade of the\ngreat walnut tree at the boat-house by the lake. This year the staff of\nthe Grammar-School was invited, along with the chief officials of the\nfirm. Gerald and the younger Criches did not care for this party, but\nit had become customary now, and it pleased the father, as being the\nonly occasion when he could gather some people of the district together\nin festivity with him. For he loved to give pleasures to his dependents\nand to those poorer than himself. But his children preferred the\ncompany of their own equals in wealth. They hated their inferiors'\nhumility or gratitude or awkwardness.\n\nNevertheless they were willing to attend at this festival, as they had\ndone almost since they were children, the more so, as they all felt a\nlittle guilty now, and unwilling to thwart their father any more, since\nhe was so ill in health. Therefore, quite cheerfully Laura prepared to\ntake her mother's place as hostess, and Gerald assumed responsibility\nfor the amusements on the water.\n\nBirkin had written to Ursula saying he expected to see her at the\nparty, and Gudrun, although she scorned the patronage of the Criches,\nwould nevertheless accompany her mother and father if the weather were\nfine.\n\nThe day came blue and full of sunshine, with little wafts of wind. The\nsisters both wore dresses of white crepe, and hats of soft grass. But\nGudrun had a sash of brilliant black and pink and yellow colour wound\nbroadly round her waist, and she had pink silk stockings, and black and\npink and yellow decoration on the brim of her hat, weighing it down a\nlittle. She carried also a yellow silk coat over her arm, so that she\nlooked remarkable, like a painting from the Salon. Her appearance was a\nsore trial to her father, who said angrily:\n\n'Don't you think you might as well get yourself up for a Christmas\ncracker, an'ha' done with it?'\n\nBut Gudrun looked handsome and brilliant, and she wore her clothes in\npure defiance. When people stared at her, and giggled after her, she\nmade a point of saying loudly, to Ursula:\n\n'Regarde, regarde ces gens-la! Ne sont-ils pas des hiboux incroyables?'\nAnd with the words of French in her mouth, she would look over her\nshoulder at the giggling party.\n\n'No, really, it's impossible!' Ursula would reply distinctly. And so\nthe two girls took it out of their universal enemy. But their father\nbecame more and more enraged.\n\nUrsula was all snowy white, save that her hat was pink, and entirely\nwithout trimming, and her shoes were dark red, and she carried an\norange-coloured coat. And in this guise they were walking all the way\nto Shortlands, their father and mother going in front.\n\nThey were laughing at their mother, who, dressed in a summer material\nof black and purple stripes, and wearing a hat of purple straw, was\nsetting forth with much more of the shyness and trepidation of a young\ngirl than her daughters ever felt, walking demurely beside her husband,\nwho, as usual, looked rather crumpled in his best suit, as if he were\nthe father of a young family and had been holding the baby whilst his\nwife got dressed.\n\n'Look at the young couple in front,' said Gudrun calmly. Ursula looked\nat her mother and father, and was suddenly seized with uncontrollable\nlaughter. The two girls stood in the road and laughed till the tears\nran down their faces, as they caught sight again of the shy, unworldly\ncouple of their parents going on ahead.\n\n'We are roaring at you, mother,' called Ursula, helplessly following\nafter her parents.\n\nMrs Brangwen turned round with a slightly puzzled, exasperated look.\n'Oh indeed!' she said. 'What is there so very funny about ME, I should\nlike to know?'\n\nShe could not understand that there could be anything amiss with her\nappearance. She had a perfect calm sufficiency, an easy indifference to\nany criticism whatsoever, as if she were beyond it. Her clothes were\nalways rather odd, and as a rule slip-shod, yet she wore them with a\nperfect ease and satisfaction. Whatever she had on, so long as she was\nbarely tidy, she was right, beyond remark; such an aristocrat she was\nby instinct.\n\n'You look so stately, like a country Baroness,' said Ursula, laughing\nwith a little tenderness at her mother's naive puzzled air.\n\n'JUST like a country Baroness!' chimed in Gudrun. Now the mother's\nnatural hauteur became self-conscious, and the girls shrieked again.\n\n'Go home, you pair of idiots, great giggling idiots!' cried the father\ninflamed with irritation.\n\n'Mm-m-er!' booed Ursula, pulling a face at his crossness.\n\nThe yellow lights danced in his eyes, he leaned forward in real rage.\n\n'Don't be so silly as to take any notice of the great gabies,' said Mrs\nBrangwen, turning on her way.\n\n'I'll see if I'm going to be followed by a pair of giggling yelling\njackanapes--' he cried vengefully.\n\nThe girls stood still, laughing helplessly at his fury, upon the path\nbeside the hedge.\n\n'Why you're as silly as they are, to take any notice,' said Mrs\nBrangwen also becoming angry now he was really enraged.\n\n'There are some people coming, father,' cried Ursula, with mocking\nwarning. He glanced round quickly, and went on to join his wife,\nwalking stiff with rage. And the girls followed, weak with laughter.\n\nWhen the people had passed by, Brangwen cried in a loud, stupid voice:\n\n'I'm going back home if there's any more of this. I'm damned if I'm\ngoing to be made a fool of in this fashion, in the public road.'\n\nHe was really out of temper. At the sound of his blind, vindictive\nvoice, the laughter suddenly left the girls, and their hearts\ncontracted with contempt. They hated his words 'in the public road.'\nWhat did they care for the public road? But Gudrun was conciliatory.\n\n'But we weren't laughing to HURT you,' she cried, with an uncouth\ngentleness which made her parents uncomfortable. 'We were laughing\nbecause we're fond of you.'\n\n'We'll walk on in front, if they are SO touchy,' said Ursula, angry.\nAnd in this wise they arrived at Willey Water. The lake was blue and\nfair, the meadows sloped down in sunshine on one side, the thick dark\nwoods dropped steeply on the other. The little pleasure-launch was\nfussing out from the shore, twanging its music, crowded with people,\nflapping its paddles. Near the boat-house was a throng of gaily-dressed\npersons, small in the distance. And on the high-road, some of the\ncommon people were standing along the hedge, looking at the festivity\nbeyond, enviously, like souls not admitted to paradise.\n\n'My eye!' said Gudrun, sotto voce, looking at the motley of guests,\n'there's a pretty crowd if you like! Imagine yourself in the midst of\nthat, my dear.'\n\nGudrun's apprehensive horror of people in the mass unnerved Ursula. 'It\nlooks rather awful,' she said anxiously.\n\n'And imagine what they'll be like--IMAGINE!' said Gudrun, still in that\nunnerving, subdued voice. Yet she advanced determinedly.\n\n'I suppose we can get away from them,' said Ursula anxiously.\n\n'We're in a pretty fix if we can't,' said Gudrun. Her extreme ironic\nloathing and apprehension was very trying to Ursula.\n\n'We needn't stay,' she said.\n\n'I certainly shan't stay five minutes among that little lot,' said\nGudrun. They advanced nearer, till they saw policemen at the gates.\n\n'Policemen to keep you in, too!' said Gudrun. 'My word, this is a\nbeautiful affair.'\n\n'We'd better look after father and mother,' said Ursula anxiously.\n\n'Mother's PERFECTLY capable of getting through this little\ncelebration,' said Gudrun with some contempt.\n\nBut Ursula knew that her father felt uncouth and angry and unhappy, so\nshe was far from her ease. They waited outside the gate till their\nparents came up. The tall, thin man in his crumpled clothes was\nunnerved and irritable as a boy, finding himself on the brink of this\nsocial function. He did not feel a gentleman, he did not feel anything\nexcept pure exasperation.\n\nUrsula took her place at his side, they gave their tickets to the\npoliceman, and passed in on to the grass, four abreast; the tall, hot,\nruddy-dark man with his narrow boyish brow drawn with irritation, the\nfresh-faced, easy woman, perfectly collected though her hair was\nslipping on one side, then Gudrun, her eyes round and dark and staring,\nher full soft face impassive, almost sulky, so that she seemed to be\nbacking away in antagonism even whilst she was advancing; and then\nUrsula, with the odd, brilliant, dazzled look on her face, that always\ncame when she was in some false situation.\n\nBirkin was the good angel. He came smiling to them with his affected\nsocial grace, that somehow was never QUITE right. But he took off his\nhat and smiled at them with a real smile in his eyes, so that Brangwen\ncried out heartily in relief:\n\n'How do you do? You're better, are you?'\n\n'Yes, I'm better. How do you do, Mrs Brangwen? I know Gudrun and Ursula\nvery well.'\n\nHis eyes smiled full of natural warmth. He had a soft, flattering\nmanner with women, particularly with women who were not young.\n\n'Yes,' said Mrs Brangwen, cool but yet gratified. 'I have heard them\nspeak of you often enough.'\n\nHe laughed. Gudrun looked aside, feeling she was being belittled.\nPeople were standing about in groups, some women were sitting in the\nshade of the walnut tree, with cups of tea in their hands, a waiter in\nevening dress was hurrying round, some girls were simpering with\nparasols, some young men, who had just come in from rowing, were\nsitting cross-legged on the grass, coatless, their shirt-sleeves rolled\nup in manly fashion, their hands resting on their white flannel\ntrousers, their gaudy ties floating about, as they laughed and tried to\nbe witty with the young damsels.\n\n'Why,' thought Gudrun churlishly, 'don't they have the manners to put\ntheir coats on, and not to assume such intimacy in their appearance.'\n\nShe abhorred the ordinary young man, with his hair plastered back, and\nhis easy-going chumminess.\n\nHermione Roddice came up, in a handsome gown of white lace, trailing an\nenormous silk shawl blotched with great embroidered flowers, and\nbalancing an enormous plain hat on her head. She looked striking,\nastonishing, almost macabre, so tall, with the fringe of her great\ncream-coloured vividly-blotched shawl trailing on the ground after her,\nher thick hair coming low over her eyes, her face strange and long and\npale, and the blotches of brilliant colour drawn round her.\n\n'Doesn't she look WEIRD!' Gudrun heard some girls titter behind her.\nAnd she could have killed them.\n\n'How do you do!' sang Hermione, coming up very kindly, and glancing\nslowly over Gudrun's father and mother. It was a trying moment,\nexasperating for Gudrun. Hermione was really so strongly entrenched in\nher class superiority, she could come up and know people out of simple\ncuriosity, as if they were creatures on exhibition. Gudrun would do the\nsame herself. But she resented being in the position when somebody\nmight do it to her.\n\nHermione, very remarkable, and distinguishing the Brangwens very much,\nled them along to where Laura Crich stood receiving the guests.\n\n'This is Mrs Brangwen,' sang Hermione, and Laura, who wore a stiff\nembroidered linen dress, shook hands and said she was glad to see her.\nThen Gerald came up, dressed in white, with a black and brown blazer,\nand looking handsome. He too was introduced to the Brangwen parents,\nand immediately he spoke to Mrs Brangwen as if she were a lady, and to\nBrangwen as if he were NOT a gentleman. Gerlad was so obvious in his\ndemeanour. He had to shake hands with his left hand, because he had\nhurt his right, and carried it, bandaged up, in the pocket of his\njacket. Gudrun was VERY thankful that none of her party asked him what\nwas the matter with the hand.\n\nThe steam launch was fussing in, all its music jingling, people calling\nexcitedly from on board. Gerald went to see to the debarkation, Birkin\nwas getting tea for Mrs Brangwen, Brangwen had joined a Grammar-School\ngroup, Hermione was sitting down by their mother, the girls went to the\nlanding-stage to watch the launch come in.\n\nShe hooted and tooted gaily, then her paddles were silent, the ropes\nwere thrown ashore, she drifted in with a little bump. Immediately the\npassengers crowded excitedly to come ashore.\n\n'Wait a minute, wait a minute,' shouted Gerald in sharp command.\n\nThey must wait till the boat was tight on the ropes, till the small\ngangway was put out. Then they streamed ashore, clamouring as if they\nhad come from America.\n\n'Oh it's SO nice!' the young girls were crying. 'It's quite lovely.'\n\nThe waiters from on board ran out to the boat-house with baskets, the\ncaptain lounged on the little bridge. Seeing all safe, Gerald came to\nGudrun and Ursula.\n\n'You wouldn't care to go on board for the next trip, and have tea\nthere?' he asked.\n\n'No thanks,' said Gudrun coldly.\n\n'You don't care for the water?'\n\n'For the water? Yes, I like it very much.'\n\nHe looked at her, his eyes searching.\n\n'You don't care for going on a launch, then?'\n\nShe was slow in answering, and then she spoke slowly.\n\n'No,' she said. 'I can't say that I do.' Her colour was high, she\nseemed angry about something.\n\n'Un peu trop de monde,' said Ursula, explaining.\n\n'Eh? TROP DE MONDE!' He laughed shortly. 'Yes there's a fair number of\n'em.'\n\nGudrun turned on him brilliantly.\n\n'Have you ever been from Westminster Bridge to Richmond on one of the\nThames steamers?' she cried.\n\n'No,' he said, 'I can't say I have.'\n\n'Well, it's one of the most VILE experiences I've ever had.' She spoke\nrapidly and excitedly, the colour high in her cheeks. 'There was\nabsolutely nowhere to sit down, nowhere, a man just above sang \"Rocked\nin the Cradle of the Deep\" the WHOLE way; he was blind and he had a\nsmall organ, one of those portable organs, and he expected money; so\nyou can imagine what THAT was like; there came a constant smell of\nluncheon from below, and puffs of hot oily machinery; the journey took\nhours and hours and hours; and for miles, literally for miles, dreadful\nboys ran with us on the shore, in that AWFUL Thames mud, going in UP TO\nTHE WAIST--they had their trousers turned back, and they went up to\ntheir hips in that indescribable Thames mud, their faces always turned\nto us, and screaming, exactly like carrion creatures, screaming \"'Ere\ny'are sir, 'ere y'are sir, 'ere y'are sir,\" exactly like some foul\ncarrion objects, perfectly obscene; and paterfamilias on board,\nlaughing when the boys went right down in that awful mud, occasionally\nthrowing them a ha'penny. And if you'd seen the intent look on the\nfaces of these boys, and the way they darted in the filth when a coin\nwas flung--really, no vulture or jackal could dream of approaching\nthem, for foulness. I NEVER would go on a pleasure boat again--never.'\n\nGerald watched her all the time she spoke, his eyes glittering with\nfaint rousedness. It was not so much what she said; it was she herself\nwho roused him, roused him with a small, vivid pricking.\n\n'Of course,' he said, 'every civilised body is bound to have its\nvermin.'\n\n'Why?' cried Ursula. 'I don't have vermin.'\n\n'And it's not that--it's the QUALITY of the whole thing--paterfamilias\nlaughing and thinking it sport, and throwing the ha'pennies, and\nmaterfamilias spreading her fat little knees and eating, continually\neating--' replied Gudrun.\n\n'Yes,' said Ursula. 'It isn't the boys so much who are vermin; it's the\npeople themselves, the whole body politic, as you call it.'\n\nGerald laughed.\n\n'Never mind,' he said. 'You shan't go on the launch.'\n\nGudrun flushed quickly at his rebuke.\n\nThere were a few moments of silence. Gerald, like a sentinel, was\nwatching the people who were going on to the boat. He was very\ngood-looking and self-contained, but his air of soldierly alertness was\nrather irritating.\n\n'Will you have tea here then, or go across to the house, where there's\na tent on the lawn?' he asked.\n\n'Can't we have a rowing boat, and get out?' asked Ursula, who was\nalways rushing in too fast.\n\n'To get out?' smiled Gerald.\n\n'You see,' cried Gudrun, flushing at Ursula's outspoken rudeness, 'we\ndon't know the people, we are almost COMPLETE strangers here.'\n\n'Oh, I can soon set you up with a few acquaintances,' he said easily.\n\nGudrun looked at him, to see if it were ill-meant. Then she smiled at\nhim.\n\n'Ah,' she said, 'you know what we mean. Can't we go up there, and\nexplore that coast?' She pointed to a grove on the hillock of the\nmeadow-side, near the shore half way down the lake. 'That looks\nperfectly lovely. We might even bathe. Isn't it beautiful in this\nlight. Really, it's like one of the reaches of the Nile--as one\nimagines the Nile.'\n\nGerald smiled at her factitious enthusiasm for the distant spot.\n\n'You're sure it's far enough off?' he asked ironically, adding at once:\n'Yes, you might go there, if we could get a boat. They seem to be all\nout.'\n\nHe looked round the lake and counted the rowing boats on its surface.\n\n'How lovely it would be!' cried Ursula wistfully.\n\n'And don't you want tea?' he said.\n\n'Oh,' said Gudrun, 'we could just drink a cup, and be off.'\n\nHe looked from one to the other, smiling. He was somewhat offended--yet\nsporting.\n\n'Can you manage a boat pretty well?' he asked.\n\n'Yes,' replied Gudrun, coldly, 'pretty well.'\n\n'Oh yes,' cried Ursula. 'We can both of us row like water-spiders.'\n\n'You can? There's light little canoe of mine, that I didn't take out\nfor fear somebody should drown themselves. Do you think you'd be safe\nin that?'\n\n'Oh perfectly,' said Gudrun.\n\n'What an angel!' cried Ursula.\n\n'Don't, for MY sake, have an accident--because I'm responsible for the\nwater.'\n\n'Sure,' pledged Gudrun.\n\n'Besides, we can both swim quite well,' said Ursula.\n\n'Well--then I'll get them to put you up a tea-basket, and you can\npicnic all to yourselves,--that's the idea, isn't it?'\n\n'How fearfully good! How frightfully nice if you could!' cried Gudrun\nwarmly, her colour flushing up again. It made the blood stir in his\nveins, the subtle way she turned to him and infused her gratitude into\nhis body.\n\n'Where's Birkin?' he said, his eyes twinkling. 'He might help me to get\nit down.'\n\n'But what about your hand? Isn't it hurt?' asked Gudrun, rather muted,\nas if avoiding the intimacy. This was the first time the hurt had been\nmentioned. The curious way she skirted round the subject sent a new,\nsubtle caress through his veins. He took his hand out of his pocket. It\nwas bandaged. He looked at it, then put it in his pocket again. Gudrun\nquivered at the sight of the wrapped up paw.\n\n'Oh I can manage with one hand. The canoe is as light as a feather,' he\nsaid. 'There's Rupert!--Rupert!'\n\nBirkin turned from his social duties and came towards them.\n\n'What have you done to it?' asked Ursula, who had been aching to put\nthe question for the last half hour.\n\n'To my hand?' said Gerald. 'I trapped it in some machinery.'\n\n'Ugh!' said Ursula. 'And did it hurt much?'\n\n'Yes,' he said. 'It did at the time. It's getting better now. It\ncrushed the fingers.'\n\n'Oh,' cried Ursula, as if in pain, 'I hate people who hurt themselves.\nI can FEEL it.' And she shook her hand.\n\n'What do you want?' said Birkin.\n\nThe two men carried down the slim brown boat, and set it on the water.\n\n'You're quite sure you'll be safe in it?' Gerald asked.\n\n'Quite sure,' said Gudrun. 'I wouldn't be so mean as to take it, if\nthere was the slightest doubt. But I've had a canoe at Arundel, and I\nassure you I'm perfectly safe.'\n\nSo saying, having given her word like a man, she and Ursula entered the\nfrail craft, and pushed gently off. The two men stood watching them.\nGudrun was paddling. She knew the men were watching her, and it made\nher slow and rather clumsy. The colour flew in her face like a flag.\n\n'Thanks awfully,' she called back to him, from the water, as the boat\nslid away. 'It's lovely--like sitting in a leaf.'\n\nHe laughed at the fancy. Her voice was shrill and strange, calling from\nthe distance. He watched her as she paddled away. There was something\nchildlike about her, trustful and deferential, like a child. He watched\nher all the while, as she rowed. And to Gudrun it was a real delight,\nin make-belief, to be the childlike, clinging woman to the man who\nstood there on the quay, so good-looking and efficient in his white\nclothes, and moreover the most important man she knew at the moment.\nShe did not take any notice of the wavering, indistinct, lambent\nBirkin, who stood at his side. One figure at a time occupied the field\nof her attention.\n\nThe boat rustled lightly along the water. They passed the bathers whose\nstriped tents stood between the willows of the meadow's edge, and drew\nalong the open shore, past the meadows that sloped golden in the light\nof the already late afternoon. Other boats were stealing under the\nwooded shore opposite, they could hear people's laughter and voices.\nBut Gudrun rowed on towards the clump of trees that balanced perfect in\nthe distance, in the golden light.\n\nThe sisters found a little place where a tiny stream flowed into the\nlake, with reeds and flowery marsh of pink willow herb, and a gravelly\nbank to the side. Here they ran delicately ashore, with their frail\nboat, the two girls took off their shoes and stockings and went through\nthe water's edge to the grass. The tiny ripples of the lake were warm\nand clear, they lifted their boat on to the bank, and looked round with\njoy. They were quite alone in a forsaken little stream-mouth, and on\nthe knoll just behind was the clump of trees.\n\n'We will bathe just for a moment,' said Ursula, 'and then we'll have\ntea.'\n\nThey looked round. Nobody could notice them, or could come up in time\nto see them. In less than a minute Ursula had thrown off her clothes\nand had slipped naked into the water, and was swimming out. Quickly,\nGudrun joined her. They swam silently and blissfully for a few minutes,\ncircling round their little stream-mouth. Then they slipped ashore and\nran into the grove again, like nymphs.\n\n'How lovely it is to be free,' said Ursula, running swiftly here and\nthere between the tree trunks, quite naked, her hair blowing loose. The\ngrove was of beech-trees, big and splendid, a steel-grey scaffolding of\ntrunks and boughs, with level sprays of strong green here and there,\nwhilst through the northern side the distance glimmered open as through\na window.\n\nWhen they had run and danced themselves dry, the girls quickly dressed\nand sat down to the fragrant tea. They sat on the northern side of the\ngrove, in the yellow sunshine facing the slope of the grassy hill,\nalone in a little wild world of their own. The tea was hot and\naromatic, there were delicious little sandwiches of cucumber and of\ncaviare, and winy cakes.\n\n'Are you happy, Prune?' cried Ursula in delight, looking at her sister.\n\n'Ursula, I'm perfectly happy,' replied Gudrun gravely, looking at the\nwestering sun.\n\n'So am I.'\n\nWhen they were together, doing the things they enjoyed, the two sisters\nwere quite complete in a perfect world of their own. And this was one\nof the perfect moments of freedom and delight, such as children alone\nknow, when all seems a perfect and blissful adventure.\n\nWhen they had finished tea, the two girls sat on, silent and serene.\nThen Ursula, who had a beautiful strong voice, began to sing to\nherself, softly: 'Annchen von Tharau.' Gudrun listened, as she sat\nbeneath the trees, and the yearning came into her heart. Ursula seemed\nso peaceful and sufficient unto herself, sitting there unconsciously\ncrooning her song, strong and unquestioned at the centre of her own\nuniverse. And Gudrun felt herself outside. Always this desolating,\nagonised feeling, that she was outside of life, an onlooker, whilst\nUrsula was a partaker, caused Gudrun to suffer from a sense of her own\nnegation, and made her, that she must always demand the other to be\naware of her, to be in connection with her.\n\n'Do you mind if I do Dalcroze to that tune, Hurtler?' she asked in a\ncurious muted tone, scarce moving her lips.\n\n'What did you say?' asked Ursula, looking up in peaceful surprise.\n\n'Will you sing while I do Dalcroze?' said Gudrun, suffering at having\nto repeat herself.\n\nUrsula thought a moment, gathering her straying wits together.\n\n'While you do--?' she asked vaguely.\n\n'Dalcroze movements,' said Gudrun, suffering tortures of\nself-consciousness, even because of her sister.\n\n'Oh Dalcroze! I couldn't catch the name. DO--I should love to see you,'\ncried Ursula, with childish surprised brightness. 'What shall I sing?'\n\n'Sing anything you like, and I'll take the rhythm from it.'\n\nBut Ursula could not for her life think of anything to sing. However,\nshe suddenly began, in a laughing, teasing voice:\n\n'My love--is a high-born lady--'\n\nGudrun, looking as if some invisible chain weighed on her hands and\nfeet, began slowly to dance in the eurythmic manner, pulsing and\nfluttering rhythmically with her feet, making slower, regular gestures\nwith her hands and arms, now spreading her arms wide, now raising them\nabove her head, now flinging them softly apart, and lifting her face,\nher feet all the time beating and running to the measure of the song,\nas if it were some strange incantation, her white, rapt form drifting\nhere and there in a strange impulsive rhapsody, seeming to be lifted on\na breeze of incantation, shuddering with strange little runs. Ursula\nsat on the grass, her mouth open in her singing, her eyes laughing as\nif she thought it was a great joke, but a yellow light flashing up in\nthem, as she caught some of the unconscious ritualistic suggestion of\nthe complex shuddering and waving and drifting of her sister's white\nform, that was clutched in pure, mindless, tossing rhythm, and a will\nset powerful in a kind of hypnotic influence.\n\n'My love is a high-born lady--She is-s-s--rather dark than shady--'\nrang out Ursula's laughing, satiric song, and quicker, fiercer went\nGudrun in the dance, stamping as if she were trying to throw off some\nbond, flinging her hands suddenly and stamping again, then rushing with\nface uplifted and throat full and beautiful, and eyes half closed,\nsightless. The sun was low and yellow, sinking down, and in the sky\nfloated a thin, ineffectual moon.\n\nUrsula was quite absorbed in her song, when suddenly Gudrun stopped and\nsaid mildly, ironically:\n\n'Ursula!'\n\n'Yes?' said Ursula, opening her eyes out of the trance.\n\nGudrun was standing still and pointing, a mocking smile on her face,\ntowards the side.\n\n'Ugh!' cried Ursula in sudden panic, starting to her feet.\n\n'They're quite all right,' rang out Gudrun's sardonic voice.\n\nOn the left stood a little cluster of Highland cattle, vividly coloured\nand fleecy in the evening light, their horns branching into the sky,\npushing forward their muzzles inquisitively, to know what it was all\nabout. Their eyes glittered through their tangle of hair, their naked\nnostrils were full of shadow.\n\n'Won't they do anything?' cried Ursula in fear.\n\nGudrun, who was usually frightened of cattle, now shook her head in a\nqueer, half-doubtful, half-sardonic motion, a faint smile round her\nmouth.\n\n'Don't they look charming, Ursula?' cried Gudrun, in a high, strident\nvoice, something like the scream of a seagull.\n\n'Charming,' cried Ursula in trepidation. 'But won't they do anything to\nus?'\n\nAgain Gudrun looked back at her sister with an enigmatic smile, and\nshook her head.\n\n'I'm sure they won't,' she said, as if she had to convince herself\nalso, and yet, as if she were confident of some secret power in\nherself, and had to put it to the test. 'Sit down and sing again,' she\ncalled in her high, strident voice.\n\n'I'm frightened,' cried Ursula, in a pathetic voice, watching the group\nof sturdy short cattle, that stood with their knees planted, and\nwatched with their dark, wicked eyes, through the matted fringe of\ntheir hair. Nevertheless, she sank down again, in her former posture.\n\n'They are quite safe,' came Gudrun's high call. 'Sing something, you've\nonly to sing something.'\n\nIt was evident she had a strange passion to dance before the sturdy,\nhandsome cattle.\n\nUrsula began to sing, in a false quavering voice:\n\n'Way down in Tennessee--'\n\nShe sounded purely anxious. Nevertheless, Gudrun, with her arms\noutspread and her face uplifted, went in a strange palpitating dance\ntowards the cattle, lifting her body towards them as if in a spell, her\nfeet pulsing as if in some little frenzy of unconscious sensation, her\narms, her wrists, her hands stretching and heaving and falling and\nreaching and reaching and falling, her breasts lifted and shaken\ntowards the cattle, her throat exposed as in some voluptuous ecstasy\ntowards them, whilst she drifted imperceptibly nearer, an uncanny white\nfigure, towards them, carried away in its own rapt trance, ebbing in\nstrange fluctuations upon the cattle, that waited, and ducked their\nheads a little in sudden contraction from her, watching all the time as\nif hypnotised, their bare horns branching in the clear light, as the\nwhite figure of the woman ebbed upon them, in the slow, hypnotising\nconvulsion of the dance. She could feel them just in front of her, it\nwas as if she had the electric pulse from their breasts running into\nher hands. Soon she would touch them, actually touch them. A terrible\nshiver of fear and pleasure went through her. And all the while,\nUrsula, spell-bound, kept up her high-pitched thin, irrelevant song,\nwhich pierced the fading evening like an incantation.\n\nGudrun could hear the cattle breathing heavily with helpless fear and\nfascination. Oh, they were brave little beasts, these wild Scotch\nbullocks, wild and fleecy. Suddenly one of them snorted, ducked its\nhead, and backed.\n\n'Hue! Hi-eee!' came a sudden loud shout from the edge of the grove. The\ncattle broke and fell back quite spontaneously, went running up the\nhill, their fleece waving like fire to their motion. Gudrun stood\nsuspended out on the grass, Ursula rose to her feet.\n\nIt was Gerald and Birkin come to find them, and Gerald had cried out to\nfrighten off the cattle.\n\n'What do you think you're doing?' he now called, in a high, wondering\nvexed tone.\n\n'Why have you come?' came back Gudrun's strident cry of anger.\n\n'What do you think you were doing?' Gerald repeated, auto-matically.\n\n'We were doing eurythmics,' laughed Ursula, in a shaken voice.\n\nGudrun stood aloof looking at them with large dark eyes of resentment,\nsuspended for a few moments. Then she walked away up the hill, after\nthe cattle, which had gathered in a little, spell-bound cluster higher\nup.\n\n'Where are you going?' Gerald called after her. And he followed her up\nthe hill-side. The sun had gone behind the hill, and shadows were\nclinging to the earth, the sky above was full of travelling light.\n\n'A poor song for a dance,' said Birkin to Ursula, standing before her\nwith a sardonic, flickering laugh on his face. And in another second,\nhe was singing softly to himself, and dancing a grotesque step-dance in\nfront of her, his limbs and body shaking loose, his face flickering\npalely, a constant thing, whilst his feet beat a rapid mocking tattoo,\nand his body seemed to hang all loose and quaking in between, like a\nshadow.\n\n'I think we've all gone mad,' she said, laughing rather frightened.\n\n'Pity we aren't madder,' he answered, as he kept up the incessant\nshaking dance. Then suddenly he leaned up to her and kissed her fingers\nlightly, putting his face to hers and looking into her eyes with a pale\ngrin. She stepped back, affronted.\n\n'Offended--?' he asked ironically, suddenly going quite still and\nreserved again. 'I thought you liked the light fantastic.'\n\n'Not like that,' she said, confused and bewildered, almost affronted.\nYet somewhere inside her she was fascinated by the sight of his loose,\nvibrating body, perfectly abandoned to its own dropping and swinging,\nand by the pallid, sardonic-smiling face above. Yet automatically she\nstiffened herself away, and disapproved. It seemed almost an obscenity,\nin a man who talked as a rule so very seriously.\n\n'Why not like that?' he mocked. And immediately he dropped again into\nthe incredibly rapid, slack-waggling dance, watching her malevolently.\nAnd moving in the rapid, stationary dance, he came a little nearer, and\nreached forward with an incredibly mocking, satiric gleam on his face,\nand would have kissed her again, had she not started back.\n\n'No, don't!' she cried, really afraid.\n\n'Cordelia after all,' he said satirically. She was stung, as if this\nwere an insult. She knew he intended it as such, and it bewildered her.\n\n'And you,' she cried in retort, 'why do you always take your soul in\nyour mouth, so frightfully full?'\n\n'So that I can spit it out the more readily,' he said, pleased by his\nown retort.\n\nGerald Crich, his face narrowing to an intent gleam, followed up the\nhill with quick strides, straight after Gudrun. The cattle stood with\ntheir noses together on the brow of a slope, watching the scene below,\nthe men in white hovering about the white forms of the women, watching\nabove all Gudrun, who was advancing slowly towards them. She stood a\nmoment, glancing back at Gerald, and then at the cattle.\n\nThen in a sudden motion, she lifted her arms and rushed sheer upon the\nlong-horned bullocks, in shuddering irregular runs, pausing for a\nsecond and looking at them, then lifting her hands and running forward\nwith a flash, till they ceased pawing the ground, and gave way,\nsnorting with terror, lifting their heads from the ground and flinging\nthemselves away, galloping off into the evening, becoming tiny in the\ndistance, and still not stopping.\n\nGudrun remained staring after them, with a mask-like defiant face.\n\n'Why do you want to drive them mad?' asked Gerald, coming up with her.\n\nShe took no notice of him, only averted her face from him. 'It's not\nsafe, you know,' he persisted. 'They're nasty, when they do turn.'\n\n'Turn where? Turn away?' she mocked loudly.\n\n'No,' he said, 'turn against you.'\n\n'Turn against ME?' she mocked.\n\nHe could make nothing of this.\n\n'Anyway, they gored one of the farmer's cows to death, the other day,'\nhe said.\n\n'What do I care?' she said.\n\n'I cared though,' he replied, 'seeing that they're my cattle.'\n\n'How are they yours! You haven't swallowed them. Give me one of them\nnow,' she said, holding out her hand.\n\n'You know where they are,' he said, pointing over the hill. 'You can\nhave one if you'd like it sent to you later on.'\n\nShe looked at him inscrutably.\n\n'You think I'm afraid of you and your cattle, don't you?' she asked.\n\nHis eyes narrowed dangerously. There was a faint domineering smile on\nhis face.\n\n'Why should I think that?' he said.\n\nShe was watching him all the time with her dark, dilated, inchoate\neyes. She leaned forward and swung round her arm, catching him a light\nblow on the face with the back of her hand.\n\n'That's why,' she said, mocking.\n\nAnd she felt in her soul an unconquerable desire for deep violence\nagainst him. She shut off the fear and dismay that filled her conscious\nmind. She wanted to do as she did, she was not going to be afraid.\n\nHe recoiled from the slight blow on his face. He became deadly pale,\nand a dangerous flame darkened his eyes. For some seconds he could not\nspeak, his lungs were so suffused with blood, his heart stretched\nalmost to bursting with a great gush of ungovernable emotion. It was as\nif some reservoir of black emotion had burst within him, and swamped\nhim.\n\n'You have struck the first blow,' he said at last, forcing the words\nfrom his lungs, in a voice so soft and low, it sounded like a dream\nwithin her, not spoken in the outer air.\n\n'And I shall strike the last,' she retorted involuntarily, with\nconfident assurance. He was silent, he did not contradict her.\n\nShe stood negligently, staring away from him, into the distance. On the\nedge of her consciousness the question was asking itself,\nautomatically:\n\n'Why ARE you behaving in this IMPOSSIBLE and ridiculous fashion.' But\nshe was sullen, she half shoved the question out of herself. She could\nnot get it clean away, so she felt self-conscious.\n\nGerald, very pale, was watching her closely. His eyes were lit up with\nintent lights, absorbed and gleaming. She turned suddenly on him.\n\n'It's you who make me behave like this, you know,' she said, almost\nsuggestive.\n\n'I? How?' he said.\n\nBut she turned away, and set off towards the lake. Below, on the water,\nlanterns were coming alight, faint ghosts of warm flame floating in the\npallor of the first twilight. The earth was spread with darkness, like\nlacquer, overhead was a pale sky, all primrose, and the lake was pale\nas milk in one part. Away at the landing stage, tiniest points of\ncoloured rays were stringing themselves in the dusk. The launch was\nbeing illuminated. All round, shadow was gathering from the trees.\n\nGerald, white like a presence in his summer clothes, was following down\nthe open grassy slope. Gudrun waited for him to come up. Then she\nsoftly put out her hand and touched him, saying softly:\n\n'Don't be angry with me.'\n\nA flame flew over him, and he was unconscious. Yet he stammered:\n\n'I'm not angry with you. I'm in love with you.'\n\nHis mind was gone, he grasped for sufficient mechanical control, to\nsave himself. She laughed a silvery little mockery, yet intolerably\ncaressive.\n\n'That's one way of putting it,' she said.\n\nThe terrible swooning burden on his mind, the awful swooning, the loss\nof all his control, was too much for him. He grasped her arm in his one\nhand, as if his hand were iron.\n\n'It's all right, then, is it?' he said, holding her arrested.\n\nShe looked at the face with the fixed eyes, set before her, and her\nblood ran cold.\n\n'Yes, it's all right,' she said softly, as if drugged, her voice\ncrooning and witch-like.\n\nHe walked on beside her, a striding, mindless body. But he recovered a\nlittle as he went. He suffered badly. He had killed his brother when a\nboy, and was set apart, like Cain.\n\nThey found Birkin and Ursula sitting together by the boats, talking and\nlaughing. Birkin had been teasing Ursula.\n\n'Do you smell this little marsh?' he said, sniffing the air. He was\nvery sensitive to scents, and quick in understanding them.\n\n'It's rather nice,' she said.\n\n'No,' he replied, 'alarming.'\n\n'Why alarming?' she laughed.\n\n'It seethes and seethes, a river of darkness,' he said, 'putting forth\nlilies and snakes, and the ignis fatuus, and rolling all the time\nonward. That's what we never take into count--that it rolls onwards.'\n\n'What does?'\n\n'The other river, the black river. We always consider the silver river\nof life, rolling on and quickening all the world to a brightness, on\nand on to heaven, flowing into a bright eternal sea, a heaven of angels\nthronging. But the other is our real reality--'\n\n'But what other? I don't see any other,' said Ursula.\n\n'It is your reality, nevertheless,' he said; 'that dark river of\ndissolution. You see it rolls in us just as the other rolls--the black\nriver of corruption. And our flowers are of this--our sea-born\nAphrodite, all our white phosphorescent flowers of sensuous perfection,\nall our reality, nowadays.'\n\n'You mean that Aphrodite is really deathly?' asked Ursula.\n\n'I mean she is the flowering mystery of the death-process, yes,' he\nreplied. 'When the stream of synthetic creation lapses, we find\nourselves part of the inverse process, the blood of destructive\ncreation. Aphrodite is born in the first spasm of universal\ndissolution--then the snakes and swans and lotus--marsh-flowers--and\nGudrun and Gerald--born in the process of destructive creation.'\n\n'And you and me--?' she asked.\n\n'Probably,' he replied. 'In part, certainly. Whether we are that, in\ntoto, I don't yet know.'\n\n'You mean we are flowers of dissolution--fleurs du mal? I don't feel as\nif I were,' she protested.\n\nHe was silent for a time.\n\n'I don't feel as if we were, ALTOGETHER,' he replied. 'Some people are\npure flowers of dark corruption--lilies. But there ought to be some\nroses, warm and flamy. You know Herakleitos says \"a dry soul is best.\"\nI know so well what that means. Do you?'\n\n'I'm not sure,' Ursula replied. 'But what if people ARE all flowers of\ndissolution--when they're flowers at all--what difference does it\nmake?'\n\n'No difference--and all the difference. Dissolution rolls on, just as\nproduction does,' he said. 'It is a progressive process--and it ends in\nuniversal nothing--the end of the world, if you like. But why isn't the\nend of the world as good as the beginning?'\n\n'I suppose it isn't,' said Ursula, rather angry.\n\n'Oh yes, ultimately,' he said. 'It means a new cycle of creation\nafter--but not for us. If it is the end, then we are of the end--fleurs\ndu mal if you like. If we are fleurs du mal, we are not roses of\nhappiness, and there you are.'\n\n'But I think I am,' said Ursula. 'I think I am a rose of happiness.'\n\n'Ready-made?' he asked ironically.\n\n'No--real,' she said, hurt.\n\n'If we are the end, we are not the beginning,' he said.\n\n'Yes we are,' she said. 'The beginning comes out of the end.'\n\n'After it, not out of it. After us, not out of us.'\n\n'You are a devil, you know, really,' she said. 'You want to destroy our\nhope. You WANT US to be deathly.'\n\n'No,' he said, 'I only want us to KNOW what we are.'\n\n'Ha!' she cried in anger. 'You only want us to know death.'\n\n'You're quite right,' said the soft voice of Gerald, out of the dusk\nbehind.\n\nBirkin rose. Gerald and Gudrun came up. They all began to smoke, in the\nmoments of silence. One after another, Birkin lighted their cigarettes.\nThe match flickered in the twilight, and they were all smoking\npeacefully by the water-side. The lake was dim, the light dying from\noff it, in the midst of the dark land. The air all round was\nintangible, neither here nor there, and there was an unreal noise of\nbanjoes, or suchlike music.\n\nAs the golden swim of light overhead died out, the moon gained\nbrightness, and seemed to begin to smile forth her ascendancy. The dark\nwoods on the opposite shore melted into universal shadow. And amid this\nuniversal under-shadow, there was a scattered intrusion of lights. Far\ndown the lake were fantastic pale strings of colour, like beads of wan\nfire, green and red and yellow. The music came out in a little puff, as\nthe launch, all illuminated, veered into the great shadow, stirring her\noutlines of half-living lights, puffing out her music in little drifts.\n\nAll were lighting up. Here and there, close against the faint water,\nand at the far end of the lake, where the water lay milky in the last\nwhiteness of the sky, and there was no shadow, solitary, frail flames\nof lanterns floated from the unseen boats. There was a sound of oars,\nand a boat passed from the pallor into the darkness under the wood,\nwhere her lanterns seemed to kindle into fire, hanging in ruddy lovely\nglobes. And again, in the lake, shadowy red gleams hovered in\nreflection about the boat. Everywhere were these noiseless ruddy\ncreatures of fire drifting near the surface of the water, caught at by\nthe rarest, scarce visible reflections.\n\nBirkin brought the lanterns from the bigger boat, and the four shadowy\nwhite figures gathered round, to light them. Ursula held up the first,\nBirkin lowered the light from the rosy, glowing cup of his hands, into\nthe depths of the lantern. It was kindled, and they all stood back to\nlook at the great blue moon of light that hung from Ursula's hand,\ncasting a strange gleam on her face. It flickered, and Birkin went\nbending over the well of light. His face shone out like an apparition,\nso unconscious, and again, something demoniacal. Ursula was dim and\nveiled, looming over him.\n\n'That is all right,' said his voice softly.\n\nShe held up the lantern. It had a flight of storks streaming through a\nturquoise sky of light, over a dark earth.\n\n'This is beautiful,' she said.\n\n'Lovely,' echoed Gudrun, who wanted to hold one also, and lift it up\nfull of beauty.\n\n'Light one for me,' she said. Gerald stood by her, incapacitated.\nBirkin lit the lantern she held up. Her heart beat with anxiety, to see\nhow beautiful it would be. It was primrose yellow, with tall straight\nflowers growing darkly from their dark leaves, lifting their heads into\nthe primrose day, while butterflies hovered about them, in the pure\nclear light.\n\nGudrun gave a little cry of excitement, as if pierced with delight.\n\n'Isn't it beautiful, oh, isn't it beautiful!'\n\nHer soul was really pierced with beauty, she was translated beyond\nherself. Gerald leaned near to her, into her zone of light, as if to\nsee. He came close to her, and stood touching her, looking with her at\nthe primrose-shining globe. And she turned her face to his, that was\nfaintly bright in the light of the lantern, and they stood together in\none luminous union, close together and ringed round with light, all the\nrest excluded.\n\nBirkin looked away, and went to light Ursula's second lantern. It had a\npale ruddy sea-bottom, with black crabs and sea-weed moving sinuously\nunder a transparent sea, that passed into flamy ruddiness above.\n\n'You've got the heavens above, and the waters under the earth,' said\nBirkin to her.\n\n'Anything but the earth itself,' she laughed, watching his live hands\nthat hovered to attend to the light.\n\n'I'm dying to see what my second one is,' cried Gudrun, in a vibrating\nrather strident voice, that seemed to repel the others from her.\n\nBirkin went and kindled it. It was of a lovely deep blue colour, with a\nred floor, and a great white cuttle-fish flowing in white soft streams\nall over it. The cuttle-fish had a face that stared straight from the\nheart of the light, very fixed and coldly intent.\n\n'How truly terrifying!' exclaimed Gudrun, in a voice of horror. Gerald,\nat her side, gave a low laugh.\n\n'But isn't it really fearful!' she cried in dismay.\n\nAgain he laughed, and said:\n\n'Change it with Ursula, for the crabs.'\n\nGudrun was silent for a moment.\n\n'Ursula,' she said, 'could you bear to have this fearful thing?'\n\n'I think the colouring is LOVELY,' said Ursula.\n\n'So do I,' said Gudrun. 'But could you BEAR to have it swinging to your\nboat? Don't you want to destroy it at ONCE?'\n\n'Oh no,' said Ursula. 'I don't want to destroy it.'\n\n'Well do you mind having it instead of the crabs? Are you sure you\ndon't mind?'\n\nGudrun came forward to exchange lanterns.\n\n'No,' said Ursula, yielding up the crabs and receiving the cuttle-fish.\n\nYet she could not help feeling rather resentful at the way in which\nGudrun and Gerald should assume a right over her, a precedence.\n\n'Come then,' said Birkin. 'I'll put them on the boats.'\n\nHe and Ursula were moving away to the big boat.\n\n'I suppose you'll row me back, Rupert,' said Gerald, out of the pale\nshadow of the evening.\n\n'Won't you go with Gudrun in the canoe?' said Birkin. 'It'll be more\ninteresting.'\n\nThere was a moment's pause. Birkin and Ursula stood dimly, with their\nswinging lanterns, by the water's edge. The world was all illusive.\n\n'Is that all right?' said Gudrun to him.\n\n'It'll suit ME very well,' he said. 'But what about you, and the\nrowing? I don't see why you should pull me.'\n\n'Why not?' she said. 'I can pull you as well as I could pull Ursula.'\n\nBy her tone he could tell she wanted to have him in the boat to\nherself, and that she was subtly gratified that she should have power\nover them both. He gave himself, in a strange, electric submission.\n\nShe handed him the lanterns, whilst she went to fix the cane at the end\nof the canoe. He followed after her, and stood with the lanterns\ndangling against his white-flannelled thighs, emphasising the shadow\naround.\n\n'Kiss me before we go,' came his voice softly from out of the shadow\nabove.\n\nShe stopped her work in real, momentary astonishment.\n\n'But why?' she exclaimed, in pure surprise.\n\n'Why?' he echoed, ironically.\n\nAnd she looked at him fixedly for some moments. Then she leaned forward\nand kissed him, with a slow, luxurious kiss, lingering on the mouth.\nAnd then she took the lanterns from him, while he stood swooning with\nthe perfect fire that burned in all his joints.\n\nThey lifted the canoe into the water, Gudrun took her place, and Gerald\npushed off.\n\n'Are you sure you don't hurt your hand, doing that?' she asked,\nsolicitous. 'Because I could have done it PERFECTLY.'\n\n'I don't hurt myself,' he said in a low, soft voice, that caressed her\nwith inexpressible beauty.\n\nAnd she watched him as he sat near her, very near to her, in the stern\nof the canoe, his legs coming towards hers, his feet touching hers. And\nshe paddled softly, lingeringly, longing for him to say something\nmeaningful to her. But he remained silent.\n\n'You like this, do you?' she said, in a gentle, solicitous voice.\n\nHe laughed shortly.\n\n'There is a space between us,' he said, in the same low, unconscious\nvoice, as if something were speaking out of him. And she was as if\nmagically aware of their being balanced in separation, in the boat. She\nswooned with acute comprehension and pleasure.\n\n'But I'm very near,' she said caressively, gaily.\n\n'Yet distant, distant,' he said.\n\nAgain she was silent with pleasure, before she answered, speaking with\na reedy, thrilled voice:\n\n'Yet we cannot very well change, whilst we are on the water.' She\ncaressed him subtly and strangely, having him completely at her mercy.\n\nA dozen or more boats on the lake swung their rosy and moon-like\nlanterns low on the water, that reflected as from a fire. In the\ndistance, the steamer twanged and thrummed and washed with her\nfaintly-splashing paddles, trailing her strings of coloured lights, and\noccasionally lighting up the whole scene luridly with an effusion of\nfireworks, Roman candles and sheafs of stars and other simple effects,\nilluminating the surface of the water, and showing the boats creeping\nround, low down. Then the lovely darkness fell again, the lanterns and\nthe little threaded lights glimmered softly, there was a muffled\nknocking of oars and a waving of music.\n\nGudrun paddled almost imperceptibly. Gerald could see, not far ahead,\nthe rich blue and the rose globes of Ursula's lanterns swaying softly\ncheek to cheek as Birkin rowed, and iridescent, evanescent gleams\nchasing in the wake. He was aware, too, of his own delicately coloured\nlights casting their softness behind him.\n\nGudrun rested her paddle and looked round. The canoe lifted with the\nlightest ebbing of the water. Gerald's white knees were very near to\nher.\n\n'Isn't it beautiful!' she said softly, as if reverently.\n\nShe looked at him, as he leaned back against the faint crystal of the\nlantern-light. She could see his face, although it was a pure shadow.\nBut it was a piece of twilight. And her breast was keen with passion\nfor him, he was so beautiful in his male stillness and mystery. It was\na certain pure effluence of maleness, like an aroma from his softly,\nfirmly moulded contours, a certain rich perfection of his presence,\nthat touched her with an ecstasy, a thrill of pure intoxication. She\nloved to look at him. For the present she did not want to touch him, to\nknow the further, satisfying substance of his living body. He was\npurely intangible, yet so near. Her hands lay on the paddle like\nslumber, she only wanted to see him, like a crystal shadow, to feel his\nessential presence.\n\n'Yes,' he said vaguely. 'It is very beautiful.'\n\nHe was listening to the faint near sounds, the dropping of water-drops\nfrom the oar-blades, the slight drumming of the lanterns behind him, as\nthey rubbed against one another, the occasional rustling of Gudrun's\nfull skirt, an alien land noise. His mind was almost submerged, he was\nalmost transfused, lapsed out for the first time in his life, into the\nthings about him. For he always kept such a keen attentiveness,\nconcentrated and unyielding in himself. Now he had let go,\nimperceptibly he was melting into oneness with the whole. It was like\npure, perfect sleep, his first great sleep of life. He had been so\ninsistent, so guarded, all his life. But here was sleep, and peace, and\nperfect lapsing out.\n\n'Shall I row to the landing-stage?' asked Gudrun wistfully.\n\n'Anywhere,' he answered. 'Let it drift.'\n\n'Tell me then, if we are running into anything,' she replied, in that\nvery quiet, toneless voice of sheer intimacy.\n\n'The lights will show,' he said.\n\nSo they drifted almost motionless, in silence. He wanted silence, pure\nand whole. But she was uneasy yet for some word, for some assurance.\n\n'Nobody will miss you?' she asked, anxious for some communication.\n\n'Miss me?' he echoed. 'No! Why?'\n\n'I wondered if anybody would be looking for you.'\n\n'Why should they look for me?' And then he remembered his manners. 'But\nperhaps you want to get back,' he said, in a changed voice.\n\n'No, I don't want to get back,' she replied. 'No, I assure you.'\n\n'You're quite sure it's all right for you?'\n\n'Perfectly all right.'\n\nAnd again they were still. The launch twanged and hooted, somebody was\nsinging. Then as if the night smashed, suddenly there was a great\nshout, a confusion of shouting, warring on the water, then the horrid\nnoise of paddles reversed and churned violently.\n\nGerald sat up, and Gudrun looked at him in fear.\n\n'Somebody in the water,' he said, angrily, and desperately, looking\nkeenly across the dusk. 'Can you row up?'\n\n'Where, to the launch?' asked Gudrun, in nervous panic.\n\n'Yes.'\n\n'You'll tell me if I don't steer straight,' she said, in nervous\napprehension.\n\n'You keep pretty level,' he said, and the canoe hastened forward.\n\nThe shouting and the noise continued, sounding horrid through the dusk,\nover the surface of the water.\n\n'Wasn't this BOUND to happen?' said Gudrun, with heavy hateful irony.\nBut he hardly heard, and she glanced over her shoulder to see her way.\nThe half-dark waters were sprinkled with lovely bubbles of swaying\nlights, the launch did not look far off. She was rocking her lights in\nthe early night. Gudrun rowed as hard as she could. But now that it was\na serious matter, she seemed uncertain and clumsy in her stroke, it was\ndifficult to paddle swiftly. She glanced at his face. He was looking\nfixedly into the darkness, very keen and alert and single in himself,\ninstrumental. Her heart sank, she seemed to die a death. 'Of course,'\nshe said to herself, 'nobody will be drowned. Of course they won't. It\nwould be too extravagant and sensational.' But her heart was cold,\nbecause of his sharp impersonal face. It was as if he belonged\nnaturally to dread and catastrophe, as if he were himself again.\n\nThen there came a child's voice, a girl's high, piercing shriek:\n\n'Di--Di--Di--Di--Oh Di--Oh Di--Oh Di!'\n\nThe blood ran cold in Gudrun's veins.\n\n'It's Diana, is it,' muttered Gerald. 'The young monkey, she'd have to\nbe up to some of her tricks.'\n\nAnd he glanced again at the paddle, the boat was not going quickly\nenough for him. It made Gudrun almost helpless at the rowing, this\nnervous stress. She kept up with all her might. Still the voices were\ncalling and answering.\n\n'Where, where? There you are--that's it. Which? No--No-o-o. Damn it\nall, here, HERE--' Boats were hurrying from all directions to the\nscene, coloured lanterns could be seen waving close to the surface of\nthe lake, reflections swaying after them in uneven haste. The steamer\nhooted again, for some unknown reason. Gudrun's boat was travelling\nquickly, the lanterns were swinging behind Gerald.\n\nAnd then again came the child's high, screaming voice, with a note of\nweeping and impatience in it now:\n\n'Di--Oh Di--Oh Di--Di--!'\n\nIt was a terrible sound, coming through the obscure air of the evening.\n\n'You'd be better if you were in bed, Winnie,' Gerald muttered to\nhimself.\n\nHe was stooping unlacing his shoes, pushing them off with the foot.\nThen he threw his soft hat into the bottom of the boat.\n\n'You can't go into the water with your hurt hand,' said Gudrun,\npanting, in a low voice of horror.\n\n'What? It won't hurt.'\n\nHe had struggled out of his jacket, and had dropped it between his\nfeet. He sat bare-headed, all in white now. He felt the belt at his\nwaist. They were nearing the launch, which stood still big above them,\nher myriad lamps making lovely darts, and sinuous running tongues of\nugly red and green and yellow light on the lustrous dark water, under\nthe shadow.\n\n'Oh get her out! Oh Di, DARLING! Oh get her out! Oh Daddy, Oh Daddy!'\nmoaned the child's voice, in distraction. Somebody was in the water,\nwith a life belt. Two boats paddled near, their lanterns swinging\nineffectually, the boats nosing round.\n\n'Hi there--Rockley!--hi there!'\n\n'Mr Gerald!' came the captain's terrified voice. 'Miss Diana's in the\nwater.'\n\n'Anybody gone in for her?' came Gerald's sharp voice.\n\n'Young Doctor Brindell, sir.'\n\n'Where?'\n\n'Can't see no signs of them, sir. Everybody's looking, but there's\nnothing so far.'\n\nThere was a moment's ominous pause.\n\n'Where did she go in?'\n\n'I think--about where that boat is,' came the uncertain answer, 'that\none with red and green lights.'\n\n'Row there,' said Gerald quietly to Gudrun.\n\n'Get her out, Gerald, oh get her out,' the child's voice was crying\nanxiously. He took no heed.\n\n'Lean back that way,' said Gerald to Gudrun, as he stood up in the\nfrail boat. 'She won't upset.'\n\nIn another moment, he had dropped clean down, soft and plumb, into the\nwater. Gudrun was swaying violently in her boat, the agitated water\nshook with transient lights, she realised that it was faintly\nmoonlight, and that he was gone. So it was possible to be gone. A\nterrible sense of fatality robbed her of all feeling and thought. She\nknew he was gone out of the world, there was merely the same world, and\nabsence, his absence. The night seemed large and vacuous. Lanterns\nswayed here and there, people were talking in an undertone on the\nlaunch and in the boats. She could hear Winifred moaning: 'OH DO FIND\nHER GERALD, DO FIND HER,' and someone trying to comfort the child.\nGudrun paddled aimlessly here and there. The terrible, massive, cold,\nboundless surface of the water terrified her beyond words. Would he\nnever come back? She felt she must jump into the water too, to know the\nhorror also.\n\nShe started, hearing someone say: 'There he is.' She saw the movement\nof his swimming, like a water-rat. And she rowed involuntarily to him.\nBut he was near another boat, a bigger one. Still she rowed towards\nhim. She must be very near. She saw him--he looked like a seal. He\nlooked like a seal as he took hold of the side of the boat. His fair\nhair was washed down on his round head, his face seemed to glisten\nsuavely. She could hear him panting.\n\nThen he clambered into the boat. Oh, and the beauty of the subjection\nof his loins, white and dimly luminous as he climbed over the side of\nthe boat, made her want to die, to die. The beauty of his dim and\nluminous loins as he climbed into the boat, his back rounded and\nsoft--ah, this was too much for her, too final a vision. She knew it,\nand it was fatal The terrible hopelessness of fate, and of beauty, such\nbeauty!\n\nHe was not like a man to her, he was an incarnation, a great phase of\nlife. She saw him press the water out of his face, and look at the\nbandage on his hand. And she knew it was all no good, and that she\nwould never go beyond him, he was the final approximation of life to\nher.\n\n'Put the lights out, we shall see better,' came his voice, sudden and\nmechanical and belonging to the world of man. She could scarcely\nbelieve there was a world of man. She leaned round and blew out her\nlanterns. They were difficult to blow out. Everywhere the lights were\ngone save the coloured points on the sides of the launch. The\nblueygrey, early night spread level around, the moon was overhead,\nthere were shadows of boats here and there.\n\nAgain there was a splash, and he was gone under. Gudrun sat, sick at\nheart, frightened of the great, level surface of the water, so heavy\nand deadly. She was so alone, with the level, unliving field of the\nwater stretching beneath her. It was not a good isolation, it was a\nterrible, cold separation of suspense. She was suspended upon the\nsurface of the insidious reality until such time as she also should\ndisappear beneath it.\n\nThen she knew, by a stirring of voices, that he had climbed out again,\ninto a boat. She sat wanting connection with him. Strenuously she\nclaimed her connection with him, across the invisible space of the\nwater. But round her heart was an isolation unbearable, through which\nnothing would penetrate.\n\n'Take the launch in. It's no use keeping her there. Get lines for the\ndragging,' came the decisive, instrumental voice, that was full of the\nsound of the world.\n\nThe launch began gradually to beat the waters.\n\n'Gerald! Gerald!' came the wild crying voice of Winifred. He did not\nanswer. Slowly the launch drifted round in a pathetic, clumsy circle,\nand slunk away to the land, retreating into the dimness. The wash of\nher paddles grew duller. Gudrun rocked in her light boat, and dipped\nthe paddle automatically to steady herself.\n\n'Gudrun?' called Ursula's voice.\n\n'Ursula!'\n\nThe boats of the two sisters pulled together.\n\n'Where is Gerald?' said Gudrun.\n\n'He's dived again,' said Ursula plaintively. 'And I know he ought not,\nwith his hurt hand and everything.'\n\n'I'll take him in home this time,' said Birkin.\n\nThe boats swayed again from the wash of steamer. Gudrun and Ursula kept\na look-out for Gerald.\n\n'There he is!' cried Ursula, who had the sharpest eyes. He had not been\nlong under. Birkin pulled towards him, Gudrun following. He swam\nslowly, and caught hold of the boat with his wounded hand. It slipped,\nand he sank back.\n\n'Why don't you help him?' cried Ursula sharply.\n\nHe came again, and Birkin leaned to help him in to the boat. Gudrun\nagain watched Gerald climb out of the water, but this time slowly,\nheavily, with the blind clambering motions of an amphibious beast,\nclumsy. Again the moon shone with faint luminosity on his white wet\nfigure, on the stooping back and the rounded loins. But it looked\ndefeated now, his body, it clambered and fell with slow clumsiness. He\nwas breathing hoarsely too, like an animal that is suffering. He sat\nslack and motionless in the boat, his head blunt and blind like a\nseal's, his whole appearance inhuman, unknowing. Gudrun shuddered as\nshe mechanically followed his boat. Birkin rowed without speaking to\nthe landing-stage.\n\n'Where are you going?' Gerald asked suddenly, as if just waking up.\n\n'Home,' said Birkin.\n\n'Oh no!' said Gerald imperiously. 'We can't go home while they're in\nthe water. Turn back again, I'm going to find them.' The women were\nfrightened, his voice was so imperative and dangerous, almost mad, not\nto be opposed.\n\n'No!' said Birkin. 'You can't.' There was a strange fluid compulsion in\nhis voice. Gerald was silent in a battle of wills. It was as if he\nwould kill the other man. But Birkin rowed evenly and unswerving, with\nan inhuman inevitability.\n\n'Why should you interfere?' said Gerald, in hate.\n\nBirkin did not answer. He rowed towards the land. And Gerald sat mute,\nlike a dumb beast, panting, his teeth chattering, his arms inert, his\nhead like a seal's head.\n\nThey came to the landing-stage. Wet and naked-looking, Gerald climbed\nup the few steps. There stood his father, in the night.\n\n'Father!' he said.\n\n'Yes my boy? Go home and get those things off.'\n\n'We shan't save them, father,' said Gerald.\n\n'There's hope yet, my boy.'\n\n'I'm afraid not. There's no knowing where they are. You can't find\nthem. And there's a current, as cold as hell.'\n\n'We'll let the water out,' said the father. 'Go home you and look to\nyourself. See that he's looked after, Rupert,' he added in a neutral\nvoice.\n\n'Well father, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm afraid it's my fault. But it\ncan't be helped; I've done what I could for the moment. I could go on\ndiving, of course--not much, though--and not much use--'\n\nHe moved away barefoot, on the planks of the platform. Then he trod on\nsomething sharp.\n\n'Of course, you've got no shoes on,' said Birkin.\n\n'His shoes are here!' cried Gudrun from below. She was making fast her\nboat.\n\nGerald waited for them to be brought to him. Gudrun came with them. He\npulled them on his feet.\n\n'If you once die,' he said, 'then when it's over, it's finished. Why\ncome to life again? There's room under that water there for thousands.'\n\n'Two is enough,' she said murmuring.\n\nHe dragged on his second shoe. He was shivering violently, and his jaw\nshook as he spoke.\n\n'That's true,' he said, 'maybe. But it's curious how much room there\nseems, a whole universe under there; and as cold as hell, you're as\nhelpless as if your head was cut off.' He could scarcely speak, he\nshook so violently. 'There's one thing about our family, you know,' he\ncontinued. 'Once anything goes wrong, it can never be put right\nagain--not with us. I've noticed it all my life--you can't put a thing\nright, once it has gone wrong.'\n\nThey were walking across the high-road to the house.\n\n'And do you know, when you are down there, it is so cold, actually, and\nso endless, so different really from what it is on top, so endless--you\nwonder how it is so many are alive, why we're up here. Are you going? I\nshall see you again, shan't I? Good-night, and thank you. Thank you\nvery much!'\n\nThe two girls waited a while, to see if there were any hope. The moon\nshone clearly overhead, with almost impertinent brightness, the small\ndark boats clustered on the water, there were voices and subdued\nshouts. But it was all to no purpose. Gudrun went home when Birkin\nreturned.\n\nHe was commissioned to open the sluice that let out the water from the\nlake, which was pierced at one end, near the high-road, thus serving as\na reservoir to supply with water the distant mines, in case of\nnecessity. 'Come with me,' he said to Ursula, 'and then I will walk\nhome with you, when I've done this.'\n\nHe called at the water-keeper's cottage and took the key of the sluice.\nThey went through a little gate from the high-road, to the head of the\nwater, where was a great stone basin which received the overflow, and a\nflight of stone steps descended into the depths of the water itself. At\nthe head of the steps was the lock of the sluice-gate.\n\nThe night was silver-grey and perfect, save for the scattered restless\nsound of voices. The grey sheen of the moonlight caught the stretch of\nwater, dark boats plashed and moved. But Ursula's mind ceased to be\nreceptive, everything was unimportant and unreal.\n\nBirkin fixed the iron handle of the sluice, and turned it with a\nwrench. The cogs began slowly to rise. He turned and turned, like a\nslave, his white figure became distinct. Ursula looked away. She could\nnot bear to see him winding heavily and laboriously, bending and rising\nmechanically like a slave, turning the handle.\n\nThen, a real shock to her, there came a loud splashing of water from\nout of the dark, tree-filled hollow beyond the road, a splashing that\ndeepened rapidly to a harsh roar, and then became a heavy, booming\nnoise of a great body of water falling solidly all the time. It\noccupied the whole of the night, this great steady booming of water,\neverything was drowned within it, drowned and lost. Ursula seemed to\nhave to struggle for her life. She put her hands over her ears, and\nlooked at the high bland moon.\n\n'Can't we go now?' she cried to Birkin, who was watching the water on\nthe steps, to see if it would get any lower. It seemed to fascinate\nhim. He looked at her and nodded.\n\nThe little dark boats had moved nearer, people were crowding curiously\nalong the hedge by the high-road, to see what was to be seen. Birkin\nand Ursula went to the cottage with the key, then turned their backs on\nthe lake. She was in great haste. She could not bear the terrible\ncrushing boom of the escaping water.\n\n'Do you think they are dead?' she cried in a high voice, to make\nherself heard.\n\n'Yes,' he replied.\n\n'Isn't it horrible!'\n\nHe paid no heed. They walked up the hill, further and further away from\nthe noise.\n\n'Do you mind very much?' she asked him.\n\n'I don't mind about the dead,' he said, 'once they are dead. The worst\nof it is, they cling on to the living, and won't let go.'\n\nShe pondered for a time.\n\n'Yes,' she said. 'The FACT of death doesn't really seem to matter much,\ndoes it?'\n\n'No,' he said. 'What does it matter if Diana Crich is alive or dead?'\n\n'Doesn't it?' she said, shocked.\n\n'No, why should it? Better she were dead--she'll be much more real.\nShe'll be positive in death. In life she was a fretting, negated\nthing.'\n\n'You are rather horrible,' murmured Ursula.\n\n'No! I'd rather Diana Crich were dead. Her living somehow, was all\nwrong. As for the young man, poor devil--he'll find his way out quickly\ninstead of slowly. Death is all right--nothing better.'\n\n'Yet you don't want to die,' she challenged him.\n\nHe was silent for a time. Then he said, in a voice that was frightening\nto her in its change:\n\n'I should like to be through with it--I should like to be through with\nthe death process.'\n\n'And aren't you?' asked Ursula nervously.\n\nThey walked on for some way in silence, under the trees. Then he said,\nslowly, as if afraid:\n\n'There is life which belongs to death, and there is life which isn't\ndeath. One is tired of the life that belongs to death--our kind of\nlife. But whether it is finished, God knows. I want love that is like\nsleep, like being born again, vulnerable as a baby that just comes into\nthe world.'\n\nUrsula listened, half attentive, half avoiding what he said. She seemed\nto catch the drift of his statement, and then she drew away. She wanted\nto hear, but she did not want to be implicated. She was reluctant to\nyield there, where he wanted her, to yield as it were her very\nidentity.\n\n'Why should love be like sleep?' she asked sadly.\n\n'I don't know. So that it is like death--I DO want to die from this\nlife--and yet it is more than life itself. One is delivered over like a\nnaked infant from the womb, all the old defences and the old body gone,\nand new air around one, that has never been breathed before.'\n\nShe listened, making out what he said. She knew, as well as he knew,\nthat words themselves do not convey meaning, that they are but a\ngesture we make, a dumb show like any other. And she seemed to feel his\ngesture through her blood, and she drew back, even though her desire\nsent her forward.\n\n'But,' she said gravely, 'didn't you say you wanted something that was\nNOT love--something beyond love?'\n\nHe turned in confusion. There was always confusion in speech. Yet it\nmust be spoken. Whichever way one moved, if one were to move forwards,\none must break a way through. And to know, to give utterance, was to\nbreak a way through the walls of the prison as the infant in labour\nstrives through the walls of the womb. There is no new movement now,\nwithout the breaking through of the old body, deliberately, in\nknowledge, in the struggle to get out.\n\n'I don't want love,' he said. 'I don't want to know you. I want to be\ngone out of myself, and you to be lost to yourself, so we are found\ndifferent. One shouldn't talk when one is tired and wretched. One\nHamletises, and it seems a lie. Only believe me when I show you a bit\nof healthy pride and insouciance. I hate myself serious.'\n\n'Why shouldn't you be serious?' she said.\n\nHe thought for a minute, then he said, sulkily:\n\n'I don't know.' Then they walked on in silence, at outs. He was vague\nand lost.\n\n'Isn't it strange,' she said, suddenly putting her hand on his arm,\nwith a loving impulse, 'how we always talk like this! I suppose we do\nlove each other, in some way.'\n\n'Oh yes,' he said; 'too much.'\n\nShe laughed almost gaily.\n\n'You'd have to have it your own way, wouldn't you?' she teased. 'You\ncould never take it on trust.'\n\nHe changed, laughed softly, and turned and took her in his arms, in the\nmiddle of the road.\n\n'Yes,' he said softly.\n\nAnd he kissed her face and brow, slowly, gently, with a sort of\ndelicate happiness which surprised her extremely, and to which she\ncould not respond. They were soft, blind kisses, perfect in their\nstillness. Yet she held back from them. It was like strange moths, very\nsoft and silent, settling on her from the darkness of her soul. She was\nuneasy. She drew away.\n\n'Isn't somebody coming?' she said.\n\nSo they looked down the dark road, then set off again walking towards\nBeldover. Then suddenly, to show him she was no shallow prude, she\nstopped and held him tight, hard against her, and covered his face with\nhard, fierce kisses of passion. In spite of his otherness, the old\nblood beat up in him.\n\n'Not this, not this,' he whimpered to himself, as the first perfect\nmood of softness and sleep-loveliness ebbed back away from the rushing\nof passion that came up to his limbs and over his face as she drew him.\nAnd soon he was a perfect hard flame of passionate desire for her. Yet\nin the small core of the flame was an unyielding anguish of another\nthing. But this also was lost; he only wanted her, with an extreme\ndesire that seemed inevitable as death, beyond question.\n\nThen, satisfied and shattered, fulfilled and destroyed, he went home\naway from her, drifting vaguely through the darkness, lapsed into the\nold fire of burning passion. Far away, far away, there seemed to be a\nsmall lament in the darkness. But what did it matter? What did it\nmatter, what did anything matter save this ultimate and triumphant\nexperience of physical passion, that had blazed up anew like a new\nspell of life. 'I was becoming quite dead-alive, nothing but a\nword-bag,' he said in triumph, scorning his other self. Yet somewhere\nfar off and small, the other hovered.\n\nThe men were still dragging the lake when he got back. He stood on the\nbank and heard Gerald's voice. The water was still booming in the\nnight, the moon was fair, the hills beyond were elusive. The lake was\nsinking. There came the raw smell of the banks, in the night air.\n\nUp at Shortlands there were lights in the windows, as if nobody had\ngone to bed. On the landing-stage was the old doctor, the father of the\nyoung man who was lost. He stood quite silent, waiting. Birkin also\nstood and watched, Gerald came up in a boat.\n\n'You still here, Rupert?' he said. 'We can't get them. The bottom\nslopes, you know, very steep. The water lies between two very sharp\nslopes, with little branch valleys, and God knows where the drift will\ntake you. It isn't as if it was a level bottom. You never know where\nyou are, with the dragging.'\n\n'Is there any need for you to be working?' said Birkin. 'Wouldn't it be\nmuch better if you went to bed?'\n\n'To bed! Good God, do you think I should sleep? We'll find 'em, before\nI go away from here.'\n\n'But the men would find them just the same without you--why should you\ninsist?'\n\nGerald looked up at him. Then he put his hand affectionately on\nBirkin's shoulder, saying:\n\n'Don't you bother about me, Rupert. If there's anybody's health to\nthink about, it's yours, not mine. How do you feel yourself?'\n\n'Very well. But you, you spoil your own chance of life--you waste your\nbest self.'\n\nGerald was silent for a moment. Then he said:\n\n'Waste it? What else is there to do with it?'\n\n'But leave this, won't you? You force yourself into horrors, and put a\nmill-stone of beastly memories round your neck. Come away now.'\n\n'A mill-stone of beastly memories!' Gerald repeated. Then he put his\nhand again affectionately on Birkin's shoulder. 'God, you've got such a\ntelling way of putting things, Rupert, you have.'\n\nBirkin's heart sank. He was irritated and weary of having a telling way\nof putting things.\n\n'Won't you leave it? Come over to my place'--he urged as one urges a\ndrunken man.\n\n'No,' said Gerald coaxingly, his arm across the other man's shoulder.\n'Thanks very much, Rupert--I shall be glad to come tomorrow, if that'll\ndo. You understand, don't you? I want to see this job through. But I'll\ncome tomorrow, right enough. Oh, I'd rather come and have a chat with\nyou than--than do anything else, I verily believe. Yes, I would. You\nmean a lot to me, Rupert, more than you know.'\n\n'What do I mean, more than I know?' asked Birkin irritably. He was\nacutely aware of Gerald's hand on his shoulder. And he did not want\nthis altercation. He wanted the other man to come out of the ugly\nmisery.\n\n'I'll tell you another time,' said Gerald coaxingly.\n\n'Come along with me now--I want you to come,' said Birkin.\n\nThere was a pause, intense and real. Birkin wondered why his own heart\nbeat so heavily. Then Gerald's fingers gripped hard and communicative\ninto Birkin's shoulder, as he said:\n\n'No, I'll see this job through, Rupert. Thank you--I know what you\nmean. We're all right, you know, you and me.'\n\n'I may be all right, but I'm sure you're not, mucking about here,' said\nBirkin. And he went away.\n\nThe bodies of the dead were not recovered till towards dawn. Diana had\nher arms tight round the neck of the young man, choking him.\n\n'She killed him,' said Gerald.\n\nThe moon sloped down the sky and sank at last. The lake was sunk to\nquarter size, it had horrible raw banks of clay, that smelled of raw\nrottenish water. Dawn roused faintly behind the eastern hill. The water\nstill boomed through the sluice.\n\nAs the birds were whistling for the first morning, and the hills at the\nback of the desolate lake stood radiant with the new mists, there was a\nstraggling procession up to Shortlands, men bearing the bodies on a\nstretcher, Gerald going beside them, the two grey-bearded fathers\nfollowing in silence. Indoors the family was all sitting up, waiting.\nSomebody must go to tell the mother, in her room. The doctor in secret\nstruggled to bring back his son, till he himself was exhausted.\n\nOver all the outlying district was a hush of dreadful excitement on\nthat Sunday morning. The colliery people felt as if this catastrophe\nhad happened directly to themselves, indeed they were more shocked and\nfrightened than if their own men had been killed. Such a tragedy in\nShortlands, the high home of the district! One of the young mistresses,\npersisting in dancing on the cabin roof of the launch, wilful young\nmadam, drowned in the midst of the festival, with the young doctor!\nEverywhere on the Sunday morning, the colliers wandered about,\ndiscussing the calamity. At all the Sunday dinners of the people, there\nseemed a strange presence. It was as if the angel of death were very\nnear, there was a sense of the supernatural in the air. The men had\nexcited, startled faces, the women looked solemn, some of them had been\ncrying. The children enjoyed the excitement at first. There was an\nintensity in the air, almost magical. Did all enjoy it? Did all enjoy\nthe thrill?\n\nGudrun had wild ideas of rushing to comfort Gerald. She was thinking\nall the time of the perfect comforting, reassuring thing to say to him.\nShe was shocked and frightened, but she put that away, thinking of how\nshe should deport herself with Gerald: act her part. That was the real\nthrill: how she should act her part.\n\nUrsula was deeply and passionately in love with Birkin, and she was\ncapable of nothing. She was perfectly callous about all the talk of the\naccident, but her estranged air looked like trouble. She merely sat by\nherself, whenever she could, and longed to see him again. She wanted\nhim to come to the house,--she would not have it otherwise, he must\ncome at once. She was waiting for him. She stayed indoors all day,\nwaiting for him to knock at the door. Every minute, she glanced\nautomatically at the window. He would be there.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XV.\n\nSUNDAY EVENING\n\n\nAs the day wore on, the life-blood seemed to ebb away from Ursula, and\nwithin the emptiness a heavy despair gathered. Her passion seemed to\nbleed to death, and there was nothing. She sat suspended in a state of\ncomplete nullity, harder to bear than death.\n\n'Unless something happens,' she said to herself, in the perfect\nlucidity of final suffering, 'I shall die. I am at the end of my line\nof life.'\n\nShe sat crushed and obliterated in a darkness that was the border of\ndeath. She realised how all her life she had been drawing nearer and\nnearer to this brink, where there was no beyond, from which one had to\nleap like Sappho into the unknown. The knowledge of the imminence of\ndeath was like a drug. Darkly, without thinking at all, she knew that\nshe was near to death. She had travelled all her life along the line of\nfulfilment, and it was nearly concluded. She knew all she had to know,\nshe had experienced all she had to experience, she was fulfilled in a\nkind of bitter ripeness, there remained only to fall from the tree into\ndeath. And one must fulfil one's development to the end, must carry the\nadventure to its conclusion. And the next step was over the border into\ndeath. So it was then! There was a certain peace in the knowledge.\n\nAfter all, when one was fulfilled, one was happiest in falling into\ndeath, as a bitter fruit plunges in its ripeness downwards. Death is a\ngreat consummation, a consummating experience. It is a development from\nlife. That we know, while we are yet living. What then need we think\nfor further? One can never see beyond the consummation. It is enough\nthat death is a great and conclusive experience. Why should we ask what\ncomes after the experience, when the experience is still unknown to us?\nLet us die, since the great experience is the one that follows now upon\nall the rest, death, which is the next great crisis in front of which\nwe have arrived. If we wait, if we baulk the issue, we do but hang\nabout the gates in undignified uneasiness. There it is, in front of us,\nas in front of Sappho, the illimitable space. Thereinto goes the\njourney. Have we not the courage to go on with our journey, must we cry\n'I daren't'? On ahead we will go, into death, and whatever death may\nmean. If a man can see the next step to be taken, why should he fear\nthe next but one? Why ask about the next but one? Of the next step we\nare certain. It is the step into death.\n\n'I shall die--I shall quickly die,' said Ursula to herself, clear as if\nin a trance, clear, calm, and certain beyond human certainty. But\nsomewhere behind, in the twilight, there was a bitter weeping and a\nhopelessness. That must not be attended to. One must go where the\nunfaltering spirit goes, there must be no baulking the issue, because\nof fear. No baulking the issue, no listening to the lesser voices. If\nthe deepest desire be now, to go on into the unknown of death, shall\none forfeit the deepest truth for one more shallow?\n\n'Then let it end,' she said to herself. It was a decision. It was not a\nquestion of taking one's life--she would NEVER kill herself, that was\nrepulsive and violent. It was a question of KNOWING the next step. And\nthe next step led into the space of death. Did it?--or was there--?\n\nHer thoughts drifted into unconsciousness, she sat as if asleep beside\nthe fire. And then the thought came back. The space o' death! Could she\ngive herself to it? Ah yes--it was a sleep. She had had enough So long\nshe had held out; and resisted. Now was the time to relinquish, not to\nresist any more.\n\nIn a kind of spiritual trance, she yielded, she gave way, and all was\ndark. She could feel, within the darkness, the terrible assertion of\nher body, the unutterable anguish of dissolution, the only anguish that\nis too much, the far-off, awful nausea of dissolution set in within the\nbody.\n\n'Does the body correspond so immediately with the spirit?' she asked\nherself. And she knew, with the clarity of ultimate knowledge, that the\nbody is only one of the manifestations of the spirit, the transmutation\nof the integral spirit is the transmutation of the physical body as\nwell. Unless I set my will, unless I absolve myself from the rhythm of\nlife, fix myself and remain static, cut off from living, absolved\nwithin my own will. But better die than live mechanically a life that\nis a repetition of repetitions. To die is to move on with the\ninvisible. To die is also a joy, a joy of submitting to that which is\ngreater than the known, namely, the pure unknown. That is a joy. But to\nlive mechanised and cut off within the motion of the will, to live as\nan entity absolved from the unknown, that is shameful and ignominious.\nThere is no ignominy in death. There is complete ignominy in an\nunreplenished, mechanised life. Life indeed may be ignominious,\nshameful to the soul. But death is never a shame. Death itself, like\nthe illimitable space, is beyond our sullying.\n\nTomorrow was Monday. Monday, the beginning of another school-week!\nAnother shameful, barren school-week, mere routine and mechanical\nactivity. Was not the adventure of death infinitely preferable? Was not\ndeath infinitely more lovely and noble than such a life? A life of\nbarren routine, without inner meaning, without any real significance.\nHow sordid life was, how it was a terrible shame to the soul, to live\nnow! How much cleaner and more dignified to be dead! One could not bear\nany more of this shame of sordid routine and mechanical nullity. One\nmight come to fruit in death. She had had enough. For where was life to\nbe found? No flowers grow upon busy machinery, there is no sky to a\nroutine, there is no space to a rotary motion. And all life was a\nrotary motion, mechanised, cut off from reality. There was nothing to\nlook for from life--it was the same in all countries and all peoples.\nThe only window was death. One could look out on to the great dark sky\nof death with elation, as one had looked out of the classroom window as\na child, and seen perfect freedom in the outside. Now one was not a\nchild, and one knew that the soul was a prisoner within this sordid\nvast edifice of life, and there was no escape, save in death.\n\nBut what a joy! What a gladness to think that whatever humanity did, it\ncould not seize hold of the kingdom of death, to nullify that. The sea\nthey turned into a murderous alley and a soiled road of commerce,\ndisputed like the dirty land of a city every inch of it. The air they\nclaimed too, shared it up, parcelled it out to certain owners, they\ntrespassed in the air to fight for it. Everything was gone, walled in,\nwith spikes on top of the walls, and one must ignominiously creep\nbetween the spiky walls through a labyrinth of life.\n\nBut the great, dark, illimitable kingdom of death, there humanity was\nput to scorn. So much they could do upon earth, the multifarious little\ngods that they were. But the kingdom of death put them all to scorn,\nthey dwindled into their true vulgar silliness in face of it.\n\nHow beautiful, how grand and perfect death was, how good to look\nforward to. There one would wash off all the lies and ignominy and dirt\nthat had been put upon one here, a perfect bath of cleanness and glad\nrefreshment, and go unknown, unquestioned, unabased. After all, one was\nrich, if only in the promise of perfect death. It was a gladness above\nall, that this remained to look forward to, the pure inhuman otherness\nof death.\n\nWhatever life might be, it could not take away death, the inhuman\ntranscendent death. Oh, let us ask no question of it, what it is or is\nnot. To know is human, and in death we do not know, we are not human.\nAnd the joy of this compensates for all the bitterness of knowledge and\nthe sordidness of our humanity. In death we shall not be human, and we\nshall not know. The promise of this is our heritage, we look forward\nlike heirs to their majority.\n\nUrsula sat quite still and quite forgotten, alone by the fire in the\ndrawing-room. The children were playing in the kitchen, all the others\nwere gone to church. And she was gone into the ultimate darkness of her\nown soul.\n\nShe was startled by hearing the bell ring, away in the kitchen, the\nchildren came scudding along the passage in delicious alarm.\n\n'Ursula, there's somebody.'\n\n'I know. Don't be silly,' she replied. She too was startled, almost\nfrightened. She dared hardly go to the door.\n\nBirkin stood on the threshold, his rain-coat turned up to his ears. He\nhad come now, now she was gone far away. She was aware of the rainy\nnight behind him.\n\n'Oh is it you?' she said.\n\n'I am glad you are at home,' he said in a low voice, entering the\nhouse.\n\n'They are all gone to church.'\n\nHe took off his coat and hung it up. The children were peeping at him\nround the corner.\n\n'Go and get undressed now, Billy and Dora,' said Ursula. 'Mother will\nbe back soon, and she'll be disappointed if you're not in bed.'\n\nThe children, in a sudden angelic mood, retired without a word. Birkin\nand Ursula went into the drawing-room.\n\nThe fire burned low. He looked at her and wondered at the luminous\ndelicacy of her beauty, and the wide shining of her eyes. He watched\nfrom a distance, with wonder in his heart, she seemed transfigured with\nlight.\n\n'What have you been doing all day?' he asked her.\n\n'Only sitting about,' she said.\n\nHe looked at her. There was a change in her. But she was separate from\nhim. She remained apart, in a kind of brightness. They both sat silent\nin the soft light of the lamp. He felt he ought to go away again, he\nought not to have come. Still he did not gather enough resolution to\nmove. But he was DE TROP, her mood was absent and separate.\n\nThen there came the voices of the two children calling shyly outside\nthe door, softly, with self-excited timidity:\n\n'Ursula! Ursula!'\n\nShe rose and opened the door. On the threshold stood the two children\nin their long nightgowns, with wide-eyed, angelic faces. They were\nbeing very good for the moment, playing the role perfectly of two\nobedient children.\n\n'Shall you take us to bed!' said Billy, in a loud whisper.\n\n'Why you ARE angels tonight,' she said softly. 'Won't you come and say\ngood-night to Mr Birkin?'\n\nThe children merged shyly into the room, on bare feet. Billy's face was\nwide and grinning, but there was a great solemnity of being good in his\nround blue eyes. Dora, peeping from the floss of her fair hair, hung\nback like some tiny Dryad, that has no soul.\n\n'Will you say good-night to me?' asked Birkin, in a voice that was\nstrangely soft and smooth. Dora drifted away at once, like a leaf\nlifted on a breath of wind. But Billy went softly forward, slow and\nwilling, lifting his pinched-up mouth implicitly to be kissed. Ursula\nwatched the full, gathered lips of the man gently touch those of the\nboy, so gently. Then Birkin lifted his fingers and touched the boy's\nround, confiding cheek, with a faint touch of love. Neither spoke.\nBilly seemed angelic like a cherub boy, or like an acolyte, Birkin was\na tall, grave angel looking down to him.\n\n'Are you going to be kissed?' Ursula broke in, speaking to the little\ngirl. But Dora edged away like a tiny Dryad that will not be touched.\n\n'Won't you say good-night to Mr Birkin? Go, he's waiting for you,' said\nUrsula. But the girl-child only made a little motion away from him.\n\n'Silly Dora, silly Dora!' said Ursula.\n\nBirkin felt some mistrust and antagonism in the small child. He could\nnot understand it.\n\n'Come then,' said Ursula. 'Let us go before mother comes.'\n\n'Who'll hear us say our prayers?' asked Billy anxiously.\n\n'Whom you like.'\n\n'Won't you?'\n\n'Yes, I will.'\n\n'Ursula?'\n\n'Well Billy?'\n\n'Is it WHOM you like?'\n\n'That's it.'\n\n'Well what is WHOM?'\n\n'It's the accusative of who.'\n\nThere was a moment's contemplative silence, then the confiding:\n\n'Is it?'\n\nBirkin smiled to himself as he sat by the fire. When Ursula came down\nhe sat motionless, with his arms on his knees. She saw him, how he was\nmotionless and ageless, like some crouching idol, some image of a\ndeathly religion. He looked round at her, and his face, very pale and\nunreal, seemed to gleam with a whiteness almost phosphorescent.\n\n'Don't you feel well?' she asked, in indefinable repulsion.\n\n'I hadn't thought about it.'\n\n'But don't you know without thinking about it?'\n\nHe looked at her, his eyes dark and swift, and he saw her revulsion. He\ndid not answer her question.\n\n'Don't you know whether you are unwell or not, without thinking about\nit?' she persisted.\n\n'Not always,' he said coldly.\n\n'But don't you think that's very wicked?'\n\n'Wicked?'\n\n'Yes. I think it's CRIMINAL to have so little connection with your own\nbody that you don't even know when you are ill.'\n\nHe looked at her darkly.\n\n'Yes,' he said.\n\n'Why don't you stay in bed when you are seedy? You look perfectly\nghastly.'\n\n'Offensively so?' he asked ironically.\n\n'Yes, quite offensive. Quite repelling.'\n\n'Ah!! Well that's unfortunate.'\n\n'And it's raining, and it's a horrible night. Really, you shouldn't be\nforgiven for treating your body like it--you OUGHT to suffer, a man who\ntakes as little notice of his body as that.'\n\n'--takes as little notice of his body as that,' he echoed mechanically.\n\nThis cut her short, and there was silence.\n\nThe others came in from church, and the two had the girls to face, then\nthe mother and Gudrun, and then the father and the boy.\n\n'Good-evening,' said Brangwen, faintly surprised. 'Came to see me, did\nyou?'\n\n'No,' said Birkin, 'not about anything, in particular, that is. The day\nwas dismal, and I thought you wouldn't mind if I called in.'\n\n'It HAS been a depressing day,' said Mrs Brangwen sympathetically. At\nthat moment the voices of the children were heard calling from\nupstairs: 'Mother! Mother!' She lifted her face and answered mildly\ninto the distance: 'I shall come up to you in a minute, Doysie.' Then\nto Birkin: 'There is nothing fresh at Shortlands, I suppose? Ah,' she\nsighed, 'no, poor things, I should think not.'\n\n'You've been over there today, I suppose?' asked the father.\n\n'Gerald came round to tea with me, and I walked back with him. The\nhouse is overexcited and unwholesome, I thought.'\n\n'I should think they were people who hadn't much restraint,' said\nGudrun.\n\n'Or too much,' Birkin answered.\n\n'Oh yes, I'm sure,' said Gudrun, almost vindictively, 'one or the\nother.'\n\n'They all feel they ought to behave in some unnatural fashion,' said\nBirkin. 'When people are in grief, they would do better to cover their\nfaces and keep in retirement, as in the old days.'\n\n'Certainly!' cried Gudrun, flushed and inflammable. 'What can be worse\nthan this public grief--what is more horrible, more false! If GRIEF is\nnot private, and hidden, what is?'\n\n'Exactly,' he said. 'I felt ashamed when I was there and they were all\ngoing about in a lugubrious false way, feeling they must not be natural\nor ordinary.'\n\n'Well--' said Mrs Brangwen, offended at this criticism, 'it isn't so\neasy to bear a trouble like that.'\n\nAnd she went upstairs to the children.\n\nHe remained only a few minutes longer, then took his leave. When he was\ngone Ursula felt such a poignant hatred of him, that all her brain\nseemed turned into a sharp crystal of fine hatred. Her whole nature\nseemed sharpened and intensified into a pure dart of hate. She could\nnot imagine what it was. It merely took hold of her, the most poignant\nand ultimate hatred, pure and clear and beyond thought. She could not\nthink of it at all, she was translated beyond herself. It was like a\npossession. She felt she was possessed. And for several days she went\nabout possessed by this exquisite force of hatred against him. It\nsurpassed anything she had ever known before, it seemed to throw her\nout of the world into some terrible region where nothing of her old\nlife held good. She was quite lost and dazed, really dead to her own\nlife.\n\nIt was so completely incomprehensible and irrational. She did not know\nWHY she hated him, her hate was quite abstract. She had only realised\nwith a shock that stunned her, that she was overcome by this pure\ntransportation. He was the enemy, fine as a diamond, and as hard and\njewel-like, the quintessence of all that was inimical.\n\nShe thought of his face, white and purely wrought, and of his eyes that\nhad such a dark, constant will of assertion, and she touched her own\nforehead, to feel if she were mad, she was so transfigured in white\nflame of essential hate.\n\nIt was not temporal, her hatred, she did not hate him for this or for\nthat; she did not want to do anything to him, to have any connection\nwith him. Her relation was ultimate and utterly beyond words, the hate\nwas so pure and gemlike. It was as if he were a beam of essential\nenmity, a beam of light that did not only destroy her, but denied her\naltogether, revoked her whole world. She saw him as a clear stroke of\nuttermost contradiction, a strange gem-like being whose existence\ndefined her own non-existence. When she heard he was ill again, her\nhatred only intensified itself a few degrees, if that were possible. It\nstunned her and annihilated her, but she could not escape it. She could\nnot escape this transfiguration of hatred that had come upon her.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVI.\n\nMAN TO MAN\n\n\nHe lay sick and unmoved, in pure opposition to everything. He knew how\nnear to breaking was the vessel that held his life. He knew also how\nstrong and durable it was. And he did not care. Better a thousand times\ntake one's chance with death, than accept a life one did not want. But\nbest of all to persist and persist and persist for ever, till one were\nsatisfied in life.\n\nHe knew that Ursula was referred back to him. He knew his life rested\nwith her. But he would rather not live than accept the love she\nproffered. The old way of love seemed a dreadful bondage, a sort of\nconscription. What it was in him he did not know, but the thought of\nlove, marriage, and children, and a life lived together, in the\nhorrible privacy of domestic and connubial satisfaction, was repulsive.\nHe wanted something clearer, more open, cooler, as it were. The hot\nnarrow intimacy between man and wife was abhorrent. The way they shut\ntheir doors, these married people, and shut themselves in to their own\nexclusive alliance with each other, even in love, disgusted him. It was\na whole community of mistrustful couples insulated in private houses or\nprivate rooms, always in couples, and no further life, no further\nimmediate, no disinterested relationship admitted: a kaleidoscope of\ncouples, disjoined, separatist, meaningless entities of married\ncouples. True, he hated promiscuity even worse than marriage, and a\nliaison was only another kind of coupling, reactionary from the legal\nmarriage. Reaction was a greater bore than action.\n\nOn the whole, he hated sex, it was such a limitation. It was sex that\nturned a man into a broken half of a couple, the woman into the other\nbroken half. And he wanted to be single in himself, the woman single in\nherself. He wanted sex to revert to the level of the other appetites,\nto be regarded as a functional process, not as a fulfilment. He\nbelieved in sex marriage. But beyond this, he wanted a further\nconjunction, where man had being and woman had being, two pure beings,\neach constituting the freedom of the other, balancing each other like\ntwo poles of one force, like two angels, or two demons.\n\nHe wanted so much to be free, not under the compulsion of any need for\nunification, or tortured by unsatisfied desire. Desire and aspiration\nshould find their object without all this torture, as now, in a world\nof plenty of water, simple thirst is inconsiderable, satisfied almost\nunconsciously. And he wanted to be with Ursula as free as with himself,\nsingle and clear and cool, yet balanced, polarised with her. The\nmerging, the clutching, the mingling of love was become madly abhorrent\nto him.\n\nBut it seemed to him, woman was always so horrible and clutching, she\nhad such a lust for possession, a greed of self-importance in love. She\nwanted to have, to own, to control, to be dominant. Everything must be\nreferred back to her, to Woman, the Great Mother of everything, out of\nwhom proceeded everything and to whom everything must finally be\nrendered up.\n\nIt filled him with almost insane fury, this calm assumption of the\nMagna Mater, that all was hers, because she had borne it. Man was hers\nbecause she had borne him. A Mater Dolorosa, she had borne him, a Magna\nMater, she now claimed him again, soul and body, sex, meaning, and all.\nHe had a horror of the Magna Mater, she was detestable.\n\nShe was on a very high horse again, was woman, the Great Mother. Did he\nnot know it in Hermione. Hermione, the humble, the subservient, what\nwas she all the while but the Mater Dolorosa, in her subservience,\nclaiming with horrible, insidious arrogance and female tyranny, her own\nagain, claiming back the man she had borne in suffering. By her very\nsuffering and humility she bound her son with chains, she held him her\neverlasting prisoner.\n\nAnd Ursula, Ursula was the same--or the inverse. She too was the awful,\narrogant queen of life, as if she were a queen bee on whom all the rest\ndepended. He saw the yellow flare in her eyes, he knew the unthinkable\noverweening assumption of primacy in her. She was unconscious of it\nherself. She was only too ready to knock her head on the ground before\na man. But this was only when she was so certain of her man, that she\ncould worship him as a woman worships her own infant, with a worship of\nperfect possession.\n\nIt was intolerable, this possession at the hands of woman. Always a man\nmust be considered as the broken off fragment of a woman, and the sex\nwas the still aching scar of the laceration. Man must be added on to a\nwoman, before he had any real place or wholeness.\n\nAnd why? Why should we consider ourselves, men and women, as broken\nfragments of one whole? It is not true. We are not broken fragments of\none whole. Rather we are the singling away into purity and clear being,\nof things that were mixed. Rather the sex is that which remains in us\nof the mixed, the unresolved. And passion is the further separating of\nthis mixture, that which is manly being taken into the being of the\nman, that which is womanly passing to the woman, till the two are clear\nand whole as angels, the admixture of sex in the highest sense\nsurpassed, leaving two single beings constellated together like two\nstars.\n\nIn the old age, before sex was, we were mixed, each one a mixture. The\nprocess of singling into individuality resulted into the great\npolarisation of sex. The womanly drew to one side, the manly to the\nother. But the separation was imperfect even them. And so our\nworld-cycle passes. There is now to come the new day, when we are\nbeings each of us, fulfilled in difference. The man is pure man, the\nwoman pure woman, they are perfectly polarised. But there is no longer\nany of the horrible merging, mingling self-abnegation of love. There is\nonly the pure duality of polarisation, each one free from any\ncontamination of the other. In each, the individual is primal, sex is\nsubordinate, but perfectly polarised. Each has a single, separate\nbeing, with its own laws. The man has his pure freedom, the woman hers.\nEach acknowledges the perfection of the polarised sex-circuit. Each\nadmits the different nature in the other.\n\nSo Birkin meditated whilst he was ill. He liked sometimes to be ill\nenough to take to his bed. For then he got better very quickly, and\nthings came to him clear and sure.\n\nWhilst he was laid up, Gerald came to see him. The two men had a deep,\nuneasy feeling for each other. Gerald's eyes were quick and restless,\nhis whole manner tense and impatient, he seemed strung up to some\nactivity. According to conventionality, he wore black clothes, he\nlooked formal, handsome and COMME IL FAUT. His hair was fair almost to\nwhiteness, sharp like splinters of light, his face was keen and ruddy,\nhis body seemed full of northern energy. Gerald really loved Birkin,\nthough he never quite believed in him. Birkin was too unreal;--clever,\nwhimsical, wonderful, but not practical enough. Gerald felt that his\nown understanding was much sounder and safer. Birkin was delightful, a\nwonderful spirit, but after all, not to be taken seriously, not quite\nto be counted as a man among men.\n\n'Why are you laid up again?' he asked kindly, taking the sick man's\nhand. It was always Gerald who was protective, offering the warm\nshelter of his physical strength.\n\n'For my sins, I suppose,' Birkin said, smiling a little ironically.\n\n'For your sins? Yes, probably that is so. You should sin less, and keep\nbetter in health?'\n\n'You'd better teach me.'\n\nHe looked at Gerald with ironic eyes.\n\n'How are things with you?' asked Birkin.\n\n'With me?' Gerald looked at Birkin, saw he was serious, and a warm\nlight came into his eyes.\n\n'I don't know that they're any different. I don't see how they could\nbe. There's nothing to change.'\n\n'I suppose you are conducting the business as successfully as ever, and\nignoring the demand of the soul.'\n\n'That's it,' said Gerald. 'At least as far as the business is\nconcerned. I couldn't say about the soul, I'am sure.'\n\n'No.'\n\n'Surely you don't expect me to?' laughed Gerald.\n\n'No. How are the rest of your affairs progressing, apart from the\nbusiness?'\n\n'The rest of my affairs? What are those? I couldn't say; I don't know\nwhat you refer to.'\n\n'Yes, you do,' said Birkin. 'Are you gloomy or cheerful? And what about\nGudrun Brangwen?'\n\n'What about her?' A confused look came over Gerald. 'Well,' he added,\n'I don't know. I can only tell you she gave me a hit over the face last\ntime I saw her.'\n\n'A hit over the face! What for?'\n\n'That I couldn't tell you, either.'\n\n'Really! But when?'\n\n'The night of the party--when Diana was drowned. She was driving the\ncattle up the hill, and I went after her--you remember.'\n\n'Yes, I remember. But what made her do that? You didn't definitely ask\nher for it, I suppose?'\n\n'I? No, not that I know of. I merely said to her, that it was dangerous\nto drive those Highland bullocks--as it IS. She turned in such a way,\nand said--\"I suppose you think I'm afraid of you and your cattle, don't\nyou?\" So I asked her \"why,\" and for answer she flung me a back-hander\nacross the face.'\n\nBirkin laughed quickly, as if it pleased him. Gerald looked at him,\nwondering, and began to laugh as well, saying:\n\n'I didn't laugh at the time, I assure you. I was never so taken aback\nin my life.'\n\n'And weren't you furious?'\n\n'Furious? I should think I was. I'd have murdered her for two pins.'\n\n'H'm!' ejaculated Birkin. 'Poor Gudrun, wouldn't she suffer afterwards\nfor having given herself away!' He was hugely delighted.\n\n'Would she suffer?' asked Gerald, also amused now.\n\nBoth men smiled in malice and amusement.\n\n'Badly, I should think; seeing how self-conscious she is.'\n\n'She is self-conscious, is she? Then what made her do it? For I\ncertainly think it was quite uncalled-for, and quite unjustified.'\n\n'I suppose it was a sudden impulse.'\n\n'Yes, but how do you account for her having such an impulse? I'd done\nher no harm.'\n\nBirkin shook his head.\n\n'The Amazon suddenly came up in her, I suppose,' he said.\n\n'Well,' replied Gerald, 'I'd rather it had been the Orinoco.'\n\nThey both laughed at the poor joke. Gerald was thinking how Gudrun had\nsaid she would strike the last blow too. But some reserve made him keep\nthis back from Birkin.\n\n'And you resent it?' Birkin asked.\n\n'I don't resent it. I don't care a tinker's curse about it.' He was\nsilent a moment, then he added, laughing. 'No, I'll see it through,\nthat's all. She seemed sorry afterwards.'\n\n'Did she? You've not met since that night?'\n\nGerald's face clouded.\n\n'No,' he said. 'We've been--you can imagine how it's been, since the\naccident.'\n\n'Yes. Is it calming down?'\n\n'I don't know. It's a shock, of course. But I don't believe mother\nminds. I really don't believe she takes any notice. And what's so\nfunny, she used to be all for the children--nothing mattered, nothing\nwhatever mattered but the children. And now, she doesn't take any more\nnotice than if it was one of the servants.'\n\n'No? Did it upset YOU very much?'\n\n'It's a shock. But I don't feel it very much, really. I don't feel any\ndifferent. We've all got to die, and it doesn't seem to make any great\ndifference, anyhow, whether you die or not. I can't feel any GRIEF you\nknow. It leaves me cold. I can't quite account for it.'\n\n'You don't care if you die or not?' asked Birkin.\n\nGerald looked at him with eyes blue as the blue-fibred steel of a\nweapon. He felt awkward, but indifferent. As a matter of fact, he did\ncare terribly, with a great fear.\n\n'Oh,' he said, 'I don't want to die, why should I? But I never trouble.\nThe question doesn't seem to be on the carpet for me at all. It doesn't\ninterest me, you know.'\n\n'TIMOR MORTIS CONTURBAT ME,' quoted Birkin, adding--'No, death doesn't\nreally seem the point any more. It curiously doesn't concern one. It's\nlike an ordinary tomorrow.'\n\nGerald looked closely at his friend. The eyes of the two men met, and\nan unspoken understanding was exchanged.\n\nGerald narrowed his eyes, his face was cool and unscrupulous as he\nlooked at Birkin, impersonally, with a vision that ended in a point in\nspace, strangely keen-eyed and yet blind.\n\n'If death isn't the point,' he said, in a strangely abstract, cold,\nfine voice--'what is?' He sounded as if he had been found out.\n\n'What is?' re-echoed Birkin. And there was a mocking silence.\n\n'There's long way to go, after the point of intrinsic death, before we\ndisappear,' said Birkin.\n\n'There is,' said Gerald. 'But what sort of way?' He seemed to press the\nother man for knowledge which he himself knew far better than Birkin\ndid.\n\n'Right down the slopes of degeneration--mystic, universal degeneration.\nThere are many stages of pure degradation to go through: agelong. We\nlive on long after our death, and progressively, in progressive\ndevolution.'\n\nGerald listened with a faint, fine smile on his face, all the time, as\nif, somewhere, he knew so much better than Birkin, all about this: as\nif his own knowledge were direct and personal, whereas Birkin's was a\nmatter of observation and inference, not quite hitting the nail on the\nhead:--though aiming near enough at it. But he was not going to give\nhimself away. If Birkin could get at the secrets, let him. Gerald would\nnever help him. Gerald would be a dark horse to the end.\n\n'Of course,' he said, with a startling change of conversation, 'it is\nfather who really feels it. It will finish him. For him the world\ncollapses. All his care now is for Winnie--he must save Winnie. He says\nshe ought to be sent away to school, but she won't hear of it, and\nhe'll never do it. Of course she IS in rather a queer way. We're all of\nus curiously bad at living. We can do things--but we can't get on with\nlife at all. It's curious--a family failing.'\n\n'She oughtn't to be sent away to school,' said Birkin, who was\nconsidering a new proposition.\n\n'She oughtn't. Why?'\n\n'She's a queer child--a special child, more special even than you. And\nin my opinion special children should never be sent away to school.\nOnly moderately ordinary children should be sent to school--so it seems\nto me.'\n\n'I'm inclined to think just the opposite. I think it would probably\nmake her more normal if she went away and mixed with other children.'\n\n'She wouldn't mix, you see. YOU never really mixed, did you? And she\nwouldn't be willing even to pretend to. She's proud, and solitary, and\nnaturally apart. If she has a single nature, why do you want to make\nher gregarious?'\n\n'No, I don't want to make her anything. But I think school would be\ngood for her.'\n\n'Was it good for you?'\n\nGerald's eyes narrowed uglily. School had been torture to him. Yet he\nhad not questioned whether one should go through this torture. He\nseemed to believe in education through subjection and torment.\n\n'I hated it at the time, but I can see it was necessary,' he said. 'It\nbrought me into line a bit--and you can't live unless you do come into\nline somewhere.'\n\n'Well,' said Birkin, 'I begin to think that you can't live unless you\nkeep entirely out of the line. It's no good trying to toe the line,\nwhen your one impulse is to smash up the line. Winnie is a special\nnature, and for special natures you must give a special world.'\n\n'Yes, but where's your special world?' said Gerald.\n\n'Make it. Instead of chopping yourself down to fit the world, chop the\nworld down to fit yourself. As a matter of fact, two exceptional people\nmake another world. You and I, we make another, separate world. You\ndon't WANT a world same as your brothers-in-law. It's just the special\nquality you value. Do you WANT to be normal or ordinary! It's a lie.\nYou want to be free and extraordinary, in an extraordinary world of\nliberty.'\n\nGerald looked at Birkin with subtle eyes of knowledge. But he would\nnever openly admit what he felt. He knew more than Birkin, in one\ndirection--much more. And this gave him his gentle love for the other\nman, as if Birkin were in some way young, innocent, child-like: so\namazingly clever, but incurably innocent.\n\n'Yet you are so banal as to consider me chiefly a freak,' said Birkin\npointedly.\n\n'A freak!' exclaimed Gerald, startled. And his face opened suddenly, as\nif lighted with simplicity, as when a flower opens out of the cunning\nbud. 'No--I never consider you a freak.' And he watched the other man\nwith strange eyes, that Birkin could not understand. 'I feel,' Gerald\ncontinued, 'that there is always an element of uncertainty about\nyou--perhaps you are uncertain about yourself. But I'm never sure of\nyou. You can go away and change as easily as if you had no soul.'\n\nHe looked at Birkin with penetrating eyes. Birkin was amazed. He\nthought he had all the soul in the world. He stared in amazement. And\nGerald, watching, saw the amazing attractive goodliness of his eyes, a\nyoung, spontaneous goodness that attracted the other man infinitely,\nyet filled him with bitter chagrin, because he mistrusted it so much.\nHe knew Birkin could do without him--could forget, and not suffer. This\nwas always present in Gerald's consciousness, filling him with bitter\nunbelief: this consciousness of the young, animal-like spontaneity of\ndetachment. It seemed almost like hypocrisy and lying, sometimes, oh,\noften, on Birkin's part, to talk so deeply and importantly.\n\nQuite other things were going through Birkin's mind. Suddenly he saw\nhimself confronted with another problem--the problem of love and\neternal conjunction between two men. Of course this was necessary--it\nhad been a necessity inside himself all his life--to love a man purely\nand fully. Of course he had been loving Gerald all along, and all along\ndenying it.\n\nHe lay in the bed and wondered, whilst his friend sat beside him, lost\nin brooding. Each man was gone in his own thoughts.\n\n'You know how the old German knights used to swear a BLUTBRUDERSCHAFT,'\nhe said to Gerald, with quite a new happy activity in his eyes.\n\n'Make a little wound in their arms, and rub each other's blood into the\ncut?' said Gerald.\n\n'Yes--and swear to be true to each other, of one blood, all their\nlives. That is what we ought to do. No wounds, that is obsolete. But we\nought to swear to love each other, you and I, implicitly, and\nperfectly, finally, without any possibility of going back on it.'\n\nHe looked at Gerald with clear, happy eyes of discovery. Gerald looked\ndown at him, attracted, so deeply bondaged in fascinated attraction,\nthat he was mistrustful, resenting the bondage, hating the attraction.\n\n'We will swear to each other, one day, shall we?' pleaded Birkin. 'We\nwill swear to stand by each other--be true to each\nother--ultimately--infallibly--given to each other, organically--without\npossibility of taking back.'\n\nBirkin sought hard to express himself. But Gerald hardly listened. His\nface shone with a certain luminous pleasure. He was pleased. But he\nkept his reserve. He held himself back.\n\n'Shall we swear to each other, one day?' said Birkin, putting out his\nhand towards Gerald.\n\nGerald just touched the extended fine, living hand, as if withheld and\nafraid.\n\n'We'll leave it till I understand it better,' he said, in a voice of\nexcuse.\n\nBirkin watched him. A little sharp disappointment, perhaps a touch of\ncontempt came into his heart.\n\n'Yes,' he said. 'You must tell me what you think, later. You know what\nI mean? Not sloppy emotionalism. An impersonal union that leaves one\nfree.'\n\nThey lapsed both into silence. Birkin was looking at Gerald all the\ntime. He seemed now to see, not the physical, animal man, which he\nusually saw in Gerald, and which usually he liked so much, but the man\nhimself, complete, and as if fated, doomed, limited. This strange sense\nof fatality in Gerald, as if he were limited to one form of existence,\none knowledge, one activity, a sort of fatal halfness, which to himself\nseemed wholeness, always overcame Birkin after their moments of\npassionate approach, and filled him with a sort of contempt, or\nboredom. It was the insistence on the limitation which so bored Birkin\nin Gerald. Gerald could never fly away from himself, in real\nindifferent gaiety. He had a clog, a sort of monomania.\n\nThere was silence for a time. Then Birkin said, in a lighter tone,\nletting the stress of the contact pass:\n\n'Can't you get a good governess for Winifred?--somebody exceptional?'\n\n'Hermione Roddice suggested we should ask Gudrun to teach her to draw\nand to model in clay. You know Winnie is astonishingly clever with that\nplasticine stuff. Hermione declares she is an artist.' Gerald spoke in\nthe usual animated, chatty manner, as if nothing unusual had passed.\nBut Birkin's manner was full of reminder.\n\n'Really! I didn't know that. Oh well then, if Gudrun WOULD teach her,\nit would be perfect--couldn't be anything better--if Winifred is an\nartist. Because Gudrun somewhere is one. And every true artist is the\nsalvation of every other.'\n\n'I thought they got on so badly, as a rule.'\n\n'Perhaps. But only artists produce for each other the world that is fit\nto live in. If you can arrange THAT for Winifred, it is perfect.'\n\n'But you think she wouldn't come?'\n\n'I don't know. Gudrun is rather self-opinionated. She won't go cheap\nanywhere. Or if she does, she'll pretty soon take herself back. So\nwhether she would condescend to do private teaching, particularly here,\nin Beldover, I don't know. But it would be just the thing. Winifred has\ngot a special nature. And if you can put into her way the means of\nbeing self-sufficient, that is the best thing possible. She'll never\nget on with the ordinary life. You find it difficult enough yourself,\nand she is several skins thinner than you are. It is awful to think\nwhat her life will be like unless she does find a means of expression,\nsome way of fulfilment. You can see what mere leaving it to fate\nbrings. You can see how much marriage is to be trusted to--look at your\nown mother.'\n\n'Do you think mother is abnormal?'\n\n'No! I think she only wanted something more, or other than the common\nrun of life. And not getting it, she has gone wrong perhaps.'\n\n'After producing a brood of wrong children,' said Gerald gloomily.\n\n'No more wrong than any of the rest of us,' Birkin replied. 'The most\nnormal people have the worst subterranean selves, take them one by\none.'\n\n'Sometimes I think it is a curse to be alive,' said Gerald with sudden\nimpotent anger.\n\n'Well,' said Birkin, 'why not! Let it be a curse sometimes to be\nalive--at other times it is anything but a curse. You've got plenty of\nzest in it really.'\n\n'Less than you'd think,' said Gerald, revealing a strange poverty in\nhis look at the other man.\n\nThere was silence, each thinking his own thoughts.\n\n'I don't see what she has to distinguish between teaching at the\nGrammar School, and coming to teach Win,' said Gerald.\n\n'The difference between a public servant and a private one. The only\nnobleman today, king and only aristocrat, is the public, the public.\nYou are quite willing to serve the public--but to be a private tutor--'\n\n'I don't want to serve either--'\n\n'No! And Gudrun will probably feel the same.'\n\nGerald thought for a few minutes. Then he said:\n\n'At all events, father won't make her feel like a private servant. He\nwill be fussy and greatful enough.'\n\n'So he ought. And so ought all of you. Do you think you can hire a\nwoman like Gudrun Brangwen with money? She is your equal like\nanything--probably your superior.'\n\n'Is she?' said Gerald.\n\n'Yes, and if you haven't the guts to know it, I hope she'll leave you\nto your own devices.'\n\n'Nevertheless,' said Gerald, 'if she is my equal, I wish she weren't a\nteacher, because I don't think teachers as a rule are my equal.'\n\n'Nor do I, damn them. But am I a teacher because I teach, or a parson\nbecause I preach?'\n\nGerald laughed. He was always uneasy on this score. He did not WANT to\nclaim social superiority, yet he WOULD not claim intrinsic personal\nsuperiority, because he would never base his standard of values on pure\nbeing. So he wobbled upon a tacit assumption of social standing. No,\nBirkin wanted him to accept the fact of intrinsic difference between\nhuman beings, which he did not intend to accept. It was against his\nsocial honour, his principle. He rose to go.\n\n'I've been neglecting my business all this while,' he said smiling.\n\n'I ought to have reminded you before,' Birkin replied, laughing and\nmocking.\n\n'I knew you'd say something like that,' laughed Gerald, rather\nuneasily.\n\n'Did you?'\n\n'Yes, Rupert. It wouldn't do for us all to be like you are--we should\nsoon be in the cart. When I am above the world, I shall ignore all\nbusinesses.'\n\n'Of course, we're not in the cart now,' said Birkin, satirically.\n\n'Not as much as you make out. At any rate, we have enough to eat and\ndrink--'\n\n'And be satisfied,' added Birkin.\n\nGerald came near the bed and stood looking down at Birkin whose throat\nwas exposed, whose tossed hair fell attractively on the warm brow,\nabove the eyes that were so unchallenged and still in the satirical\nface. Gerald, full-limbed and turgid with energy, stood unwilling to\ngo, he was held by the presence of the other man. He had not the power\nto go away.\n\n'So,' said Birkin. 'Good-bye.' And he reached out his hand from under\nthe bed-clothes, smiling with a glimmering look.\n\n'Good-bye,' said Gerald, taking the warm hand of his friend in a firm\ngrasp. 'I shall come again. I miss you down at the mill.'\n\n'I'll be there in a few days,' said Birkin.\n\nThe eyes of the two men met again. Gerald's, that were keen as a\nhawk's, were suffused now with warm light and with unadmitted love,\nBirkin looked back as out of a darkness, unsounded and unknown, yet\nwith a kind of warmth, that seemed to flow over Gerald's brain like a\nfertile sleep.\n\n'Good-bye then. There's nothing I can do for you?'\n\n'Nothing, thanks.'\n\nBirkin watched the black-clothed form of the other man move out of the\ndoor, the bright head was gone, he turned over to sleep.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVII.\n\nTHE INDUSTRIAL MAGNATE\n\n\nIn Beldover, there was both for Ursula and for Gudrun an interval. It\nseemed to Ursula as if Birkin had gone out of her for the time, he had\nlost his significance, he scarcely mattered in her world. She had her\nown friends, her own activities, her own life. She turned back to the\nold ways with zest, away from him.\n\nAnd Gudrun, after feeling every moment in all her veins conscious of\nGerald Crich, connected even physically with him, was now almost\nindifferent to the thought of him. She was nursing new schemes for\ngoing away and trying a new form of life. All the time, there was\nsomething in her urging her to avoid the final establishing of a\nrelationship with Gerald. She felt it would be wiser and better to have\nno more than a casual acquaintance with him.\n\nShe had a scheme for going to St Petersburg, where she had a friend who\nwas a sculptor like herself, and who lived with a wealthy Russian whose\nhobby was jewel-making. The emotional, rather rootless life of the\nRussians appealed to her. She did not want to go to Paris. Paris was\ndry, and essentially boring. She would like to go to Rome, Munich,\nVienna, or to St Petersburg or Moscow. She had a friend in St\nPetersburg and a friend in Munich. To each of these she wrote, asking\nabout rooms.\n\nShe had a certain amount of money. She had come home partly to save,\nand now she had sold several pieces of work, she had been praised in\nvarious shows. She knew she could become quite the 'go' if she went to\nLondon. But she knew London, she wanted something else. She had seventy\npounds, of which nobody knew anything. She would move soon, as soon as\nshe heard from her friends. Her nature, in spite of her apparent\nplacidity and calm, was profoundly restless.\n\nThe sisters happened to call in a cottage in Willey Green to buy honey.\nMrs Kirk, a stout, pale, sharp-nosed woman, sly, honied, with something\nshrewish and cat-like beneath, asked the girls into her toocosy, too\ntidy kitchen. There was a cat-like comfort and cleanliness everywhere.\n\n'Yes, Miss Brangwen,' she said, in her slightly whining, insinuating\nvoice, 'and how do you like being back in the old place, then?'\n\nGudrun, whom she addressed, hated her at once.\n\n'I don't care for it,' she replied abruptly.\n\n'You don't? Ay, well, I suppose you found a difference from London. You\nlike life, and big, grand places. Some of us has to be content with\nWilley Green and Beldover. And what do you think of our Grammar School,\nas there's so much talk about?'\n\n'What do I think of it?' Gudrun looked round at her slowly. 'Do you\nmean, do I think it's a good school?'\n\n'Yes. What is your opinion of it?'\n\n'I DO think it's a good school.'\n\nGudrun was very cold and repelling. She knew the common people hated\nthe school.\n\n'Ay, you do, then! I've heard so much, one way and the other. It's nice\nto know what those that's in it feel. But opinions vary, don't they? Mr\nCrich up at Highclose is all for it. Ay, poor man, I'm afraid he's not\nlong for this world. He's very poorly.'\n\n'Is he worse?' asked Ursula.\n\n'Eh, yes--since they lost Miss Diana. He's gone off to a shadow. Poor\nman, he's had a world of trouble.'\n\n'Has he?' asked Gudrun, faintly ironic.\n\n'He has, a world of trouble. And as nice and kind a gentleman as ever\nyou could wish to meet. His children don't take after him.'\n\n'I suppose they take after their mother?' said Ursula.\n\n'In many ways.' Mrs Krik lowered her voice a little. 'She was a proud\nhaughty lady when she came into these parts--my word, she was that! She\nmustn't be looked at, and it was worth your life to speak to her.' The\nwoman made a dry, sly face.\n\n'Did you know her when she was first married?'\n\n'Yes, I knew her. I nursed three of her children. And proper little\nterrors they were, little fiends--that Gerald was a demon if ever there\nwas one, a proper demon, ay, at six months old.' A curious malicious,\nsly tone came into the woman's voice.\n\n'Really,' said Gudrun.\n\n'That wilful, masterful--he'd mastered one nurse at six months. Kick,\nand scream, and struggle like a demon. Many's the time I've pinched his\nlittle bottom for him, when he was a child in arms. Ay, and he'd have\nbeen better if he'd had it pinched oftener. But she wouldn't have them\ncorrected--no-o, wouldn't hear of it. I can remember the rows she had\nwith Mr Crich, my word. When he'd got worked up, properly worked up\ntill he could stand no more, he'd lock the study door and whip them.\nBut she paced up and down all the while like a tiger outside, like a\ntiger, with very murder in her face. She had a face that could LOOK\ndeath. And when the door was opened, she'd go in with her hands\nlifted--\"What have you been doing to MY children, you coward.\" She was\nlike one out of her mind. I believe he was frightened of her; he had to\nbe driven mad before he'd lift a finger. Didn't the servants have a\nlife of it! And didn't we used to be thankful when one of them caught\nit. They were the torment of your life.'\n\n'Really!' said Gudrun.\n\n'In every possible way. If you wouldn't let them smash their pots on\nthe table, if you wouldn't let them drag the kitten about with a string\nround its neck, if you wouldn't give them whatever they asked for,\nevery mortal thing--then there was a shine on, and their mother coming\nin asking--\"What's the matter with him? What have you done to him? What\nis it, Darling?\" And then she'd turn on you as if she'd trample you\nunder her feet. But she didn't trample on me. I was the only one that\ncould do anything with her demons--for she wasn't going to be bothered\nwith them herself. No, SHE took no trouble for them. But they must just\nhave their way, they mustn't be spoken to. And Master Gerald was the\nbeauty. I left when he was a year and a half, I could stand no more.\nBut I pinched his little bottom for him when he was in arms, I did,\nwhen there was no holding him, and I'm not sorry I did--'\n\nGudrun went away in fury and loathing. The phrase, 'I pinched his\nlittle bottom for him,' sent her into a white, stony fury. She could\nnot bear it, she wanted to have the woman taken out at once and\nstrangled. And yet there the phrase was lodged in her mind for ever,\nbeyond escape. She felt, one day, she would HAVE to tell him, to see\nhow he took it. And she loathed herself for the thought.\n\nBut at Shortlands the life-long struggle was coming to a close. The\nfather was ill and was going to die. He had bad internal pains, which\ntook away all his attentive life, and left him with only a vestige of\nhis consciousness. More and more a silence came over him, he was less\nand less acutely aware of his surroundings. The pain seemed to absorb\nhis activity. He knew it was there, he knew it would come again. It was\nlike something lurking in the darkness within him. And he had not the\npower, or the will, to seek it out and to know it. There it remained in\nthe darkness, the great pain, tearing him at times, and then being\nsilent. And when it tore him he crouched in silent subjection under it,\nand when it left him alone again, he refused to know of it. It was\nwithin the darkness, let it remain unknown. So he never admitted it,\nexcept in a secret corner of himself, where all his never-revealed\nfears and secrets were accumulated. For the rest, he had a pain, it\nwent away, it made no difference. It even stimulated him, excited him.\n\nBut it gradually absorbed his life. Gradually it drew away all his\npotentiality, it bled him into the dark, it weaned him of life and drew\nhim away into the darkness. And in this twilight of his life little\nremained visible to him. The business, his work, that was gone\nentirely. His public interests had disappeared as if they had never\nbeen. Even his family had become extraneous to him, he could only\nremember, in some slight non-essential part of himself, that such and\nsuch were his children. But it was historical fact, not vital to him.\nHe had to make an effort to know their relation to him. Even his wife\nbarely existed. She indeed was like the darkness, like the pain within\nhim. By some strange association, the darkness that contained the pain\nand the darkness that contained his wife were identical. All his\nthoughts and understandings became blurred and fused, and now his wife\nand the consuming pain were the same dark secret power against him,\nthat he never faced. He never drove the dread out of its lair within\nhim. He only knew that there was a dark place, and something inhabiting\nthis darkness which issued from time to time and rent him. But he dared\nnot penetrate and drive the beast into the open. He had rather ignore\nits existence. Only, in his vague way, the dread was his wife, the\ndestroyer, and it was the pain, the destruction, a darkness which was\none and both.\n\nHe very rarely saw his wife. She kept her room. Only occasionally she\ncame forth, with her head stretched forward, and in her low, possessed\nvoice, she asked him how he was. And he answered her, in the habit of\nmore than thirty years: 'Well, I don't think I'm any the worse, dear.'\nBut he was frightened of her, underneath this safeguard of habit,\nfrightened almost to the verge of death.\n\nBut all his life, he had been so constant to his lights, he had never\nbroken down. He would die even now without breaking down, without\nknowing what his feelings were, towards her. All his life, he had said:\n'Poor Christiana, she has such a strong temper.' With unbroken will, he\nhad stood by this position with regard to her, he had substituted pity\nfor all his hostility, pity had been his shield and his safeguard, and\nhis infallible weapon. And still, in his consciousness, he was sorry\nfor her, her nature was so violent and so impatient.\n\nBut now his pity, with his life, was wearing thin, and the dread almost\namounting to horror, was rising into being. But before the armour of\nhis pity really broke, he would die, as an insect when its shell is\ncracked. This was his final resource. Others would live on, and know\nthe living death, the ensuing process of hopeless chaos. He would not.\nHe denied death its victory.\n\nHe had been so constant to his lights, so constant to charity, and to\nhis love for his neighbour. Perhaps he had loved his neighbour even\nbetter than himself--which is going one further than the commandment.\nAlways, this flame had burned in his heart, sustaining him through\neverything, the welfare of the people. He was a large employer of\nlabour, he was a great mine-owner. And he had never lost this from his\nheart, that in Christ he was one with his workmen. Nay, he had felt\ninferior to them, as if they through poverty and labour were nearer to\nGod than he. He had always the unacknowledged belief, that it was his\nworkmen, the miners, who held in their hands the means of salvation. To\nmove nearer to God, he must move towards his miners, his life must\ngravitate towards theirs. They were, unconsciously, his idol, his God\nmade manifest. In them he worshipped the highest, the great,\nsympathetic, mindless Godhead of humanity.\n\nAnd all the while, his wife had opposed him like one of the great\ndemons of hell. Strange, like a bird of prey, with the fascinating\nbeauty and abstraction of a hawk, she had beat against the bars of his\nphilanthropy, and like a hawk in a cage, she had sunk into silence. By\nforce of circumstance, because all the world combined to make the cage\nunbreakable, he had been too strong for her, he had kept her prisoner.\nAnd because she was his prisoner, his passion for her had always\nremained keen as death. He had always loved her, loved her with\nintensity. Within the cage, she was denied nothing, she was given all\nlicence.\n\nBut she had gone almost mad. Of wild and overweening temper, she could\nnot bear the humiliation of her husband's soft, half-appealing kindness\nto everybody. He was not deceived by the poor. He knew they came and\nsponged on him, and whined to him, the worse sort; the majority,\nluckily for him, were much too proud to ask for anything, much too\nindependent to come knocking at his door. But in Beldover, as\neverywhere else, there were the whining, parasitic, foul human beings\nwho come crawling after charity, and feeding on the living body of the\npublic like lice. A kind of fire would go over Christiana Crich's\nbrain, as she saw two more pale-faced, creeping women in objectionable\nblack clothes, cringing lugubriously up the drive to the door. She\nwanted to set the dogs on them, 'Hi Rip! Hi Ring! Ranger! At 'em boys,\nset 'em off.' But Crowther, the butler, with all the rest of the\nservants, was Mr Crich's man. Nevertheless, when her husband was away,\nshe would come down like a wolf on the crawling supplicants:\n\n'What do you people want? There is nothing for you here. You have no\nbusiness on the drive at all. Simpson, drive them away and let no more\nof them through the gate.'\n\nThe servants had to obey her. And she would stand watching with an eye\nlike the eagle's, whilst the groom in clumsy confusion drove the\nlugubrious persons down the drive, as if they were rusty fowls,\nscuttling before him.\n\nBut they learned to know, from the lodge-keeper, when Mrs Crich was\naway, and they timed their visits. How many times, in the first years,\nwould Crowther knock softly at the door: 'Person to see you, sir.'\n\n'What name?'\n\n'Grocock, sir.'\n\n'What do they want?' The question was half impatient, half gratified.\nHe liked hearing appeals to his charity.\n\n'About a child, sir.'\n\n'Show them into the library, and tell them they shouldn't come after\neleven o'clock in the morning.'\n\n'Why do you get up from dinner?--send them off,' his wife would say\nabruptly.\n\n'Oh, I can't do that. It's no trouble just to hear what they have to\nsay.'\n\n'How many more have been here today? Why don't you establish open house\nfor them? They would soon oust me and the children.'\n\n'You know dear, it doesn't hurt me to hear what they have to say. And\nif they really are in trouble--well, it is my duty to help them out of\nit.'\n\n'It's your duty to invite all the rats in the world to gnaw at your\nbones.'\n\n'Come, Christiana, it isn't like that. Don't be uncharitable.'\n\nBut she suddenly swept out of the room, and out to the study. There sat\nthe meagre charity-seekers, looking as if they were at the doctor's.\n\n'Mr Crich can't see you. He can't see you at this hour. Do you think he\nis your property, that you can come whenever you like? You must go\naway, there is nothing for you here.'\n\nThe poor people rose in confusion. But Mr Crich, pale and black-bearded\nand deprecating, came behind her, saying:\n\n'Yes, I don't like you coming as late as this. I'll hear any of you in\nthe morning part of the day, but I can't really do with you after.\nWhat's amiss then, Gittens. How is your Missis?'\n\n'Why, she's sunk very low, Mester Crich, she's a'most gone, she is--'\n\nSometimes, it seemed to Mrs Crich as if her husband were some subtle\nfuneral bird, feeding on the miseries of the people. It seemed to her\nhe was never satisfied unless there was some sordid tale being poured\nout to him, which he drank in with a sort of mournful, sympathetic\nsatisfaction. He would have no RAISON D'ETRE if there were no\nlugubrious miseries in the world, as an undertaker would have no\nmeaning if there were no funerals.\n\nMrs Crich recoiled back upon herself, she recoiled away from this world\nof creeping democracy. A band of tight, baleful exclusion fastened\nround her heart, her isolation was fierce and hard, her antagonism was\npassive but terribly pure, like that of a hawk in a cage. As the years\nwent on, she lost more and more count of the world, she seemed rapt in\nsome glittering abstraction, almost purely unconscious. She would\nwander about the house and about the surrounding country, staring\nkeenly and seeing nothing. She rarely spoke, she had no connection with\nthe world. And she did not even think. She was consumed in a fierce\ntension of opposition, like the negative pole of a magnet.\n\nAnd she bore many children. For, as time went on, she never opposed her\nhusband in word or deed. She took no notice of him, externally. She\nsubmitted to him, let him take what he wanted and do as he wanted with\nher. She was like a hawk that sullenly submits to everything. The\nrelation between her and her husband was wordless and unknown, but it\nwas deep, awful, a relation of utter inter-destruction. And he, who\ntriumphed in the world, he became more and more hollow in his vitality,\nthe vitality was bled from within him, as by some haemorrhage. She was\nhulked like a hawk in a cage, but her heart was fierce and undiminished\nwithin her, though her mind was destroyed.\n\nSo to the last he would go to her and hold her in his arms sometimes,\nbefore his strength was all gone. The terrible white, destructive light\nthat burned in her eyes only excited and roused him. Till he was bled\nto death, and then he dreaded her more than anything. But he always\nsaid to himself, how happy he had been, how he had loved her with a\npure and consuming love ever since he had known her. And he thought of\nher as pure, chaste; the white flame which was known to him alone, the\nflame of her sex, was a white flower of snow to his mind. She was a\nwonderful white snow-flower, which he had desired infinitely. And now\nhe was dying with all his ideas and interpretations intact. They would\nonly collapse when the breath left his body. Till then they would be\npure truths for him. Only death would show the perfect completeness of\nthe lie. Till death, she was his white snow-flower. He had subdued her,\nand her subjugation was to him an infinite chastity in her, a virginity\nwhich he could never break, and which dominated him as by a spell.\n\nShe had let go the outer world, but within herself she was unbroken and\nunimpaired. She only sat in her room like a moping, dishevelled hawk,\nmotionless, mindless. Her children, for whom she had been so fierce in\nher youth, now meant scarcely anything to her. She had lost all that,\nshe was quite by herself. Only Gerald, the gleaming, had some existence\nfor her. But of late years, since he had become head of the business,\nhe too was forgotten. Whereas the father, now he was dying, turned for\ncompassion to Gerald. There had always been opposition between the two\nof them. Gerald had feared and despised his father, and to a great\nextent had avoided him all through boyhood and young manhood. And the\nfather had felt very often a real dislike of his eldest son, which,\nnever wanting to give way to, he had refused to acknowledge. He had\nignored Gerald as much as possible, leaving him alone.\n\nSince, however, Gerald had come home and assumed responsibility in the\nfirm, and had proved such a wonderful director, the father, tired and\nweary of all outside concerns, had put all his trust of these things in\nhis son, implicitly, leaving everything to him, and assuming a rather\ntouching dependence on the young enemy. This immediately roused a\npoignant pity and allegiance in Gerald's heart, always shadowed by\ncontempt and by unadmitted enmity. For Gerald was in reaction against\nCharity; and yet he was dominated by it, it assumed supremacy in the\ninner life, and he could not confute it. So he was partly subject to\nthat which his father stood for, but he was in reaction against it. Now\nhe could not save himself. A certain pity and grief and tenderness for\nhis father overcame him, in spite of the deeper, more sullen hostility.\n\nThe father won shelter from Gerald through compassion. But for love he\nhad Winifred. She was his youngest child, she was the only one of his\nchildren whom he had ever closely loved. And her he loved with all the\ngreat, overweening, sheltering love of a dying man. He wanted to\nshelter her infinitely, infinitely, to wrap her in warmth and love and\nshelter, perfectly. If he could save her she should never know one\npain, one grief, one hurt. He had been so right all his life, so\nconstant in his kindness and his goodness. And this was his last\npassionate righteousness, his love for the child Winifred. Some things\ntroubled him yet. The world had passed away from him, as his strength\nebbed. There were no more poor and injured and humble to protect and\nsuccour. These were all lost to him. There were no more sons and\ndaughters to trouble him, and to weigh on him as an unnatural\nresponsibility. These too had faded out of reality All these things had\nfallen out of his hands, and left him free.\n\nThere remained the covert fear and horror of his wife, as she sat\nmindless and strange in her room, or as she came forth with slow,\nprowling step, her head bent forward. But this he put away. Even his\nlife-long righteousness, however, would not quite deliver him from the\ninner horror. Still, he could keep it sufficiently at bay. It would\nnever break forth openly. Death would come first.\n\nThen there was Winifred! If only he could be sure about her, if only he\ncould be sure. Since the death of Diana, and the development of his\nillness, his craving for surety with regard to Winifred amounted almost\nto obsession. It was as if, even dying, he must have some anxiety, some\nresponsibility of love, of Charity, upon his heart.\n\nShe was an odd, sensitive, inflammable child, having her father's dark\nhair and quiet bearing, but being quite detached, momentaneous. She was\nlike a changeling indeed, as if her feelings did not matter to her,\nreally. She often seemed to be talking and playing like the gayest and\nmost childish of children, she was full of the warmest, most delightful\naffection for a few things--for her father, and for her animals in\nparticular. But if she heard that her beloved kitten Leo had been run\nover by the motor-car she put her head on one side, and replied, with a\nfaint contraction like resentment on her face: 'Has he?' Then she took\nno more notice. She only disliked the servant who would force bad news\non her, and wanted her to be sorry. She wished not to know, and that\nseemed her chief motive. She avoided her mother, and most of the\nmembers of her family. She LOVED her Daddy, because he wanted her\nalways to be happy, and because he seemed to become young again, and\nirresponsible in her presence. She liked Gerald, because he was so\nself-contained. She loved people who would make life a game for her.\nShe had an amazing instinctive critical faculty, and was a pure\nanarchist, a pure aristocrat at once. For she accepted her equals\nwherever she found them, and she ignored with blithe indifference her\ninferiors, whether they were her brothers and sisters, or whether they\nwere wealthy guests of the house, or whether they were the common\npeople or the servants. She was quite single and by herself, deriving\nfrom nobody. It was as if she were cut off from all purpose or\ncontinuity, and existed simply moment by moment.\n\nThe father, as by some strange final illusion, felt as if all his fate\ndepended on his ensuring to Winifred her happiness. She who could never\nsuffer, because she never formed vital connections, she who could lose\nthe dearest things of her life and be just the same the next day, the\nwhole memory dropped out, as if deliberately, she whose will was so\nstrangely and easily free, anarchistic, almost nihilistic, who like a\nsoulless bird flits on its own will, without attachment or\nresponsibility beyond the moment, who in her every motion snapped the\nthreads of serious relationship with blithe, free hands, really\nnihilistic, because never troubled, she must be the object of her\nfather's final passionate solicitude.\n\nWhen Mr Crich heard that Gudrun Brangwen might come to help Winifred\nwith her drawing and modelling he saw a road to salvation for his\nchild. He believed that Winifred had talent, he had seen Gudrun, he\nknew that she was an exceptional person. He could give Winifred into\nher hands as into the hands of a right being. Here was a direction and\na positive force to be lent to his child, he need not leave her\ndirectionless and defenceless. If he could but graft the girl on to\nsome tree of utterance before he died, he would have fulfilled his\nresponsibility. And here it could be done. He did not hesitate to\nappeal to Gudrun.\n\nMeanwhile, as the father drifted more and more out of life, Gerald\nexperienced more and more a sense of exposure. His father after all had\nstood for the living world to him. Whilst his father lived Gerald was\nnot responsible for the world. But now his father was passing away,\nGerald found himself left exposed and unready before the storm of\nliving, like the mutinous first mate of a ship that has lost his\ncaptain, and who sees only a terrible chaos in front of him. He did not\ninherit an established order and a living idea. The whole unifying idea\nof mankind seemed to be dying with his father, the centralising force\nthat had held the whole together seemed to collapse with his father,\nthe parts were ready to go asunder in terrible disintegration. Gerald\nwas as if left on board of a ship that was going asunder beneath his\nfeet, he was in charge of a vessel whose timbers were all coming apart.\n\nHe knew that all his life he had been wrenching at the frame of life to\nbreak it apart. And now, with something of the terror of a destructive\nchild, he saw himself on the point of inheriting his own destruction.\nAnd during the last months, under the influence of death, and of\nBirkin's talk, and of Gudrun's penetrating being, he had lost entirely\nthat mechanical certainty that had been his triumph. Sometimes spasms\nof hatred came over him, against Birkin and Gudrun and that whole set.\nHe wanted to go back to the dullest conservatism, to the most stupid of\nconventional people. He wanted to revert to the strictest Toryism. But\nthe desire did not last long enough to carry him into action.\n\nDuring his childhood and his boyhood he had wanted a sort of savagedom.\nThe days of Homer were his ideal, when a man was chief of an army of\nheroes, or spent his years in wonderful Odyssey. He hated remorselessly\nthe circumstances of his own life, so much that he never really saw\nBeldover and the colliery valley. He turned his face entirely away from\nthe blackened mining region that stretched away on the right hand of\nShortlands, he turned entirely to the country and the woods beyond\nWilley Water. It was true that the panting and rattling of the coal\nmines could always be heard at Shortlands. But from his earliest\nchildhood, Gerald had paid no heed to this. He had ignored the whole of\nthe industrial sea which surged in coal-blackened tides against the\ngrounds of the house. The world was really a wilderness where one\nhunted and swam and rode. He rebelled against all authority. Life was a\ncondition of savage freedom.\n\nThen he had been sent away to school, which was so much death to him.\nHe refused to go to Oxford, choosing a German university. He had spent\na certain time at Bonn, at Berlin, and at Frankfurt. There, a curiosity\nhad been aroused in his mind. He wanted to see and to know, in a\ncurious objective fashion, as if it were an amusement to him. Then he\nmust try war. Then he must travel into the savage regions that had so\nattracted him.\n\nThe result was, he found humanity very much alike everywhere, and to a\nmind like his, curious and cold, the savage was duller, less exciting\nthan the European. So he took hold of all kinds of sociological ideas,\nand ideas of reform. But they never went more than skin-deep, they were\nnever more than a mental amusement. Their interest lay chiefly in the\nreaction against the positive order, the destructive reaction.\n\nHe discovered at last a real adventure in the coal-mines. His father\nasked him to help in the firm. Gerald had been educated in the science\nof mining, and it had never interested him. Now, suddenly, with a sort\nof exultation, he laid hold of the world.\n\nThere was impressed photographically on his consciousness the great\nindustry. Suddenly, it was real, he was part of it. Down the valley ran\nthe colliery railway, linking mine with mine. Down the railway ran the\ntrains, short trains of heavily laden trucks, long trains of empty\nwagons, each one bearing in big white letters the initials:\n\n'C.B.&Co.'\n\nThese white letters on all the wagons he had seen since his first\nchildhood, and it was as if he had never seen them, they were so\nfamiliar, and so ignored. Now at last he saw his own name written on\nthe wall. Now he had a vision of power.\n\nSo many wagons, bearing his initial, running all over the country. He\nsaw them as he entered London in the train, he saw them at Dover. So\nfar his power ramified. He looked at Beldover, at Selby, at Whatmore,\nat Lethley Bank, the great colliery villages which depended entirely on\nhis mines. They were hideous and sordid, during his childhood they had\nbeen sores in his consciousness. And now he saw them with pride. Four\nraw new towns, and many ugly industrial hamlets were crowded under his\ndependence. He saw the stream of miners flowing along the causeways\nfrom the mines at the end of the afternoon, thousands of blackened,\nslightly distorted human beings with red mouths, all moving subjugate\nto his will. He pushed slowly in his motor-car through the little\nmarket-top on Friday nights in Beldover, through a solid mass of human\nbeings that were making their purchases and doing their weekly\nspending. They were all subordinate to him. They were ugly and uncouth,\nbut they were his instruments. He was the God of the machine. They made\nway for his motor-car automatically, slowly.\n\nHe did not care whether they made way with alacrity, or grudgingly. He\ndid not care what they thought of him. His vision had suddenly\ncrystallised. Suddenly he had conceived the pure instrumentality of\nmankind. There had been so much humanitarianism, so much talk of\nsufferings and feelings. It was ridiculous. The sufferings and feelings\nof individuals did not matter in the least. They were mere conditions,\nlike the weather. What mattered was the pure instrumentality of the\nindividual. As a man as of a knife: does it cut well? Nothing else\nmattered.\n\nEverything in the world has its function, and is good or not good in so\nfar as it fulfils this function more or less perfectly. Was a miner a\ngood miner? Then he was complete. Was a manager a good manager? That\nwas enough. Gerald himself, who was responsible for all this industry,\nwas he a good director? If he were, he had fulfilled his life. The rest\nwas by-play.\n\nThe mines were there, they were old. They were giving out, it did not\npay to work the seams. There was talk of closing down two of them. It\nwas at this point that Gerald arrived on the scene.\n\nHe looked around. There lay the mines. They were old, obsolete. They\nwere like old lions, no more good. He looked again. Pah! the mines were\nnothing but the clumsy efforts of impure minds. There they lay,\nabortions of a half-trained mind. Let the idea of them be swept away.\nHe cleared his brain of them, and thought only of the coal in the under\nearth. How much was there?\n\nThere was plenty of coal. The old workings could not get at it, that\nwas all. Then break the neck of the old workings. The coal lay there in\nits seams, even though the seams were thin. There it lay, inert matter,\nas it had always lain, since the beginning of time, subject to the will\nof man. The will of man was the determining factor. Man was the archgod\nof earth. His mind was obedient to serve his will. Man's will was the\nabsolute, the only absolute.\n\nAnd it was his will to subjugate Matter to his own ends. The\nsubjugation itself was the point, the fight was the be-all, the fruits\nof victory were mere results. It was not for the sake of money that\nGerald took over the mines. He did not care about money, fundamentally.\nHe was neither ostentatious nor luxurious, neither did he care about\nsocial position, not finally. What he wanted was the pure fulfilment of\nhis own will in the struggle with the natural conditions. His will was\nnow, to take the coal out of the earth, profitably. The profit was\nmerely the condition of victory, but the victory itself lay in the feat\nachieved. He vibrated with zest before the challenge. Every day he was\nin the mines, examining, testing, he consulted experts, he gradually\ngathered the whole situation into his mind, as a general grasps the\nplan of his campaign.\n\nThen there was need for a complete break. The mines were run on an old\nsystem, an obsolete idea. The initial idea had been, to obtain as much\nmoney from the earth as would make the owners comfortably rich, would\nallow the workmen sufficient wages and good conditions, and would\nincrease the wealth of the country altogether. Gerald's father,\nfollowing in the second generation, having a sufficient fortune, had\nthought only of the men. The mines, for him, were primarily great\nfields to produce bread and plenty for all the hundreds of human beings\ngathered about them. He had lived and striven with his fellow owners to\nbenefit the men every time. And the men had been benefited in their\nfashion. There were few poor, and few needy. All was plenty, because\nthe mines were good and easy to work. And the miners, in those days,\nfinding themselves richer than they might have expected, felt glad and\ntriumphant. They thought themselves well-off, they congratulated\nthemselves on their good-fortune, they remembered how their fathers had\nstarved and suffered, and they felt that better times had come. They\nwere grateful to those others, the pioneers, the new owners, who had\nopened out the pits, and let forth this stream of plenty.\n\nBut man is never satisfied, and so the miners, from gratitude to their\nowners, passed on to murmuring. Their sufficiency decreased with\nknowledge, they wanted more. Why should the master be so\nout-of-all-proportion rich?\n\nThere was a crisis when Gerald was a boy, when the Masters' Federation\nclosed down the mines because the men would not accept a reduction.\nThis lock-out had forced home the new conditions to Thomas Crich.\nBelonging to the Federation, he had been compelled by his honour to\nclose the pits against his men. He, the father, the Patriarch, was\nforced to deny the means of life to his sons, his people. He, the rich\nman who would hardly enter heaven because of his possessions, must now\nturn upon the poor, upon those who were nearer Christ than himself,\nthose who were humble and despised and closer to perfection, those who\nwere manly and noble in their labours, and must say to them: 'Ye shall\nneither labour nor eat bread.'\n\nIt was this recognition of the state of war which really broke his\nheart. He wanted his industry to be run on love. Oh, he wanted love to\nbe the directing power even of the mines. And now, from under the cloak\nof love, the sword was cynically drawn, the sword of mechanical\nnecessity.\n\nThis really broke his heart. He must have the illusion and now the\nillusion was destroyed. The men were not against HIM, but they were\nagainst the masters. It was war, and willy nilly he found himself on\nthe wrong side, in his own conscience. Seething masses of miners met\ndaily, carried away by a new religious impulse. The idea flew through\nthem: 'All men are equal on earth,' and they would carry the idea to\nits material fulfilment. After all, is it not the teaching of Christ?\nAnd what is an idea, if not the germ of action in the material world.\n'All men are equal in spirit, they are all sons of God. Whence then\nthis obvious DISQUALITY?' It was a religious creed pushed to its\nmaterial conclusion. Thomas Crich at least had no answer. He could but\nadmit, according to his sincere tenets, that the disquality was wrong.\nBut he could not give up his goods, which were the stuff of disquality.\nSo the men would fight for their rights. The last impulses of the last\nreligious passion left on earth, the passion for equality, inspired\nthem.\n\nSeething mobs of men marched about, their faces lighted up as for holy\nwar, with a smoke of cupidity. How disentangle the passion for equality\nfrom the passion of cupidity, when begins the fight for equality of\npossessions? But the God was the machine. Each man claimed equality in\nthe Godhead of the great productive machine. Every man equally was part\nof this Godhead. But somehow, somewhere, Thomas Crich knew this was\nfalse. When the machine is the Godhead, and production or work is\nworship, then the most mechanical mind is purest and highest, the\nrepresentative of God on earth. And the rest are subordinate, each\naccording to his degree.\n\nRiots broke out, Whatmore pit-head was in flames. This was the pit\nfurthest in the country, near the woods. Soldiers came. From the\nwindows of Shortlands, on that fatal day, could be seen the flare of\nfire in the sky not far off, and now the little colliery train, with\nthe workmen's carriages which were used to convey the miners to the\ndistant Whatmore, was crossing the valley full of soldiers, full of\nredcoats. Then there was the far-off sound of firing, then the later\nnews that the mob was dispersed, one man was shot dead, the fire was\nput out.\n\nGerald, who was a boy, was filled with the wildest excitement and\ndelight. He longed to go with the soldiers to shoot the men. But he was\nnot allowed to go out of the lodge gates. At the gates were stationed\nsentries with guns. Gerald stood near them in delight, whilst gangs of\nderisive miners strolled up and down the lanes, calling and jeering:\n\n'Now then, three ha'porth o'coppers, let's see thee shoot thy gun.'\nInsults were chalked on the walls and the fences, the servants left.\n\nAnd all this while Thomas Crich was breaking his heart, and giving away\nhundreds of pounds in charity. Everywhere there was free food, a\nsurfeit of free food. Anybody could have bread for asking, and a loaf\ncost only three-ha'pence. Every day there was a free tea somewhere, the\nchildren had never had so many treats in their lives. On Friday\nafternoon great basketfuls of buns and cakes were taken into the\nschools, and great pitchers of milk, the school children had what they\nwanted. They were sick with eating too much cake and milk.\n\nAnd then it came to an end, and the men went back to work. But it was\nnever the same as before. There was a new situation created, a new idea\nreigned. Even in the machine, there should be equality. No part should\nbe subordinate to any other part: all should be equal. The instinct for\nchaos had entered. Mystic equality lies in abstraction, not in having\nor in doing, which are processes. In function and process, one man, one\npart, must of necessity be subordinate to another. It is a condition of\nbeing. But the desire for chaos had risen, and the idea of mechanical\nequality was the weapon of disruption which should execute the will of\nman, the will for chaos.\n\nGerald was a boy at the time of the strike, but he longed to be a man,\nto fight the colliers. The father however was trapped between two\nhalftruths, and broken. He wanted to be a pure Christian, one and equal\nwith all men. He even wanted to give away all he had, to the poor. Yet\nhe was a great promoter of industry, and he knew perfectly that he must\nkeep his goods and keep his authority. This was as divine a necessity\nin him, as the need to give away all he possessed--more divine, even,\nsince this was the necessity he acted upon. Yet because he did NOT act\non the other ideal, it dominated him, he was dying of chagrin because\nhe must forfeit it. He wanted to be a father of loving kindness and\nsacrificial benevolence. The colliers shouted to him about his\nthousands a year. They would not be deceived.\n\nWhen Gerald grew up in the ways of the world, he shifted the position.\nHe did not care about the equality. The whole Christian attitude of\nlove and self-sacrifice was old hat. He knew that position and\nauthority were the right thing in the world, and it was useless to cant\nabout it. They were the right thing, for the simple reason that they\nwere functionally necessary. They were not the be-all and the end-all.\nIt was like being part of a machine. He himself happened to be a\ncontrolling, central part, the masses of men were the parts variously\ncontrolled. This was merely as it happened. As well get excited because\na central hub drives a hundred outer wheels or because the whole\nuniverse wheels round the sun. After all, it would be mere silliness to\nsay that the moon and the earth and Saturn and Jupiter and Venus have\njust as much right to be the centre of the universe, each of them\nseparately, as the sun. Such an assertion is made merely in the desire\nof chaos.\n\nWithout bothering to THINK to a conclusion, Gerald jumped to a\nconclusion. He abandoned the whole democratic-equality problem as a\nproblem of silliness. What mattered was the great social productive\nmachine. Let that work perfectly, let it produce a sufficiency of\neverything, let every man be given a rational portion, greater or less\naccording to his functional degree or magnitude, and then, provision\nmade, let the devil supervene, let every man look after his own\namusements and appetites, so long as he interfered with nobody.\n\nSo Gerald set himself to work, to put the great industry in order. In\nhis travels, and in his accompanying readings, he had come to the\nconclusion that the essential secret of life was harmony. He did not\ndefine to himself at all clearly what harmony was. The word pleased\nhim, he felt he had come to his own conclusions. And he proceeded to\nput his philosophy into practice by forcing order into the established\nworld, translating the mystic word harmony into the practical word\norganisation.\n\nImmediately he SAW the firm, he realised what he could do. He had a\nfight to fight with Matter, with the earth and the coal it enclosed.\nThis was the sole idea, to turn upon the inanimate matter of the\nunderground, and reduce it to his will. And for this fight with matter,\none must have perfect instruments in perfect organisation, a mechanism\nso subtle and harmonious in its workings that it represents the single\nmind of man, and by its relentless repetition of given movement, will\naccomplish a purpose irresistibly, inhumanly. It was this inhuman\nprinciple in the mechanism he wanted to construct that inspired Gerald\nwith an almost religious exaltation. He, the man, could interpose a\nperfect, changeless, godlike medium between himself and the Matter he\nhad to subjugate. There were two opposites, his will and the resistant\nMatter of the earth. And between these he could establish the very\nexpression of his will, the incarnation of his power, a great and\nperfect machine, a system, an activity of pure order, pure mechanical\nrepetition, repetition ad infinitum, hence eternal and infinite. He\nfound his eternal and his infinite in the pure machine-principle of\nperfect co-ordination into one pure, complex, infinitely repeated\nmotion, like the spinning of a wheel; but a productive spinning, as the\nrevolving of the universe may be called a productive spinning, a\nproductive repetition through eternity, to infinity. And this is the\nGodmotion, this productive repetition ad infinitum. And Gerald was the\nGod of the machine, Deus ex Machina. And the whole productive will of\nman was the Godhead.\n\nHe had his life-work now, to extend over the earth a great and perfect\nsystem in which the will of man ran smooth and unthwarted, timeless, a\nGodhead in process. He had to begin with the mines. The terms were\ngiven: first the resistant Matter of the underground; then the\ninstruments of its subjugation, instruments human and metallic; and\nfinally his own pure will, his own mind. It would need a marvellous\nadjustment of myriad instruments, human, animal, metallic, kinetic,\ndynamic, a marvellous casting of myriad tiny wholes into one great\nperfect entirety. And then, in this case there was perfection attained,\nthe will of the highest was perfectly fulfilled, the will of mankind\nwas perfectly enacted; for was not mankind mystically\ncontra-distinguished against inanimate Matter, was not the history of\nmankind just the history of the conquest of the one by the other?\n\nThe miners were overreached. While they were still in the toils of\ndivine equality of man, Gerald had passed on, granted essentially their\ncase, and proceeded in his quality of human being to fulfil the will of\nmankind as a whole. He merely represented the miners in a higher sense\nwhen he perceived that the only way to fulfil perfectly the will of man\nwas to establish the perfect, inhuman machine. But he represented them\nvery essentially, they were far behind, out of date, squabbling for\ntheir material equality. The desire had already transmuted into this\nnew and greater desire, for a perfect intervening mechanism between man\nand Matter, the desire to translate the Godhead into pure mechanism.\n\nAs soon as Gerald entered the firm, the convulsion of death ran through\nthe old system. He had all his life been tortured by a furious and\ndestructive demon, which possessed him sometimes like an insanity. This\ntemper now entered like a virus into the firm, and there were cruel\neruptions. Terrible and inhuman were his examinations into every\ndetail; there was no privacy he would spare, no old sentiment but he\nwould turn it over. The old grey managers, the old grey clerks, the\ndoddering old pensioners, he looked at them, and removed them as so\nmuch lumber. The whole concern seemed like a hospital of invalid\nemployees. He had no emotional qualms. He arranged what pensions were\nnecessary, he looked for efficient substitutes, and when these were\nfound, he substituted them for the old hands.\n\n'I've a pitiful letter here from Letherington,' his father would say,\nin a tone of deprecation and appeal. 'Don't you think the poor fellow\nmight keep on a little longer. I always fancied he did very well.'\n\n'I've got a man in his place now, father. He'll be happier out of it,\nbelieve me. You think his allowance is plenty, don't you?'\n\n'It is not the allowance that he wants, poor man. He feels it very\nmuch, that he is superannuated. Says he thought he had twenty more\nyears of work in him yet.'\n\n'Not of this kind of work I want. He doesn't understand.'\n\nThe father sighed. He wanted not to know any more. He believed the pits\nwould have to be overhauled if they were to go on working. And after\nall, it would be worst in the long run for everybody, if they must\nclose down. So he could make no answer to the appeals of his old and\ntrusty servants, he could only repeat 'Gerald says.'\n\nSo the father drew more and more out of the light. The whole frame of\nthe real life was broken for him. He had been right according to his\nlights. And his lights had been those of the great religion. Yet they\nseemed to have become obsolete, to be superseded in the world. He could\nnot understand. He only withdrew with his lights into an inner room,\ninto the silence. The beautiful candles of belief, that would not do to\nlight the world any more, they would still burn sweetly and\nsufficiently in the inner room of his soul, and in the silence of his\nretirement.\n\nGerald rushed into the reform of the firm, beginning with the office.\nIt was needful to economise severely, to make possible the great\nalterations he must introduce.\n\n'What are these widows' coals?' he asked.\n\n'We have always allowed all widows of men who worked for the firm a\nload of coals every three months.'\n\n'They must pay cost price henceforward. The firm is not a charity\ninstitution, as everybody seems to think.'\n\nWidows, these stock figures of sentimental humanitarianism, he felt a\ndislike at the thought of them. They were almost repulsive. Why were\nthey not immolated on the pyre of the husband, like the sati in India?\nAt any rate, let them pay the cost of their coals.\n\nIn a thousand ways he cut down the expenditure, in ways so fine as to\nbe hardly noticeable to the men. The miners must pay for the cartage of\ntheir coals, heavy cartage too; they must pay for their tools, for the\nsharpening, for the care of lamps, for the many trifling things that\nmade the bill of charges against every man mount up to a shilling or so\nin the week. It was not grasped very definitely by the miners, though\nthey were sore enough. But it saved hundreds of pounds every week for\nthe firm.\n\nGradually Gerald got hold of everything. And then began the great\nreform. Expert engineers were introduced in every department. An\nenormous electric plant was installed, both for lighting and for\nhaulage underground, and for power. The electricity was carried into\nevery mine. New machinery was brought from America, such as the miners\nhad never seen before, great iron men, as the cutting machines were\ncalled, and unusual appliances. The working of the pits was thoroughly\nchanged, all the control was taken out of the hands of the miners, the\nbutty system was abolished. Everything was run on the most accurate and\ndelicate scientific method, educated and expert men were in control\neverywhere, the miners were reduced to mere mechanical instruments.\nThey had to work hard, much harder than before, the work was terrible\nand heart-breaking in its mechanicalness.\n\nBut they submitted to it all. The joy went out of their lives, the hope\nseemed to perish as they became more and more mechanised. And yet they\naccepted the new conditions. They even got a further satisfaction out\nof them. At first they hated Gerald Crich, they swore to do something\nto him, to murder him. But as time went on, they accepted everything\nwith some fatal satisfaction. Gerald was their high priest, he\nrepresented the religion they really felt. His father was forgotten\nalready. There was a new world, a new order, strict, terrible, inhuman,\nbut satisfying in its very destructiveness. The men were satisfied to\nbelong to the great and wonderful machine, even whilst it destroyed\nthem. It was what they wanted. It was the highest that man had\nproduced, the most wonderful and superhuman. They were exalted by\nbelonging to this great and superhuman system which was beyond feeling\nor reason, something really godlike. Their hearts died within them, but\ntheir souls were satisfied. It was what they wanted. Otherwise Gerald\ncould never have done what he did. He was just ahead of them in giving\nthem what they wanted, this participation in a great and perfect system\nthat subjected life to pure mathematical principles. This was a sort of\nfreedom, the sort they really wanted. It was the first great step in\nundoing, the first great phase of chaos, the substitution of the\nmechanical principle for the organic, the destruction of the organic\npurpose, the organic unity, and the subordination of every organic unit\nto the great mechanical purpose. It was pure organic disintegration and\npure mechanical organisation. This is the first and finest state of\nchaos.\n\nGerald was satisfied. He knew the colliers said they hated him. But he\nhad long ceased to hate them. When they streamed past him at evening,\ntheir heavy boots slurring on the pavement wearily, their shoulders\nslightly distorted, they took no notice of him, they gave him no\ngreeting whatever, they passed in a grey-black stream of unemotional\nacceptance. They were not important to him, save as instruments, nor he\nto them, save as a supreme instrument of control. As miners they had\ntheir being, he had his being as director. He admired their qualities.\nBut as men, personalities, they were just accidents, sporadic little\nunimportant phenomena. And tacitly, the men agreed to this. For Gerald\nagreed to it in himself.\n\nHe had succeeded. He had converted the industry into a new and terrible\npurity. There was a greater output of coal than ever, the wonderful and\ndelicate system ran almost perfectly. He had a set of really clever\nengineers, both mining and electrical, and they did not cost much. A\nhighly educated man cost very little more than a workman. His managers,\nwho were all rare men, were no more expensive than the old bungling\nfools of his father's days, who were merely colliers promoted. His\nchief manager, who had twelve hundred a year, saved the firm at least\nfive thousand. The whole system was now so perfect that Gerald was\nhardly necessary any more.\n\nIt was so perfect that sometimes a strange fear came over him, and he\ndid not know what to do. He went on for some years in a sort of trance\nof activity. What he was doing seemed supreme, he was almost like a\ndivinity. He was a pure and exalted activity.\n\nBut now he had succeeded--he had finally succeeded. And once or twice\nlately, when he was alone in the evening and had nothing to do, he had\nsuddenly stood up in terror, not knowing what he was. And he went to\nthe mirror and looked long and closely at his own face, at his own\neyes, seeking for something. He was afraid, in mortal dry fear, but he\nknew not what of. He looked at his own face. There it was, shapely and\nhealthy and the same as ever, yet somehow, it was not real, it was a\nmask. He dared not touch it, for fear it should prove to be only a\ncomposition mask. His eyes were blue and keen as ever, and as firm in\ntheir sockets. Yet he was not sure that they were not blue false\nbubbles that would burst in a moment and leave clear annihilation. He\ncould see the darkness in them, as if they were only bubbles of\ndarkness. He was afraid that one day he would break down and be a\npurely meaningless babble lapping round a darkness.\n\nBut his will yet held good, he was able to go away and read, and think\nabout things. He liked to read books about the primitive man, books of\nanthropology, and also works of speculative philosophy. His mind was\nvery active. But it was like a bubble floating in the darkness. At any\nmoment it might burst and leave him in chaos. He would not die. He knew\nthat. He would go on living, but the meaning would have collapsed out\nof him, his divine reason would be gone. In a strangely indifferent,\nsterile way, he was frightened. But he could not react even to the\nfear. It was as if his centres of feeling were drying up. He remained\ncalm, calculative and healthy, and quite freely deliberate, even whilst\nhe felt, with faint, small but final sterile horror, that his mystic\nreason was breaking, giving way now, at this crisis.\n\nAnd it was a strain. He knew there was no equilibrium. He would have to\ngo in some direction, shortly, to find relief. Only Birkin kept the\nfear definitely off him, saved him his quick sufficiency in life, by\nthe odd mobility and changeableness which seemed to contain the\nquintessence of faith. But then Gerald must always come away from\nBirkin, as from a Church service, back to the outside real world of\nwork and life. There it was, it did not alter, and words were\nfutilities. He had to keep himself in reckoning with the world of work\nand material life. And it became more and more difficult, such a\nstrange pressure was upon him, as if the very middle of him were a\nvacuum, and outside were an awful tension.\n\nHe had found his most satisfactory relief in women. After a debauch\nwith some desperate woman, he went on quite easy and forgetful. The\ndevil of it was, it was so hard to keep up his interest in women\nnowadays. He didn't care about them any more. A Pussum was all right in\nher way, but she was an exceptional case, and even she mattered\nextremely little. No, women, in that sense, were useless to him any\nmore. He felt that his MIND needed acute stimulation, before he could\nbe physically roused.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVIII.\n\nRABBIT\n\n\nGudrun knew that it was a critical thing for her to go to Shortlands.\nShe knew it was equivalent to accepting Gerald Crich as a lover. And\nthough she hung back, disliking the condition, yet she knew she would\ngo on. She equivocated. She said to herself, in torment recalling the\nblow and the kiss, 'after all, what is it? What is a kiss? What even is\na blow? It is an instant, vanished at once. I can go to Shortlands just\nfor a time, before I go away, if only to see what it is like.' For she\nhad an insatiable curiosity to see and to know everything.\n\nShe also wanted to know what Winifred was really like. Having heard the\nchild calling from the steamer in the night, she felt some mysterious\nconnection with her.\n\nGudrun talked with the father in the library. Then he sent for his\ndaughter. She came accompanied by Mademoiselle.\n\n'Winnie, this is Miss Brangwen, who will be so kind as to help you with\nyour drawing and making models of your animals,' said the father.\n\nThe child looked at Gudrun for a moment with interest, before she came\nforward and with face averted offered her hand. There was a complete\nSANG FROID and indifference under Winifred's childish reserve, a\ncertain irresponsible callousness.\n\n'How do you do?' said the child, not lifting her face.\n\n'How do you do?' said Gudrun.\n\nThen Winifred stood aside, and Gudrun was introduced to Mademoiselle.\n\n'You have a fine day for your walk,' said Mademoiselle, in a bright\nmanner.\n\n'QUITE fine,' said Gudrun.\n\nWinifred was watching from her distance. She was as if amused, but\nrather unsure as yet what this new person was like. She saw so many new\npersons, and so few who became real to her. Mademoiselle was of no\ncount whatever, the child merely put up with her, calmly and easily,\naccepting her little authority with faint scorn, compliant out of\nchildish arrogance of indifference.\n\n'Well, Winifred,' said the father, 'aren't you glad Miss Brangwen has\ncome? She makes animals and birds in wood and in clay, that the people\nin London write about in the papers, praising them to the skies.'\n\nWinifred smiled slightly.\n\n'Who told you, Daddie?' she asked.\n\n'Who told me? Hermione told me, and Rupert Birkin.'\n\n'Do you know them?' Winifred asked of Gudrun, turning to her with faint\nchallenge.\n\n'Yes,' said Gudrun.\n\nWinifred readjusted herself a little. She had been ready to accept\nGudrun as a sort of servant. Now she saw it was on terms of friendship\nthey were intended to meet. She was rather glad. She had so many half\ninferiors, whom she tolerated with perfect good-humour.\n\nGudrun was very calm. She also did not take these things very\nseriously. A new occasion was mostly spectacular to her. However,\nWinifred was a detached, ironic child, she would never attach herself.\nGudrun liked her and was intrigued by her. The first meetings went off\nwith a certain humiliating clumsiness. Neither Winifred nor her\ninstructress had any social grace.\n\nSoon, however, they met in a kind of make-belief world. Winifred did\nnot notice human beings unless they were like herself, playful and\nslightly mocking. She would accept nothing but the world of amusement,\nand the serious people of her life were the animals she had for pets.\nOn those she lavished, almost ironically, her affection and her\ncompanionship. To the rest of the human scheme she submitted with a\nfaint bored indifference.\n\nShe had a pekinese dog called Looloo, which she loved.\n\n'Let us draw Looloo,' said Gudrun, 'and see if we can get his\nLooliness, shall we?'\n\n'Darling!' cried Winifred, rushing to the dog, that sat with\ncontemplative sadness on the hearth, and kissing its bulging brow.\n'Darling one, will you be drawn? Shall its mummy draw its portrait?'\nThen she chuckled gleefully, and turning to Gudrun, said: 'Oh let's!'\n\nThey proceeded to get pencils and paper, and were ready.\n\n'Beautifullest,' cried Winifred, hugging the dog, 'sit still while its\nmummy draws its beautiful portrait.' The dog looked up at her with\ngrievous resignation in its large, prominent eyes. She kissed it\nfervently, and said: 'I wonder what mine will be like. It's sure to be\nawful.'\n\nAs she sketched she chuckled to herself, and cried out at times:\n\n'Oh darling, you're so beautiful!'\n\nAnd again chuckling, she rushed to embrace the dog, in penitence, as if\nshe were doing him some subtle injury. He sat all the time with the\nresignation and fretfulness of ages on his dark velvety face. She drew\nslowly, with a wicked concentration in her eyes, her head on one side,\nan intense stillness over her. She was as if working the spell of some\nenchantment. Suddenly she had finished. She looked at the dog, and then\nat her drawing, and then cried, with real grief for the dog, and at the\nsame time with a wicked exultation:\n\n'My beautiful, why did they?'\n\nShe took her paper to the dog, and held it under his nose. He turned\nhis head aside as in chagrin and mortification, and she impulsively\nkissed his velvety bulging forehead.\n\n''s a Loolie, 's a little Loozie! Look at his portrait, darling, look\nat his portrait, that his mother has done of him.' She looked at her\npaper and chuckled. Then, kissing the dog once more, she rose and came\ngravely to Gudrun, offering her the paper.\n\nIt was a grotesque little diagram of a grotesque little animal, so\nwicked and so comical, a slow smile came over Gudrun's face,\nunconsciously. And at her side Winifred chuckled with glee, and said:\n\n'It isn't like him, is it? He's much lovelier than that. He's SO\nbeautiful-mmm, Looloo, my sweet darling.' And she flew off to embrace\nthe chagrined little dog. He looked up at her with reproachful,\nsaturnine eyes, vanquished in his extreme agedness of being. Then she\nflew back to her drawing, and chuckled with satisfaction.\n\n'It isn't like him, is it?' she said to Gudrun.\n\n'Yes, it's very like him,' Gudrun replied.\n\nThe child treasured her drawing, carried it about with her, and showed\nit, with a silent embarrassment, to everybody.\n\n'Look,' she said, thrusting the paper into her father's hand.\n\n'Why that's Looloo!' he exclaimed. And he looked down in surprise,\nhearing the almost inhuman chuckle of the child at his side.\n\nGerald was away from home when Gudrun first came to Shortlands. But the\nfirst morning he came back he watched for her. It was a sunny, soft\nmorning, and he lingered in the garden paths, looking at the flowers\nthat had come out during his absence. He was clean and fit as ever,\nshaven, his fair hair scrupulously parted at the side, bright in the\nsunshine, his short, fair moustache closely clipped, his eyes with\ntheir humorous kind twinkle, which was so deceptive. He was dressed in\nblack, his clothes sat well on his well-nourished body. Yet as he\nlingered before the flower-beds in the morning sunshine, there was a\ncertain isolation, a fear about him, as of something wanting.\n\nGudrun came up quickly, unseen. She was dressed in blue, with woollen\nyellow stockings, like the Bluecoat boys. He glanced up in surprise.\nHer stockings always disconcerted him, the pale-yellow stockings and\nthe heavy heavy black shoes. Winifred, who had been playing about the\ngarden with Mademoiselle and the dogs, came flitting towards Gudrun.\nThe child wore a dress of black-and-white stripes. Her hair was rather\nshort, cut round and hanging level in her neck.\n\n'We're going to do Bismarck, aren't we?' she said, linking her hand\nthrough Gudrun's arm.\n\n'Yes, we're going to do Bismarck. Do you want to?'\n\n'Oh yes-oh I do! I want most awfully to do Bismarck. He looks SO\nsplendid this morning, so FIERCE. He's almost as big as a lion.' And\nthe child chuckled sardonically at her own hyperbole. 'He's a real\nking, he really is.'\n\n'Bon jour, Mademoiselle,' said the little French governess, wavering up\nwith a slight bow, a bow of the sort that Gudrun loathed, insolent.\n\n'Winifred veut tant faire le portrait de Bismarck-! Oh, mais toute la\nmatinee-\"We will do Bismarck this morning!\"-Bismarck, Bismarck,\ntoujours Bismarck! C'est un lapin, n'est-ce pas, mademoiselle?'\n\n'Oui, c'est un grand lapin blanc et noir. Vous ne l'avez pas vu?' said\nGudrun in her good, but rather heavy French.\n\n'Non, mademoiselle, Winifred n'a jamais voulu me le faire voir. Tant de\nfois je le lui ai demande, \"Qu'est ce donc que ce Bismarck, Winifred?\"\nMais elle n'a pas voulu me le dire. Son Bismarck, c'etait un mystere.'\n\n'Oui, c'est un mystere, vraiment un mystere! Miss Brangwen, say that\nBismarck is a mystery,' cried Winifred.\n\n'Bismarck, is a mystery, Bismarck, c'est un mystere, der Bismarck, er\nist ein Wunder,' said Gudrun, in mocking incantation.\n\n'Ja, er ist ein Wunder,' repeated Winifred, with odd seriousness, under\nwhich lay a wicked chuckle.\n\n'Ist er auch ein Wunder?' came the slightly insolent sneering of\nMademoiselle.\n\n'Doch!' said Winifred briefly, indifferent.\n\n'Doch ist er nicht ein Konig. Beesmarck, he was not a king, Winifred,\nas you have said. He was only-il n'etait que chancelier.'\n\n'Qu'est ce qu'un chancelier?' said Winifred, with slightly contemptuous\nindifference.\n\n'A chancelier is a chancellor, and a chancellor is, I believe, a sort\nof judge,' said Gerald coming up and shaking hands with Gudrun. 'You'll\nhave made a song of Bismarck soon,' said he.\n\nMademoiselle waited, and discreetly made her inclination, and her\ngreeting.\n\n'So they wouldn't let you see Bismarck, Mademoiselle?' he said.\n\n'Non, Monsieur.'\n\n'Ay, very mean of them. What are you going to do to him, Miss Brangwen?\nI want him sent to the kitchen and cooked.'\n\n'Oh no,' cried Winifred.\n\n'We're going to draw him,' said Gudrun.\n\n'Draw him and quarter him and dish him up,' he said, being purposely\nfatuous.\n\n'Oh no,' cried Winifred with emphasis, chuckling.\n\nGudrun detected the tang of mockery in him, and she looked up and\nsmiled into his face. He felt his nerves caressed. Their eyes met in\nknowledge.\n\n'How do you like Shortlands?' he asked.\n\n'Oh, very much,' she said, with nonchalance.\n\n'Glad you do. Have you noticed these flowers?'\n\nHe led her along the path. She followed intently. Winifred came, and\nthe governess lingered in the rear. They stopped before some veined\nsalpiglossis flowers.\n\n'Aren't they wonderful?' she cried, looking at them absorbedly. Strange\nhow her reverential, almost ecstatic admiration of the flowers caressed\nhis nerves. She stooped down, and touched the trumpets, with infinitely\nfine and delicate-touching finger-tips. It filled him with ease to see\nher. When she rose, her eyes, hot with the beauty of the flowers,\nlooked into his.\n\n'What are they?' she asked.\n\n'Sort of petunia, I suppose,' he answered. 'I don't really know them.'\n\n'They are quite strangers to me,' she said.\n\nThey stood together in a false intimacy, a nervous contact. And he was\nin love with her.\n\nShe was aware of Mademoiselle standing near, like a little French\nbeetle, observant and calculating. She moved away with Winifred, saying\nthey would go to find Bismarck.\n\nGerald watched them go, looking all the while at the soft, full, still\nbody of Gudrun, in its silky cashmere. How silky and rich and soft her\nbody must be. An excess of appreciation came over his mind, she was the\nall-desirable, the all-beautiful. He wanted only to come to her,\nnothing more. He was only this, this being that should come to her, and\nbe given to her.\n\nAt the same time he was finely and acutely aware of Mademoiselle's\nneat, brittle finality of form. She was like some elegant beetle with\nthin ankles, perched on her high heels, her glossy black dress\nperfectly correct, her dark hair done high and admirably. How repulsive\nher completeness and her finality was! He loathed her.\n\nYet he did admire her. She was perfectly correct. And it did rather\nannoy him, that Gudrun came dressed in startling colours, like a macaw,\nwhen the family was in mourning. Like a macaw she was! He watched the\nlingering way she took her feet from the ground. And her ankles were\npale yellow, and her dress a deep blue. Yet it pleased him. It pleased\nhim very much. He felt the challenge in her very attire-she challenged\nthe whole world. And he smiled as to the note of a trumpet.\n\nGudrun and Winifred went through the house to the back, where were the\nstables and the out-buildings. Everywhere was still and deserted. Mr\nCrich had gone out for a short drive, the stableman had just led round\nGerald's horse. The two girls went to the hutch that stood in a corner,\nand looked at the great black-and-white rabbit.\n\n'Isn't he beautiful! Oh, do look at him listening! Doesn't he look\nsilly!' she laughed quickly, then added 'Oh, do let's do him listening,\ndo let us, he listens with so much of himself;-don't you darling\nBismarck?'\n\n'Can we take him out?' said Gudrun.\n\n'He's very strong. He really is extremely strong.' She looked at\nGudrun, her head on one side, in odd calculating mistrust.\n\n'But we'll try, shall we?'\n\n'Yes, if you like. But he's a fearful kicker!'\n\nThey took the key to unlock the door. The rabbit exploded in a wild\nrush round the hutch.\n\n'He scratches most awfully sometimes,' cried Winifred in excitement.\n'Oh do look at him, isn't he wonderful!' The rabbit tore round the\nhutch in a hurry. 'Bismarck!' cried the child, in rousing excitement.\n'How DREADFUL you are! You are beastly.' Winifred looked up at Gudrun\nwith some misgiving in her wild excitement. Gudrun smiled sardonically\nwith her mouth. Winifred made a strange crooning noise of unaccountable\nexcitement. 'Now he's still!' she cried, seeing the rabbit settled down\nin a far corner of the hutch. 'Shall we take him now?' she whispered\nexcitedly, mysteriously, looking up at Gudrun and edging very close.\n'Shall we get him now?-' she chuckled wickedly to herself.\n\nThey unlocked the door of the hutch. Gudrun thrust in her arm and\nseized the great, lusty rabbit as it crouched still, she grasped its\nlong ears. It set its four feet flat, and thrust back. There was a long\nscraping sound as it was hauled forward, and in another instant it was\nin mid-air, lunging wildly, its body flying like a spring coiled and\nreleased, as it lashed out, suspended from the ears. Gudrun held the\nblack-and-white tempest at arms' length, averting her face. But the\nrabbit was magically strong, it was all she could do to keep her grasp.\nShe almost lost her presence of mind.\n\n'Bismarck, Bismarck, you are behaving terribly,' said Winifred in a\nrather frightened voice, 'Oh, do put him down, he's beastly.'\n\nGudrun stood for a moment astounded by the thunder-storm that had\nsprung into being in her grip. Then her colour came up, a heavy rage\ncame over her like a cloud. She stood shaken as a house in a storm, and\nutterly overcome. Her heart was arrested with fury at the mindlessness\nand the bestial stupidity of this struggle, her wrists were badly\nscored by the claws of the beast, a heavy cruelty welled up in her.\n\nGerald came round as she was trying to capture the flying rabbit under\nher arm. He saw, with subtle recognition, her sullen passion of\ncruelty.\n\n'You should let one of the men do that for you,' he said hurrying up.\n\n'Oh, he's SO horrid!' cried Winifred, almost frantic.\n\nHe held out his nervous, sinewy hand and took the rabbit by the ears,\nfrom Gudrun.\n\n'It's most FEARFULLY strong,' she cried, in a high voice, like the\ncrying a seagull, strange and vindictive.\n\nThe rabbit made itself into a ball in the air, and lashed out, flinging\nitself into a bow. It really seemed demoniacal. Gudrun saw Gerald's\nbody tighten, saw a sharp blindness come into his eyes.\n\n'I know these beggars of old,' he said.\n\nThe long, demon-like beast lashed out again, spread on the air as if it\nwere flying, looking something like a dragon, then closing up again,\ninconceivably powerful and explosive. The man's body, strung to its\nefforts, vibrated strongly. Then a sudden sharp, white-edged wrath came\nup in him. Swift as lightning he drew back and brought his free hand\ndown like a hawk on the neck of the rabbit. Simultaneously, there came\nthe unearthly abhorrent scream of a rabbit in the fear of death. It\nmade one immense writhe, tore his wrists and his sleeves in a final\nconvulsion, all its belly flashed white in a whirlwind of paws, and\nthen he had slung it round and had it under his arm, fast. It cowered\nand skulked. His face was gleaming with a smile.\n\n'You wouldn't think there was all that force in a rabbit,' he said,\nlooking at Gudrun. And he saw her eyes black as night in her pallid\nface, she looked almost unearthly. The scream of the rabbit, after the\nviolent tussle, seemed to have torn the veil of her consciousness. He\nlooked at her, and the whitish, electric gleam in his face intensified.\n\n'I don't really like him,' Winifred was crooning. 'I don't care for him\nas I do for Loozie. He's hateful really.'\n\nA smile twisted Gudrun's face, as she recovered. She knew she was\nrevealed. 'Don't they make the most fearful noise when they scream?'\nshe cried, the high note in her voice, like a sea-gull's cry.\n\n'Abominable,' he said.\n\n'He shouldn't be so silly when he has to be taken out,' Winifred was\nsaying, putting out her hand and touching the rabbit tentatively, as it\nskulked under his arm, motionless as if it were dead.\n\n'He's not dead, is he Gerald?' she asked.\n\n'No, he ought to be,' he said.\n\n'Yes, he ought!' cried the child, with a sudden flush of amusement. And\nshe touched the rabbit with more confidence. 'His heart is beating SO\nfast. Isn't he funny? He really is.'\n\n'Where do you want him?' asked Gerald.\n\n'In the little green court,' she said.\n\nGudrun looked at Gerald with strange, darkened eyes, strained with\nunderworld knowledge, almost supplicating, like those of a creature\nwhich is at his mercy, yet which is his ultimate victor. He did not\nknow what to say to her. He felt the mutual hellish recognition. And he\nfelt he ought to say something, to cover it. He had the power of\nlightning in his nerves, she seemed like a soft recipient of his\nmagical, hideous white fire. He was unconfident, he had qualms of fear.\n\n'Did he hurt you?' he asked.\n\n'No,' she said.\n\n'He's an insensible beast,' he said, turning his face away.\n\nThey came to the little court, which was shut in by old red walls in\nwhose crevices wall-flowers were growing. The grass was soft and fine\nand old, a level floor carpeting the court, the sky was blue overhead.\nGerald tossed the rabbit down. It crouched still and would not move.\nGudrun watched it with faint horror.\n\n'Why doesn't it move?' she cried.\n\n'It's skulking,' he said.\n\nShe looked up at him, and a slight sinister smile contracted her white\nface.\n\n'Isn't it a FOOL!' she cried. 'Isn't it a sickening FOOL?' The\nvindictive mockery in her voice made his brain quiver. Glancing up at\nhim, into his eyes, she revealed again the mocking, white-cruel\nrecognition. There was a league between them, abhorrent to them both.\nThey were implicated with each other in abhorrent mysteries.\n\n'How many scratches have you?' he asked, showing his hard forearm,\nwhite and hard and torn in red gashes.\n\n'How really vile!' she cried, flushing with a sinister vision. 'Mine is\nnothing.'\n\nShe lifted her arm and showed a deep red score down the silken white\nflesh.\n\n'What a devil!' he exclaimed. But it was as if he had had knowledge of\nher in the long red rent of her forearm, so silken and soft. He did not\nwant to touch her. He would have to make himself touch her,\ndeliberately. The long, shallow red rip seemed torn across his own\nbrain, tearing the surface of his ultimate consciousness, letting\nthrough the forever unconscious, unthinkable red ether of the beyond,\nthe obscene beyond.\n\n'It doesn't hurt you very much, does it?' he asked, solicitous.\n\n'Not at all,' she cried.\n\nAnd suddenly the rabbit, which had been crouching as if it were a\nflower, so still and soft, suddenly burst into life. Round and round\nthe court it went, as if shot from a gun, round and round like a furry\nmeteorite, in a tense hard circle that seemed to bind their brains.\nThey all stood in amazement, smiling uncannily, as if the rabbit were\nobeying some unknown incantation. Round and round it flew, on the grass\nunder the old red walls like a storm.\n\nAnd then quite suddenly it settled down, hobbled among the grass, and\nsat considering, its nose twitching like a bit of fluff in the wind.\nAfter having considered for a few minutes, a soft bunch with a black,\nopen eye, which perhaps was looking at them, perhaps was not, it\nhobbled calmly forward and began to nibble the grass with that mean\nmotion of a rabbit's quick eating.\n\n'It's mad,' said Gudrun. 'It is most decidedly mad.'\n\nHe laughed.\n\n'The question is,' he said, 'what is madness? I don't suppose it is\nrabbit-mad.'\n\n'Don't you think it is?' she asked.\n\n'No. That's what it is to be a rabbit.'\n\nThere was a queer, faint, obscene smile over his face. She looked at\nhim and saw him, and knew that he was initiate as she was initiate.\nThis thwarted her, and contravened her, for the moment.\n\n'God be praised we aren't rabbits,' she said, in a high, shrill voice.\n\nThe smile intensified a little, on his face.\n\n'Not rabbits?' he said, looking at her fixedly.\n\nSlowly her face relaxed into a smile of obscene recognition.\n\n'Ah Gerald,' she said, in a strong, slow, almost man-like way. '-All\nthat, and more.' Her eyes looked up at him with shocking nonchalance.\n\nHe felt again as if she had torn him across the breast, dully, finally.\nHe turned aside.\n\n'Eat, eat my darling!' Winifred was softly conjuring the rabbit, and\ncreeping forward to touch it. It hobbled away from her. 'Let its mother\nstroke its fur then, darling, because it is so mysterious-'\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIX.\n\nMOONY\n\n\nAfter his illness Birkin went to the south of France for a time. He did\nnot write, nobody heard anything of him. Ursula, left alone, felt as if\neverything were lapsing out. There seemed to be no hope in the world.\nOne was a tiny little rock with the tide of nothingness rising higher\nand higher She herself was real, and only herself--just like a rock in\na wash of flood-water. The rest was all nothingness. She was hard and\nindifferent, isolated in herself.\n\nThere was nothing for it now, but contemptuous, resistant indifference.\nAll the world was lapsing into a grey wish-wash of nothingness, she had\nno contact and no connection anywhere. She despised and detested the\nwhole show. From the bottom of her heart, from the bottom of her soul,\nshe despised and detested people, adult people. She loved only children\nand animals: children she loved passionately, but coldly. They made her\nwant to hug them, to protect them, to give them life. But this very\nlove, based on pity and despair, was only a bondage and a pain to her.\nShe loved best of all the animals, that were single and unsocial as she\nherself was. She loved the horses and cows in the field. Each was\nsingle and to itself, magical. It was not referred away to some\ndetestable social principle. It was incapable of soulfulness and\ntragedy, which she detested so profoundly.\n\nShe could be very pleasant and flattering, almost subservient, to\npeople she met. But no one was taken in. Instinctively each felt her\ncontemptuous mockery of the human being in himself, or herself. She had\na profound grudge against the human being. That which the word 'human'\nstood for was despicable and repugnant to her.\n\nMostly her heart was closed in this hidden, unconscious strain of\ncontemptuous ridicule. She thought she loved, she thought she was full\nof love. This was her idea of herself. But the strange brightness of\nher presence, a marvellous radiance of intrinsic vitality, was a\nluminousness of supreme repudiation, nothing but repudiation.\n\nYet, at moments, she yielded and softened, she wanted pure love, only\npure love. This other, this state of constant unfailing repudiation,\nwas a strain, a suffering also. A terrible desire for pure love\novercame her again.\n\nShe went out one evening, numbed by this constant essential suffering.\nThose who are timed for destruction must die now. The knowledge of this\nreached a finality, a finishing in her. And the finality released her.\nIf fate would carry off in death or downfall all those who were timed\nto go, why need she trouble, why repudiate any further. She was free of\nit all, she could seek a new union elsewhere.\n\nUrsula set off to Willey Green, towards the mill. She came to Willey\nWater. It was almost full again, after its period of emptiness. Then\nshe turned off through the woods. The night had fallen, it was dark.\nBut she forgot to be afraid, she who had such great sources of fear.\nAmong the trees, far from any human beings, there was a sort of magic\npeace. The more one could find a pure loneliness, with no taint of\npeople, the better one felt. She was in reality terrified, horrified in\nher apprehension of people.\n\nShe started, noticing something on her right hand, between the tree\ntrunks. It was like a great presence, watching her, dodging her. She\nstarted violently. It was only the moon, risen through the thin trees.\nBut it seemed so mysterious, with its white and deathly smile. And\nthere was no avoiding it. Night or day, one could not escape the\nsinister face, triumphant and radiant like this moon, with a high\nsmile. She hurried on, cowering from the white planet. She would just\nsee the pond at the mill before she went home.\n\nNot wanting to go through the yard, because of the dogs, she turned off\nalong the hill-side to descend on the pond from above. The moon was\ntranscendent over the bare, open space, she suffered from being exposed\nto it. There was a glimmer of nightly rabbits across the ground. The\nnight was as clear as crystal, and very still. She could hear a distant\ncoughing of a sheep.\n\nSo she swerved down to the steep, tree-hidden bank above the pond,\nwhere the alders twisted their roots. She was glad to pass into the\nshade out of the moon. There she stood, at the top of the fallen-away\nbank, her hand on the rough trunk of a tree, looking at the water, that\nwas perfect in its stillness, floating the moon upon it. But for some\nreason she disliked it. It did not give her anything. She listened for\nthe hoarse rustle of the sluice. And she wished for something else out\nof the night, she wanted another night, not this moon-brilliant\nhardness. She could feel her soul crying out in her, lamenting\ndesolately.\n\nShe saw a shadow moving by the water. It would be Birkin. He had come\nback then, unawares. She accepted it without remark, nothing mattered\nto her. She sat down among the roots of the alder tree, dim and veiled,\nhearing the sound of the sluice like dew distilling audibly into the\nnight. The islands were dark and half revealed, the reeds were dark\nalso, only some of them had a little frail fire of reflection. A fish\nleaped secretly, revealing the light in the pond. This fire of the\nchill night breaking constantly on to the pure darkness, repelled her.\nShe wished it were perfectly dark, perfectly, and noiseless and without\nmotion. Birkin, small and dark also, his hair tinged with moonlight,\nwandered nearer. He was quite near, and yet he did not exist in her. He\ndid not know she was there. Supposing he did something he would not\nwish to be seen doing, thinking he was quite private? But there, what\ndid it matter? What did the small priyacies matter? How could it\nmatter, what he did? How can there be any secrets, we are all the same\norganisms? How can there be any secrecy, when everything is known to\nall of us?\n\nHe was touching unconsciously the dead husks of flowers as he passed\nby, and talking disconnectedly to himself.\n\n'You can't go away,' he was saying. 'There IS no away. You only\nwithdraw upon yourself.'\n\nHe threw a dead flower-husk on to the water.\n\n'An antiphony--they lie, and you sing back to them. There wouldn't have\nto be any truth, if there weren't any lies. Then one needn't assert\nanything--'\n\nHe stood still, looking at the water, and throwing upon it the husks of\nthe flowers.\n\n'Cybele--curse her! The accursed Syria Dea! Does one begrudge it her?\nWhat else is there--?'\n\nUrsula wanted to laugh loudly and hysterically, hearing his isolated\nvoice speaking out. It was so ridiculous.\n\nHe stood staring at the water. Then he stooped and picked up a stone,\nwhich he threw sharply at the pond. Ursula was aware of the bright moon\nleaping and swaying, all distorted, in her eyes. It seemed to shoot out\narms of fire like a cuttle-fish, like a luminous polyp, palpitating\nstrongly before her.\n\nAnd his shadow on the border of the pond, was watching for a few\nmoments, then he stooped and groped on the ground. Then again there was\na burst of sound, and a burst of brilliant light, the moon had exploded\non the water, and was flying asunder in flakes of white and dangerous\nfire. Rapidly, like white birds, the fires all broken rose across the\npond, fleeing in clamorous confusion, battling with the flock of dark\nwaves that were forcing their way in. The furthest waves of light,\nfleeing out, seemed to be clamouring against the shore for escape, the\nwaves of darkness came in heavily, running under towards the centre.\nBut at the centre, the heart of all, was still a vivid, incandescent\nquivering of a white moon not quite destroyed, a white body of fire\nwrithing and striving and not even now broken open, not yet violated.\nIt seemed to be drawing itself together with strange, violent pangs, in\nblind effort. It was getting stronger, it was re-asserting itself, the\ninviolable moon. And the rays were hastening in in thin lines of light,\nto return to the strengthened moon, that shook upon the water in\ntriumphant reassumption.\n\nBirkin stood and watched, motionless, till the pond was almost calm,\nthe moon was almost serene. Then, satisfied of so much, he looked for\nmore stones. She felt his invisible tenacity. And in a moment again,\nthe broken lights scattered in explosion over her face, dazzling her;\nand then, almost immediately, came the second shot. The moon leapt up\nwhite and burst through the air. Darts of bright light shot asunder,\ndarkness swept over the centre. There was no moon, only a battlefield\nof broken lights and shadows, running close together. Shadows, dark and\nheavy, struck again and again across the place where the heart of the\nmoon had been, obliterating it altogether. The white fragments pulsed\nup and down, and could not find where to go, apart and brilliant on the\nwater like the petals of a rose that a wind has blown far and wide.\n\nYet again, they were flickering their way to the centre, finding the\npath blindly, enviously. And again, all was still, as Birkin and Ursula\nwatched. The waters were loud on the shore. He saw the moon regathering\nitself insidiously, saw the heart of the rose intertwining vigorously\nand blindly, calling back the scattered fragments, winning home the\nfragments, in a pulse and in effort of return.\n\nAnd he was not satisfied. Like a madness, he must go on. He got large\nstones, and threw them, one after the other, at the white-burning\ncentre of the moon, till there was nothing but a rocking of hollow\nnoise, and a pond surged up, no moon any more, only a few broken flakes\ntangled and glittering broadcast in the darkness, without aim or\nmeaning, a darkened confusion, like a black and white kaleidoscope\ntossed at random. The hollow night was rocking and crashing with noise,\nand from the sluice came sharp, regular flashes of sound. Flakes of\nlight appeared here and there, glittering tormented among the shadows,\nfar off, in strange places; among the dripping shadow of the willow on\nthe island. Birkin stood and listened and was satisfied.\n\nUrsula was dazed, her mind was all gone. She felt she had fallen to the\nground and was spilled out, like water on the earth. Motionless and\nspent she remained in the gloom. Though even now she was aware,\nunseeing, that in the darkness was a little tumult of ebbing flakes of\nlight, a cluster dancing secretly in a round, twining and coming\nsteadily together. They were gathering a heart again, they were coming\nonce more into being. Gradually the fragments caught together\nre-united, heaving, rocking, dancing, falling back as in panic, but\nworking their way home again persistently, making semblance of fleeing\naway when they had advanced, but always flickering nearer, a little\ncloser to the mark, the cluster growing mysteriously larger and\nbrighter, as gleam after gleam fell in with the whole, until a ragged\nrose, a distorted, frayed moon was shaking upon the waters again,\nre-asserted, renewed, trying to recover from its convulsion, to get\nover the disfigurement and the agitation, to be whole and composed, at\npeace.\n\nBirkin lingered vaguely by the water. Ursula was afraid that he would\nstone the moon again. She slipped from her seat and went down to him,\nsaying:\n\n'You won't throw stones at it any more, will you?'\n\n'How long have you been there?'\n\n'All the time. You won't throw any more stones, will you?'\n\n'I wanted to see if I could make it be quite gone off the pond,' he\nsaid.\n\n'Yes, it was horrible, really. Why should you hate the moon? It hasn't\ndone you any harm, has it?'\n\n'Was it hate?' he said.\n\nAnd they were silent for a few minutes.\n\n'When did you come back?' she said.\n\n'Today.'\n\n'Why did you never write?'\n\n'I could find nothing to say.'\n\n'Why was there nothing to say?'\n\n'I don't know. Why are there no daffodils now?'\n\n'No.'\n\nAgain there was a space of silence. Ursula looked at the moon. It had\ngathered itself together, and was quivering slightly.\n\n'Was it good for you, to be alone?' she asked.\n\n'Perhaps. Not that I know much. But I got over a good deal. Did you do\nanything important?'\n\n'No. I looked at England, and thought I'd done with it.'\n\n'Why England?' he asked in surprise.\n\n'I don't know, it came like that.'\n\n'It isn't a question of nations,' he said. 'France is far worse.'\n\n'Yes, I know. I felt I'd done with it all.'\n\nThey went and sat down on the roots of the trees, in the shadow. And\nbeing silent, he remembered the beauty of her eyes, which were\nsometimes filled with light, like spring, suffused with wonderful\npromise. So he said to her, slowly, with difficulty:\n\n'There is a golden light in you, which I wish you would give me.' It\nwas as if he had been thinking of this for some time.\n\nShe was startled, she seemed to leap clear of him. Yet also she was\npleased.\n\n'What kind of a light,' she asked.\n\nBut he was shy, and did not say any more. So the moment passed for this\ntime. And gradually a feeling of sorrow came over her.\n\n'My life is unfulfilled,' she said.\n\n'Yes,' he answered briefly, not wanting to hear this.\n\n'And I feel as if nobody could ever really love me,' she said.\n\nBut he did not answer.\n\n'You think, don't you,' she said slowly, 'that I only want physical\nthings? It isn't true. I want you to serve my spirit.'\n\n'I know you do. I know you don't want physical things by themselves.\nBut, I want you to give me--to give your spirit to me--that golden\nlight which is you--which you don't know--give it me--'\n\nAfter a moment's silence she replied:\n\n'But how can I, you don't love me! You only want your own ends. You\ndon't want to serve ME, and yet you want me to serve you. It is so\none-sided!'\n\nIt was a great effort to him to maintain this conversation, and to\npress for the thing he wanted from her, the surrender of her spirit.\n\n'It is different,' he said. 'The two kinds of service are so different.\nI serve you in another way--not through YOURSELF--somewhere else. But I\nwant us to be together without bothering about ourselves--to be really\ntogether because we ARE together, as if it were a phenomenon, not a not\na thing we have to maintain by our own effort.'\n\n'No,' she said, pondering. 'You are just egocentric. You never have any\nenthusiasm, you never come out with any spark towards me. You want\nyourself, really, and your own affairs. And you want me just to be\nthere, to serve you.'\n\nBut this only made him shut off from her.\n\n'Ah well,' he said, 'words make no matter, any way. The thing IS\nbetween us, or it isn't.'\n\n'You don't even love me,' she cried.\n\n'I do,' he said angrily. 'But I want--' His mind saw again the lovely\ngolden light of spring transfused through her eyes, as through some\nwonderful window. And he wanted her to be with him there, in this world\nof proud indifference. But what was the good of telling her he wanted\nthis company in proud indifference. What was the good of talking, any\nway? It must happen beyond the sound of words. It was merely ruinous to\ntry to work her by conviction. This was a paradisal bird that could\nnever be netted, it must fly by itself to the heart.\n\n'I always think I am going to be loved--and then I am let down. You\nDON'T love me, you know. You don't want to serve me. You only want\nyourself.'\n\nA shiver of rage went over his veins, at this repeated: 'You don't want\nto serve me.' All the paradisal disappeared from him.\n\n'No,' he said, irritated, 'I don't want to serve you, because there is\nnothing there to serve. What you want me to serve, is nothing, mere\nnothing. It isn't even you, it is your mere female quality. And I\nwouldn't give a straw for your female ego--it's a rag doll.'\n\n'Ha!' she laughed in mockery. 'That's all you think of me, is it? And\nthen you have the impudence to say you love me.'\n\nShe rose in anger, to go home.\n\nYou want the paradisal unknowing,' she said, turning round on him as he\nstill sat half-visible in the shadow. 'I know what that means, thank\nyou. You want me to be your thing, never to criticise you or to have\nanything to say for myself. You want me to be a mere THING for you! No\nthank you! IF you want that, there are plenty of women who will give it\nto you. There are plenty of women who will lie down for you to walk\nover them--GO to them then, if that's what you want--go to them.'\n\n'No,' he said, outspoken with anger. 'I want you to drop your assertive\nWILL, your frightened apprehensive self-insistence, that is what I\nwant. I want you to trust yourself so implicitly, that you can let\nyourself go.'\n\n'Let myself go!' she re-echoed in mockery. 'I can let myself go, easily\nenough. It is you who can't let yourself go, it is you who hang on to\nyourself as if it were your only treasure. YOU--YOU are the Sunday\nschool teacher--YOU--you preacher.'\n\nThe amount of truth that was in this made him stiff and unheeding of\nher.\n\n'I don't mean let yourself go in the Dionysic ecstatic way,' he said.\n'I know you can do that. But I hate ecstasy, Dionysic or any other.\nIt's like going round in a squirrel cage. I want you not to care about\nyourself, just to be there and not to care about yourself, not to\ninsist--be glad and sure and indifferent.'\n\n'Who insists?' she mocked. 'Who is it that keeps on insisting? It isn't\nME!'\n\nThere was a weary, mocking bitterness in her voice. He was silent for\nsome time.\n\n'I know,' he said. 'While ever either of us insists to the other, we\nare all wrong. But there we are, the accord doesn't come.'\n\nThey sat in stillness under the shadow of the trees by the bank. The\nnight was white around them, they were in the darkness, barely\nconscious.\n\nGradually, the stillness and peace came over them. She put her hand\ntentatively on his. Their hands clasped softly and silently, in peace.\n\n'Do you really love me?' she said.\n\nHe laughed.\n\n'I call that your war-cry,' he replied, amused.\n\n'Why!' she cried, amused and really wondering.\n\n'Your insistence--Your war-cry--\"A Brangwen, A Brangwen\"--an old\nbattle-cry. Yours is, \"Do you love me? Yield knave, or die.\"'\n\n'No,' she said, pleading, 'not like that. Not like that. But I must\nknow that you love me, mustn't I?'\n\n'Well then, know it and have done with it.'\n\n'But do you?'\n\n'Yes, I do. I love you, and I know it's final. It is final, so why say\nany more about it.'\n\nShe was silent for some moments, in delight and doubt.\n\n'Are you sure?' she said, nestling happily near to him.\n\n'Quite sure--so now have done--accept it and have done.'\n\nShe was nestled quite close to him.\n\n'Have done with what?' she murmured, happily.\n\n'With bothering,' he said.\n\nShe clung nearer to him. He held her close, and kissed her softly,\ngently. It was such peace and heavenly freedom, just to fold her and\nkiss her gently, and not to have any thoughts or any desires or any\nwill, just to be still with her, to be perfectly still and together, in\na peace that was not sleep, but content in bliss. To be content in\nbliss, without desire or insistence anywhere, this was heaven: to be\ntogether in happy stillness.\n\nFor a long time she nestled to him, and he kissed her softly, her hair,\nher face, her ears, gently, softly, like dew falling. But this warm\nbreath on her ears disturbed her again, kindled the old destructive\nfires. She cleaved to him, and he could feel his blood changing like\nquicksilver.\n\n'But we'll be still, shall we?' he said.\n\n'Yes,' she said, as if submissively.\n\nAnd she continued to nestle against him.\n\nBut in a little while she drew away and looked at him.\n\n'I must be going home,' she said.\n\n'Must you--how sad,' he replied.\n\nShe leaned forward and put up her mouth to be kissed.\n\n'Are you really sad?' she murmured, smiling.\n\n'Yes,' he said, 'I wish we could stay as we were, always.'\n\n'Always! Do you?' she murmured, as he kissed her. And then, out of a\nfull throat, she crooned 'Kiss me! Kiss me!' And she cleaved close to\nhim. He kissed her many times. But he too had his idea and his will. He\nwanted only gentle communion, no other, no passion now. So that soon\nshe drew away, put on her hat and went home.\n\nThe next day however, he felt wistful and yearning. He thought he had\nbeen wrong, perhaps. Perhaps he had been wrong to go to her with an\nidea of what he wanted. Was it really only an idea, or was it the\ninterpretation of a profound yearning? If the latter, how was it he was\nalways talking about sensual fulfilment? The two did not agree very\nwell.\n\nSuddenly he found himself face to face with a situation. It was as\nsimple as this: fatally simple. On the one hand, he knew he did not\nwant a further sensual experience--something deeper, darker, than\nordinary life could give. He remembered the African fetishes he had\nseen at Halliday's so often. There came back to him one, a statuette\nabout two feet high, a tall, slim, elegant figure from West Africa, in\ndark wood, glossy and suave. It was a woman, with hair dressed high,\nlike a melon-shaped dome. He remembered her vividly: she was one of his\nsoul's intimates. Her body was long and elegant, her face was crushed\ntiny like a beetle's, she had rows of round heavy collars, like a\ncolumn of quoits, on her neck. He remembered her: her astonishing\ncultured elegance, her diminished, beetle face, the astounding long\nelegant body, on short, ugly legs, with such protuberant buttocks, so\nweighty and unexpected below her slim long loins. She knew what he\nhimself did not know. She had thousands of years of purely sensual,\npurely unspiritual knowledge behind her. It must have been thousands of\nyears since her race had died, mystically: that is, since the relation\nbetween the senses and the outspoken mind had broken, leaving the\nexperience all in one sort, mystically sensual. Thousands of years ago,\nthat which was imminent in himself must have taken place in these\nAfricans: the goodness, the holiness, the desire for creation and\nproductive happiness must have lapsed, leaving the single impulse for\nknowledge in one sort, mindless progressive knowledge through the\nsenses, knowledge arrested and ending in the senses, mystic knowledge\nin disintegration and dissolution, knowledge such as the beetles have,\nwhich live purely within the world of corruption and cold dissolution.\nThis was why her face looked like a beetle's: this was why the\nEgyptians worshipped the ball-rolling scarab: because of the principle\nof knowledge in dissolution and corruption.\n\nThere is a long way we can travel, after the death-break: after that\npoint when the soul in intense suffering breaks, breaks away from its\norganic hold like a leaf that falls. We fall from the connection with\nlife and hope, we lapse from pure integral being, from creation and\nliberty, and we fall into the long, long African process of purely\nsensual understanding, knowledge in the mystery of dissolution.\n\nHe realised now that this is a long process--thousands of years it\ntakes, after the death of the creative spirit. He realised that there\nwere great mysteries to be unsealed, sensual, mindless, dreadful\nmysteries, far beyond the phallic cult. How far, in their inverted\nculture, had these West Africans gone beyond phallic knowledge? Very,\nvery far. Birkin recalled again the female figure: the elongated, long,\nlong body, the curious unexpected heavy buttocks, he long, imprisoned\nneck, the face with tiny features like a beetle's. This was far beyond\nany phallic knowledge, sensual subtle realities far beyond the scope of\nphallic investigation.\n\nThere remained this way, this awful African process, to be fulfilled.\nIt would be done differently by the white races. The white races,\nhaving the arctic north behind them, the vast abstraction of ice and\nsnow, would fulfil a mystery of ice-destructive knowledge,\nsnow-abstract annihilation. Whereas the West Africans, controlled by\nthe burning death-abstraction of the Sahara, had been fulfilled in\nsun-destruction, the putrescent mystery of sun-rays.\n\nWas this then all that remained? Was there left now nothing but to\nbreak off from the happy creative being, was the time up? Is our day of\ncreative life finished? Does there remain to us only the strange, awful\nafterwards of the knowledge in dissolution, the African knowledge, but\ndifferent in us, who are blond and blue-eyed from the north?\n\nBirkin thought of Gerald. He was one of these strange white wonderful\ndemons from the north, fulfilled in the destructive frost mystery. And\nwas he fated to pass away in this knowledge, this one process of\nfrost-knowledge, death by perfect cold? Was he a messenger, an omen of\nthe universal dissolution into whiteness and snow?\n\nBirkin was frightened. He was tired too, when he had reached this\nlength of speculation. Suddenly his strange, strained attention gave\nway, he could not attend to these mysteries any more. There was another\nway, the way of freedom. There was the paradisal entry into pure,\nsingle being, the individual soul taking precedence over love and\ndesire for union, stronger than any pangs of emotion, a lovely state of\nfree proud singleness, which accepted the obligation of the permanent\nconnection with others, and with the other, submits to the yoke and\nleash of love, but never forfeits its own proud individual singleness,\neven while it loves and yields.\n\nThere was the other way, the remaining way. And he must run to follow\nit. He thought of Ursula, how sensitive and delicate she really was,\nher skin so over-fine, as if one skin were wanting. She was really so\nmarvellously gentle and sensitive. Why did he ever forget it? He must\ngo to her at once. He must ask her to marry him. They must marry at\nonce, and so make a definite pledge, enter into a definite communion.\nHe must set out at once and ask her, this moment. There was no moment\nto spare.\n\nHe drifted on swiftly to Beldover, half-unconscious of his own\nmovement. He saw the town on the slope of the hill, not straggling, but\nas if walled-in with the straight, final streets of miners' dwellings,\nmaking a great square, and it looked like Jerusalem to his fancy. The\nworld was all strange and transcendent.\n\nRosalind opened the door to him. She started slightly, as a young girl\nwill, and said:\n\n'Oh, I'll tell father.'\n\nWith which she disappeared, leaving Birkin in the hall, looking at some\nreproductions from Picasso, lately introduced by Gudrun. He was\nadmiring the almost wizard, sensuous apprehension of the earth, when\nWill Brangwen appeared, rolling down his shirt sleeves.\n\n'Well,' said Brangwen, 'I'll get a coat.' And he too disappeared for a\nmoment. Then he returned, and opened the door of the drawing-room,\nsaying:\n\n'You must excuse me, I was just doing a bit of work in the shed. Come\ninside, will you.'\n\nBirkin entered and sat down. He looked at the bright, reddish face of\nthe other man, at the narrow brow and the very bright eyes, and at the\nrather sensual lips that unrolled wide and expansive under the black\ncropped moustache. How curious it was that this was a human being! What\nBrangwen thought himself to be, how meaningless it was, confronted with\nthe reality of him. Birkin could see only a strange, inexplicable,\nalmost patternless collection of passions and desires and suppressions\nand traditions and mechanical ideas, all cast unfused and disunited\ninto this slender, bright-faced man of nearly fifty, who was as\nunresolved now as he was at twenty, and as uncreated. How could he be\nthe parent of Ursula, when he was not created himself. He was not a\nparent. A slip of living flesh had been transmitted through him, but\nthe spirit had not come from him. The spirit had not come from any\nancestor, it had come out of the unknown. A child is the child of the\nmystery, or it is uncreated.\n\n'The weather's not so bad as it has been,' said Brangwen, after waiting\na moment. There was no connection between the two men.\n\n'No,' said Birkin. 'It was full moon two days ago.'\n\n'Oh! You believe in the moon then, affecting the weather?'\n\n'No, I don't think I do. I don't really know enough about it.'\n\n'You know what they say? The moon and the weather may change together,\nbut the change of the moon won't change the weather.'\n\n'Is that it?' said Birkin. 'I hadn't heard it.'\n\nThere was a pause. Then Birkin said:\n\n'Am I hindering you? I called to see Ursula, really. Is she at home?'\n\n'I don't believe she is. I believe she's gone to the library. I'll just\nsee.'\n\nBirkin could hear him enquiring in the dining-room.\n\n'No,' he said, coming back. 'But she won't be long. You wanted to speak\nto her?'\n\nBirkin looked across at the other man with curious calm, clear eyes.\n\n'As a matter of fact,' he said, 'I wanted to ask her to marry me.'\n\nA point of light came on the golden-brown eyes of the elder man.\n\n'O-oh?' he said, looking at Birkin, then dropping his eyes before the\ncalm, steadily watching look of the other: 'Was she expecting you\nthen?'\n\n'No,' said Birkin.\n\n'No? I didn't know anything of this sort was on foot--' Brangwen smiled\nawkwardly.\n\nBirkin looked back at him, and said to himself: 'I wonder why it should\nbe \"on foot\"!' Aloud he said:\n\n'No, it's perhaps rather sudden.' At which, thinking of his\nrelationship with Ursula, he added--'but I don't know--'\n\n'Quite sudden, is it? Oh!' said Brangwen, rather baffled and annoyed.\n\n'In one way,' replied Birkin, '--not in another.'\n\nThere was a moment's pause, after which Brangwen said:\n\n'Well, she pleases herself--'\n\n'Oh yes!' said Birkin, calmly.\n\nA vibration came into Brangwen's strong voice, as he replied:\n\n'Though I shouldn't want her to be in too big a hurry, either. It's no\ngood looking round afterwards, when it's too late.'\n\n'Oh, it need never be too late,' said Birkin, 'as far as that goes.'\n\n'How do you mean?' asked the father.\n\n'If one repents being married, the marriage is at an end,' said Birkin.\n\n'You think so?'\n\n'Yes.'\n\n'Ay, well that may be your way of looking at it.'\n\nBirkin, in silence, thought to himself: 'So it may. As for YOUR way of\nlooking at it, William Brangwen, it needs a little explaining.'\n\n'I suppose,' said Brangwen, 'you know what sort of people we are? What\nsort of a bringing-up she's had?'\n\n'\"She\",' thought Birkin to himself, remembering his childhood's\ncorrections, 'is the cat's mother.'\n\n'Do I know what sort of a bringing-up she's had?' he said aloud.\n\nHe seemed to annoy Brangwen intentionally.\n\n'Well,' he said, 'she's had everything that's right for a girl to\nhave--as far as possible, as far as we could give it her.'\n\n'I'm sure she has,' said Birkin, which caused a perilous full-stop. The\nfather was becoming exasperated. There was something naturally irritant\nto him in Birkin's mere presence.\n\n'And I don't want to see her going back on it all,' he said, in a\nclanging voice.\n\n'Why?' said Birkin.\n\nThis monosyllable exploded in Brangwen's brain like a shot.\n\n'Why! I don't believe in your new-fangled ways and new-fangled\nideas--in and out like a frog in a gallipot. It would never do for me.'\n\nBirkin watched him with steady emotionless eyes. The radical antagnoism\nin the two men was rousing.\n\n'Yes, but are my ways and ideas new-fangled?' asked Birkin.\n\n'Are they?' Brangwen caught himself up. 'I'm not speaking of you in\nparticular,' he said. 'What I mean is that my children have been\nbrought up to think and do according to the religion I was brought up\nin myself, and I don't want to see them going away from THAT.'\n\nThere was a dangerous pause.\n\n'And beyond that--?' asked Birkin.\n\nThe father hesitated, he was in a nasty position.\n\n'Eh? What do you mean? All I want to say is that my daughter'--he\ntailed off into silence, overcome by futility. He knew that in some way\nhe was off the track.\n\n'Of course,' said Birkin, 'I don't want to hurt anybody or influence\nanybody. Ursula does exactly as she pleases.'\n\nThere was a complete silence, because of the utter failure in mutual\nunderstanding. Birkin felt bored. Her father was not a coherent human\nbeing, he was a roomful of old echoes. The eyes of the younger man\nrested on the face of the elder. Brangwen looked up, and saw Birkin\nlooking at him. His face was covered with inarticulate anger and\nhumiliation and sense of inferiority in strength.\n\n'And as for beliefs, that's one thing,' he said. 'But I'd rather see my\ndaughters dead tomorrow than that they should be at the beck and call\nof the first man that likes to come and whistle for them.'\n\nA queer painful light came into Birkin's eyes.\n\n'As to that,' he said, 'I only know that it's much more likely that\nit's I who am at the beck and call of the woman, than she at mine.'\n\nAgain there was a pause. The father was somewhat bewildered.\n\n'I know,' he said, 'she'll please herself--she always has done. I've\ndone my best for them, but that doesn't matter. They've got themselves\nto please, and if they can help it they'll please nobody BUT\nthemselves. But she's a right to consider her mother, and me as well--'\n\nBrangwen was thinking his own thoughts.\n\n'And I tell you this much, I would rather bury them, than see them\ngetting into a lot of loose ways such as you see everywhere nowadays.\nI'd rather bury them--'\n\n'Yes but, you see,' said Birkin slowly, rather wearily, bored again by\nthis new turn, 'they won't give either you or me the chance to bury\nthem, because they're not to be buried.'\n\nBrangwen looked at him in a sudden flare of impotent anger.\n\n'Now, Mr Birkin,' he said, 'I don't know what you've come here for, and\nI don't know what you're asking for. But my daughters are my\ndaughters--and it's my business to look after them while I can.'\n\nBirkin's brows knitted suddenly, his eyes concentrated in mockery. But\nhe remained perfectly stiff and still. There was a pause.\n\n'I've nothing against your marrying Ursula,' Brangwen began at length.\n'It's got nothing to do with me, she'll do as she likes, me or no me.'\n\nBirkin turned away, looking out of the window and letting go his\nconsciousness. After all, what good was this? It was hopeless to keep\nit up. He would sit on till Ursula came home, then speak to her, then\ngo away. He would not accept trouble at the hands of her father. It was\nall unnecessary, and he himself need not have provoked it.\n\nThe two men sat in complete silence, Birkin almost unconscious of his\nown whereabouts. He had come to ask her to marry him--well then, he\nwould wait on, and ask her. As for what she said, whether she accepted\nor not, he did not think about it. He would say what he had come to\nsay, and that was all he was conscious of. He accepted the complete\ninsignificance of this household, for him. But everything now was as if\nfated. He could see one thing ahead, and no more. From the rest, he was\nabsolved entirely for the time being. It had to be left to fate and\nchance to resolve the issues.\n\nAt length they heard the gate. They saw her coming up the steps with a\nbundle of books under her arm. Her face was bright and abstracted as\nusual, with the abstraction, that look of being not quite THERE, not\nquite present to the facts of reality, that galled her father so much.\nShe had a maddening faculty of assuming a light of her own, which\nexcluded the reality, and within which she looked radiant as if in\nsunshine.\n\nThey heard her go into the dining-room, and drop her armful of books on\nthe table.\n\n'Did you bring me that Girl's Own?' cried Rosalind.\n\n'Yes, I brought it. But I forgot which one it was you wanted.'\n\n'You would,' cried Rosalind angrily. 'It's right for a wonder.'\n\nThen they heard her say something in a lowered tone.\n\n'Where?' cried Ursula.\n\nAgain her sister's voice was muffled.\n\nBrangwen opened the door, and called, in his strong, brazen voice:\n\n'Ursula.'\n\nShe appeared in a moment, wearing her hat.\n\n'Oh how do you do!' she cried, seeing Birkin, and all dazzled as if\ntaken by surprise. He wondered at her, knowing she was aware of his\npresence. She had her queer, radiant, breathless manner, as if confused\nby the actual world, unreal to it, having a complete bright world of\nher self alone.\n\n'Have I interrupted a conversation?' she asked.\n\n'No, only a complete silence,' said Birkin.\n\n'Oh,' said Ursula, vaguely, absent. Their presence was not vital to\nher, she was withheld, she did not take them in. It was a subtle insult\nthat never failed to exasperate her father.\n\n'Mr Birkin came to speak to YOU, not to me,' said her father.\n\n'Oh, did he!' she exclaimed vaguely, as if it did not concern her.\nThen, recollecting herself, she turned to him rather radiantly, but\nstill quite superficially, and said: 'Was it anything special?'\n\n'I hope so,' he said, ironically.\n\n'--To propose to you, according to all accounts,' said her father.\n\n'Oh,' said Ursula.\n\n'Oh,' mocked her father, imitating her. 'Have you nothing more to say?'\n\nShe winced as if violated.\n\n'Did you really come to propose to me?' she asked of Birkin, as if it\nwere a joke.\n\n'Yes,' he said. 'I suppose I came to propose.' He seemed to fight shy\nof the last word.\n\n'Did you?' she cried, with her vague radiance. He might have been\nsaying anything whatsoever. She seemed pleased.\n\n'Yes,' he answered. 'I wanted to--I wanted you to agree to marry me.'\n\nShe looked at him. His eyes were flickering with mixed lights, wanting\nsomething of her, yet not wanting it. She shrank a little, as if she\nwere exposed to his eyes, and as if it were a pain to her. She\ndarkened, her soul clouded over, she turned aside. She had been driven\nout of her own radiant, single world. And she dreaded contact, it was\nalmost unnatural to her at these times.\n\n'Yes,' she said vaguely, in a doubting, absent voice.\n\nBirkin's heart contracted swiftly, in a sudden fire of bitterness. It\nall meant nothing to her. He had been mistaken again. She was in some\nself-satisfied world of her own. He and his hopes were accidentals,\nviolations to her. It drove her father to a pitch of mad exasperation.\nHe had had to put up with this all his life, from her.\n\n'Well, what do you say?' he cried.\n\nShe winced. Then she glanced down at her father, half-frightened, and\nshe said:\n\n'I didn't speak, did I?' as if she were afraid she might have committed\nherself.\n\n'No,' said her father, exasperated. 'But you needn't look like an\nidiot. You've got your wits, haven't you?'\n\nShe ebbed away in silent hostility.\n\n'I've got my wits, what does that mean?' she repeated, in a sullen\nvoice of antagonism.\n\n'You heard what was asked you, didn't you?' cried her father in anger.\n\n'Of course I heard.'\n\n'Well then, can't you answer?' thundered her father.\n\n'Why should I?'\n\nAt the impertinence of this retort, he went stiff. But he said nothing.\n\n'No,' said Birkin, to help out the occasion, 'there's no need to answer\nat once. You can say when you like.'\n\nHer eyes flashed with a powerful light.\n\n'Why should I say anything?' she cried. 'You do this off your OWN bat,\nit has nothing to do with me. Why do you both want to bully me?'\n\n'Bully you! Bully you!' cried her father, in bitter, rancorous anger.\n'Bully you! Why, it's a pity you can't be bullied into some sense and\ndecency. Bully you! YOU'LL see to that, you self-willed creature.'\n\nShe stood suspended in the middle of the room, her face glimmering and\ndangerous. She was set in satisfied defiance. Birkin looked up at her.\nHe too was angry.\n\n'But none is bullying you,' he said, in a very soft dangerous voice\nalso.\n\n'Oh yes,' she cried. 'You both want to force me into something.'\n\n'That is an illusion of yours,' he said ironically.\n\n'Illusion!' cried her father. 'A self-opinionated fool, that's what she\nis.'\n\nBirkin rose, saying:\n\n'However, we'll leave it for the time being.'\n\nAnd without another word, he walked out of the house.\n\n'You fool! You fool!' her father cried to her, with extreme bitterness.\nShe left the room, and went upstairs, singing to herself. But she was\nterribly fluttered, as after some dreadful fight. From her window, she\ncould see Birkin going up the road. He went in such a blithe drift of\nrage, that her mind wondered over him. He was ridiculous, but she was\nafraid of him. She was as if escaped from some danger.\n\nHer father sat below, powerless in humiliation and chagrin. It was as\nif he were possessed with all the devils, after one of these\nunaccountable conflicts with Ursula. He hated her as if his only\nreality were in hating her to the last degree. He had all hell in his\nheart. But he went away, to escape himself. He knew he must despair,\nyield, give in to despair, and have done.\n\nUrsula's face closed, she completed herself against them all. Recoiling\nupon herself, she became hard and self-completed, like a jewel. She was\nbright and invulnerable, quite free and happy, perfectly liberated in\nher self-possession. Her father had to learn not to see her blithe\nobliviousness, or it would have sent him mad. She was so radiant with\nall things, in her possession of perfect hostility.\n\nShe would go on now for days like this, in this bright frank state of\nseemingly pure spontaneity, so essentially oblivious of the existence\nof anything but herself, but so ready and facile in her interest. Ah it\nwas a bitter thing for a man to be near her, and her father cursed his\nfatherhood. But he must learn not to see her, not to know.\n\nShe was perfectly stable in resistance when she was in this state: so\nbright and radiant and attractive in her pure opposition, so very pure,\nand yet mistrusted by everybody, disliked on every hand. It was her\nvoice, curiously clear and repellent, that gave her away. Only Gudrun\nwas in accord with her. It was at these times that the intimacy between\nthe two sisters was most complete, as if their intelligence were one.\nThey felt a strong, bright bond of understanding between them,\nsurpassing everything else. And during all these days of blind bright\nabstraction and intimacy of his two daughters, the father seemed to\nbreathe an air of death, as if he were destroyed in his very being. He\nwas irritable to madness, he could not rest, his daughters seemed to be\ndestroying him. But he was inarticulate and helpless against them. He\nwas forced to breathe the air of his own death. He cursed them in his\nsoul, and only wanted, that they should be removed from him.\n\nThey continued radiant in their easy female transcendancy, beautiful to\nlook at. They exchanged confidences, they were intimate in their\nrevelations to the last degree, giving each other at last every secret.\nThey withheld nothing, they told everything, till they were over the\nborder of evil. And they armed each other with knowledge, they\nextracted the subtlest flavours from the apple of knowledge. It was\ncurious how their knowledge was complementary, that of each to that of\nthe other.\n\nUrsula saw her men as sons, pitied their yearning and admired their\ncourage, and wondered over them as a mother wonders over her child,\nwith a certain delight in their novelty. But to Gudrun, they were the\nopposite camp. She feared them and despised them, and respected their\nactivities even overmuch.\n\n'Of course,' she said easily, 'there is a quality of life in Birkin\nwhich is quite remarkable. There is an extraordinary rich spring of\nlife in him, really amazing, the way he can give himself to things. But\nthere are so many things in life that he simply doesn't know. Either he\nis not aware of their existence at all, or he dismisses them as merely\nnegligible--things which are vital to the other person. In a way, he is\nnot clever enough, he is too intense in spots.'\n\n'Yes,' cried Ursula, 'too much of a preacher. He is really a priest.'\n\n'Exactly! He can't hear what anybody else has to say--he simply cannot\nhear. His own voice is so loud.'\n\n'Yes. He cries you down.'\n\n'He cries you down,' repeated Gudrun. 'And by mere force of violence.\nAnd of course it is hopeless. Nobody is convinced by violence. It makes\ntalking to him impossible--and living with him I should think would be\nmore than impossible.'\n\n'You don't think one could live with him' asked Ursula.\n\n'I think it would be too wearing, too exhausting. One would be shouted\ndown every time, and rushed into his way without any choice. He would\nwant to control you entirely. He cannot allow that there is any other\nmind than his own. And then the real clumsiness of his mind is its lack\nof self-criticism. No, I think it would be perfectly intolerable.'\n\n'Yes,' assented Ursula vaguely. She only half agreed with Gudrun. 'The\nnuisance is,' she said, 'that one would find almost any man intolerable\nafter a fortnight.'\n\n'It's perfectly dreadful,' said Gudrun. 'But Birkin--he is too\npositive. He couldn't bear it if you called your soul your own. Of him\nthat is strictly true.'\n\n'Yes,' said Ursula. 'You must have HIS soul.'\n\n'Exactly! And what can you conceive more deadly?' This was all so true,\nthat Ursula felt jarred to the bottom of her soul with ugly distaste.\n\nShe went on, with the discord jarring and jolting through her, in the\nmost barren of misery.\n\nThen there started a revulsion from Gudrun. She finished life off so\nthoroughly, she made things so ugly and so final. As a matter of fact,\neven if it were as Gudrun said, about Birkin, other things were true as\nwell. But Gudrun would draw two lines under him and cross him out like\nan account that is settled. There he was, summed up, paid for, settled,\ndone with. And it was such a lie. This finality of Gudrun's, this\ndispatching of people and things in a sentence, it was all such a lie.\nUrsula began to revolt from her sister.\n\nOne day as they were walking along the lane, they saw a robin sitting\non the top twig of a bush, singing shrilly. The sisters stood to look\nat him. An ironical smile flickered on Gudrun's face.\n\n'Doesn't he feel important?' smiled Gudrun.\n\n'Doesn't he!' exclaimed Ursula, with a little ironical grimace. 'Isn't\nhe a little Lloyd George of the air!'\n\n'Isn't he! Little Lloyd George of the air! That's just what they are,'\ncried Gudrun in delight. Then for days, Ursula saw the persistent,\nobtrusive birds as stout, short politicians lifting up their voices\nfrom the platform, little men who must make themselves heard at any\ncost.\n\nBut even from this there came the revulsion. Some yellowhammers\nsuddenly shot along the road in front of her. And they looked to her so\nuncanny and inhuman, like flaring yellow barbs shooting through the air\non some weird, living errand, that she said to herself: 'After all, it\nis impudence to call them little Lloyd Georges. They are really unknown\nto us, they are the unknown forces. It is impudence to look at them as\nif they were the same as human beings. They are of another world. How\nstupid anthropomorphism is! Gudrun is really impudent, insolent, making\nherself the measure of everything, making everything come down to human\nstandards. Rupert is quite right, human beings are boring, painting the\nuniverse with their own image. The universe is non-human, thank God.'\nIt seemed to her irreverence, destructive of all true life, to make\nlittle Lloyd Georges of the birds. It was such a lie towards the\nrobins, and such a defamation. Yet she had done it herself. But under\nGudrun's influence: so she exonerated herself.\n\nSo she withdrew away from Gudrun and from that which she stood for, she\nturned in spirit towards Birkin again. She had not seen him since the\nfiasco of his proposal. She did not want to, because she did not want\nthe question of her acceptance thrust upon her. She knew what Birkin\nmeant when he asked her to marry him; vaguely, without putting it into\nspeech, she knew. She knew what kind of love, what kind of surrender he\nwanted. And she was not at all sure that this was the kind of love that\nshe herself wanted. She was not at all sure that it was this mutual\nunison in separateness that she wanted. She wanted unspeakable\nintimacies. She wanted to have him, utterly, finally to have him as her\nown, oh, so unspeakably, in intimacy. To drink him down--ah, like a\nlife-draught. She made great professions, to herself, of her\nwillingness to warm his foot-soles between her breasts, after the\nfashion of the nauseous Meredith poem. But only on condition that he,\nher lover, loved her absolutely, with complete self-abandon. And subtly\nenough, she knew he would never abandon himself FINALLY to her. He did\nnot believe in final self-abandonment. He said it openly. It was his\nchallenge. She was prepared to fight him for it. For she believed in an\nabsolute surrender to love. She believed that love far surpassed the\nindividual. He said the individual was MORE than love, or than any\nrelationship. For him, the bright, single soul accepted love as one of\nits conditions, a condition of its own equilibrium. She believed that\nlove was EVERYTHING. Man must render himself up to her. He must be\nquaffed to the dregs by her. Let him be HER MAN utterly, and she in\nreturn would be his humble slave--whether she wanted it or not.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XX.\n\nGLADIATORIAL\n\n\nAfter the fiasco of the proposal, Birkin had hurried blindly away from\nBeldover, in a whirl of fury. He felt he had been a complete fool, that\nthe whole scene had been a farce of the first water. But that did not\ntrouble him at all. He was deeply, mockingly angry that Ursula\npersisted always in this old cry: 'Why do you want to bully me?' and in\nher bright, insolent abstraction.\n\nHe went straight to Shortlands. There he found Gerald standing with his\nback to the fire, in the library, as motionless as a man is, who is\ncompletely and emptily restless, utterly hollow. He had done all the\nwork he wanted to do--and now there was nothing. He could go out in the\ncar, he could run to town. But he did not want to go out in the car, he\ndid not want to run to town, he did not want to call on the Thirlbys.\nHe was suspended motionless, in an agony of inertia, like a machine\nthat is without power.\n\nThis was very bitter to Gerald, who had never known what boredom was,\nwho had gone from activity to activity, never at a loss. Now,\ngradually, everything seemed to be stopping in him. He did not want any\nmore to do the things that offered. Something dead within him just\nrefused to respond to any suggestion. He cast over in his mind, what it\nwould be possible to do, to save himself from this misery of\nnothingness, relieve the stress of this hollowness. And there were only\nthree things left, that would rouse him, make him live. One was to\ndrink or smoke hashish, the other was to be soothed by Birkin, and the\nthird was women. And there was no-one for the moment to drink with. Nor\nwas there a woman. And he knew Birkin was out. So there was nothing to\ndo but to bear the stress of his own emptiness.\n\nWhen he saw Birkin his face lit up in a sudden, wonderful smile.\n\n'By God, Rupert,' he said, 'I'd just come to the conclusion that\nnothing in the world mattered except somebody to take the edge off\none's being alone: the right somebody.'\n\nThe smile in his eyes was very astonishing, as he looked at the other\nman. It was the pure gleam of relief. His face was pallid and even\nhaggard.\n\n'The right woman, I suppose you mean,' said Birkin spitefully.\n\n'Of course, for choice. Failing that, an amusing man.'\n\nHe laughed as he said it. Birkin sat down near the fire.\n\n'What were you doing?' he asked.\n\n'I? Nothing. I'm in a bad way just now, everything's on edge, and I can\nneither work nor play. I don't know whether it's a sign of old age, I'm\nsure.'\n\n'You mean you are bored?'\n\n'Bored, I don't know. I can't apply myself. And I feel the devil is\neither very present inside me, or dead.'\n\nBirkin glanced up and looked in his eyes.\n\n'You should try hitting something,' he said.\n\nGerald smiled.\n\n'Perhaps,' he said. 'So long as it was something worth hitting.'\n\n'Quite!' said Birkin, in his soft voice. There was a long pause during\nwhich each could feel the presence of the other.\n\n'One has to wait,' said Birkin.\n\n'Ah God! Waiting! What are we waiting for?'\n\n'Some old Johnny says there are three cures for ENNUI, sleep, drink,\nand travel,' said Birkin.\n\n'All cold eggs,' said Gerald. 'In sleep, you dream, in drink you curse,\nand in travel you yell at a porter. No, work and love are the two. When\nyou're not at work you should be in love.'\n\n'Be it then,' said Birkin.\n\n'Give me the object,' said Gerald. 'The possibilities of love exhaust\nthemselves.'\n\n'Do they? And then what?'\n\n'Then you die,' said Gerald.\n\n'So you ought,' said Birkin.\n\n'I don't see it,' replied Gerald. He took his hands out of his trousers\npockets, and reached for a cigarette. He was tense and nervous. He lit\nthe cigarette over a lamp, reaching forward and drawing steadily. He\nwas dressed for dinner, as usual in the evening, although he was alone.\n\n'There's a third one even to your two,' said Birkin. 'Work, love, and\nfighting. You forget the fight.'\n\n'I suppose I do,' said Gerald. 'Did you ever do any boxing--?'\n\n'No, I don't think I did,' said Birkin.\n\n'Ay--' Gerald lifted his head and blew the smoke slowly into the air.\n\n'Why?' said Birkin.\n\n'Nothing. I thought we might have a round. It is perhaps true, that I\nwant something to hit. It's a suggestion.'\n\n'So you think you might as well hit me?' said Birkin.\n\n'You? Well! Perhaps--! In a friendly kind of way, of course.'\n\n'Quite!' said Birkin, bitingly.\n\nGerald stood leaning back against the mantel-piece. He looked down at\nBirkin, and his eyes flashed with a sort of terror like the eyes of a\nstallion, that are bloodshot and overwrought, turned glancing backwards\nin a stiff terror.\n\n'I fell that if I don't watch myself, I shall find myself doing\nsomething silly,' he said.\n\n'Why not do it?' said Birkin coldly.\n\nGerald listened with quick impatience. He kept glancing down at Birkin,\nas if looking for something from the other man.\n\n'I used to do some Japanese wrestling,' said Birkin. 'A Jap lived in\nthe same house with me in Heidelberg, and he taught me a little. But I\nwas never much good at it.'\n\n'You did!' exclaimed Gerald. 'That's one of the things I've never ever\nseen done. You mean jiu-jitsu, I suppose?'\n\n'Yes. But I am no good at those things--they don't interest me.'\n\n'They don't? They do me. What's the start?'\n\n'I'll show you what I can, if you like,' said Birkin.\n\n'You will?' A queer, smiling look tightened Gerald's face for a moment,\nas he said, 'Well, I'd like it very much.'\n\n'Then we'll try jiu-jitsu. Only you can't do much in a starched shirt.'\n\n'Then let us strip, and do it properly. Hold a minute--' He rang the\nbell, and waited for the butler.\n\n'Bring a couple of sandwiches and a syphon,' he said to the man, 'and\nthen don't trouble me any more tonight--or let anybody else.'\n\nThe man went. Gerald turned to Birkin with his eyes lighted.\n\n'And you used to wrestle with a Jap?' he said. 'Did you strip?'\n\n'Sometimes.'\n\n'You did! What was he like then, as a wrestler?'\n\n'Good, I believe. I am no judge. He was very quick and slippery and\nfull of electric fire. It is a remarkable thing, what a curious sort of\nfluid force they seem to have in them, those people not like a human\ngrip--like a polyp--'\n\nGerald nodded.\n\n'I should imagine so,' he said, 'to look at them. They repel me,\nrather.'\n\n'Repel and attract, both. They are very repulsive when they are cold,\nand they look grey. But when they are hot and roused, there is a\ndefinite attraction--a curious kind of full electric fluid--like eels.'\n\n'Well--yes--probably.'\n\nThe man brought in the tray and set it down.\n\n'Don't come in any more,' said Gerald.\n\nThe door closed.\n\n'Well then,' said Gerald; 'shall we strip and begin? Will you have a\ndrink first?'\n\n'No, I don't want one.'\n\n'Neither do I.'\n\nGerald fastened the door and pushed the furniture aside. The room was\nlarge, there was plenty of space, it was thickly carpeted. Then he\nquickly threw off his clothes, and waited for Birkin. The latter, white\nand thin, came over to him. Birkin was more a presence than a visible\nobject, Gerald was aware of him completely, but not really visually.\nWhereas Gerald himself was concrete and noticeable, a piece of pure\nfinal substance.\n\n'Now,' said Birkin, 'I will show you what I learned, and what I\nremember. You let me take you so--' And his hands closed on the naked\nbody of the other man. In another moment, he had Gerald swung over\nlightly and balanced against his knee, head downwards. Relaxed, Gerald\nsprang to his feet with eyes glittering.\n\n'That's smart,' he said. 'Now try again.'\n\nSo the two men began to struggle together. They were very dissimilar.\nBirkin was tall and narrow, his bones were very thin and fine. Gerald\nwas much heavier and more plastic. His bones were strong and round, his\nlimbs were rounded, all his contours were beautifully and fully\nmoulded. He seemed to stand with a proper, rich weight on the face of\nthe earth, whilst Birkin seemed to have the centre of gravitation in\nhis own middle. And Gerald had a rich, frictional kind of strength,\nrather mechanical, but sudden and invincible, whereas Birkin was\nabstract as to be almost intangible. He impinged invisibly upon the\nother man, scarcely seeming to touch him, like a garment, and then\nsuddenly piercing in a tense fine grip that seemed to penetrate into\nthe very quick of Gerald's being.\n\nThey stopped, they discussed methods, they practised grips and throws,\nthey became accustomed to each other, to each other's rhythm, they got\na kind of mutual physical understanding. And then again they had a real\nstruggle. They seemed to drive their white flesh deeper and deeper\nagainst each other, as if they would break into a oneness. Birkin had a\ngreat subtle energy, that would press upon the other man with an\nuncanny force, weigh him like a spell put upon him. Then it would pass,\nand Gerald would heave free, with white, heaving, dazzling movements.\n\nSo the two men entwined and wrestled with each other, working nearer\nand nearer. Both were white and clear, but Gerald flushed smart red\nwhere he was touched, and Birkin remained white and tense. He seemed to\npenetrate into Gerald's more solid, more diffuse bulk, to interfuse his\nbody through the body of the other, as if to bring it subtly into\nsubjection, always seizing with some rapid necromantic fore-knowledge\nevery motion of the other flesh, converting and counteracting it,\nplaying upon the limbs and trunk of Gerald like some hard wind. It was\nas if Birkin's whole physical intelligence interpenetrated into\nGerald's body, as if his fine, sublimated energy entered into the flesh\nof the fuller man, like some potency, casting a fine net, a prison,\nthrough the muscles into the very depths of Gerald's physical being.\n\nSo they wrestled swiftly, rapturously, intent and mindless at last, two\nessential white figures working into a tighter closer oneness of\nstruggle, with a strange, octopus-like knotting and flashing of limbs\nin the subdued light of the room; a tense white knot of flesh gripped\nin silence between the walls of old brown books. Now and again came a\nsharp gasp of breath, or a sound like a sigh, then the rapid thudding\nof movement on the thickly-carpeted floor, then the strange sound of\nflesh escaping under flesh. Often, in the white interlaced knot of\nviolent living being that swayed silently, there was no head to be\nseen, only the swift, tight limbs, the solid white backs, the physical\njunction of two bodies clinched into oneness. Then would appear the\ngleaming, ruffled head of Gerald, as the struggle changed, then for a\nmoment the dun-coloured, shadow-like head of the other man would lift\nup from the conflict, the eyes wide and dreadful and sightless.\n\nAt length Gerald lay back inert on the carpet, his breast rising in\ngreat slow panting, whilst Birkin kneeled over him, almost unconscious.\nBirkin was much more exhausted. He caught little, short breaths, he\ncould scarcely breathe any more. The earth seemed to tilt and sway, and\na complete darkness was coming over his mind. He did not know what\nhappened. He slid forward quite unconscious, over Gerald, and Gerald\ndid not notice. Then he was half-conscious again, aware only of the\nstrange tilting and sliding of the world. The world was sliding,\neverything was sliding off into the darkness. And he was sliding,\nendlessly, endlessly away.\n\nHe came to consciousness again, hearing an immense knocking outside.\nWhat could be happening, what was it, the great hammer-stroke\nresounding through the house? He did not know. And then it came to him\nthat it was his own heart beating. But that seemed impossible, the\nnoise was outside. No, it was inside himself, it was his own heart. And\nthe beating was painful, so strained, surcharged. He wondered if Gerald\nheard it. He did not know whether he were standing or lying or falling.\n\nWhen he realised that he had fallen prostrate upon Gerald's body he\nwondered, he was surprised. But he sat up, steadying himself with his\nhand and waiting for his heart to become stiller and less painful. It\nhurt very much, and took away his consciousness.\n\nGerald however was still less conscious than Birkin. They waited dimly,\nin a sort of not-being, for many uncounted, unknown minutes.\n\n'Of course--' panted Gerald, 'I didn't have to be rough--with you--I\nhad to keep back--my force--'\n\nBirkin heard the sound as if his own spirit stood behind him, outside\nhim, and listened to it. His body was in a trance of exhaustion, his\nspirit heard thinly. His body could not answer. Only he knew his heart\nwas getting quieter. He was divided entirely between his spirit, which\nstood outside, and knew, and his body, that was a plunging, unconscious\nstroke of blood.\n\n'I could have thrown you--using violence--' panted Gerald. 'But you\nbeat me right enough.'\n\n'Yes,' said Birkin, hardening his throat and producing the words in the\ntension there, 'you're much stronger than I--you could beat\nme--easily.'\n\nThen he relaxed again to the terrible plunging of his heart and his\nblood.\n\n'It surprised me,' panted Gerald, 'what strength you've got. Almost\nsupernatural.'\n\n'For a moment,' said Birkin.\n\nHe still heard as if it were his own disembodied spirit hearing,\nstanding at some distance behind him. It drew nearer however, his\nspirit. And the violent striking of blood in his chest was sinking\nquieter, allowing his mind to come back. He realised that he was\nleaning with all his weight on the soft body of the other man. It\nstartled him, because he thought he had withdrawn. He recovered\nhimself, and sat up. But he was still vague and unestablished. He put\nout his hand to steady himself. It touched the hand of Gerald, that was\nlying out on the floor. And Gerald's hand closed warm and sudden over\nBirkin's, they remained exhausted and breathless, the one hand clasped\nclosely over the other. It was Birkin whose hand, in swift response,\nhad closed in a strong, warm clasp over the hand of the other. Gerald's\nclasp had been sudden and momentaneous.\n\nThe normal consciousness however was returning, ebbing back. Birkin\ncould breathe almost naturally again. Gerald's hand slowly withdrew,\nBirkin slowly, dazedly rose to his feet and went towards the table. He\npoured out a whiskey and soda. Gerald also came for a drink.\n\n'It was a real set-to, wasn't it?' said Birkin, looking at Gerald with\ndarkened eyes.\n\n'God, yes,' said Gerald. He looked at the delicate body of the other\nman, and added: 'It wasn't too much for you, was it?'\n\n'No. One ought to wrestle and strive and be physically close. It makes\none sane.'\n\n'You do think so?'\n\n'I do. Don't you?'\n\n'Yes,' said Gerald.\n\nThere were long spaces of silence between their words. The wrestling\nhad some deep meaning to them--an unfinished meaning.\n\n'We are mentally, spiritually intimate, therefore we should be more or\nless physically intimate too--it is more whole.'\n\n'Certainly it is,' said Gerald. Then he laughed pleasantly, adding:\n'It's rather wonderful to me.' He stretched out his arms handsomely.\n\n'Yes,' said Birkin. 'I don't know why one should have to justify\noneself.'\n\n'No.'\n\nThe two men began to dress.\n\n'I think also that you are beautiful,' said Birkin to Gerald, 'and that\nis enjoyable too. One should enjoy what is given.'\n\n'You think I am beautiful--how do you mean, physically?' asked Gerald,\nhis eyes glistening.\n\n'Yes. You have a northern kind of beauty, like light refracted from\nsnow--and a beautiful, plastic form. Yes, that is there to enjoy as\nwell. We should enjoy everything.'\n\nGerald laughed in his throat, and said:\n\n'That's certainly one way of looking at it. I can say this much, I feel\nbetter. It has certainly helped me. Is this the Bruderschaft you\nwanted?'\n\n'Perhaps. Do you think this pledges anything?'\n\n'I don't know,' laughed Gerald.\n\n'At any rate, one feels freer and more open now--and that is what we\nwant.'\n\n'Certainly,' said Gerald.\n\nThey drew to the fire, with the decanters and the glasses and the food.\n\n'I always eat a little before I go to bed,' said Gerald. 'I sleep\nbetter.'\n\n'I should not sleep so well,' said Birkin.\n\n'No? There you are, we are not alike. I'll put a dressing-gown on.'\nBirkin remained alone, looking at the fire. His mind had reverted to\nUrsula. She seemed to return again into his consciousness. Gerald came\ndown wearing a gown of broad-barred, thick black-and-green silk,\nbrilliant and striking.\n\n'You are very fine,' said Birkin, looking at the full robe.\n\n'It was a caftan in Bokhara,' said Gerald. 'I like it.'\n\n'I like it too.'\n\nBirkin was silent, thinking how scrupulous Gerald was in his attire,\nhow expensive too. He wore silk socks, and studs of fine workmanship,\nand silk underclothing, and silk braces. Curious! This was another of\nthe differences between them. Birkin was careless and unimaginative\nabout his own appearance.\n\n'Of course you,' said Gerald, as if he had been thinking; 'there's\nsomething curious about you. You're curiously strong. One doesn't\nexpect it, it is rather surprising.'\n\nBirkin laughed. He was looking at the handsome figure of the other man,\nblond and comely in the rich robe, and he was half thinking of the\ndifference between it and himself--so different; as far, perhaps, apart\nas man from woman, yet in another direction. But really it was Ursula,\nit was the woman who was gaining ascendance over Birkin's being, at\nthis moment. Gerald was becoming dim again, lapsing out of him.\n\n'Do you know,' he said suddenly, 'I went and proposed to Ursula\nBrangwen tonight, that she should marry me.'\n\nHe saw the blank shining wonder come over Gerald's face.\n\n'You did?'\n\n'Yes. Almost formally--speaking first to her father, as it should be,\nin the world--though that was accident--or mischief.'\n\nGerald only stared in wonder, as if he did not grasp.\n\n'You don't mean to say that you seriously went and asked her father to\nlet you marry her?'\n\n'Yes,' said Birkin, 'I did.'\n\n'What, had you spoken to her before about it, then?'\n\n'No, not a word. I suddenly thought I would go there and ask her--and\nher father happened to come instead of her--so I asked him first.'\n\n'If you could have her?' concluded Gerald.\n\n'Ye-es, that.'\n\n'And you didn't speak to her?'\n\n'Yes. She came in afterwards. So it was put to her as well.'\n\n'It was! And what did she say then? You're an engaged man?'\n\n'No,--she only said she didn't want to be bullied into answering.'\n\n'She what?'\n\n'Said she didn't want to be bullied into answering.'\n\n'\"Said she didn't want to be bullied into answering!\" Why, what did she\nmean by that?'\n\nBirkin raised his shoulders. 'Can't say,' he answered. 'Didn't want to\nbe bothered just then, I suppose.'\n\n'But is this really so? And what did you do then?'\n\n'I walked out of the house and came here.'\n\n'You came straight here?'\n\n'Yes.'\n\nGerald stared in amazement and amusement. He could not take it in.\n\n'But is this really true, as you say it now?'\n\n'Word for word.'\n\n'It is?'\n\nHe leaned back in his chair, filled with delight and amusement.\n\n'Well, that's good,' he said. 'And so you came here to wrestle with\nyour good angel, did you?'\n\n'Did I?' said Birkin.\n\n'Well, it looks like it. Isn't that what you did?'\n\nNow Birkin could not follow Gerald's meaning.\n\n'And what's going to happen?' said Gerald. 'You're going to keep open\nthe proposition, so to speak?'\n\n'I suppose so. I vowed to myself I would see them all to the devil. But\nI suppose I shall ask her again, in a little while.'\n\nGerald watched him steadily.\n\n'So you're fond of her then?' he asked.\n\n'I think--I love her,' said Birkin, his face going very still and\nfixed.\n\nGerald glistened for a moment with pleasure, as if it were something\ndone specially to please him. Then his face assumed a fitting gravity,\nand he nodded his head slowly.\n\n'You know,' he said, 'I always believed in love--true love. But where\ndoes one find it nowadays?'\n\n'I don't know,' said Birkin.\n\n'Very rarely,' said Gerald. Then, after a pause, 'I've never felt it\nmyself--not what I should call love. I've gone after women--and been\nkeen enough over some of them. But I've never felt LOVE. I don't\nbelieve I've ever felt as much LOVE for a woman, as I have for you--not\nLOVE. You understand what I mean?'\n\n'Yes. I'm sure you've never loved a woman.'\n\n'You feel that, do you? And do you think I ever shall? You understand\nwhat I mean?' He put his hand to his breast, closing his fist there, as\nif he would draw something out. 'I mean that--that I can't express what\nit is, but I know it.'\n\n'What is it, then?' asked Birkin.\n\n'You see, I can't put it into words. I mean, at any rate, something\nabiding, something that can't change--'\n\nHis eyes were bright and puzzled.\n\n'Now do you think I shall ever feel that for a woman?' he said,\nanxiously.\n\nBirkin looked at him, and shook his head.\n\n'I don't know,' he said. 'I could not say.'\n\nGerald had been on the QUI VIVE, as awaiting his fate. Now he drew back\nin his chair.\n\n'No,' he said, 'and neither do I, and neither do I.'\n\n'We are different, you and I,' said Birkin. 'I can't tell your life.'\n\n'No,' said Gerald, 'no more can I. But I tell you--I begin to doubt\nit!'\n\n'That you will ever love a woman?'\n\n'Well--yes--what you would truly call love--'\n\n'You doubt it?'\n\n'Well--I begin to.'\n\nThere was a long pause.\n\n'Life has all kinds of things,' said Birkin. 'There isn't only one\nroad.'\n\n'Yes, I believe that too. I believe it. And mind you, I don't care how\nit is with me--I don't care how it is--so long as I don't feel--' he\npaused, and a blank, barren look passed over his face, to express his\nfeeling--'so long as I feel I've LIVED, somehow--and I don't care how\nit is--but I want to feel that--'\n\n'Fulfilled,' said Birkin.\n\n'We-ell, perhaps it is fulfilled; I don't use the same words as you.'\n\n'It is the same.'\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXI.\n\nTHRESHOLD\n\n\nGudrun was away in London, having a little show of her work, with a\nfriend, and looking round, preparing for flight from Beldover. Come\nwhat might she would be on the wing in a very short time. She received\na letter from Winifred Crich, ornamented with drawings.\n\n'Father also has been to London, to be examined by the doctors. It made\nhim very tired. They say he must rest a very great deal, so he is\nmostly in bed. He brought me a lovely tropical parrot in faience, of\nDresden ware, also a man ploughing, and two mice climbing up a stalk,\nalso in faience. The mice were Copenhagen ware. They are the best, but\nmice don't shine so much, otherwise they are very good, their tails are\nslim and long. They all shine nearly like glass. Of course it is the\nglaze, but I don't like it. Gerald likes the man ploughing the best,\nhis trousers are torn, he is ploughing with an ox, being I suppose a\nGerman peasant. It is all grey and white, white shirt and grey\ntrousers, but very shiny and clean. Mr Birkin likes the girl best,\nunder the hawthorn blossom, with a lamb, and with daffodils painted on\nher skirts, in the drawing room. But that is silly, because the lamb is\nnot a real lamb, and she is silly too.\n\n'Dear Miss Brangwen, are you coming back soon, you are very much missed\nhere. I enclose a drawing of father sitting up in bed. He says he hopes\nyou are not going to forsake us. Oh dear Miss Brangwen, I am sure you\nwon't. Do come back and draw the ferrets, they are the most lovely\nnoble darlings in the world. We might carve them in holly-wood, playing\nagainst a background of green leaves. Oh do let us, for they are most\nbeautiful.\n\n'Father says we might have a studio. Gerald says we could easily have a\nbeautiful one over the stables, it would only need windows to be put in\nthe slant of the roof, which is a simple matter. Then you could stay\nhere all day and work, and we could live in the studio, like two real\nartists, like the man in the picture in the hall, with the frying-pan\nand the walls all covered with drawings. I long to be free, to live the\nfree life of an artist. Even Gerald told father that only an artist is\nfree, because he lives in a creative world of his own--'\n\nGudrun caught the drift of the family intentions, in this letter.\nGerald wanted her to be attached to the household at Shortlands, he was\nusing Winifred as his stalking-horse. The father thought only of his\nchild, he saw a rock of salvation in Gudrun. And Gudrun admired him for\nhis perspicacity. The child, moreover, was really exceptional. Gudrun\nwas quite content. She was quite willing, given a studio, to spend her\ndays at Shortlands. She disliked the Grammar School already thoroughly,\nshe wanted to be free. If a studio were provided, she would be free to\ngo on with her work, she would await the turn of events with complete\nserenity. And she was really interested in Winifred, she would be quite\nglad to understand the girl.\n\nSo there was quite a little festivity on Winifred's account, the day\nGudrun returned to Shortlands.\n\n'You should make a bunch of flowers to give to Miss Brangwen when she\narrives,' Gerald said smiling to his sister.\n\n'Oh no,' cried Winifred, 'it's silly.'\n\n'Not at all. It is a very charming and ordinary attention.'\n\n'Oh, it is silly,' protested Winifred, with all the extreme MAUVAISE\nHONTE of her years. Nevertheless, the idea appealed to her. She wanted\nvery much to carry it out. She flitted round the green-houses and the\nconservatory looking wistfully at the flowers on their stems. And the\nmore she looked, the more she LONGED to have a bunch of the blossoms\nshe saw, the more fascinated she became with her little vision of\nceremony, and the more consumedly shy and self-conscious she grew, till\nshe was almost beside herself. She could not get the idea out of her\nmind. It was as if some haunting challenge prompted her, and she had\nnot enough courage to take it up. So again she drifted into the\ngreen-houses, looking at the lovely roses in their pots, and at the\nvirginal cyclamens, and at the mystic white clusters of a creeper. The\nbeauty, oh the beauty of them, and oh the paradisal bliss, if she\nshould have a perfect bouquet and could give it to Gudrun the next day.\nHer passion and her complete indecision almost made her ill.\n\nAt last she slid to her father's side.\n\n'Daddie--' she said.\n\n'What, my precious?'\n\nBut she hung back, the tears almost coming to her eyes, in her\nsensitive confusion. Her father looked at her, and his heart ran hot\nwith tenderness, an anguish of poignant love.\n\n'What do you want to say to me, my love?'\n\n'Daddie--!' her eyes smiled laconically--'isn't it silly if I give Miss\nBrangwen some flowers when she comes?'\n\nThe sick man looked at the bright, knowing eyes of his child, and his\nheart burned with love.\n\n'No, darling, that's not silly. It's what they do to queens.'\n\nThis was not very reassuring to Winifred. She half suspected that\nqueens in themselves were a silliness. Yet she so wanted her little\nromantic occasion.\n\n'Shall I then?' she asked.\n\n'Give Miss Brangwen some flowers? Do, Birdie. Tell Wilson I say you are\nto have what you want.'\n\nThe child smiled a small, subtle, unconscious smile to herself, in\nanticipation of her way.\n\n'But I won't get them till tomorrow,' she said.\n\n'Not till tomorrow, Birdie. Give me a kiss then--'\n\nWinifred silently kissed the sick man, and drifted out of the room. She\nagain went the round of the green-houses and the conservatory,\ninforming the gardener, in her high, peremptory, simple fashion, of\nwhat she wanted, telling him all the blooms she had selected.\n\n'What do you want these for?' Wilson asked.\n\n'I want them,' she said. She wished servants did not ask questions.\n\n'Ay, you've said as much. But what do you want them for, for\ndecoration, or to send away, or what?'\n\n'I want them for a presentation bouquet.'\n\n'A presentation bouquet! Who's coming then?--the Duchess of Portland?'\n\n'No.'\n\n'Oh, not her? Well you'll have a rare poppy-show if you put all the\nthings you've mentioned into your bouquet.'\n\n'Yes, I want a rare poppy-show.'\n\n'You do! Then there's no more to be said.'\n\nThe next day Winifred, in a dress of silvery velvet, and holding a\ngaudy bunch of flowers in her hand, waited with keen impatience in the\nschoolroom, looking down the drive for Gudrun's arrival. It was a wet\nmorning. Under her nose was the strange fragrance of hot-house flowers,\nthe bunch was like a little fire to her, she seemed to have a strange\nnew fire in her heart. This slight sense of romance stirred her like an\nintoxicant.\n\nAt last she saw Gudrun coming, and she ran downstairs to warn her\nfather and Gerald. They, laughing at her anxiety and gravity, came with\nher into the hall. The man-servant came hastening to the door, and\nthere he was, relieving Gudrun of her umbrella, and then of her\nraincoat. The welcoming party hung back till their visitor entered the\nhall.\n\nGudrun was flushed with the rain, her hair was blown in loose little\ncurls, she was like a flower just opened in the rain, the heart of the\nblossom just newly visible, seeming to emit a warmth of retained\nsunshine. Gerald winced in spirit, seeing her so beautiful and unknown.\nShe was wearing a soft blue dress, and her stockings were of dark red.\n\nWinifred advanced with odd, stately formality.\n\n'We are so glad you've come back,' she said. 'These are your flowers.'\nShe presented the bouquet.\n\n'Mine!' cried Gudrun. She was suspended for a moment, then a vivid\nflush went over her, she was as if blinded for a moment with a flame of\npleasure. Then her eyes, strange and flaming, lifted and looked at the\nfather, and at Gerald. And again Gerald shrank in spirit, as if it\nwould be more than he could bear, as her hot, exposed eyes rested on\nhim. There was something so revealed, she was revealed beyond bearing,\nto his eyes. He turned his face aside. And he felt he would not be able\nto avert her. And he writhed under the imprisonment.\n\nGudrun put her face into the flowers.\n\n'But how beautiful they are!' she said, in a muffled voice. Then, with\na strange, suddenly revealed passion, she stooped and kissed Winifred.\n\nMr Crich went forward with his hand held out to her.\n\n'I was afraid you were going to run away from us,' he said, playfully.\n\nGudrun looked up at him with a luminous, roguish, unknown face.\n\n'Really!' she replied. 'No, I didn't want to stay in London.' Her voice\nseemed to imply that she was glad to get back to Shortlands, her tone\nwas warm and subtly caressing.\n\n'That is a good thing,' smiled the father. 'You see you are very\nwelcome here among us.'\n\nGudrun only looked into his face with dark-blue, warm, shy eyes. She\nwas unconsciously carried away by her own power.\n\n'And you look as if you came home in every possible triumph,' Mr Crich\ncontinued, holding her hand.\n\n'No,' she said, glowing strangely. 'I haven't had any triumph till I\ncame here.'\n\n'Ah, come, come! We're not going to hear any of those tales. Haven't we\nread notices in the newspaper, Gerald?'\n\n'You came off pretty well,' said Gerald to her, shaking hands. 'Did you\nsell anything?'\n\n'No,' she said, 'not much.'\n\n'Just as well,' he said.\n\nShe wondered what he meant. But she was all aglow with her reception,\ncarried away by this little flattering ceremonial on her behalf.\n\n'Winifred,' said the father, 'have you a pair of shoes for Miss\nBrangwen? You had better change at once--'\n\nGudrun went out with her bouquet in her hand.\n\n'Quite a remarkable young woman,' said the father to Gerald, when she\nhad gone.\n\n'Yes,' replied Gerald briefly, as if he did not like the observation.\n\nMr Crich liked Gudrun to sit with him for half an hour. Usually he was\nashy and wretched, with all the life gnawed out of him. But as soon as\nhe rallied, he liked to make believe that he was just as before, quite\nwell and in the midst of life--not of the outer world, but in the midst\nof a strong essential life. And to this belief, Gudrun contributed\nperfectly. With her, he could get by stimulation those precious\nhalf-hours of strength and exaltation and pure freedom, when he seemed\nto live more than he had ever lived.\n\nShe came to him as he lay propped up in the library. His face was like\nyellow wax, his eyes darkened, as it were sightless. His black beard,\nnow streaked with grey, seemed to spring out of the waxy flesh of a\ncorpse. Yet the atmosphere about him was energetic and playful. Gudrun\nsubscribed to this, perfectly. To her fancy, he was just an ordinary\nman. Only his rather terrible appearance was photographed upon her\nsoul, away beneath her consciousness. She knew that, in spite of his\nplayfulness, his eyes could not change from their darkened vacancy,\nthey were the eyes of a man who is dead.\n\n'Ah, this is Miss Brangwen,' he said, suddenly rousing as she entered,\nannounced by the man-servant. 'Thomas, put Miss Brangwen a chair\nhere--that's right.' He looked at her soft, fresh face with pleasure.\nIt gave him the illusion of life. 'Now, you will have a glass of sherry\nand a little piece of cake. Thomas--'\n\n'No thank you,' said Gudrun. And as soon as she had said it, her heart\nsank horribly. The sick man seemed to fall into a gap of death, at her\ncontradiction. She ought to play up to him, not to contravene him. In\nan instant she was smiling her rather roguish smile.\n\n'I don't like sherry very much,' she said. 'But I like almost anything\nelse.'\n\nThe sick man caught at this straw instantly.\n\n'Not sherry! No! Something else! What then? What is there, Thomas?'\n\n'Port wine--curacao--'\n\n'I would love some curacao--' said Gudrun, looking at the sick man\nconfidingly.\n\n'You would. Well then Thomas, curacao--and a little cake, or a\nbiscuit?'\n\n'A biscuit,' said Gudrun. She did not want anything, but she was wise.\n\n'Yes.'\n\nHe waited till she was settled with her little glass and her biscuit.\nThen he was satisfied.\n\n'You have heard the plan,' he said with some excitement, 'for a studio\nfor Winifred, over the stables?'\n\n'No!' exclaimed Gudrun, in mock wonder.\n\n'Oh!--I thought Winnie wrote it to you, in her letter!'\n\n'Oh--yes--of course. But I thought perhaps it was only her own little\nidea--' Gudrun smiled subtly, indulgently. The sick man smiled also,\nelated.\n\n'Oh no. It is a real project. There is a good room under the roof of\nthe stables--with sloping rafters. We had thought of converting it into\na studio.'\n\n'How VERY nice that would be!' cried Gudrun, with excited warmth. The\nthought of the rafters stirred her.\n\n'You think it would? Well, it can be done.'\n\n'But how perfectly splendid for Winifred! Of course, it is just what is\nneeded, if she is to work at all seriously. One must have one's\nworkshop, otherwise one never ceases to be an amateur.'\n\n'Is that so? Yes. Of course, I should like you to share it with\nWinifred.'\n\n'Thank you SO much.'\n\nGudrun knew all these things already, but she must look shy and very\ngrateful, as if overcome.\n\n'Of course, what I should like best, would be if you could give up your\nwork at the Grammar School, and just avail yourself of the studio, and\nwork there--well, as much or as little as you liked--'\n\nHe looked at Gudrun with dark, vacant eyes. She looked back at him as\nif full of gratitude. These phrases of a dying man were so complete and\nnatural, coming like echoes through his dead mouth.\n\n'And as to your earnings--you don't mind taking from me what you have\ntaken from the Education Committee, do you? I don't want you to be a\nloser.'\n\n'Oh,' said Gudrun, 'if I can have the studio and work there, I can earn\nmoney enough, really I can.'\n\n'Well,' he said, pleased to be the benefactor, 'we can see about all\nthat. You wouldn't mind spending your days here?'\n\n'If there were a studio to work in,' said Gudrun, 'I could ask for\nnothing better.'\n\n'Is that so?'\n\nHe was really very pleased. But already he was getting tired. She could\nsee the grey, awful semi-consciousness of mere pain and dissolution\ncoming over him again, the torture coming into the vacancy of his\ndarkened eyes. It was not over yet, this process of death. She rose\nsoftly saying:\n\n'Perhaps you will sleep. I must look for Winifred.'\n\nShe went out, telling the nurse that she had left him. Day by day the\ntissue of the sick man was further and further reduced, nearer and\nnearer the process came, towards the last knot which held the human\nbeing in its unity. But this knot was hard and unrelaxed, the will of\nthe dying man never gave way. He might be dead in nine-tenths, yet the\nremaining tenth remained unchanged, till it too was torn apart. With\nhis will he held the unit of himself firm, but the circle of his power\nwas ever and ever reduced, it would be reduced to a point at last, then\nswept away.\n\nTo adhere to life, he must adhere to human relationships, and he caught\nat every straw. Winifred, the butler, the nurse, Gudrun, these were the\npeople who meant all to him, in these last resources. Gerald, in his\nfather's presence, stiffened with repulsion. It was so, to a less\ndegree, with all the other children except Winifred. They could not see\nanything but the death, when they looked at their father. It was as if\nsome subterranean dislike overcame them. They could not see the\nfamiliar face, hear the familiar voice. They were overwhelmed by the\nantipathy of visible and audible death. Gerald could not breathe in his\nfather's presence. He must get out at once. And so, in the same way,\nthe father could not bear the presence of his son. It sent a final\nirritation through the soul of the dying man.\n\nThe studio was made ready, Gudrun and Winifred moved in. They enjoyed\nso much the ordering and the appointing of it. And now they need hardly\nbe in the house at all. They had their meals in the studio, they lived\nthere safely. For the house was becoming dreadful. There were two\nnurses in white, flitting silently about, like heralds of death. The\nfather was confined to his bed, there was a come and go of SOTTO-VOCE\nsisters and brothers and children.\n\nWinifred was her father's constant visitor. Every morning, after\nbreakfast, she went into his room when he was washed and propped up in\nbed, to spend half an hour with him.\n\n'Are you better, Daddie?' she asked him invariably.\n\nAnd invariably he answered:\n\n'Yes, I think I'm a little better, pet.'\n\nShe held his hand in both her own, lovingly and protectively. And this\nwas very dear to him.\n\nShe ran in again as a rule at lunch time, to tell him the course of\nevents, and every evening, when the curtains were drawn, and his room\nwas cosy, she spent a long time with him. Gudrun was gone home,\nWinifred was alone in the house: she liked best to be with her father.\nThey talked and prattled at random, he always as if he were well, just\nthe same as when he was going about. So that Winifred, with a child's\nsubtle instinct for avoiding the painful things, behaved as if nothing\nserious was the matter. Instinctively, she withheld her attention, and\nwas happy. Yet in her remoter soul, she knew as well as the adults\nknew: perhaps better.\n\nHer father was quite well in his make-belief with her. But when she\nwent away, he relapsed under the misery of his dissolution. But still\nthere were these bright moments, though as his strength waned, his\nfaculty for attention grew weaker, and the nurse had to send Winifred\naway, to save him from exhaustion.\n\nHe never admitted that he was going to die. He knew it was so, he knew\nit was the end. Yet even to himself he did not admit it. He hated the\nfact, mortally. His will was rigid. He could not bear being overcome by\ndeath. For him, there was no death. And yet, at times, he felt a great\nneed to cry out and to wail and complain. He would have liked to cry\naloud to Gerald, so that his son should be horrified out of his\ncomposure. Gerald was instinctively aware of this, and he recoiled, to\navoid any such thing. This uncleanness of death repelled him too much.\nOne should die quickly, like the Romans, one should be master of one's\nfate in dying as in living. He was convulsed in the clasp of this death\nof his father's, as in the coils of the great serpent of Laocoon. The\ngreat serpent had got the father, and the son was dragged into the\nembrace of horrifying death along with him. He resisted always. And in\nsome strange way, he was a tower of strength to his father.\n\nThe last time the dying man asked to see Gudrun he was grey with near\ndeath. Yet he must see someone, he must, in the intervals of\nconsciousness, catch into connection with the living world, lest he\nshould have to accept his own situation. Fortunately he was most of his\ntime dazed and half gone. And he spent many hours dimly thinking of the\npast, as it were, dimly re-living his old experiences. But there were\ntimes even to the end when he was capable of realising what was\nhappening to him in the present, the death that was on him. And these\nwere the times when he called in outside help, no matter whose. For to\nrealise this death that he was dying was a death beyond death, never to\nbe borne. It was an admission never to be made.\n\nGudrun was shocked by his appearance, and by the darkened, almost\ndisintegrated eyes, that still were unconquered and firm.\n\n'Well,' he said in his weakened voice, 'and how are you and Winifred\ngetting on?'\n\n'Oh, very well indeed,' replied Gudrun.\n\nThere were slight dead gaps in the conversation, as if the ideas called\nup were only elusive straws floating on the dark chaos of the sick\nman's dying.\n\n'The studio answers all right?' he said.\n\n'Splendid. It couldn't be more beautiful and perfect,' said Gudrun.\n\nShe waited for what he would say next.\n\n'And you think Winifred has the makings of a sculptor?'\n\nIt was strange how hollow the words were, meaningless.\n\n'I'm sure she has. She will do good things one day.'\n\n'Ah! Then her life won't be altogether wasted, you think?'\n\nGudrun was rather surprised.\n\n'Sure it won't!' she exclaimed softly.\n\n'That's right.'\n\nAgain Gudrun waited for what he would say.\n\n'You find life pleasant, it is good to live, isn't it?' he asked, with\na pitiful faint smile that was almost too much for Gudrun.\n\n'Yes,' she smiled--she would lie at random--'I get a pretty good time I\nbelieve.'\n\n'That's right. A happy nature is a great asset.'\n\nAgain Gudrun smiled, though her soul was dry with repulsion. Did one\nhave to die like this--having the life extracted forcibly from one,\nwhilst one smiled and made conversation to the end? Was there no other\nway? Must one go through all the horror of this victory over death, the\ntriumph of the integral will, that would not be broken till it\ndisappeared utterly? One must, it was the only way. She admired the\nself-possession and the control of the dying man exceedingly. But she\nloathed the death itself. She was glad the everyday world held good,\nand she need not recognise anything beyond.\n\n'You are quite all right here?--nothing we can do for you?--nothing you\nfind wrong in your position?'\n\n'Except that you are too good to me,' said Gudrun.\n\n'Ah, well, the fault of that lies with yourself,' he said, and he felt\na little exultation, that he had made this speech.\n\nHe was still so strong and living! But the nausea of death began to\ncreep back on him, in reaction.\n\nGudrun went away, back to Winifred. Mademoiselle had left, Gudrun\nstayed a good deal at Shortlands, and a tutor came in to carry on\nWinifred's education. But he did not live in the house, he was\nconnected with the Grammar School.\n\nOne day, Gudrun was to drive with Winifred and Gerald and Birkin to\ntown, in the car. It was a dark, showery day. Winifred and Gudrun were\nready and waiting at the door. Winifred was very quiet, but Gudrun had\nnot noticed. Suddenly the child asked, in a voice of unconcern:\n\n'Do you think my father's going to die, Miss Brangwen?'\n\nGudrun started.\n\n'I don't know,' she replied.\n\n'Don't you truly?'\n\n'Nobody knows for certain. He MAY die, of course.'\n\nThe child pondered a few moments, then she asked:\n\n'But do you THINK he will die?'\n\nIt was put almost like a question in geography or science, insistent,\nas if she would force an admission from the adult. The watchful,\nslightly triumphant child was almost diabolical.\n\n'Do I think he will die?' repeated Gudrun. 'Yes, I do.'\n\nBut Winifred's large eyes were fixed on her, and the girl did not move.\n\n'He is very ill,' said Gudrun.\n\nA small smile came over Winifred's face, subtle and sceptical.\n\n'I don't believe he will,' the child asserted, mockingly, and she moved\naway into the drive. Gudrun watched the isolated figure, and her heart\nstood still. Winifred was playing with a little rivulet of water,\nabsorbedly as if nothing had been said.\n\n'I've made a proper dam,' she said, out of the moist distance.\n\nGerald came to the door from out of the hall behind.\n\n'It is just as well she doesn't choose to believe it,' he said.\n\nGudrun looked at him. Their eyes met; and they exchanged a sardonic\nunderstanding.\n\n'Just as well,' said Gudrun.\n\nHe looked at her again, and a fire flickered up in his eyes.\n\n'Best to dance while Rome burns, since it must burn, don't you think?'\nhe said.\n\nShe was rather taken aback. But, gathering herself together, she\nreplied:\n\n'Oh--better dance than wail, certainly.'\n\n'So I think.'\n\nAnd they both felt the subterranean desire to let go, to fling away\neverything, and lapse into a sheer unrestraint, brutal and licentious.\nA strange black passion surged up pure in Gudrun. She felt strong. She\nfelt her hands so strong, as if she could tear the world asunder with\nthem. She remembered the abandonments of Roman licence, and her heart\ngrew hot. She knew she wanted this herself also--or something,\nsomething equivalent. Ah, if that which was unknown and suppressed in\nher were once let loose, what an orgiastic and satisfying event it\nwould be. And she wanted it, she trembled slightly from the proximity\nof the man, who stood just behind her, suggestive of the same black\nlicentiousness that rose in herself. She wanted it with him, this\nunacknowledged frenzy. For a moment the clear perception of this\npreoccupied her, distinct and perfect in its final reality. Then she\nshut it off completely, saying:\n\n'We might as well go down to the lodge after Winifred--we can get in\nthe care there.'\n\n'So we can,' he answered, going with her.\n\nThey found Winifred at the lodge admiring the litter of purebred white\npuppies. The girl looked up, and there was a rather ugly, unseeing cast\nin her eyes as she turned to Gerald and Gudrun. She did not want to see\nthem.\n\n'Look!' she cried. 'Three new puppies! Marshall says this one seems\nperfect. Isn't it a sweetling? But it isn't so nice as its mother.' She\nturned to caress the fine white bull-terrier bitch that stood uneasily\nnear her.\n\n'My dearest Lady Crich,' she said, 'you are beautiful as an angel on\nearth. Angel--angel--don't you think she's good enough and beautiful\nenough to go to heaven, Gudrun? They will be in heaven, won't they--and\nESPECIALLY my darling Lady Crich! Mrs Marshall, I say!'\n\n'Yes, Miss Winifred?' said the woman, appearing at the door.\n\n'Oh do call this one Lady Winifred, if she turns out perfect, will you?\nDo tell Marshall to call it Lady Winifred.'\n\n'I'll tell him--but I'm afraid that's a gentleman puppy, Miss\nWinifred.'\n\n'Oh NO!' There was the sound of a car. 'There's Rupert!' cried the\nchild, and she ran to the gate.\n\nBirkin, driving his car, pulled up outside the lodge gate.\n\n'We're ready!' cried Winifred. 'I want to sit in front with you,\nRupert. May I?'\n\n'I'm afraid you'll fidget about and fall out,' he said.\n\n'No I won't. I do want to sit in front next to you. It makes my feet so\nlovely and warm, from the engines.'\n\nBirkin helped her up, amused at sending Gerald to sit by Gudrun in the\nbody of the car.\n\n'Have you any news, Rupert?' Gerald called, as they rushed along the\nlanes.\n\n'News?' exclaimed Birkin.\n\n'Yes,' Gerald looked at Gudrun, who sat by his side, and he said, his\neyes narrowly laughing, 'I want to know whether I ought to congratulate\nhim, but I can't get anything definite out of him.'\n\nGudrun flushed deeply.\n\n'Congratulate him on what?' she asked.\n\n'There was some mention of an engagement--at least, he said something\nto me about it.'\n\nGudrun flushed darkly.\n\n'You mean with Ursula?' she said, in challenge.\n\n'Yes. That is so, isn't it?'\n\n'I don't think there's any engagement,' said Gudrun, coldly.\n\n'That so? Still no developments, Rupert?' he called.\n\n'Where? Matrimonial? No.'\n\n'How's that?' called Gudrun.\n\nBirkin glanced quickly round. There was irritation in his eyes also.\n\n'Why?' he replied. 'What do you think of it, Gudrun?'\n\n'Oh,' she cried, determined to fling her stone also into the pool,\nsince they had begun, 'I don't think she wants an engagement.\nNaturally, she's a bird that prefers the bush.' Gudrun's voice was\nclear and gong-like. It reminded Rupert of her father's, so strong and\nvibrant.\n\n'And I,' said Birkin, his face playful but yet determined, 'I want a\nbinding contract, and am not keen on love, particularly free love.'\n\nThey were both amused. WHY this public avowal? Gerald seemed suspended\na moment, in amusement.\n\n'Love isn't good enough for you?' he called.\n\n'No!' shouted Birkin.\n\n'Ha, well that's being over-refined,' said Gerald, and the car ran\nthrough the mud.\n\n'What's the matter, really?' said Gerald, turning to Gudrun.\n\nThis was an assumption of a sort of intimacy that irritated Gudrun\nalmost like an affront. It seemed to her that Gerald was deliberately\ninsulting her, and infringing on the decent privacy of them all.\n\n'What is it?' she said, in her high, repellent voice. 'Don't ask me!--I\nknow nothing about ULTIMATE marriage, I assure you: or even\npenultimate.'\n\n'Only the ordinary unwarrantable brand!' replied Gerald. 'Just so--same\nhere. I am no expert on marriage, and degrees of ultimateness. It seems\nto be a bee that buzzes loudly in Rupert's bonnet.'\n\n'Exactly! But that is his trouble, exactly! Instead of wanting a woman\nfor herself, he wants his IDEAS fulfilled. Which, when it comes to\nactual practice, is not good enough.'\n\n'Oh no. Best go slap for what's womanly in woman, like a bull at a\ngate.' Then he seemed to glimmer in himself. 'You think love is the\nticket, do you?' he asked.\n\n'Certainly, while it lasts--you only can't insist on permanency,' came\nGudrun's voice, strident above the noise.\n\n'Marriage or no marriage, ultimate or penultimate or just so-so?--take\nthe love as you find it.'\n\n'As you please, or as you don't please,' she echoed. 'Marriage is a\nsocial arrangement, I take it, and has nothing to do with the question\nof love.'\n\nHis eyes were flickering on her all the time. She felt as is he were\nkissing her freely and malevolently. It made the colour burn in her\ncheeks, but her heart was quite firm and unfailing.\n\n'You think Rupert is off his head a bit?' Gerald asked.\n\nHer eyes flashed with acknowledgment.\n\n'As regards a woman, yes,' she said, 'I do. There IS such a thing as\ntwo people being in love for the whole of their lives--perhaps. But\nmarriage is neither here nor there, even then. If they are in love,\nwell and good. If not--why break eggs about it!'\n\n'Yes,' said Gerald. 'That's how it strikes me. But what about Rupert?'\n\n'I can't make out--neither can he nor anybody. He seems to think that\nif you marry you can get through marriage into a third heaven, or\nsomething--all very vague.'\n\n'Very! And who wants a third heaven? As a matter of fact, Rupert has a\ngreat yearning to be SAFE--to tie himself to the mast.'\n\n'Yes. It seems to me he's mistaken there too,' said Gudrun. 'I'm sure a\nmistress is more likely to be faithful than a wife--just because she is\nher OWN mistress. No--he says he believes that a man and wife can go\nfurther than any other two beings--but WHERE, is not explained. They\ncan know each other, heavenly and hellish, but particularly hellish, so\nperfectly that they go beyond heaven and hell--into--there it all\nbreaks down--into nowhere.'\n\n'Into Paradise, he says,' laughed Gerald.\n\nGudrun shrugged her shoulders. 'FE M'EN FICHE of your Paradise!' she\nsaid.\n\n'Not being a Mohammedan,' said Gerald. Birkin sat motionless, driving\nthe car, quite unconscious of what they said. And Gudrun, sitting\nimmediately behind him, felt a sort of ironic pleasure in thus exposing\nhim.\n\n'He says,' she added, with a grimace of irony, 'that you can find an\neternal equilibrium in marriage, if you accept the unison, and still\nleave yourself separate, don't try to fuse.'\n\n'Doesn't inspire me,' said Gerald.\n\n'That's just it,' said Gudrun.\n\n'I believe in love, in a real ABANDON, if you're capable of it,' said\nGerald.\n\n'So do I,' said she.\n\n'And so does Rupert, too--though he is always shouting.'\n\n'No,' said Gudrun. 'He won't abandon himself to the other person. You\ncan't be sure of him. That's the trouble I think.'\n\n'Yet he wants marriage! Marriage--ET PUIS?'\n\n'Le paradis!' mocked Gudrun.\n\nBirkin, as he drove, felt a creeping of the spine, as if somebody was\nthreatening his neck. But he shrugged with indifference. It began to\nrain. Here was a change. He stopped the car and got down to put up the\nhood.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXII.\n\nWOMAN TO WOMAN\n\n\nThey came to the town, and left Gerald at the railway station. Gudrun\nand Winifred were to come to tea with Birkin, who expected Ursula also.\nIn the afternoon, however, the first person to turn up was Hermione.\nBirkin was out, so she went in the drawing-room, looking at his books\nand papers, and playing on the piano. Then Ursula arrived. She was\nsurprised, unpleasantly so, to see Hermione, of whom she had heard\nnothing for some time.\n\n'It is a surprise to see you,' she said.\n\n'Yes,' said Hermione--'I've been away at Aix--'\n\n'Oh, for your health?'\n\n'Yes.'\n\nThe two women looked at each other. Ursula resented Hermione's long,\ngrave, downward-looking face. There was something of the stupidity and\nthe unenlightened self-esteem of a horse in it. 'She's got a\nhorse-face,' Ursula said to herself, 'she runs between blinkers.' It\ndid seem as if Hermione, like the moon, had only one side to her penny.\nThere was no obverse. She stared out all the time on the narrow, but to\nher, complete world of the extant consciousness. In the darkness, she\ndid not exist. Like the moon, one half of her was lost to life. Her\nself was all in her head, she did not know what it was spontaneously to\nrun or move, like a fish in the water, or a weasel on the grass. She\nmust always KNOW.\n\nBut Ursula only suffered from Hermione's one-sidedness. She only felt\nHermione's cool evidence, which seemed to put her down as nothing.\nHermione, who brooded and brooded till she was exhausted with the ache\nof her effort at consciousness, spent and ashen in her body, who gained\nso slowly and with such effort her final and barren conclusions of\nknowledge, was apt, in the presence of other women, whom she thought\nsimply female, to wear the conclusions of her bitter assurance like\njewels which conferred on her an unquestionable distinction,\nestablished her in a higher order of life. She was apt, mentally, to\ncondescend to women such as Ursula, whom she regarded as purely\nemotional. Poor Hermione, it was her one possession, this aching\ncertainty of hers, it was her only justification. She must be confident\nhere, for God knows, she felt rejected and deficient enough elsewhere.\nIn the life of thought, of the spirit, she was one of the elect. And\nshe wanted to be universal. But there was a devastating cynicism at the\nbottom of her. She did not believe in her own universals--they were\nsham. She did not believe in the inner life--it was a trick, not a\nreality. She did not believe in the spiritual world--it was an\naffectation. In the last resort, she believed in Mammon, the flesh, and\nthe devil--these at least were not sham. She was a priestess without\nbelief, without conviction, suckled in a creed outworn, and condemned\nto the reiteration of mysteries that were not divine to her. Yet there\nwas no escape. She was a leaf upon a dying tree. What help was there\nthen, but to fight still for the old, withered truths, to die for the\nold, outworn belief, to be a sacred and inviolate priestess of\ndesecrated mysteries? The old great truths BAD been true. And she was a\nleaf of the old great tree of knowledge that was withering now. To the\nold and last truth then she must be faithful even though cynicism and\nmockery took place at the bottom of her soul.\n\n'I am so glad to see you,' she said to Ursula, in her slow voice, that\nwas like an incantation. 'You and Rupert have become quite friends?'\n\n'Oh yes,' said Ursula. 'He is always somewhere in the background.'\n\nHermione paused before she answered. She saw perfectly well the other\nwoman's vaunt: it seemed truly vulgar.\n\n'Is he?' she said slowly, and with perfect equanimity. 'And do you\nthink you will marry?'\n\nThe question was so calm and mild, so simple and bare and dispassionate\nthat Ursula was somewhat taken aback, rather attracted. It pleased her\nalmost like a wickedness. There was some delightful naked irony in\nHermione.\n\n'Well,' replied Ursula, 'HE wants to, awfully, but I'm not so sure.'\n\nHermione watched her with slow calm eyes. She noted this new expression\nof vaunting. How she envied Ursula a certain unconscious positivity!\neven her vulgarity!\n\n'Why aren't you sure?' she asked, in her easy sing song. She was\nperfectly at her ease, perhaps even rather happy in this conversation.\n'You don't really love him?'\n\nUrsula flushed a little at the mild impertinence of this question. And\nyet she could not definitely take offence. Hermione seemed so calmly\nand sanely candid. After all, it was rather great to be able to be so\nsane.\n\n'He says it isn't love he wants,' she replied.\n\n'What is it then?' Hermione was slow and level.\n\n'He wants me really to accept him in marriage.'\n\nHermione was silent for some time, watching Ursula with slow, pensive\neyes.\n\n'Does he?' she said at length, without expression. Then, rousing, 'And\nwhat is it you don't want? You don't want marriage?'\n\n'No--I don't--not really. I don't want to give the sort of SUBMISSION\nhe insists on. He wants me to give myself up--and I simply don't feel\nthat I CAN do it.'\n\nAgain there was a long pause, before Hermione replied:\n\n'Not if you don't want to.' Then again there was silence. Hermione\nshuddered with a strange desire. Ah, if only he had asked HER to\nsubserve him, to be his slave! She shuddered with desire.\n\n'You see I can't--'\n\n'But exactly in what does--'\n\nThey had both begun at once, they both stopped. Then, Hermione,\nassuming priority of speech, resumed as if wearily:\n\n'To what does he want you to submit?'\n\n'He says he wants me to accept him non-emotionally, and finally--I\nreally don't know what he means. He says he wants the demon part of\nhimself to be mated--physically--not the human being. You see he says\none thing one day, and another the next--and he always contradicts\nhimself--'\n\n'And always thinks about himself, and his own dissatisfaction,' said\nHermione slowly.\n\n'Yes,' cried Ursula. 'As if there were no-one but himself concerned.\nThat makes it so impossible.'\n\nBut immediately she began to retract.\n\n'He insists on my accepting God knows what in HIM,' she resumed. 'He\nwants me to accept HIM as--as an absolute--But it seems to me he\ndoesn't want to GIVE anything. He doesn't want real warm intimacy--he\nwon't have it--he rejects it. He won't let me think, really, and he\nwon't let me FEEL--he hates feelings.'\n\nThere was a long pause, bitter for Hermione. Ah, if only he would have\nmade this demand of her? Her he DROVE into thought, drove inexorably\ninto knowledge--and then execrated her for it.\n\n'He wants me to sink myself,' Ursula resumed, 'not to have any being of\nmy own--'\n\n'Then why doesn't he marry an odalisk?' said Hermione in her mild\nsing-song, 'if it is that he wants.' Her long face looked sardonic and\namused.\n\n'Yes,' said Ursula vaguely. After all, the tiresome thing was, he did\nnot want an odalisk, he did not want a slave. Hermione would have been\nhis slave--there was in her a horrible desire to prostrate herself\nbefore a man--a man who worshipped her, however, and admitted her as\nthe supreme thing. He did not want an odalisk. He wanted a woman to\nTAKE something from him, to give herself up so much that she could take\nthe last realities of him, the last facts, the last physical facts,\nphysical and unbearable.\n\nAnd if she did, would he acknowledge her? Would he be able to\nacknowledge her through everything, or would he use her just as his\ninstrument, use her for his own private satisfaction, not admitting\nher? That was what the other men had done. They had wanted their own\nshow, and they would not admit her, they turned all she was into\nnothingness. Just as Hermione now betrayed herself as a woman. Hermione\nwas like a man, she believed only in men's things. She betrayed the\nwoman in herself. And Birkin, would he acknowledge, or would he deny\nher?\n\n'Yes,' said Hermione, as each woman came out of her own separate\nreverie. 'It would be a mistake--I think it would be a mistake--'\n\n'To marry him?' asked Ursula.\n\n'Yes,' said Hermione slowly--'I think you need a man--soldierly,\nstrong-willed--' Hermione held out her hand and clenched it with\nrhapsodic intensity. 'You should have a man like the old heroes--you\nneed to stand behind him as he goes into battle, you need to SEE his\nstrength, and to HEAR his shout--. You need a man physically strong,\nand virile in his will, NOT a sensitive man--.' There was a break, as\nif the pythoness had uttered the oracle, and now the woman went on, in\na rhapsody-wearied voice: 'And you see, Rupert isn't this, he isn't. He\nis frail in health and body, he needs great, great care. Then he is so\nchangeable and unsure of himself--it requires the greatest patience and\nunderstanding to help him. And I don't think you are patient. You would\nhave to be prepared to suffer--dreadfully. I can't TELL you how much\nsuffering it would take to make him happy. He lives an INTENSELY\nspiritual life, at times--too, too wonderful. And then come the\nreactions. I can't speak of what I have been through with him. We have\nbeen together so long, I really do know him, I DO know what he is. And\nI feel I must say it; I feel it would be perfectly DISASTROUS for you\nto marry him--for you even more than for him.' Hermione lapsed into\nbitter reverie. 'He is so uncertain, so unstable--he wearies, and then\nreacts. I couldn't TELL you what his re-actions are. I couldn't TELL\nyou the agony of them. That which he affirms and loves one day--a\nlittle latter he turns on it in a fury of destruction. He is never\nconstant, always this awful, dreadful reaction. Always the quick change\nfrom good to bad, bad to good. And nothing is so devastating,\nnothing--'\n\n'Yes,' said Ursula humbly, 'you must have suffered.'\n\nAn unearthly light came on Hermione's face. She clenched her hand like\none inspired.\n\n'And one must be willing to suffer--willing to suffer for him hourly,\ndaily--if you are going to help him, if he is to keep true to anything\nat all--'\n\n'And I don't WANT to suffer hourly and daily,' said Ursula. 'I don't, I\nshould be ashamed. I think it is degrading not to be happy.'\n\nHermione stopped and looked at her a long time.\n\n'Do you?' she said at last. And this utterance seemed to her a mark of\nUrsula's far distance from herself. For to Hermione suffering was the\ngreatest reality, come what might. Yet she too had a creed of\nhappiness.\n\n'Yes,' she said. 'One SHOULD be happy--' But it was a matter of will.\n\n'Yes,' said Hermione, listlessly now, 'I can only feel that it would be\ndisastrous, disastrous--at least, to marry in a hurry. Can't you be\ntogether without marriage? Can't you go away and live somewhere without\nmarriage? I do feel that marriage would be fatal, for both of you. I\nthink for you even more than for him--and I think of his health--'\n\n'Of course,' said Ursula, 'I don't care about marriage--it isn't really\nimportant to me--it's he who wants it.'\n\n'It is his idea for the moment,' said Hermione, with that weary\nfinality, and a sort of SI JEUNESSE SAVAIT infallibility.\n\nThere was a pause. Then Ursula broke into faltering challenge.\n\n'You think I'm merely a physical woman, don't you?'\n\n'No indeed,' said Hermione. 'No, indeed! But I think you are vital and\nyoung--it isn't a question of years, or even of experience--it is\nalmost a question of race. Rupert is race-old, he comes of an old\nrace--and you seem to me so young, you come of a young, inexperienced\nrace.'\n\n'Do I!' said Ursula. 'But I think he is awfully young, on one side.'\n\n'Yes, perhaps childish in many respects. Nevertheless--'\n\nThey both lapsed into silence. Ursula was filled with deep resentment\nand a touch of hopelessness. 'It isn't true,' she said to herself,\nsilently addressing her adversary. 'It isn't true. And it is YOU who\nwant a physically strong, bullying man, not I. It is you who want an\nunsensitive man, not I. You DON'T know anything about Rupert, not\nreally, in spite of the years you have had with him. You don't give him\na woman's love, you give him an ideal love, and that is why he reacts\naway from you. You don't know. You only know the dead things. Any\nkitchen maid would know something about him, you don't know. What do\nyou think your knowledge is but dead understanding, that doesn't mean a\nthing. You are so false, and untrue, how could you know anything? What\nis the good of your talking about love--you untrue spectre of a woman!\nHow can you know anything, when you don't believe? You don't believe in\nyourself and your own womanhood, so what good is your conceited,\nshallow cleverness--!'\n\nThe two women sat on in antagonistic silence. Hermione felt injured,\nthat all her good intention, all her offering, only left the other\nwoman in vulgar antagonism. But then, Ursula could not understand,\nnever would understand, could never be more than the usual jealous and\nunreasonable female, with a good deal of powerful female emotion,\nfemale attraction, and a fair amount of female understanding, but no\nmind. Hermione had decided long ago that where there was no mind, it\nwas useless to appeal for reason--one had merely to ignore the\nignorant. And Rupert--he had now reacted towards the strongly female,\nhealthy, selfish woman--it was his reaction for the time being--there\nwas no helping it all. It was all a foolish backward and forward, a\nviolent oscillation that would at length be too violent for his\ncoherency, and he would smash and be dead. There was no saving him.\nThis violent and directionless reaction between animalism and spiritual\ntruth would go on in him till he tore himself in two between the\nopposite directions, and disappeared meaninglessly out of life. It was\nno good--he too was without unity, without MIND, in the ultimate stages\nof living; not quite man enough to make a destiny for a woman.\n\nThey sat on till Birkin came in and found them together. He felt at\nonce the antagonism in the atmosphere, something radical and\ninsuperable, and he bit his lip. But he affected a bluff manner.\n\n'Hello, Hermione, are you back again? How do you feel?'\n\n'Oh, better. And how are you--you don't look well--'\n\n'Oh!--I believe Gudrun and Winnie Crich are coming in to tea. At least\nthey said they were. We shall be a tea-party. What train did you come\nby, Ursula?'\n\nIt was rather annoying to see him trying to placate both women at once.\nBoth women watched him, Hermione with deep resentment and pity for him,\nUrsula very impatient. He was nervous and apparently in quite good\nspirits, chattering the conventional commonplaces. Ursula was amazed\nand indignant at the way he made small-talk; he was adept as any FAT in\nChristendom. She became quite stiff, she would not answer. It all\nseemed to her so false and so belittling. And still Gudrun did not\nappear.\n\n'I think I shall go to Florence for the winter,' said Hermione at\nlength.\n\n'Will you?' he answered. 'But it is so cold there.'\n\n'Yes, but I shall stay with Palestra. It is quite comfortable.'\n\n'What takes you to Florence?'\n\n'I don't know,' said Hermione slowly. Then she looked at him with her\nslow, heavy gaze. 'Barnes is starting his school of aesthetics, and\nOlandese is going to give a set of discourses on the Italian national\npolicy-'\n\n'Both rubbish,' he said.\n\n'No, I don't think so,' said Hermione.\n\n'Which do you admire, then?'\n\n'I admire both. Barnes is a pioneer. And then I am interested in Italy,\nin her coming to national consciousness.'\n\n'I wish she'd come to something different from national consciousness,\nthen,' said Birkin; 'especially as it only means a sort of\ncommercial-industrial consciousness. I hate Italy and her national\nrant. And I think Barnes is an amateur.'\n\nHermione was silent for some moments, in a state of hostility. But yet,\nshe had got Birkin back again into her world! How subtle her influence\nwas, she seemed to start his irritable attention into her direction\nexclusively, in one minute. He was her creature.\n\n'No,' she said, 'you are wrong.' Then a sort of tension came over her,\nshe raised her face like the pythoness inspired with oracles, and went\non, in rhapsodic manner: 'Il Sandro mi scrive che ha accolto il piu\ngrande entusiasmo, tutti i giovani, e fanciulle e ragazzi, sono\ntutti--' She went on in Italian, as if, in thinking of the Italians she\nthought in their language.\n\nHe listened with a shade of distaste to her rhapsody, then he said:\n\n'For all that, I don't like it. Their nationalism is just\nindustrialism--that and a shallow jealousy I detest so much.'\n\n'I think you are wrong--I think you are wrong--' said Hermione. 'It\nseems to me purely spontaneous and beautiful, the modern Italian's\nPASSION, for it is a passion, for Italy, L'Italia--'\n\n'Do you know Italy well?' Ursula asked of Hermione. Hermione hated to\nbe broken in upon in this manner. Yet she answered mildly:\n\n'Yes, pretty well. I spent several years of my girlhood there, with my\nmother. My mother died in Florence.'\n\n'Oh.'\n\nThere was a pause, painful to Ursula and to Birkin. Hermione however\nseemed abstracted and calm. Birkin was white, his eyes glowed as if he\nwere in a fever, he was far too over-wrought. How Ursula suffered in\nthis tense atmosphere of strained wills! Her head seemed bound round by\niron bands.\n\nBirkin rang the bell for tea. They could not wait for Gudrun any\nlonger. When the door was opened, the cat walked in.\n\n'Micio! Micio!' called Hermione, in her slow, deliberate sing-song. The\nyoung cat turned to look at her, then, with his slow and stately walk\nhe advanced to her side.\n\n'Vieni--vieni qua,' Hermione was saying, in her strange caressive,\nprotective voice, as if she were always the elder, the mother superior.\n'Vieni dire Buon' Giorno alla zia. Mi ricorde, mi ricorde bene--non he\nvero, piccolo? E vero che mi ricordi? E vero?' And slowly she rubbed\nhis head, slowly and with ironic indifference.\n\n'Does he understand Italian?' said Ursula, who knew nothing of the\nlanguage.\n\n'Yes,' said Hermione at length. 'His mother was Italian. She was born\nin my waste-paper basket in Florence, on the morning of Rupert's\nbirthday. She was his birthday present.'\n\nTea was brought in. Birkin poured out for them. It was strange how\ninviolable was the intimacy which existed between him and Hermione.\nUrsula felt that she was an outsider. The very tea-cups and the old\nsilver was a bond between Hermione and Birkin. It seemed to belong to\nan old, past world which they had inhabited together, and in which\nUrsula was a foreigner. She was almost a parvenue in their old cultured\nmilieu. Her convention was not their convention, their standards were\nnot her standards. But theirs were established, they had the sanction\nand the grace of age. He and she together, Hermione and Birkin, were\npeople of the same old tradition, the same withered deadening culture.\nAnd she, Ursula, was an intruder. So they always made her feel.\n\nHermione poured a little cream into a saucer. The simple way she\nassumed her rights in Birkin's room maddened and discouraged Ursula.\nThere was a fatality about it, as if it were bound to be. Hermione\nlifted the cat and put the cream before him. He planted his two paws on\nthe edge of the table and bent his gracious young head to drink.\n\n'Siccuro che capisce italiano,' sang Hermione, 'non l'avra dimenticato,\nla lingua della Mamma.'\n\nShe lifted the cat's head with her long, slow, white fingers, not\nletting him drink, holding him in her power. It was always the same,\nthis joy in power she manifested, peculiarly in power over any male\nbeing. He blinked forbearingly, with a male, bored expression, licking\nhis whiskers. Hermione laughed in her short, grunting fashion.\n\n'Ecco, il bravo ragazzo, come e superbo, questo!'\n\nShe made a vivid picture, so calm and strange with the cat. She had a\ntrue static impressiveness, she was a social artist in some ways.\n\nThe cat refused to look at her, indifferently avoided her fingers, and\nbegan to drink again, his nose down to the cream, perfectly balanced,\nas he lapped with his odd little click.\n\n'It's bad for him, teaching him to eat at table,' said Birkin.\n\n'Yes,' said Hermione, easily assenting.\n\nThen, looking down at the cat, she resumed her old, mocking, humorous\nsing-song.\n\n'Ti imparano fare brutte cose, brutte cose--'\n\nShe lifted the Mino's white chin on her forefinger, slowly. The young\ncat looked round with a supremely forbearing air, avoided seeing\nanything, withdrew his chin, and began to wash his face with his paw.\nHermione grunted her laughter, pleased.\n\n'Bel giovanotto--' she said.\n\nThe cat reached forward again and put his fine white paw on the edge of\nthe saucer. Hermione lifted it down with delicate slowness. This\ndeliberate, delicate carefulness of movement reminded Ursula of Gudrun.\n\n'No! Non e permesso di mettere il zampino nel tondinetto. Non piace al\nbabbo. Un signor gatto cosi selvatico--!'\n\nAnd she kept her finger on the softly planted paw of the cat, and her\nvoice had the same whimsical, humorous note of bullying.\n\nUrsula had her nose out of joint. She wanted to go away now. It all\nseemed no good. Hermione was established for ever, she herself was\nephemeral and had not yet even arrived.\n\n'I will go now,' she said suddenly.\n\nBirkin looked at her almost in fear--he so dreaded her anger. 'But\nthere is no need for such hurry,' he said.\n\n'Yes,' she answered. 'I will go.' And turning to Hermione, before there\nwas time to say any more, she held out her hand and said 'Good-bye.'\n\n'Good-bye--' sang Hermione, detaining the band. 'Must you really go\nnow?'\n\n'Yes, I think I'll go,' said Ursula, her face set, and averted from\nHermione's eyes.\n\n'You think you will--'\n\nBut Ursula had got her hand free. She turned to Birkin with a quick,\nalmost jeering: 'Good-bye,' and she was opening the door before he had\ntime to do it for her.\n\nWhen she got outside the house she ran down the road in fury and\nagitation. It was strange, the unreasoning rage and violence Hermione\nroused in her, by her very presence. Ursula knew she gave herself away\nto the other woman, she knew she looked ill-bred, uncouth, exaggerated.\nBut she did not care. She only ran up the road, lest she should go back\nand jeer in the faces of the two she had left behind. For they outraged\nher.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIII.\n\nEXCURSE\n\n\nNext day Birkin sought Ursula out. It happened to be the half-day at\nthe Grammar School. He appeared towards the end of the morning, and\nasked her, would she drive with him in the afternoon. She consented.\nBut her face was closed and unresponding, and his heart sank.\n\nThe afternoon was fine and dim. He was driving the motor-car, and she\nsat beside him. But still her face was closed against him,\nunresponding. When she became like this, like a wall against him, his\nheart contracted.\n\nHis life now seemed so reduced, that he hardly cared any more. At\nmoments it seemed to him he did not care a straw whether Ursula or\nHermione or anybody else existed or did not exist. Why bother! Why\nstrive for a coherent, satisfied life? Why not drift on in a series of\naccidents-like a picaresque novel? Why not? Why bother about human\nrelationships? Why take them seriously-male or female? Why form any\nserious connections at all? Why not be casual, drifting along, taking\nall for what it was worth?\n\nAnd yet, still, he was damned and doomed to the old effort at serious\nliving.\n\n'Look,' he said, 'what I bought.' The car was running along a broad\nwhite road, between autumn trees.\n\nHe gave her a little bit of screwed-up paper. She took it and opened\nit.\n\n'How lovely,' she cried.\n\nShe examined the gift.\n\n'How perfectly lovely!' she cried again. 'But why do you give them me?'\nShe put the question offensively.\n\nHis face flickered with bored irritation. He shrugged his shoulders\nslightly.\n\n'I wanted to,' he said, coolly.\n\n'But why? Why should you?'\n\n'Am I called on to find reasons?' he asked.\n\nThere was a silence, whilst she examined the rings that had been\nscrewed up in the paper.\n\n'I think they are BEAUTIFUL,' she said, 'especially this. This is\nwonderful-'\n\nIt was a round opal, red and fiery, set in a circle of tiny rubies.\n\n'You like that best?' he said.\n\n'I think I do.'\n\n'I like the sapphire,' he said.\n\n'This?'\n\nIt was a rose-shaped, beautiful sapphire, with small brilliants.\n\n'Yes,' she said, 'it is lovely.' She held it in the light. 'Yes,\nperhaps it IS the best-'\n\n'The blue-' he said.\n\n'Yes, wonderful-'\n\nHe suddenly swung the car out of the way of a farm-cart. It tilted on\nthe bank. He was a careless driver, yet very quick. But Ursula was\nfrightened. There was always that something regardless in him which\nterrified her. She suddenly felt he might kill her, by making some\ndreadful accident with the motor-car. For a moment she was stony with\nfear.\n\n'Isn't it rather dangerous, the way you drive?' she asked him.\n\n'No, it isn't dangerous,' he said. And then, after a pause: 'Don't you\nlike the yellow ring at all?'\n\nIt was a squarish topaz set in a frame of steel, or some other similar\nmineral, finely wrought.\n\n'Yes,' she said, 'I do like it. But why did you buy these rings?'\n\n'I wanted them. They are second-hand.'\n\n'You bought them for yourself?'\n\n'No. Rings look wrong on my hands.'\n\n'Why did you buy them then?'\n\n'I bought them to give to you.'\n\n'But why? Surely you ought to give them to Hermione! You belong to\nher.'\n\nHe did not answer. She remained with the jewels shut in her hand. She\nwanted to try them on her fingers, but something in her would not let\nher. And moreover, she was afraid her hands were too large, she shrank\nfrom the mortification of a failure to put them on any but her little\nfinger. They travelled in silence through the empty lanes.\n\nDriving in a motor-car excited her, she forgot his presence even.\n\n'Where are we?' she asked suddenly.\n\n'Not far from Worksop.'\n\n'And where are we going?'\n\n'Anywhere.'\n\nIt was the answer she liked.\n\nShe opened her hand to look at the rings. They gave her SUCH pleasure,\nas they lay, the three circles, with their knotted jewels, entangled in\nher palm. She would have to try them on. She did so secretly, unwilling\nto let him see, so that he should not know her finger was too large for\nthem. But he saw nevertheless. He always saw, if she wanted him not to.\nIt was another of his hateful, watchful characteristics.\n\nOnly the opal, with its thin wire loop, would go on her ring finger.\nAnd she was superstitious. No, there was ill-portent enough, she would\nnot accept this ring from him in pledge.\n\n'Look,' she said, putting forward her hand, that was half-closed and\nshrinking. 'The others don't fit me.'\n\nHe looked at the red-glinting, soft stone, on her over-sensitive skin.\n\n'Yes,' he said.\n\n'But opals are unlucky, aren't they?' she said wistfully.\n\n'No. I prefer unlucky things. Luck is vulgar. Who wants what LUCK would\nbring? I don't.'\n\n'But why?' she laughed.\n\nAnd, consumed with a desire to see how the other rings would look on\nher hand, she put them on her little finger.\n\n'They can be made a little bigger,' he said.\n\n'Yes,' she replied, doubtfully. And she sighed. She knew that, in\naccepting the rings, she was accepting a pledge. Yet fate seemed more\nthan herself. She looked again at the jewels. They were very beautiful\nto her eyes-not as ornament, or wealth, but as tiny fragments of\nloveliness.\n\n'I'm glad you bought them,' she said, putting her hand, half\nunwillingly, gently on his arm.\n\nHe smiled, slightly. He wanted her to come to him. But he was angry at\nthe bottom of his soul, and indifferent. He knew she had a passion for\nhim, really. But it was not finally interesting. There were depths of\npassion when one became impersonal and indifferent, unemotional.\nWhereas Ursula was still at the emotional personal level-always so\nabominably personal. He had taken her as he had never been taken\nhimself. He had taken her at the roots of her darkness and shame-like a\ndemon, laughing over the fountain of mystic corruption which was one of\nthe sources of her being, laughing, shrugging, accepting, accepting\nfinally. As for her, when would she so much go beyond herself as to\naccept him at the quick of death?\n\nShe now became quite happy. The motor-car ran on, the afternoon was\nsoft and dim. She talked with lively interest, analysing people and\ntheir motives-Gudrun, Gerald. He answered vaguely. He was not very much\ninterested any more in personalities and in people-people were all\ndifferent, but they were all enclosed nowadays in a definite\nlimitation, he said; there were only about two great ideas, two great\nstreams of activity remaining, with various forms of reaction\ntherefrom. The reactions were all varied in various people, but they\nfollowed a few great laws, and intrinsically there was no difference.\nThey acted and reacted involuntarily according to a few great laws, and\nonce the laws, the great principles, were known, people were no longer\nmystically interesting. They were all essentially alike, the\ndifferences were only variations on a theme. None of them transcended\nthe given terms.\n\nUrsula did not agree-people were still an adventure to her-but-perhaps\nnot as much as she tried to persuade herself. Perhaps there was\nsomething mechanical, now, in her interest. Perhaps also her interest\nwas destructive, her analysing was a real tearing to pieces. There was\nan under-space in her where she did not care for people and their\nidiosyncracies, even to destroy them. She seemed to touch for a moment\nthis undersilence in herself, she became still, and she turned for a\nmoment purely to Birkin.\n\n'Won't it be lovely to go home in the dark?' she said. 'We might have\ntea rather late-shall we?-and have high tea? Wouldn't that be rather\nnice?'\n\n'I promised to be at Shortlands for dinner,' he said.\n\n'But-it doesn't matter-you can go tomorrow-'\n\n'Hermione is there,' he said, in rather an uneasy voice. 'She is going\naway in two days. I suppose I ought to say good-bye to her. I shall\nnever see her again.'\n\nUrsula drew away, closed in a violent silence. He knitted his brows,\nand his eyes began to sparkle again in anger.\n\n'You don't mind, do you?' he asked irritably.\n\n'No, I don't care. Why should I? Why should I mind?' Her tone was\njeering and offensive.\n\n'That's what I ask myself,' he said; 'why SHOULD you mind! But you seem\nto.' His brows were tense with violent irritation.\n\n'I ASSURE you I don't, I don't mind in the least. Go where you\nbelong-it's what I want you to do.'\n\n'Ah you fool!' he cried, 'with your \"go where you belong.\" It's\nfinished between Hermione and me. She means much more to YOU, if it\ncomes to that, than she does to me. For you can only revolt in pure\nreaction from her-and to be her opposite is to be her counterpart.'\n\n'Ah, opposite!' cried Ursula. 'I know your dodges. I am not taken in by\nyour word-twisting. You belong to Hermione and her dead show. Well, if\nyou do, you do. I don't blame you. But then you've nothing to do with\nme.\n\nIn his inflamed, overwrought exasperation, he stopped the car, and they\nsat there, in the middle of the country lane, to have it out. It was a\ncrisis of war between them, so they did not see the ridiculousness of\ntheir situation.\n\n'If you weren't a fool, if only you weren't a fool,' he cried in bitter\ndespair, 'you'd see that one could be decent, even when one has been\nwrong. I WAS wrong to go on all those years with Hermione--it was a\ndeathly process. But after all, one can have a little human decency.\nBut no, you would tear my soul out with your jealousy at the very\nmention of Hermione's name.'\n\n'I jealous! I--jealous! You ARE mistaken if you think that. I'm not\njealous in the least of Hermione, she is nothing to me, not THAT!' And\nUrsula snapped her fingers. 'No, it's you who are a liar. It's you who\nmust return, like a dog to his vomit. It is what Hermione STANDS FOR\nthat I HATE. I HATE it. It is lies, it is false, it is death. But you\nwant it, you can't help it, you can't help yourself. You belong to that\nold, deathly way of living--then go back to it. But don't come to me,\nfor I've nothing to do with it.'\n\nAnd in the stress of her violent emotion, she got down from the car and\nwent to the hedgerow, picking unconsciously some flesh-pink\nspindleberries, some of which were burst, showing their orange seeds.\n\n'Ah, you are a fool,' he cried, bitterly, with some contempt.\n\n'Yes, I am. I AM a fool. And thank God for it. I'm too big a fool to\nswallow your cleverness. God be praised. You go to your women--go to\nthem--they are your sort--you've always had a string of them trailing\nafter you--and you always will. Go to your spiritual brides--but don't\ncome to me as well, because I'm not having any, thank you. You're not\nsatisfied, are you? Your spiritual brides can't give you what you want,\nthey aren't common and fleshy enough for you, aren't they? So you come\nto me, and keep them in the background! You will marry me for daily\nuse. But you'll keep yourself well provided with spiritual brides in\nthe background. I know your dirty little game.' Suddenly a flame ran\nover her, and she stamped her foot madly on the road, and he winced,\nafraid that she would strike him. 'And I, I'M not spiritual enough, I'M\nnot as spiritual as that Hermione--!' Her brows knitted, her eyes\nblazed like a tiger's. 'Then go to her, that's all I say, GO to her, GO.\nHa, she spiritual--SPIRITUAL, she! A dirty materialist as she is. SHE\nspiritual? What does she care for, what is her spirituality? What IS\nit?' Her fury seemed to blaze out and burn his face. He shrank a\nlittle. 'I tell you it's DIRT, DIRT, and nothing BUT dirt. And it's\ndirt you want, you crave for it. Spiritual! Is THAT spiritual, her\nbullying, her conceit, her sordid materialism? She's a fishwife, a\nfishwife, she is such a materialist. And all so sordid. What does she\nwork out to, in the end, with all her social passion, as you call it.\nSocial passion--what social passion has she?--show it me!--where is it?\nShe wants petty, immediate POWER, she wants the illusion that she is a\ngreat woman, that is all. In her soul she's a devilish unbeliever,\ncommon as dirt. That's what she is at the bottom. And all the rest is\npretence--but you love it. You love the sham spirituality, it's your\nfood. And why? Because of the dirt underneath. Do you think I don't\nknow the foulness of your sex life--and her's?--I do. And it's that\nfoulness you want, you liar. Then have it, have it. You're such a\nliar.'\n\nShe turned away, spasmodically tearing the twigs of spindleberry from\nthe hedge, and fastening them, with vibrating fingers, in the bosom of\nher coat.\n\nHe stood watching in silence. A wonderful tenderness burned in him, at\nthe sight of her quivering, so sensitive fingers: and at the same time\nhe was full of rage and callousness.\n\n'This is a degrading exhibition,' he said coolly.\n\n'Yes, degrading indeed,' she said. 'But more to me than to you.'\n\n'Since you choose to degrade yourself,' he said. Again the flash came\nover her face, the yellow lights concentrated in her eyes.\n\n'YOU!' she cried. 'You! You truth-lover! You purity-monger! It STINKS,\nyour truth and your purity. It stinks of the offal you feed on, you\nscavenger dog, you eater of corpses. You are foul, FOUL and you must\nknow it. Your purity, your candour, your goodness--yes, thank you,\nwe've had some. What you are is a foul, deathly thing, obscene, that's\nwhat you are, obscene and perverse. You, and love! You may well say,\nyou don't want love. No, you want YOURSELF, and dirt, and death--that's\nwhat you want. You are so PERVERSE, so death-eating. And then--'\n\n'There's a bicycle coming,' he said, writhing under her loud\ndenunciation.\n\nShe glanced down the road.\n\n'I don't care,' she cried.\n\nNevertheless she was silent. The cyclist, having heard the voices\nraised in altercation, glanced curiously at the man, and the woman, and\nat the standing motor-car as he passed.\n\n'--Afternoon,' he said, cheerfully.\n\n'Good-afternoon,' replied Birkin coldly.\n\nThey were silent as the man passed into the distance.\n\nA clearer look had come over Birkin's face. He knew she was in the main\nright. He knew he was perverse, so spiritual on the one hand, and in\nsome strange way, degraded, on the other. But was she herself any\nbetter? Was anybody any better?\n\n'It may all be true, lies and stink and all,' he said. 'But Hermione's\nspiritual intimacy is no rottener than your emotional-jealous intimacy.\nOne can preserve the decencies, even to one's enemies: for one's own\nsake. Hermione is my enemy--to her last breath! That's why I must bow\nher off the field.'\n\n'You! You and your enemies and your bows! A pretty picture you make of\nyourself. But it takes nobody in but yourself. I JEALOUS! I! What I\nsay,' her voice sprang into flame, 'I say because it is TRUE, do you\nsee, because you are YOU, a foul and false liar, a whited sepulchre.\nThat's why I say it. And YOU hear it.'\n\n'And be grateful,' he added, with a satirical grimace.\n\n'Yes,' she cried, 'and if you have a spark of decency in you, be\ngrateful.'\n\n'Not having a spark of decency, however--' he retorted.\n\n'No,' she cried, 'you haven't a SPARK. And so you can go your way, and\nI'll go mine. It's no good, not the slightest. So you can leave me now,\nI don't want to go any further with you--leave me--'\n\n'You don't even know where you are,' he said.\n\n'Oh, don't bother, I assure you I shall be all right. I've got ten\nshillings in my purse, and that will take me back from anywhere YOU\nhave brought me to.' She hesitated. The rings were still on her\nfingers, two on her little finger, one on her ring finger. Still she\nhesitated.\n\n'Very good,' he said. 'The only hopeless thing is a fool.'\n\n'You are quite right,' she said.\n\nStill she hesitated. Then an ugly, malevolent look came over her face,\nshe pulled the rings from her fingers, and tossed them at him. One\ntouched his face, the others hit his coat, and they scattered into the\nmud.\n\n'And take your rings,' she said, 'and go and buy yourself a female\nelsewhere--there are plenty to be had, who will be quite glad to share\nyour spiritual mess,--or to have your physical mess, and leave your\nspiritual mess to Hermione.'\n\nWith which she walked away, desultorily, up the road. He stood\nmotionless, watching her sullen, rather ugly walk. She was sullenly\npicking and pulling at the twigs of the hedge as she passed. She grew\nsmaller, she seemed to pass out of his sight. A darkness came over his\nmind. Only a small, mechanical speck of consciousness hovered near him.\n\nHe felt tired and weak. Yet also he was relieved. He gave up his old\nposition. He went and sat on the bank. No doubt Ursula was right. It\nwas true, really, what she said. He knew that his spirituality was\nconcomitant of a process of depravity, a sort of pleasure in\nself-destruction. There really WAS a certain stimulant in\nself-destruction, for him--especially when it was translated\nspiritually. But then he knew it--he knew it, and had done. And was not\nUrsula's way of emotional intimacy, emotional and physical, was it not\njust as dangerous as Hermione's abstract spiritual intimacy? Fusion,\nfusion, this horrible fusion of two beings, which every woman and most\nmen insisted on, was it not nauseous and horrible anyhow, whether it\nwas a fusion of the spirit or of the emotional body? Hermione saw\nherself as the perfect Idea, to which all men must come: And Ursula was\nthe perfect Womb, the bath of birth, to which all men must come! And\nboth were horrible. Why could they not remain individuals, limited by\ntheir own limits? Why this dreadful all-comprehensiveness, this hateful\ntyranny? Why not leave the other being, free, why try to absorb, or\nmelt, or merge? One might abandon oneself utterly to the MOMENTS, but\nnot to any other being.\n\nHe could not bear to see the rings lying in the pale mud of the road.\nHe picked them up, and wiped them unconsciously on his hands. They were\nthe little tokens of the reality of beauty, the reality of happiness in\nwarm creation. But he had made his hands all dirty and gritty.\n\nThere was a darkness over his mind. The terrible knot of consciousness\nthat had persisted there like an obsession was broken, gone, his life\nwas dissolved in darkness over his limbs and his body. But there was a\npoint of anxiety in his heart now. He wanted her to come back. He\nbreathed lightly and regularly like an infant, that breathes\ninnocently, beyond the touch of responsibility.\n\nShe was coming back. He saw her drifting desultorily under the high\nhedge, advancing towards him slowly. He did not move, he did not look\nagain. He was as if asleep, at peace, slumbering and utterly relaxed.\n\nShe came up and stood before him, hanging her head.\n\n'See what a flower I found you,' she said, wistfully holding a piece of\npurple-red bell-heather under his face. He saw the clump of coloured\nbells, and the tree-like, tiny branch: also her hands, with their\nover-fine, over-sensitive skin.\n\n'Pretty!' he said, looking up at her with a smile, taking the flower.\nEverything had become simple again, quite simple, the complexity gone\ninto nowhere. But he badly wanted to cry: except that he was weary and\nbored by emotion.\n\nThen a hot passion of tenderness for her filled his heart. He stood up\nand looked into her face. It was new and oh, so delicate in its\nluminous wonder and fear. He put his arms round her, and she hid her\nface on his shoulder.\n\nIt was peace, just simple peace, as he stood folding her quietly there\non the open lane. It was peace at last. The old, detestable world of\ntension had passed away at last, his soul was strong and at ease.\n\nShe looked up at him. The wonderful yellow light in her eyes now was\nsoft and yielded, they were at peace with each other. He kissed her,\nsoftly, many, many times. A laugh came into her eyes.\n\n'Did I abuse you?' she asked.\n\nHe smiled too, and took her hand, that was so soft and given.\n\n'Never mind,' she said, 'it is all for the good.' He kissed her again,\nsoftly, many times.\n\n'Isn't it?' she said.\n\n'Certainly,' he replied. 'Wait! I shall have my own back.'\n\nShe laughed suddenly, with a wild catch in her voice, and flung her\narms around him.\n\n'You are mine, my love, aren't you?' she cried straining him close.\n\n'Yes,' he said, softly.\n\nHis voice was so soft and final, she went very still, as if under a\nfate which had taken her. Yes, she acquiesced--but it was accomplished\nwithout her acquiescence. He was kissing her quietly, repeatedly, with\na soft, still happiness that almost made her heart stop beating.\n\n'My love!' she cried, lifting her face and looking with frightened,\ngentle wonder of bliss. Was it all real? But his eyes were beautiful\nand soft and immune from stress or excitement, beautiful and smiling\nlightly to her, smiling with her. She hid her face on his shoulder,\nhiding before him, because he could see her so completely. She knew he\nloved her, and she was afraid, she was in a strange element, a new\nheaven round about her. She wished he were passionate, because in\npassion she was at home. But this was so still and frail, as space is\nmore frightening than force.\n\nAgain, quickly, she lifted her head.\n\n'Do you love me?' she said, quickly, impulsively.\n\n'Yes,' he replied, not heeding her motion, only her stillness.\n\nShe knew it was true. She broke away.\n\n'So you ought,' she said, turning round to look at the road. 'Did you\nfind the rings?'\n\n'Yes.'\n\n'Where are they?'\n\n'In my pocket.'\n\nShe put her hand into his pocket and took them out.\n\nShe was restless.\n\n'Shall we go?' she said.\n\n'Yes,' he answered. And they mounted to the car once more, and left\nbehind them this memorable battle-field.\n\nThey drifted through the wild, late afternoon, in a beautiful motion\nthat was smiling and transcendent. His mind was sweetly at ease, the\nlife flowed through him as from some new fountain, he was as if born\nout of the cramp of a womb.\n\n'Are you happy?' she asked him, in her strange, delighted way.\n\n'Yes,' he said.\n\n'So am I,' she cried in sudden ecstacy, putting her arm round him and\nclutching him violently against her, as he steered the motor-car.\n\n'Don't drive much more,' she said. 'I don't want you to be always doing\nsomething.'\n\n'No,' he said. 'We'll finish this little trip, and then we'll be free.'\n\n'We will, my love, we will,' she cried in delight, kissing him as he\nturned to her.\n\nHe drove on in a strange new wakefulness, the tension of his\nconsciousness broken. He seemed to be conscious all over, all his body\nawake with a simple, glimmering awareness, as if he had just come\nawake, like a thing that is born, like a bird when it comes out of an\negg, into a new universe.\n\nThey dropped down a long hill in the dusk, and suddenly Ursula\nrecognised on her right hand, below in the hollow, the form of\nSouthwell Minster.\n\n'Are we here!' she cried with pleasure.\n\nThe rigid, sombre, ugly cathedral was settling under the gloom of the\ncoming night, as they entered the narrow town, the golden lights showed\nlike slabs of revelation, in the shop-windows.\n\n'Father came here with mother,' she said, 'when they first knew each\nother. He loves it--he loves the Minster. Do you?'\n\n'Yes. It looks like quartz crystals sticking up out of the dark hollow.\nWe'll have our high tea at the Saracen's Head.'\n\nAs they descended, they heard the Minster bells playing a hymn, when\nthe hour had struck six.\n\n  Glory to thee my God this night\n  For all the blessings of the light--\n\nSo, to Ursula's ear, the tune fell out, drop by drop, from the unseen\nsky on to the dusky town. It was like dim, bygone centuries sounding.\nIt was all so far off. She stood in the old yard of the inn, smelling\nof straw and stables and petrol. Above, she could see the first stars.\nWhat was it all? This was no actual world, it was the dream-world of\none's childhood--a great circumscribed reminiscence. The world had\nbecome unreal. She herself was a strange, transcendent reality.\n\nThey sat together in a little parlour by the fire.\n\n'Is it true?' she said, wondering.\n\n'What?'\n\n'Everything--is everything true?'\n\n'The best is true,' he said, grimacing at her.\n\n'Is it?' she replied, laughing, but unassured.\n\nShe looked at him. He seemed still so separate. New eyes were opened in\nher soul. She saw a strange creature from another world, in him. It was\nas if she were enchanted, and everything were metamorphosed. She\nrecalled again the old magic of the Book of Genesis, where the sons of\nGod saw the daughters of men, that they were fair. And he was one of\nthese, one of these strange creatures from the beyond, looking down at\nher, and seeing she was fair.\n\nHe stood on the hearth-rug looking at her, at her face that was\nupturned exactly like a flower, a fresh, luminous flower, glinting\nfaintly golden with the dew of the first light. And he was smiling\nfaintly as if there were no speech in the world, save the silent\ndelight of flowers in each other. Smilingly they delighted in each\nother's presence, pure presence, not to be thought of, even known. But\nhis eyes had a faintly ironical contraction.\n\nAnd she was drawn to him strangely, as in a spell. Kneeling on the\nhearth-rug before him, she put her arms round his loins, and put her\nface against his thigh. Riches! Riches! She was overwhelmed with a\nsense of a heavenful of riches.\n\n'We love each other,' she said in delight.\n\n'More than that,' he answered, looking down at her with his glimmering,\neasy face.\n\nUnconsciously, with her sensitive fingertips, she was tracing the back\nof his thighs, following some mysterious life-flow there. She had\ndiscovered something, something more than wonderful, more wonderful\nthan life itself. It was the strange mystery of his life-motion, there,\nat the back of the thighs, down the flanks. It was a strange reality of\nhis being, the very stuff of being, there in the straight downflow of\nthe thighs. It was here she discovered him one of the sons of God such\nas were in the beginning of the world, not a man, something other,\nsomething more.\n\nThis was release at last. She had had lovers, she had known passion.\nBut this was neither love nor passion. It was the daughters of men\ncoming back to the sons of God, the strange inhuman sons of God who are\nin the beginning.\n\nHer face was now one dazzle of released, golden light, as she looked up\nat him, and laid her hands full on his thighs, behind, as he stood\nbefore her. He looked down at her with a rich bright brow like a diadem\nabove his eyes. She was beautiful as a new marvellous flower opened at\nhis knees, a paradisal flower she was, beyond womanhood, such a flower\nof luminousness. Yet something was tight and unfree in him. He did not\nlike this crouching, this radiance--not altogether.\n\nIt was all achieved, for her. She had found one of the sons of God from\nthe Beginning, and he had found one of the first most luminous\ndaughters of men.\n\nShe traced with her hands the line of his loins and thighs, at the\nback, and a living fire ran through her, from him, darkly. It was a\ndark flood of electric passion she released from him, drew into\nherself. She had established a rich new circuit, a new current of\npassional electric energy, between the two of them, released from the\ndarkest poles of the body and established in perfect circuit. It was a\ndark fire of electricity that rushed from him to her, and flooded them\nboth with rich peace, satisfaction.\n\n'My love,' she cried, lifting her face to him, her eyes, her mouth open\nin transport.\n\n'My love,' he answered, bending and kissing her, always kissing her.\n\nShe closed her hands over the full, rounded body of his loins, as he\nstooped over her, she seemed to touch the quick of the mystery of\ndarkness that was bodily him. She seemed to faint beneath, and he\nseemed to faint, stooping over her. It was a perfect passing away for\nboth of them, and at the same time the most intolerable accession into\nbeing, the marvellous fullness of immediate gratification,\noverwhelming, out-flooding from the source of the deepest life-force,\nthe darkest, deepest, strangest life-source of the human body, at the\nback and base of the loins.\n\nAfter a lapse of stillness, after the rivers of strange dark fluid\nrichness had passed over her, flooding, carrying away her mind and\nflooding down her spine and down her knees, past her feet, a strange\nflood, sweeping away everything and leaving her an essential new being,\nshe was left quite free, she was free in complete ease, her complete\nself. So she rose, stilly and blithe, smiling at him. He stood before\nher, glimmering, so awfully real, that her heart almost stopped\nbeating. He stood there in his strange, whole body, that had its\nmarvellous fountains, like the bodies of the sons of God who were in\nthe beginning. There were strange fountains of his body, more\nmysterious and potent than any she had imagined or known, more\nsatisfying, ah, finally, mystically-physically satisfying. She had\nthought there was no source deeper than the phallic source. And now,\nbehold, from the smitten rock of the man's body, from the strange\nmarvellous flanks and thighs, deeper, further in mystery than the\nphallic source, came the floods of ineffable darkness and ineffable\nriches.\n\nThey were glad, and they could forget perfectly. They laughed, and went\nto the meal provided. There was a venison pasty, of all things, a large\nbroad-faced cut ham, eggs and cresses and red beet-root, and medlars\nand apple-tart, and tea.\n\n'What GOOD things!' she cried with pleasure. 'How noble it\nlooks!--shall I pour out the tea?--'\n\nShe was usually nervous and uncertain at performing these public\nduties, such as giving tea. But today she forgot, she was at her ease,\nentirely forgetting to have misgivings. The tea-pot poured beautifully\nfrom a proud slender spout. Her eyes were warm with smiles as she gave\nhim his tea. She had learned at last to be still and perfect.\n\n'Everything is ours,' she said to him.\n\n'Everything,' he answered.\n\nShe gave a queer little crowing sound of triumph.\n\n'I'm so glad!' she cried, with unspeakable relief.\n\n'So am I,' he said. 'But I'm thinking we'd better get out of our\nresponsibilities as quick as we can.'\n\n'What responsibilities?' she asked, wondering.\n\n'We must drop our jobs, like a shot.'\n\nA new understanding dawned into her face.\n\n'Of course,' she said, 'there's that.'\n\n'We must get out,' he said. 'There's nothing for it but to get out,\nquick.'\n\nShe looked at him doubtfully across the table.\n\n'But where?' she said.\n\n'I don't know,' he said. 'We'll just wander about for a bit.'\n\nAgain she looked at him quizzically.\n\n'I should be perfectly happy at the Mill,' she said.\n\n'It's very near the old thing,' he said. 'Let us wander a bit.'\n\nHis voice could be so soft and happy-go-lucky, it went through her\nveins like an exhilaration. Nevertheless she dreamed of a valley, and\nwild gardens, and peace. She had a desire too for splendour--an\naristocratic extravagant splendour. Wandering seemed to her like\nrestlessness, dissatisfaction.\n\n'Where will you wander to?' she asked.\n\n'I don't know. I feel as if I would just meet you and we'd set\noff--just towards the distance.'\n\n'But where can one go?' she asked anxiously. 'After all, there is only\nthe world, and none of it is very distant.'\n\n'Still,' he said, 'I should like to go with you--nowhere. It would be\nrather wandering just to nowhere. That's the place to get to--nowhere.\nOne wants to wander away from the world's somewheres, into our own\nnowhere.'\n\nStill she meditated.\n\n'You see, my love,' she said, 'I'm so afraid that while we are only\npeople, we've got to take the world that's given--because there isn't\nany other.'\n\n'Yes there is,' he said. 'There's somewhere where we can be\nfree--somewhere where one needn't wear much clothes--none even--where\none meets a few people who have gone through enough, and can take\nthings for granted--where you be yourself, without bothering. There is\nsomewhere--there are one or two people--'\n\n'But where--?' she sighed.\n\n'Somewhere--anywhere. Let's wander off. That's the thing to do--let's\nwander off.'\n\n'Yes--' she said, thrilled at the thought of travel. But to her it was\nonly travel.\n\n'To be free,' he said. 'To be free, in a free place, with a few other\npeople!'\n\n'Yes,' she said wistfully. Those 'few other people' depressed her.\n\n'It isn't really a locality, though,' he said. 'It's a perfected\nrelation between you and me, and others--the perfect relation--so that\nwe are free together.'\n\n'It is, my love, isn't it,' she said. 'It's you and me. It's you and\nme, isn't it?' She stretched out her arms to him. He went across and\nstooped to kiss her face. Her arms closed round him again, her hands\nspread upon his shoulders, moving slowly there, moving slowly on his\nback, down his back slowly, with a strange recurrent, rhythmic motion,\nyet moving slowly down, pressing mysteriously over his loins, over his\nflanks. The sense of the awfulness of riches that could never be\nimpaired flooded her mind like a swoon, a death in most marvellous\npossession, mystic-sure. She possessed him so utterly and intolerably,\nthat she herself lapsed out. And yet she was only sitting still in the\nchair, with her hands pressed upon him, and lost.\n\nAgain he softly kissed her.\n\n'We shall never go apart again,' he murmured quietly. And she did not\nspeak, but only pressed her hands firmer down upon the source of\ndarkness in him.\n\nThey decided, when they woke again from the pure swoon, to write their\nresignations from the world of work there and then. She wanted this.\n\nHe rang the bell, and ordered note-paper without a printed address. The\nwaiter cleared the table.\n\n'Now then,' he said, 'yours first. Put your home address, and the\ndate--then \"Director of Education, Town Hall--Sir--\" Now then!--I don't\nknow how one really stands--I suppose one could get out of it in less\nthan month--Anyhow \"Sir--I beg to resign my post as classmistress in\nthe Willey Green Grammar School. I should be very grateful if you would\nliberate me as soon as possible, without waiting for the expiration of\nthe month's notice.\" That'll do. Have you got it? Let me look. \"Ursula\nBrangwen.\" Good! Now I'll write mine. I ought to give them three\nmonths, but I can plead health. I can arrange it all right.'\n\nHe sat and wrote out his formal resignation.\n\n'Now,' he said, when the envelopes were sealed and addressed, 'shall we\npost them here, both together? I know Jackie will say, \"Here's a\ncoincidence!\" when he receives them in all their identity. Shall we let\nhim say it, or not?'\n\n'I don't care,' she said.\n\n'No--?' he said, pondering.\n\n'It doesn't matter, does it?' she said.\n\n'Yes,' he replied. 'Their imaginations shall not work on us. I'll post\nyours here, mine after. I cannot be implicated in their imaginings.'\n\nHe looked at her with his strange, non-human singleness.\n\n'Yes, you are right,' she said.\n\nShe lifted her face to him, all shining and open. It was as if he might\nenter straight into the source of her radiance. His face became a\nlittle distracted.\n\n'Shall we go?' he said.\n\n'As you like,' she replied.\n\nThey were soon out of the little town, and running through the uneven\nlanes of the country. Ursula nestled near him, into his constant\nwarmth, and watched the pale-lit revelation racing ahead, the visible\nnight. Sometimes it was a wide old road, with grass-spaces on either\nside, flying magic and elfin in the greenish illumination, sometimes it\nwas trees looming overhead, sometimes it was bramble bushes, sometimes\nthe walls of a crew-yard and the butt of a barn.\n\n'Are you going to Shortlands to dinner?' Ursula asked him suddenly. He\nstarted.\n\n'Good God!' he said. 'Shortlands! Never again. Not that. Besides we\nshould be too late.'\n\n'Where are we going then--to the Mill?'\n\n'If you like. Pity to go anywhere on this good dark night. Pity to come\nout of it, really. Pity we can't stop in the good darkness. It is\nbetter than anything ever would be--this good immediate darkness.'\n\nShe sat wondering. The car lurched and swayed. She knew there was no\nleaving him, the darkness held them both and contained them, it was not\nto be surpassed Besides she had a full mystic knowledge of his suave\nloins of darkness, dark-clad and suave, and in this knowledge there was\nsome of the inevitability and the beauty of fate, fate which one asks\nfor, which one accepts in full.\n\nHe sat still like an Egyptian Pharoah, driving the car. He felt as if\nhe were seated in immemorial potency, like the great carven statues of\nreal Egypt, as real and as fulfilled with subtle strength, as these\nare, with a vague inscrutable smile on the lips. He knew what it was to\nhave the strange and magical current of force in his back and loins,\nand down his legs, force so perfect that it stayed him immobile, and\nleft his face subtly, mindlessly smiling. He knew what it was to be\nawake and potent in that other basic mind, the deepest physical mind.\nAnd from this source he had a pure and magic control, magical,\nmystical, a force in darkness, like electricity.\n\nIt was very difficult to speak, it was so perfect to sit in this pure\nliving silence, subtle, full of unthinkable knowledge and unthinkable\nforce, upheld immemorially in timeless force, like the immobile,\nsupremely potent Egyptians, seated forever in their living, subtle\nsilence.\n\n'We need not go home,' he said. 'This car has seats that let down and\nmake a bed, and we can lift the hood.'\n\nShe was glad and frightened. She cowered near to him.\n\n'But what about them at home?' she said.\n\n'Send a telegram.'\n\nNothing more was said. They ran on in silence. But with a sort of\nsecond consciousness he steered the car towards a destination. For he\nhad the free intelligence to direct his own ends. His arms and his\nbreast and his head were rounded and living like those of the Greek, he\nhad not the unawakened straight arms of the Egyptian, nor the sealed,\nslumbering head. A lambent intelligence played secondarily above his\npure Egyptian concentration in darkness.\n\nThey came to a village that lined along the road. The car crept slowly\nalong, until he saw the post-office. Then he pulled up.\n\n'I will send a telegram to your father,' he said. 'I will merely say\n\"spending the night in town,\" shall I?'\n\n'Yes,' she answered. She did not want to be disturbed into taking\nthought.\n\nShe watched him move into the post-office. It was also a shop, she saw.\nStrange, he was. Even as he went into the lighted, public place he\nremained dark and magic, the living silence seemed the body of reality\nin him, subtle, potent, indiscoverable. There he was! In a strange\nuplift of elation she saw him, the being never to be revealed, awful in\nits potency, mystic and real. This dark, subtle reality of him, never\nto be translated, liberated her into perfection, her own perfected\nbeing. She too was dark and fulfilled in silence.\n\nHe came out, throwing some packages into the car.\n\n'There is some bread, and cheese, and raisins, and apples, and hard\nchocolate,' he said, in his voice that was as if laughing, because of\nthe unblemished stillness and force which was the reality in him. She\nwould have to touch him. To speak, to see, was nothing. It was a\ntravesty to look and to comprehend the man there. Darkness and silence\nmust fall perfectly on her, then she could know mystically, in\nunrevealed touch. She must lightly, mindlessly connect with him, have\nthe knowledge which is death of knowledge, the reality of surety in\nnot-knowing.\n\nSoon they had run on again into the darkness. She did not ask where\nthey were going, she did not care. She sat in a fullness and a pure\npotency that was like apathy, mindless and immobile. She was next to\nhim, and hung in a pure rest, as a star is hung, balanced unthinkably.\nStill there remained a dark lambency of anticipation. She would touch\nhim. With perfect fine finger-tips of reality she would touch the\nreality in him, the suave, pure, untranslatable reality of his loins of\ndarkness. To touch, mindlessly in darkness to come in pure touching\nupon the living reality of him, his suave perfect loins and thighs of\ndarkness, this was her sustaining anticipation.\n\nAnd he too waited in the magical steadfastness of suspense, for her to\ntake this knowledge of him as he had taken it of her. He knew her\ndarkly, with the fullness of dark knowledge. Now she would know him,\nand he too would be liberated. He would be night-free, like an\nEgyptian, steadfast in perfectly suspended equilibrium, pure mystic\nnodality of physical being. They would give each other this\nstar-equilibrium which alone is freedom.\n\nShe saw that they were running among trees--great old trees with dying\nbracken undergrowth. The palish, gnarled trunks showed ghostly, and\nlike old priests in the hovering distance, the fern rose magical and\nmysterious. It was a night all darkness, with low cloud. The motor-car\nadvanced slowly.\n\n'Where are we?' she whispered.\n\n'In Sherwood Forest.'\n\nIt was evident he knew the place. He drove softly, watching. Then they\ncame to a green road between the trees. They turned cautiously round,\nand were advancing between the oaks of the forest, down a green lane.\nThe green lane widened into a little circle of grass, where there was a\nsmall trickle of water at the bottom of a sloping bank. The car\nstopped.\n\n'We will stay here,' he said, 'and put out the lights.'\n\nHe extinguished the lamps at once, and it was pure night, with shadows\nof trees like realities of other, nightly being. He threw a rug on to\nthe bracken, and they sat in stillness and mindless silence. There were\nfaint sounds from the wood, but no disturbance, no possible\ndisturbance, the world was under a strange ban, a new mystery had\nsupervened. They threw off their clothes, and he gathered her to him,\nand found her, found the pure lambent reality of her forever invisible\nflesh. Quenched, inhuman, his fingers upon her unrevealed nudity were\nthe fingers of silence upon silence, the body of mysterious night upon\nthe body of mysterious night, the night masculine and feminine, never\nto be seen with the eye, or known with the mind, only known as a\npalpable revelation of living otherness.\n\nShe had her desire of him, she touched, she received the maximum of\nunspeakable communication in touch, dark, subtle, positively silent, a\nmagnificent gift and give again, a perfect acceptance and yielding, a\nmystery, the reality of that which can never be known, vital, sensual\nreality that can never be transmuted into mind content, but remains\noutside, living body of darkness and silence and subtlety, the mystic\nbody of reality. She had her desire fulfilled. He had his desire\nfulfilled. For she was to him what he was to her, the immemorial\nmagnificence of mystic, palpable, real otherness.\n\nThey slept the chilly night through under the hood of the car, a night\nof unbroken sleep. It was already high day when he awoke. They looked\nat each other and laughed, then looked away, filled with darkness and\nsecrecy. Then they kissed and remembered the magnificence of the night.\nIt was so magnificent, such an inheritance of a universe of dark\nreality, that they were afraid to seem to remember. They hid away the\nremembrance and the knowledge.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIV.\n\nDEATH AND LOVE\n\n\nThomas Crich died slowly, terribly slowly. It seemed impossible to\neverybody that the thread of life could be drawn out so thin, and yet\nnot break. The sick man lay unutterably weak and spent, kept alive by\nmorphia and by drinks, which he sipped slowly. He was only half\nconscious--a thin strand of consciousness linking the darkness of death\nwith the light of day. Yet his will was unbroken, he was integral,\ncomplete. Only he must have perfect stillness about him.\n\nAny presence but that of the nurses was a strain and an effort to him\nnow. Every morning Gerald went into the room, hoping to find his father\npassed away at last. Yet always he saw the same transparent face, the\nsame dread dark hair on the waxen forehead, and the awful, inchoate\ndark eyes, which seemed to be decomposing into formless darkness,\nhaving only a tiny grain of vision within them.\n\nAnd always, as the dark, inchoate eyes turned to him, there passed\nthrough Gerald's bowels a burning stroke of revolt, that seemed to\nresound through his whole being, threatening to break his mind with its\nclangour, and making him mad.\n\nEvery morning, the son stood there, erect and taut with life, gleaming\nin his blondness. The gleaming blondness of his strange, imminent being\nput the father into a fever of fretful irritation. He could not bear to\nmeet the uncanny, downward look of Gerald's blue eyes. But it was only\nfor a moment. Each on the brink of departure, the father and son looked\nat each other, then parted.\n\nFor a long time Gerald preserved a perfect sang froid, he remained\nquite collected. But at last, fear undermined him. He was afraid of\nsome horrible collapse in himself. He had to stay and see this thing\nthrough. Some perverse will made him watch his father drawn over the\nborders of life. And yet, now, every day, the great red-hot stroke of\nhorrified fear through the bowels of the son struck a further\ninflammation. Gerald went about all day with a tendency to cringe, as\nif there were the point of a sword of Damocles pricking the nape of his\nneck.\n\nThere was no escape--he was bound up with his father, he had to see him\nthrough. And the father's will never relaxed or yielded to death. It\nwould have to snap when death at last snapped it,--if it did not\npersist after a physical death. In the same way, the will of the son\nnever yielded. He stood firm and immune, he was outside this death and\nthis dying.\n\nIt was a trial by ordeal. Could he stand and see his father slowly\ndissolve and disappear in death, without once yielding his will,\nwithout once relenting before the omnipotence of death. Like a Red\nIndian undergoing torture, Gerald would experience the whole process of\nslow death without wincing or flinching. He even triumphed in it. He\nsomehow WANTED this death, even forced it. It was as if he himself were\ndealing the death, even when he most recoiled in horror. Still, he\nwould deal it, he would triumph through death.\n\nBut in the stress of this ordeal, Gerald too lost his hold on the\nouter, daily life. That which was much to him, came to mean nothing.\nWork, pleasure--it was all left behind. He went on more or less\nmechanically with his business, but this activity was all extraneous.\nThe real activity was this ghastly wrestling for death in his own soul.\nAnd his own will should triumph. Come what might, he would not bow down\nor submit or acknowledge a master. He had no master in death.\n\nBut as the fight went on, and all that he had been and was continued to\nbe destroyed, so that life was a hollow shell all round him, roaring\nand clattering like the sound of the sea, a noise in which he\nparticipated externally, and inside this hollow shell was all the\ndarkness and fearful space of death, he knew he would have to find\nreinforcements, otherwise he would collapse inwards upon the great dark\nvoid which circled at the centre of his soul. His will held his outer\nlife, his outer mind, his outer being unbroken and unchanged. But the\npressure was too great. He would have to find something to make good\nthe equilibrium. Something must come with him into the hollow void of\ndeath in his soul, fill it up, and so equalise the pressure within to\nthe pressure without. For day by day he felt more and more like a\nbubble filled with darkness, round which whirled the iridescence of his\nconsciousness, and upon which the pressure of the outer world, the\nouter life, roared vastly.\n\nIn this extremity his instinct led him to Gudrun. He threw away\neverything now--he only wanted the relation established with her. He\nwould follow her to the studio, to be near her, to talk to her. He\nwould stand about the room, aimlessly picking up the implements, the\nlumps of clay, the little figures she had cast--they were whimsical and\ngrotesque--looking at them without perceiving them. And she felt him\nfollowing her, dogging her heels like a doom. She held away from him,\nand yet she knew he drew always a little nearer, a little nearer.\n\n'I say,' he said to her one evening, in an odd, unthinking, uncertain\nway, 'won't you stay to dinner tonight? I wish you would.'\n\nShe started slightly. He spoke to her like a man making a request of\nanother man.\n\n'They'll be expecting me at home,' she said.\n\n'Oh, they won't mind, will they?' he said. 'I should be awfully glad if\nyou'd stay.'\n\nHer long silence gave consent at last.\n\n'I'll tell Thomas, shall I?' he said.\n\n'I must go almost immediately after dinner,' she said.\n\nIt was a dark, cold evening. There was no fire in the drawing-room,\nthey sat in the library. He was mostly silent, absent, and Winifred\ntalked little. But when Gerald did rouse himself, he smiled and was\npleasant and ordinary with her. Then there came over him again the long\nblanks, of which he was not aware.\n\nShe was very much attracted by him. He looked so preoccupied, and his\nstrange, blank silences, which she could not read, moved her and made\nher wonder over him, made her feel reverential towards him.\n\nBut he was very kind. He gave her the best things at the table, he had\na bottle of slightly sweet, delicious golden wine brought out for\ndinner, knowing she would prefer it to the burgundy. She felt herself\nesteemed, needed almost.\n\nAs they took coffee in the library, there was a soft, very soft\nknocking at the door. He started, and called 'Come in.' The timbre of\nhis voice, like something vibrating at high pitch, unnerved Gudrun. A\nnurse in white entered, half hovering in the doorway like a shadow. She\nwas very good-looking, but strangely enough, shy and self-mistrusting.\n\n'The doctor would like to speak to you, Mr Crich,' she said, in her\nlow, discreet voice.\n\n'The doctor!' he said, starting up. 'Where is he?'\n\n'He is in the dining-room.'\n\n'Tell him I'm coming.'\n\nHe drank up his coffee, and followed the nurse, who had dissolved like\na shadow.\n\n'Which nurse was that?' asked Gudrun.\n\n'Miss Inglis--I like her best,' replied Winifred.\n\nAfter a while Gerald came back, looking absorbed by his own thoughts,\nand having some of that tension and abstraction which is seen in a\nslightly drunken man. He did not say what the doctor had wanted him\nfor, but stood before the fire, with his hands behind his back, and his\nface open and as if rapt. Not that he was really thinking--he was only\narrested in pure suspense inside himself, and thoughts wafted through\nhis mind without order.\n\n'I must go now and see Mama,' said Winifred, 'and see Dadda before he\ngoes to sleep.'\n\nShe bade them both good-night.\n\nGudrun also rose to take her leave.\n\n'You needn't go yet, need you?' said Gerald, glancing quickly at the\nclock.' It is early yet. I'll walk down with you when you go. Sit down,\ndon't hurry away.'\n\nGudrun sat down, as if, absent as he was, his will had power over her.\nShe felt almost mesmerised. He was strange to her, something unknown.\nWhat was he thinking, what was he feeling, as he stood there so rapt,\nsaying nothing? He kept her--she could feel that. He would not let her\ngo. She watched him in humble submissiveness.\n\n'Had the doctor anything new to tell you?' she asked, softly, at\nlength, with that gentle, timid sympathy which touched a keen fibre in\nhis heart. He lifted his eyebrows with a negligent, indifferent\nexpression.\n\n'No--nothing new,' he replied, as if the question were quite casual,\ntrivial. 'He says the pulse is very weak indeed, very intermittent--but\nthat doesn't necessarily mean much, you know.'\n\nHe looked down at her. Her eyes were dark and soft and unfolded, with a\nstricken look that roused him.\n\n'No,' she murmured at length. 'I don't understand anything about these\nthings.'\n\n'Just as well not,' he said. 'I say, won't you have a cigarette?--do!'\nHe quickly fetched the box, and held her a light. Then he stood before\nher on the hearth again.\n\n'No,' he said, 'we've never had much illness in the house, either--not\ntill father.' He seemed to meditate a while. Then looking down at her,\nwith strangely communicative blue eyes, that filled her with dread, he\ncontinued: 'It's something you don't reckon with, you know, till it is\nthere. And then you realise that it was there all the time--it was\nalways there--you understand what I mean?--the possibility of this\nincurable illness, this slow death.'\n\nHe moved his feet uneasily on the marble hearth, and put his cigarette\nto his mouth, looking up at the ceiling.\n\n'I know,' murmured Gudrun: 'it is dreadful.'\n\nHe smoked without knowing. Then he took the cigarette from his lips,\nbared his teeth, and putting the tip of his tongue between his teeth\nspat off a grain of tobacco, turning slightly aside, like a man who is\nalone, or who is lost in thought.\n\n'I don't know what the effect actually IS, on one,' he said, and again\nhe looked down at her. Her eyes were dark and stricken with knowledge,\nlooking into his. He saw her submerged, and he turned aside his face.\n'But I absolutely am not the same. There's nothing left, if you\nunderstand what I mean. You seem to be clutching at the void--and at\nthe same time you are void yourself. And so you don't know what to DO.'\n\n'No,' she murmured. A heavy thrill ran down her nerves, heavy, almost\npleasure, almost pain. 'What can be done?' she added.\n\nHe turned, and flipped the ash from his cigarette on to the great\nmarble hearth-stones, that lay bare in the room, without fender or bar.\n\n'I don't know, I'm sure,' he replied. 'But I do think you've got to\nfind some way of resolving the situation--not because you want to, but\nbecause you've GOT to, otherwise you're done. The whole of everything,\nand yourself included, is just on the point of caving in, and you are\njust holding it up with your hands. Well, it's a situation that\nobviously can't continue. You can't stand holding the roof up with your\nhands, for ever. You know that sooner or later you'll HAVE to let go.\nDo you understand what I mean? And so something's got to be done, or\nthere's a universal collapse--as far as you yourself are concerned.'\n\nHe shifted slightly on the hearth, crunching a cinder under his heel.\nHe looked down at it. Gudrun was aware of the beautiful old marble\npanels of the fireplace, swelling softly carved, round him and above\nhim. She felt as if she were caught at last by fate, imprisoned in some\nhorrible and fatal trap.\n\n'But what CAN be done?' she murmured humbly. 'You must use me if I can\nbe of any help at all--but how can I? I don't see how I CAN help you.'\n\nHe looked down at her critically.\n\n'I don't want you to HELP,' he said, slightly irritated, 'because\nthere's nothing to be DONE. I only want sympathy, do you see: I want\nsomebody I can talk to sympathetically. That eases the strain. And\nthere IS nobody to talk to sympathetically. That's the curious thing.\nThere IS nobody. There's Rupert Birkin. But then he ISN'T sympathetic,\nhe wants to DICTATE. And that is no use whatsoever.'\n\nShe was caught in a strange snare. She looked down at her hands.\n\nThen there was the sound of the door softly opening. Gerald started. He\nwas chagrined. It was his starting that really startled Gudrun. Then he\nwent forward, with quick, graceful, intentional courtesy.\n\n'Oh, mother!' he said. 'How nice of you to come down. How are you?'\n\nThe elderly woman, loosely and bulkily wrapped in a purple gown, came\nforward silently, slightly hulked, as usual. Her son was at her side.\nHe pushed her up a chair, saying 'You know Miss Brangwen, don't you?'\n\nThe mother glanced at Gudrun indifferently.\n\n'Yes,' she said. Then she turned her wonderful, forget-me-not blue eyes\nup to her son, as she slowly sat down in the chair he had brought her.\n\n'I came to ask you about your father,' she said, in her rapid,\nscarcely-audible voice. 'I didn't know you had company.'\n\n'No? Didn't Winifred tell you? Miss Brangwen stayed to dinner, to make\nus a little more lively--'\n\nMrs Crich turned slowly round to Gudrun, and looked at her, but with\nunseeing eyes.\n\n'I'm afraid it would be no treat to her.' Then she turned again to her\nson. 'Winifred tells me the doctor had something to say about your\nfather. What is it?'\n\n'Only that the pulse is very weak--misses altogether a good many\ntimes--so that he might not last the night out,' Gerald replied.\n\nMrs Crich sat perfectly impassive, as if she had not heard. Her bulk\nseemed hunched in the chair, her fair hair hung slack over her ears.\nBut her skin was clear and fine, her hands, as she sat with them\nforgotten and folded, were quite beautiful, full of potential energy. A\ngreat mass of energy seemed decaying up in that silent, hulking form.\n\nShe looked up at her son, as he stood, keen and soldierly, near to her.\nHer eyes were most wonderfully blue, bluer than forget-me-nots. She\nseemed to have a certain confidence in Gerald, and to feel a certain\nmotherly mistrust of him.\n\n'How are YOU?' she muttered, in her strangely quiet voice, as if nobody\nshould hear but him. 'You're not getting into a state, are you?\n\nYou're not letting it make you hysterical?'\n\nThe curious challenge in the last words startled Gudrun.\n\n'I don't think so, mother,' he answered, rather coldly cheery.\n\n'Somebody's got to see it through, you know.'\n\n'Have they? Have they?' answered his mother rapidly. 'Why should YOU\ntake it on yourself? What have you got to do, seeing it through. It\nwill see itself through. You are not needed.'\n\n'No, I don't suppose I can do any good,' he answered. 'It's just how it\naffects us, you see.'\n\n'You like to be affected--don't you? It's quite nuts for you? You would\nhave to be important. You have no need to stop at home. Why don't you\ngo away!'\n\nThese sentences, evidently the ripened grain of many dark hours, took\nGerald by surprise.\n\n'I don't think it's any good going away now, mother, at the last\nminute,' he said, coldly.\n\n'You take care,' replied his mother. 'You mind YOURSELF--that's your\nbusiness. You take too much on yourself. You mind YOURSELF, or you'll\nfind yourself in Queer Street, that's what will happen to you. You're\nhysterical, always were.'\n\n'I'm all right, mother,' he said. 'There's no need to worry about ME, I\nassure you.'\n\n'Let the dead bury their dead--don't go and bury yourself along with\nthem--that's what I tell you. I know you well enough.'\n\nHe did not answer this, not knowing what to say. The mother sat bunched\nup in silence, her beautiful white hands, that had no rings whatsoever,\nclasping the pommels of her arm-chair.\n\n'You can't do it,' she said, almost bitterly. 'You haven't the nerve.\nYou're as weak as a cat, really--always were. Is this young woman\nstaying here?'\n\n'No,' said Gerald. 'She is going home tonight.'\n\n'Then she'd better have the dog-cart. Does she go far?'\n\n'Only to Beldover.'\n\n'Ah!' The elderly woman never looked at Gudrun, yet she seemed to take\nknowledge of her presence.\n\n'You are inclined to take too much on yourself, Gerald,' said the\nmother, pulling herself to her feet, with a little difficulty.\n\n'Will you go, mother?' he asked, politely.\n\n'Yes, I'll go up again,' she replied. Turning to Gudrun, she bade her\n'Good-night.' Then she went slowly to the door, as if she were\nunaccustomed to walking. At the door she lifted her face to him,\nimplicitly. He kissed her.\n\n'Don't come any further with me,' she said, in her barely audible\nvoice. 'I don't want you any further.'\n\nHe bade her good-night, watched her across to the stairs and mount\nslowly. Then he closed the door and came back to Gudrun. Gudrun rose\nalso, to go.\n\n'A queer being, my mother,' he said.\n\n'Yes,' replied Gudrun.\n\n'She has her own thoughts.'\n\n'Yes,' said Gudrun.\n\nThen they were silent.\n\n'You want to go?' he asked. 'Half a minute, I'll just have a horse put\nin--'\n\n'No,' said Gudrun. 'I want to walk.'\n\nHe had promised to walk with her down the long, lonely mile of drive,\nand she wanted this.\n\n'You might JUST as well drive,' he said.\n\n'I'd MUCH RATHER walk,' she asserted, with emphasis.\n\n'You would! Then I will come along with you. You know where your things\nare? I'll put boots on.'\n\nHe put on a cap, and an overcoat over his evening dress. They went out\ninto the night.\n\n'Let us light a cigarette,' he said, stopping in a sheltered angle of\nthe porch. 'You have one too.'\n\nSo, with the scent of tobacco on the night air, they set off down the\ndark drive that ran between close-cut hedges through sloping meadows.\n\nHe wanted to put his arm round her. If he could put his arm round her,\nand draw her against him as they walked, he would equilibriate himself.\nFor now he felt like a pair of scales, the half of which tips down and\ndown into an indefinite void. He must recover some sort of balance. And\nhere was the hope and the perfect recovery.\n\nBlind to her, thinking only of himself, he slipped his arm softly round\nher waist, and drew her to him. Her heart fainted, feeling herself\ntaken. But then, his arm was so strong, she quailed under its powerful\nclose grasp. She died a little death, and was drawn against him as they\nwalked down the stormy darkness. He seemed to balance her perfectly in\nopposition to himself, in their dual motion of walking. So, suddenly,\nhe was liberated and perfect, strong, heroic.\n\nHe put his hand to his mouth and threw his cigarette away, a gleaming\npoint, into the unseen hedge. Then he was quite free to balance her.\n\n'That's better,' he said, with exultancy.\n\nThe exultation in his voice was like a sweetish, poisonous drug to her.\nDid she then mean so much to him! She sipped the poison.\n\n'Are you happier?' she asked, wistfully.\n\n'Much better,' he said, in the same exultant voice, 'and I was rather\nfar gone.'\n\nShe nestled against him. He felt her all soft and warm, she was the\nrich, lovely substance of his being. The warmth and motion of her walk\nsuffused through him wonderfully.\n\n'I'm SO glad if I help you,' she said.\n\n'Yes,' he answered. 'There's nobody else could do it, if you wouldn't.'\n\n'That is true,' she said to herself, with a thrill of strange, fatal\nelation.\n\nAs they walked, he seemed to lift her nearer and nearer to himself,\ntill she moved upon the firm vehicle of his body.\n\nHe was so strong, so sustaining, and he could not be opposed. She\ndrifted along in a wonderful interfusion of physical motion, down the\ndark, blowy hillside. Far across shone the little yellow lights of\nBeldover, many of them, spread in a thick patch on another dark hill.\nBut he and she were walking in perfect, isolated darkness, outside the\nworld.\n\n'But how much do you care for me!' came her voice, almost querulous.\n'You see, I don't know, I don't understand!'\n\n'How much!' His voice rang with a painful elation. 'I don't know\neither--but everything.' He was startled by his own declaration. It was\ntrue. So he stripped himself of every safeguard, in making this\nadmission to her. He cared everything for her--she was everything.\n\n'But I can't believe it,' said her low voice, amazed, trembling. She\nwas trembling with doubt and exultance. This was the thing she wanted\nto hear, only this. Yet now she heard it, heard the strange clapping\nvibration of truth in his voice as he said it, she could not believe.\nShe could not believe--she did not believe. Yet she believed,\ntriumphantly, with fatal exultance.\n\n'Why not?' he said. 'Why don't you believe it? It's true. It is true,\nas we stand at this moment--' he stood still with her in the wind; 'I\ncare for nothing on earth, or in heaven, outside this spot where we\nare. And it isn't my own presence I care about, it is all yours. I'd\nsell my soul a hundred times--but I couldn't bear not to have you here.\nI couldn't bear to be alone. My brain would burst. It is true.' He drew\nher closer to him, with definite movement.\n\n'No,' she murmured, afraid. Yet this was what she wanted. Why did she\nso lose courage?\n\nThey resumed their strange walk. They were such strangers--and yet they\nwere so frightfully, unthinkably near. It was like a madness. Yet it\nwas what she wanted, it was what she wanted. They had descended the\nhill, and now they were coming to the square arch where the road passed\nunder the colliery railway. The arch, Gudrun knew, had walls of squared\nstone, mossy on one side with water that trickled down, dry on the\nother side. She had stood under it to hear the train rumble thundering\nover the logs overhead. And she knew that under this dark and lonely\nbridge the young colliers stood in the darkness with their sweethearts,\nin rainy weather. And so she wanted to stand under the bridge with HER\nsweetheart, and be kissed under the bridge in the invisible darkness.\nHer steps dragged as she drew near.\n\nSo, under the bridge, they came to a standstill, and he lifted her upon\nhis breast. His body vibrated taut and powerful as he closed upon her\nand crushed her, breathless and dazed and destroyed, crushed her upon\nhis breast. Ah, it was terrible, and perfect. Under this bridge, the\ncolliers pressed their lovers to their breast. And now, under the\nbridge, the master of them all pressed her to himself? And how much\nmore powerful and terrible was his embrace than theirs, how much more\nconcentrated and supreme his love was, than theirs in the same sort!\nShe felt she would swoon, die, under the vibrating, inhuman tension of\nhis arms and his body--she would pass away. Then the unthinkable high\nvibration slackened and became more undulating. He slackened and drew\nher with him to stand with his back to the wall.\n\nShe was almost unconscious. So the colliers' lovers would stand with\ntheir backs to the walls, holding their sweethearts and kissing them as\nshe was being kissed. Ah, but would their kisses be fine and powerful\nas the kisses of the firm-mouthed master? Even the keen, short-cut\nmoustache--the colliers would not have that.\n\nAnd the colliers' sweethearts would, like herself, hang their heads\nback limp over their shoulder, and look out from the dark archway, at\nthe close patch of yellow lights on the unseen hill in the distance, or\nat the vague form of trees, and at the buildings of the colliery\nwood-yard, in the other direction.\n\nHis arms were fast around her, he seemed to be gathering her into\nhimself, her warmth, her softness, her adorable weight, drinking in the\nsuffusion of her physical being, avidly. He lifted her, and seemed to\npour her into himself, like wine into a cup.\n\n'This is worth everything,' he said, in a strange, penetrating voice.\n\nSo she relaxed, and seemed to melt, to flow into him, as if she were\nsome infinitely warm and precious suffusion filling into his veins,\nlike an intoxicant. Her arms were round his neck, he kissed her and\nheld her perfectly suspended, she was all slack and flowing into him,\nand he was the firm, strong cup that receives the wine of her life. So\nshe lay cast upon him, stranded, lifted up against him, melting and\nmelting under his kisses, melting into his limbs and bones, as if he\nwere soft iron becoming surcharged with her electric life.\n\nTill she seemed to swoon, gradually her mind went, and she passed away,\neverything in her was melted down and fluid, and she lay still, become\ncontained by him, sleeping in him as lightning sleeps in a pure, soft\nstone. So she was passed away and gone in him, and he was perfected.\n\nWhen she opened her eyes again, and saw the patch of lights in the\ndistance, it seemed to her strange that the world still existed, that\nshe was standing under the bridge resting her head on Gerald's breast.\nGerald--who was he? He was the exquisite adventure, the desirable\nunknown to her.\n\nShe looked up, and in the darkness saw his face above her, his shapely,\nmale face. There seemed a faint, white light emitted from him, a white\naura, as if he were visitor from the unseen. She reached up, like Eve\nreaching to the apples on the tree of knowledge, and she kissed him,\nthough her passion was a transcendent fear of the thing he was,\ntouching his face with her infinitely delicate, encroaching wondering\nfingers. Her fingers went over the mould of his face, over his\nfeatures. How perfect and foreign he was--ah how dangerous! Her soul\nthrilled with complete knowledge. This was the glistening, forbidden\napple, this face of a man. She kissed him, putting her fingers over his\nface, his eyes, his nostrils, over his brows and his ears, to his neck,\nto know him, to gather him in by touch. He was so firm, and shapely,\nwith such satisfying, inconceivable shapeliness, strange, yet\nunutterably clear. He was such an unutterable enemy, yet glistening\nwith uncanny white fire. She wanted to touch him and touch him and\ntouch him, till she had him all in her hands, till she had strained him\ninto her knowledge. Ah, if she could have the precious KNOWLEDGE of\nhim, she would be filled, and nothing could deprive her of this. For he\nwas so unsure, so risky in the common world of day.\n\n'You are so BEAUTIFUL,' she murmured in her throat.\n\nHe wondered, and was suspended. But she felt him quiver, and she came\ndown involuntarily nearer upon him. He could not help himself. Her\nfingers had him under their power. The fathomless, fathomless desire\nthey could evoke in him was deeper than death, where he had no choice.\n\nBut she knew now, and it was enough. For the time, her soul was\ndestroyed with the exquisite shock of his invisible fluid lightning.\nShe knew. And this knowledge was a death from which she must recover.\nHow much more of him was there to know? Ah much, much, many days\nharvesting for her large, yet perfectly subtle and intelligent hands\nupon the field of his living, radio-active body. Ah, her hands were\neager, greedy for knowledge. But for the present it was enough, enough,\nas much as her soul could bear. Too much, and she would shatter\nherself, she would fill the fine vial of her soul too quickly, and it\nwould break. Enough now--enough for the time being. There were all the\nafter days when her hands, like birds, could feed upon the fields of\nhim mystical plastic form--till then enough.\n\nAnd even he was glad to be checked, rebuked, held back. For to desire\nis better than to possess, the finality of the end was dreaded as\ndeeply as it was desired.\n\nThey walked on towards the town, towards where the lamps threaded\nsingly, at long intervals down the dark high-road of the valley. They\ncame at length to the gate of the drive.\n\n'Don't come any further,' she said.\n\n'You'd rather I didn't?' he asked, relieved. He did not want to go up\nthe public streets with her, his soul all naked and alight as it was.\n\n'Much rather--good-night.' She held out her hand. He grasped it, then\ntouched the perilous, potent fingers with his lips.\n\n'Good-night,' he said. 'Tomorrow.'\n\nAnd they parted. He went home full of the strength and the power of\nliving desire.\n\nBut the next day, she did not come, she sent a note that she was kept\nindoors by a cold. Here was a torment! But he possessed his soul in\nsome sort of patience, writing a brief answer, telling her how sorry he\nwas not to see her.\n\nThe day after this, he stayed at home--it seemed so futile to go down\nto the office. His father could not live the week out. And he wanted to\nbe at home, suspended.\n\nGerald sat on a chair by the window in his father's room. The landscape\noutside was black and winter-sodden. His father lay grey and ashen on\nthe bed, a nurse moved silently in her white dress, neat and elegant,\neven beautiful. There was a scent of eau-de-cologne in the room. The\nnurse went out of the room, Gerald was alone with death, facing the\nwinter-black landscape.\n\n'Is there much more water in Denley?' came the faint voice, determined\nand querulous, from the bed. The dying man was asking about a leakage\nfrom Willey Water into one of the pits.\n\n'Some more--we shall have to run off the lake,' said Gerald.\n\n'Will you?' The faint voice filtered to extinction. There was dead\nstillness. The grey-faced, sick man lay with eyes closed, more dead\nthan death. Gerald looked away. He felt his heart was seared, it would\nperish if this went on much longer.\n\nSuddenly he heard a strange noise. Turning round, he saw his father's\neyes wide open, strained and rolling in a frenzy of inhuman struggling.\nGerald started to his feet, and stood transfixed in horror.\n\n'Wha-a-ah-h-h-' came a horrible choking rattle from his father's\nthroat, the fearful, frenzied eye, rolling awfully in its wild\nfruitless search for help, passed blindly over Gerald, then up came the\ndark blood and mess pumping over the face of the agonised being. The\ntense body relaxed, the head fell aside, down the pillow.\n\nGerald stood transfixed, his soul echoing in horror. He would move, but\nhe could not. He could not move his limbs. His brain seemed to re-echo,\nlike a pulse.\n\nThe nurse in white softly entered. She glanced at Gerald, then at the\nbed.\n\n'Ah!' came her soft whimpering cry, and she hurried forward to the dead\nman. 'Ah-h!' came the slight sound of her agitated distress, as she\nstood bending over the bedside. Then she recovered, turned, and came\nfor towel and sponge. She was wiping the dead face carefully, and\nmurmuring, almost whimpering, very softly: 'Poor Mr Crich!--Poor Mr\nCrich! Poor Mr Crich!'\n\n'Is he dead?' clanged Gerald's sharp voice.\n\n'Oh yes, he's gone,' replied the soft, moaning voice of the nurse, as\nshe looked up at Gerald's face. She was young and beautiful and\nquivering. A strange sort of grin went over Gerald's face, over the\nhorror. And he walked out of the room.\n\nHe was going to tell his mother. On the landing he met his brother\nBasil.\n\n'He's gone, Basil,' he said, scarcely able to subdue his voice, not to\nlet an unconscious, frightening exultation sound through.\n\n'What?' cried Basil, going pale.\n\nGerald nodded. Then he went on to his mother's room.\n\nShe was sitting in her purple gown, sewing, very slowly sewing, putting\nin a stitch then another stitch. She looked up at Gerald with her blue\nundaunted eyes.\n\n'Father's gone,' he said.\n\n'He's dead? Who says so?'\n\n'Oh, you know, mother, if you see him.'\n\nShe put her sewing down, and slowly rose.\n\n'Are you going to see him?' he asked.\n\n'Yes,' she said\n\nBy the bedside the children already stood in a weeping group.\n\n'Oh, mother!' cried the daughters, almost in hysterics, weeping loudly.\n\nBut the mother went forward. The dead man lay in repose, as if gently\nasleep, so gently, so peacefully, like a young man sleeping in purity.\nHe was still warm. She stood looking at him in gloomy, heavy silence,\nfor some time.\n\n'Ay,' she said bitterly, at length, speaking as if to the unseen\nwitnesses of the air. 'You're dead.' She stood for some minutes in\nsilence, looking down. 'Beautiful,' she asserted, 'beautiful as if life\nhad never touched you--never touched you. God send I look different. I\nhope I shall look my years, when I am dead. Beautiful, beautiful,' she\ncrooned over him. 'You can see him in his teens, with his first beard\non his face. A beautiful soul, beautiful--' Then there was a tearing in\nher voice as she cried: 'None of you look like this, when you are dead!\nDon't let it happen again.' It was a strange, wild command from out of\nthe unknown. Her children moved unconsciously together, in a nearer\ngroup, at the dreadful command in her voice. The colour was flushed\nbright in her cheek, she looked awful and wonderful. 'Blame me, blame\nme if you like, that he lies there like a lad in his teens, with his\nfirst beard on his face. Blame me if you like. But you none of you\nknow.' She was silent in intense silence.\n\nThen there came, in a low, tense voice: 'If I thought that the children\nI bore would lie looking like that in death, I'd strangle them when\nthey were infants, yes--'\n\n'No, mother,' came the strange, clarion voice of Gerald from the\nbackground, 'we are different, we don't blame you.'\n\nShe turned and looked full in his eyes. Then she lifted her hands in a\nstrange half-gesture of mad despair.\n\n'Pray!' she said strongly. 'Pray for yourselves to God, for there's no\nhelp for you from your parents.'\n\n'Oh mother!' cried her daughters wildly.\n\nBut she had turned and gone, and they all went quickly away from each\nother.\n\nWhen Gudrun heard that Mr Crich was dead, she felt rebuked. She had\nstayed away lest Gerald should think her too easy of winning. And now,\nhe was in the midst of trouble, whilst she was cold.\n\nThe following day she went up as usual to Winifred, who was glad to see\nher, glad to get away into the studio. The girl had wept, and then, too\nfrightened, had turned aside to avoid any more tragic eventuality. She\nand Gudrun resumed work as usual, in the isolation of the studio, and\nthis seemed an immeasurable happiness, a pure world of freedom, after\nthe aimlessness and misery of the house. Gudrun stayed on till evening.\nShe and Winifred had dinner brought up to the studio, where they ate in\nfreedom, away from all the people in the house.\n\nAfter dinner Gerald came up. The great high studio was full of shadow\nand a fragrance of coffee. Gudrun and Winifred had a little table near\nthe fire at the far end, with a white lamp whose light did not travel\nfar. They were a tiny world to themselves, the two girls surrounded by\nlovely shadows, the beams and rafters shadowy over-head, the benches\nand implements shadowy down the studio.\n\n'You are cosy enough here,' said Gerald, going up to them.\n\nThere was a low brick fireplace, full of fire, an old blue Turkish rug,\nthe little oak table with the lamp and the white-and-blue cloth and the\ndessert, and Gudrun making coffee in an odd brass coffee-maker, and\nWinifred scalding a little milk in a tiny saucepan.\n\n'Have you had coffee?' said Gudrun.\n\n'I have, but I'll have some more with you,' he replied.\n\n'Then you must have it in a glass--there are only two cups,' said\nWinifred.\n\n'It is the same to me,' he said, taking a chair and coming into the\ncharmed circle of the girls. How happy they were, how cosy and\nglamorous it was with them, in a world of lofty shadows! The outside\nworld, in which he had been transacting funeral business all the day\nwas completely wiped out. In an instant he snuffed glamour and magic.\n\nThey had all their things very dainty, two odd and lovely little cups,\nscarlet and solid gilt, and a little black jug with scarlet discs, and\nthe curious coffee-machine, whose spirit-flame flowed steadily, almost\ninvisibly. There was the effect of rather sinister richness, in which\nGerald at once escaped himself.\n\nThey all sat down, and Gudrun carefully poured out the coffee.\n\n'Will you have milk?' she asked calmly, yet nervously poising the\nlittle black jug with its big red dots. She was always so completely\ncontrolled, yet so bitterly nervous.\n\n'No, I won't,' he replied.\n\nSo, with a curious humility, she placed him the little cup of coffee,\nand herself took the awkward tumbler. She seemed to want to serve him.\n\n'Why don't you give me the glass--it is so clumsy for you,' he said. He\nwould much rather have had it, and seen her daintily served. But she\nwas silent, pleased with the disparity, with her self-abasement.\n\n'You are quite EN MENAGE,' he said.\n\n'Yes. We aren't really at home to visitors,' said Winifred.\n\n'You're not? Then I'm an intruder?'\n\nFor once he felt his conventional dress was out of place, he was an\noutsider.\n\nGudrun was very quiet. She did not feel drawn to talk to him. At this\nstage, silence was best--or mere light words. It was best to leave\nserious things aside. So they talked gaily and lightly, till they heard\nthe man below lead out the horse, and call it to 'back-back!' into the\ndog-cart that was to take Gudrun home. So she put on her things, and\nshook hands with Gerald, without once meeting his eyes. And she was\ngone.\n\nThe funeral was detestable. Afterwards, at the tea-table, the daughters\nkept saying--'He was a good father to us--the best father in the\nworld'--or else--'We shan't easily find another man as good as father\nwas.'\n\nGerald acquiesced in all this. It was the right conventional attitude,\nand, as far as the world went, he believed in the conventions. He took\nit as a matter of course. But Winifred hated everything, and hid in the\nstudio, and cried her heart out, and wished Gudrun would come.\n\nLuckily everybody was going away. The Criches never stayed long at\nhome. By dinner-time, Gerald was left quite alone. Even Winifred was\ncarried off to London, for a few days with her sister Laura.\n\nBut when Gerald was really left alone, he could not bear it. One day\npassed by, and another. And all the time he was like a man hung in\nchains over the edge of an abyss. Struggle as he might, he could not\nturn himself to the solid earth, he could not get footing. He was\nsuspended on the edge of a void, writhing. Whatever he thought of, was\nthe abyss--whether it were friends or strangers, or work or play, it\nall showed him only the same bottomless void, in which his heart swung\nperishing. There was no escape, there was nothing to grasp hold of. He\nmust writhe on the edge of the chasm, suspended in chains of invisible\nphysical life.\n\nAt first he was quiet, he kept still, expecting the extremity to pass\naway, expecting to find himself released into the world of the living,\nafter this extremity of penance. But it did not pass, and a crisis\ngained upon him.\n\nAs the evening of the third day came on, his heart rang with fear. He\ncould not bear another night. Another night was coming on, for another\nnight he was to be suspended in chain of physical life, over the\nbottomless pit of nothingness. And he could not bear it. He could not\nbear it. He was frightened deeply, and coldly, frightened in his soul.\nHe did not believe in his own strength any more. He could not fall into\nthis infinite void, and rise again. If he fell, he would be gone for\never. He must withdraw, he must seek reinforcements. He did not believe\nin his own single self, any further than this.\n\nAfter dinner, faced with the ultimate experience of his own\nnothingness, he turned aside. He pulled on his boots, put on his coat,\nand set out to walk in the night.\n\nIt was dark and misty. He went through the wood, stumbling and feeling\nhis way to the Mill. Birkin was away. Good--he was half glad. He turned\nup the hill, and stumbled blindly over the wild slopes, having lost the\npath in the complete darkness. It was boring. Where was he going? No\nmatter. He stumbled on till he came to a path again. Then he went on\nthrough another wood. His mind became dark, he went on automatically.\nWithout thought or sensation, he stumbled unevenly on, out into the\nopen again, fumbling for stiles, losing the path, and going along the\nhedges of the fields till he came to the outlet.\n\nAnd at last he came to the high road. It had distracted him to struggle\nblindly through the maze of darkness. But now, he must take a\ndirection. And he did not even know where he was. But he must take a\ndirection now. Nothing would be resolved by merely walking, walking\naway. He had to take a direction.\n\nHe stood still on the road, that was high in the utterly dark night,\nand he did not know where he was. It was a strange sensation, his heart\nbeating, and ringed round with the utterly unknown darkness. So he\nstood for some time.\n\nThen he heard footsteps, and saw a small, swinging light. He\nimmediately went towards this. It was a miner.\n\n'Can you tell me,' he said, 'where this road goes?'\n\n'Road? Ay, it goes ter Whatmore.'\n\n'Whatmore! Oh thank you, that's right. I thought I was wrong.\nGood-night.'\n\n'Good-night,' replied the broad voice of the miner.\n\nGerald guessed where he was. At least, when he came to Whatmore, he\nwould know. He was glad to be on a high road. He walked forward as in a\nsleep of decision.\n\nThat was Whatmore Village--? Yes, the King's Head--and there the hall\ngates. He descended the steep hill almost running. Winding through the\nhollow, he passed the Grammar School, and came to Willey Green Church.\nThe churchyard! He halted.\n\nThen in another moment he had clambered up the wall and was going among\nthe graves. Even in this darkness he could see the heaped pallor of old\nwhite flowers at his feet. This then was the grave. He stooped down.\nThe flowers were cold and clammy. There was a raw scent of\nchrysanthemums and tube-roses, deadened. He felt the clay beneath, and\nshrank, it was so horribly cold and sticky. He stood away in revulsion.\n\nHere was one centre then, here in the complete darkness beside the\nunseen, raw grave. But there was nothing for him here. No, he had\nnothing to stay here for. He felt as if some of the clay were sticking\ncold and unclean, on his heart. No, enough of this.\n\nWhere then?--home? Never! It was no use going there. That was less than\nno use. It could not be done. There was somewhere else to go. Where?\n\nA dangerous resolve formed in his heart, like a fixed idea. There was\nGudrun--she would be safe in her home. But he could get at her--he\nwould get at her. He would not go back tonight till he had come to her,\nif it cost him his life. He staked his all on this throw.\n\nHe set off walking straight across the fields towards Beldover. It was\nso dark, nobody could ever see him. His feet were wet and cold, heavy\nwith clay. But he went on persistently, like a wind, straight forward,\nas if to his fate. There were great gaps in his consciousness. He was\nconscious that he was at Winthorpe hamlet, but quite unconscious how he\nhad got there. And then, as in a dream, he was in the long street of\nBeldover, with its street-lamps.\n\nThere was a noise of voices, and of a door shutting loudly, and being\nbarred, and of men talking in the night. The 'Lord Nelson' had just\nclosed, and the drinkers were going home. He had better ask one of\nthese where she lived--for he did not know the side streets at all.\n\n'Can you tell me where Somerset Drive is?' he asked of one of the\nuneven men.\n\n'Where what?' replied the tipsy miner's voice.\n\n'Somerset Drive.'\n\n'Somerset Drive!--I've heard o' such a place, but I couldn't for my\nlife say where it is. Who might you be wanting?'\n\n'Mr Brangwen--William Brangwen.'\n\n'William Brangwen--?--?'\n\n'Who teaches at the Grammar School, at Willey Green--his daughter\nteaches there too.'\n\n'O-o-o-oh, Brangwen! NOW I've got you. Of COURSE, William Brangwen!\nYes, yes, he's got two lasses as teachers, aside hisself. Ay, that's\nhim--that's him! Why certainly I know where he lives, back your life I\ndo! Yi--WHAT place do they ca' it?'\n\n'Somerset Drive,' repeated Gerald patiently. He knew his own colliers\nfairly well.\n\n'Somerset Drive, for certain!' said the collier, swinging his arm as if\ncatching something up. 'Somerset Drive--yi! I couldn't for my life lay\nhold o' the lercality o' the place. Yis, I know the place, to be sure I\ndo--'\n\nHe turned unsteadily on his feet, and pointed up the dark, nighdeserted\nroad.\n\n'You go up theer--an' you ta'e th' first--yi, th' first turnin' on your\nleft--o' that side--past Withamses tuffy shop--'\n\n'I know,' said Gerald.\n\n'Ay! You go down a bit, past wheer th' water-man lives--and then\nSomerset Drive, as they ca' it, branches off on 't right hand side--an'\nthere's nowt but three houses in it, no more than three, I\nbelieve,--an' I'm a'most certain as theirs is th' last--th' last o' th'\nthree--you see--'\n\n'Thank you very much,' said Gerald. 'Good-night.'\n\nAnd he started off, leaving the tipsy man there standing rooted.\n\nGerald went past the dark shops and houses, most of them sleeping now,\nand twisted round to the little blind road that ended on a field of\ndarkness. He slowed down, as he neared his goal, not knowing how he\nshould proceed. What if the house were closed in darkness?\n\nBut it was not. He saw a big lighted window, and heard voices, then a\ngate banged. His quick ears caught the sound of Birkin's voice, his\nkeen eyes made out Birkin, with Ursula standing in a pale dress on the\nstep of the garden path. Then Ursula stepped down, and came along the\nroad, holding Birkin's arm.\n\nGerald went across into the darkness and they dawdled past him, talking\nhappily, Birkin's voice low, Ursula's high and distinct. Gerald went\nquickly to the house.\n\nThe blinds were drawn before the big, lighted window of the diningroom.\nLooking up the path at the side he could see the door left open,\nshedding a soft, coloured light from the hall lamp. He went quickly and\nsilently up the path, and looked up into the hall. There were pictures\non the walls, and the antlers of a stag--and the stairs going up on one\nside--and just near the foot of the stairs the half opened door of the\ndining-room.\n\nWith heart drawn fine, Gerald stepped into the hall, whose floor was of\ncoloured tiles, went quickly and looked into the large, pleasant room.\nIn a chair by the fire, the father sat asleep, his head tilted back\nagainst the side of the big oak chimney piece, his ruddy face seen\nforeshortened, the nostrils open, the mouth fallen a little. It would\ntake the merest sound to wake him.\n\nGerald stood a second suspended. He glanced down the passage behind\nhim. It was all dark. Again he was suspended. Then he went swiftly\nupstairs. His senses were so finely, almost supernaturally keen, that\nhe seemed to cast his own will over the half-unconscious house.\n\nHe came to the first landing. There he stood, scarcely breathing.\nAgain, corresponding to the door below, there was a door again. That\nwould be the mother's room. He could hear her moving about in the\ncandlelight. She would be expecting her husband to come up. He looked\nalong the dark landing.\n\nThen, silently, on infinitely careful feet, he went along the passage,\nfeeling the wall with the extreme tips of his fingers. There was a\ndoor. He stood and listened. He could hear two people's breathing. It\nwas not that. He went stealthily forward. There was another door,\nslightly open. The room was in darkness. Empty. Then there was the\nbathroom, he could smell the soap and the heat. Then at the end another\nbedroom--one soft breathing. This was she.\n\nWith an almost occult carefulness he turned the door handle, and opened\nthe door an inch. It creaked slightly. Then he opened it another\ninch--then another. His heart did not beat, he seemed to create a\nsilence about himself, an obliviousness.\n\nHe was in the room. Still the sleeper breathed softly. It was very\ndark. He felt his way forward inch by inch, with his feet and hands. He\ntouched the bed, he could hear the sleeper. He drew nearer, bending\nclose as if his eyes would disclose whatever there was. And then, very\nnear to his face, to his fear, he saw the round, dark head of a boy.\n\nHe recovered, turned round, saw the door ajar, a faint light revealed.\nAnd he retreated swiftly, drew the door to without fastening it, and\npassed rapidly down the passage. At the head of the stairs he\nhesitated. There was still time to flee.\n\nBut it was unthinkable. He would maintain his will. He turned past the\ndoor of the parental bedroom like a shadow, and was climbing the second\nflight of stairs. They creaked under his weight--it was exasperating.\nAh what disaster, if the mother's door opened just beneath him, and she\nsaw him! It would have to be, if it were so. He held the control still.\n\nHe was not quite up these stairs when he heard a quick running of feet\nbelow, the outer door was closed and locked, he heard Ursula's voice,\nthen the father's sleepy exclamation. He pressed on swiftly to the\nupper landing.\n\nAgain a door was ajar, a room was empty. Feeling his way forward, with\nthe tips of his fingers, travelling rapidly, like a blind man, anxious\nlest Ursula should come upstairs, he found another door. There, with\nhis preternaturally fine sense alert, he listened. He heard someone\nmoving in bed. This would be she.\n\nSoftly now, like one who has only one sense, the tactile sense, he\nturned the latch. It clicked. He held still. The bed-clothes rustled.\nHis heart did not beat. Then again he drew the latch back, and very\ngently pushed the door. It made a sticking noise as it gave.\n\n'Ursula?' said Gudrun's voice, frightened. He quickly opened the door\nand pushed it behind him.\n\n'Is it you, Ursula?' came Gudrun's frightened voice. He heard her\nsitting up in bed. In another moment she would scream.\n\n'No, it's me,' he said, feeling his way towards her. 'It is I, Gerald.'\n\nShe sat motionless in her bed in sheer astonishment. She was too\nastonished, too much taken by surprise, even to be afraid.\n\n'Gerald!' she echoed, in blank amazement. He had found his way to the\nbed, and his outstretched hand touched her warm breast blindly. She\nshrank away.\n\n'Let me make a light,' she said, springing out.\n\nHe stood perfectly motionless. He heard her touch the match-box, he\nheard her fingers in their movement. Then he saw her in the light of a\nmatch, which she held to the candle. The light rose in the room, then\nsank to a small dimness, as the flame sank down on the candle, before\nit mounted again.\n\nShe looked at him, as he stood near the other side of the bed. His cap\nwas pulled low over his brow, his black overcoat was buttoned close up\nto his chin. His face was strange and luminous. He was inevitable as a\nsupernatural being. When she had seen him, she knew. She knew there was\nsomething fatal in the situation, and she must accept it. Yet she must\nchallenge him.\n\n'How did you come up?' she asked.\n\n'I walked up the stairs--the door was open.'\n\nShe looked at him.\n\n'I haven't closed this door, either,' he said. She walked swiftly\nacross the room, and closed her door, softly, and locked it. Then she\ncame back.\n\nShe was wonderful, with startled eyes and flushed cheeks, and her plait\nof hair rather short and thick down her back, and her long, fine white\nnight-dress falling to her feet.\n\nShe saw that his boots were all clayey, even his trousers were\nplastered with clay. And she wondered if he had made footprints all the\nway up. He was a very strange figure, standing in her bedroom, near the\ntossed bed.\n\n'Why have you come?' she asked, almost querulous.\n\n'I wanted to,' he replied.\n\nAnd this she could see from his face. It was fate.\n\n'You are so muddy,' she said, in distaste, but gently.\n\nHe looked down at his feet.\n\n'I was walking in the dark,' he replied. But he felt vividly elated.\nThere was a pause. He stood on one side of the tumbled bed, she on the\nother. He did not even take his cap from his brows.\n\n'And what do you want of me,' she challenged.\n\nHe looked aside, and did not answer. Save for the extreme beauty and\nmystic attractiveness of this distinct, strange face, she would have\nsent him away. But his face was too wonderful and undiscovered to her.\nIt fascinated her with the fascination of pure beauty, cast a spell on\nher, like nostalgia, an ache.\n\n'What do you want of me?' she repeated in an estranged voice.\n\nHe pulled off his cap, in a movement of dream-liberation, and went\nacross to her. But he could not touch her, because she stood barefoot\nin her night-dress, and he was muddy and damp. Her eyes, wide and large\nand wondering, watched him, and asked him the ultimate question.\n\n'I came--because I must,' he said. 'Why do you ask?'\n\nShe looked at him in doubt and wonder.\n\n'I must ask,' she said.\n\nHe shook his head slightly.\n\n'There is no answer,' he replied, with strange vacancy.\n\nThere was about him a curious, and almost godlike air of simplicity and\nnative directness. He reminded her of an apparition, the young Hermes.\n\n'But why did you come to me?' she persisted.\n\n'Because--it has to be so. If there weren't you in the world, then I\nshouldn't be in the world, either.'\n\nShe stood looking at him, with large, wide, wondering, stricken eyes.\nHis eyes were looking steadily into hers all the time, and he seemed\nfixed in an odd supernatural steadfastness. She sighed. She was lost\nnow. She had no choice.\n\n'Won't you take off your boots,' she said. 'They must be wet.'\n\nHe dropped his cap on a chair, unbuttoned his overcoat, lifting up his\nchin to unfasten the throat buttons. His short, keen hair was ruffled.\nHe was so beautifully blond, like wheat. He pulled off his overcoat.\n\nQuickly he pulled off his jacket, pulled loose his black tie, and was\nunfastening his studs, which were headed each with a pearl. She\nlistened, watching, hoping no one would hear the starched linen\ncrackle. It seemed to snap like pistol shots.\n\nHe had come for vindication. She let him hold her in his arms, clasp\nher close against him. He found in her an infinite relief. Into her he\npoured all his pent-up darkness and corrosive death, and he was whole\nagain. It was wonderful, marvellous, it was a miracle. This was the\neverrecurrent miracle of his life, at the knowledge of which he was\nlost in an ecstasy of relief and wonder. And she, subject, received him\nas a vessel filled with his bitter potion of death. She had no power at\nthis crisis to resist. The terrible frictional violence of death filled\nher, and she received it in an ecstasy of subjection, in throes of\nacute, violent sensation.\n\nAs he drew nearer to her, he plunged deeper into her enveloping soft\nwarmth, a wonderful creative heat that penetrated his veins and gave\nhim life again. He felt himself dissolving and sinking to rest in the\nbath of her living strength. It seemed as if her heart in her breast\nwere a second unconquerable sun, into the glow and creative strength of\nwhich he plunged further and further. All his veins, that were murdered\nand lacerated, healed softly as life came pulsing in, stealing\ninvisibly in to him as if it were the all-powerful effluence of the\nsun. His blood, which seemed to have been drawn back into death, came\nebbing on the return, surely, beautifully, powerfully.\n\nHe felt his limbs growing fuller and flexible with life, his body\ngained an unknown strength. He was a man again, strong and rounded. And\nhe was a child, so soothed and restored and full of gratitude.\n\nAnd she, she was the great bath of life, he worshipped her. Mother and\nsubstance of all life she was. And he, child and man, received of her\nand was made whole. His pure body was almost killed. But the\nmiraculous, soft effluence of her breast suffused over him, over his\nseared, damaged brain, like a healing lymph, like a soft, soothing flow\nof life itself, perfect as if he were bathed in the womb again.\n\nHis brain was hurt, seared, the tissue was as if destroyed. He had not\nknown how hurt he was, how his tissue, the very tissue of his brain was\ndamaged by the corrosive flood of death. Now, as the healing lymph of\nher effluence flowed through him, he knew how destroyed he was, like a\nplant whose tissue is burst from inwards by a frost.\n\nHe buried his small, hard head between her breasts, and pressed her\nbreasts against him with his hands. And she with quivering hands\npressed his head against her, as he lay suffused out, and she lay fully\nconscious. The lovely creative warmth flooded through him like a sleep\nof fecundity within the womb. Ah, if only she would grant him the flow\nof this living effluence, he would be restored, he would be complete\nagain. He was afraid she would deny him before it was finished. Like a\nchild at the breast, he cleaved intensely to her, and she could not put\nhim away. And his seared, ruined membrane relaxed, softened, that which\nwas seared and stiff and blasted yielded again, became soft and\nflexible, palpitating with new life. He was infinitely grateful, as to\nGod, or as an infant is at its mother's breast. He was glad and\ngrateful like a delirium, as he felt his own wholeness come over him\nagain, as he felt the full, unutterable sleep coming over him, the\nsleep of complete exhaustion and restoration.\n\nBut Gudrun lay wide awake, destroyed into perfect consciousness. She\nlay motionless, with wide eyes staring motionless into the darkness,\nwhilst he was sunk away in sleep, his arms round her.\n\nShe seemed to be hearing waves break on a hidden shore, long, slow,\ngloomy waves, breaking with the rhythm of fate, so monotonously that it\nseemed eternal. This endless breaking of slow, sullen waves of fate\nheld her life a possession, whilst she lay with dark, wide eyes looking\ninto the darkness. She could see so far, as far as eternity--yet she\nsaw nothing. She was suspended in perfect consciousness--and of what\nwas she conscious?\n\nThis mood of extremity, when she lay staring into eternity, utterly\nsuspended, and conscious of everything, to the last limits, passed and\nleft her uneasy. She had lain so long motionless. She moved, she became\nself-conscious. She wanted to look at him, to see him.\n\nBut she dared not make a light, because she knew he would wake, and she\ndid not want to break his perfect sleep, that she knew he had got of\nher.\n\nShe disengaged herself, softly, and rose up a little to look at him.\nThere was a faint light, it seemed to her, in the room. She could just\ndistinguish his features, as he slept the perfect sleep. In this\ndarkness, she seemed to see him so distinctly. But he was far off, in\nanother world. Ah, she could shriek with torment, he was so far off,\nand perfected, in another world. She seemed to look at him as at a\npebble far away under clear dark water. And here was she, left with all\nthe anguish of consciousness, whilst he was sunk deep into the other\nelement of mindless, remote, living shadow-gleam. He was beautiful,\nfar-off, and perfected. They would never be together. Ah, this awful,\ninhuman distance which would always be interposed between her and the\nother being!\n\nThere was nothing to do but to lie still and endure. She felt an\noverwhelming tenderness for him, and a dark, under-stirring of jealous\nhatred, that he should lie so perfect and immune, in an other-world,\nwhilst she was tormented with violent wakefulness, cast out in the\nouter darkness.\n\nShe lay in intense and vivid consciousness, an exhausting\nsuperconsciousness. The church clock struck the hours, it seemed to\nher, in quick succession. She heard them distinctly in the tension of\nher vivid consciousness. And he slept as if time were one moment,\nunchanging and unmoving.\n\nShe was exhausted, wearied. Yet she must continue in this state of\nviolent active superconsciousness. She was conscious of everything--her\nchildhood, her girlhood, all the forgotten incidents, all the\nunrealised influences and all the happenings she had not understood,\npertaining to herself, to her family, to her friends, her lovers, her\nacquaintances, everybody. It was as if she drew a glittering rope of\nknowledge out of the sea of darkness, drew and drew and drew it out of\nthe fathomless depths of the past, and still it did not come to an end,\nthere was no end to it, she must haul and haul at the rope of\nglittering consciousness, pull it out phosphorescent from the endless\ndepths of the unconsciousness, till she was weary, aching, exhausted,\nand fit to break, and yet she had not done.\n\nAh, if only she might wake him! She turned uneasily. When could she\nrouse him and send him away? When could she disturb him? And she\nrelapsed into her activity of automatic consciousness, that would never\nend.\n\nBut the time was drawing near when she could wake him. It was like a\nrelease. The clock had struck four, outside in the night. Thank God the\nnight had passed almost away. At five he must go, and she would be\nreleased. Then she could relax and fill her own place. Now she was\ndriven up against his perfect sleeping motion like a knife white-hot on\na grindstone. There was something monstrous about him, about his\njuxtaposition against her.\n\nThe last hour was the longest. And yet, at last it passed. Her heart\nleapt with relief--yes, there was the slow, strong stroke of the church\nclock--at last, after this night of eternity. She waited to catch each\nslow, fatal reverberation. 'Three--four--five!' There, it was finished.\nA weight rolled off her.\n\nShe raised herself, leaned over him tenderly, and kissed him. She was\nsad to wake him. After a few moments, she kissed him again. But he did\nnot stir. The darling, he was so deep in sleep! What a shame to take\nhim out of it. She let him lie a little longer. But he must go--he must\nreally go.\n\nWith full over-tenderness she took his face between her hands, and\nkissed his eyes. The eyes opened, he remained motionless, looking at\nher. Her heart stood still. To hide her face from his dreadful opened\neyes, in the darkness, she bent down and kissed him, whispering:\n\n'You must go, my love.'\n\nBut she was sick with terror, sick.\n\nHe put his arms round her. Her heart sank.\n\n'But you must go, my love. It's late.'\n\n'What time is it?' he said.\n\nStrange, his man's voice. She quivered. It was an intolerable\noppression to her.\n\n'Past five o'clock,' she said.\n\nBut he only closed his arms round her again. Her heart cried within her\nin torture. She disengaged herself firmly.\n\n'You really must go,' she said.\n\n'Not for a minute,' he said.\n\nShe lay still, nestling against him, but unyielding.\n\n'Not for a minute,' he repeated, clasping her closer.\n\n'Yes,' she said, unyielding, 'I'm afraid if you stay any longer.'\n\nThere was a certain coldness in her voice that made him release her,\nand she broke away, rose and lit the candle. That then was the end.\n\nHe got up. He was warm and full of life and desire. Yet he felt a\nlittle bit ashamed, humiliated, putting on his clothes before her, in\nthe candle-light. For he felt revealed, exposed to her, at a time when\nshe was in some way against him. It was all very difficult to\nunderstand. He dressed himself quickly, without collar or tie. Still he\nfelt full and complete, perfected. She thought it humiliating to see a\nman dressing: the ridiculous shirt, the ridiculous trousers and braces.\nBut again an idea saved her.\n\n'It is like a workman getting up to go to work,' thought Gudrun. 'And I\nam like a workman's wife.' But an ache like nausea was upon her: a\nnausea of him.\n\nHe pushed his collar and tie into his overcoat pocket. Then he sat down\nand pulled on his boots. They were sodden, as were his socks and\ntrouser-bottoms. But he himself was quick and warm.\n\n'Perhaps you ought to have put your boots on downstairs,' she said.\n\nAt once, without answering, he pulled them off again, and stood holding\nthem in his hand. She had thrust her feet into slippers, and flung a\nloose robe round her. She was ready. She looked at him as he stood\nwaiting, his black coat buttoned to the chin, his cap pulled down, his\nboots in his hand. And the passionate almost hateful fascination\nrevived in her for a moment. It was not exhausted. His face was so\nwarm-looking, wide-eyed and full of newness, so perfect. She felt old,\nold. She went to him heavily, to be kissed. He kissed her quickly. She\nwished his warm, expressionless beauty did not so fatally put a spell\non her, compel her and subjugate her. It was a burden upon her, that\nshe resented, but could not escape. Yet when she looked at his straight\nman's brows, and at his rather small, well-shaped nose, and at his\nblue, indifferent eyes, she knew her passion for him was not yet\nsatisfied, perhaps never could be satisfied. Only now she was weary,\nwith an ache like nausea. She wanted him gone.\n\nThey went downstairs quickly. It seemed they made a prodigious noise.\nHe followed her as, wrapped in her vivid green wrap, she preceded him\nwith the light. She suffered badly with fear, lest her people should be\nroused. He hardly cared. He did not care now who knew. And she hated\nthis in him. One MUST be cautious. One must preserve oneself.\n\nShe led the way to the kitchen. It was neat and tidy, as the woman had\nleft it. He looked up at the clock--twenty minutes past five Then he\nsat down on a chair to put on his boots. She waited, watching his every\nmovement. She wanted it to be over, it was a great nervous strain on\nher.\n\nHe stood up--she unbolted the back door, and looked out. A cold, raw\nnight, not yet dawn, with a piece of a moon in the vague sky. She was\nglad she need not go out.\n\n'Good-bye then,' he murmured.\n\n'I'll come to the gate,' she said.\n\nAnd again she hurried on in front, to warn him of the steps. And at the\ngate, once more she stood on the step whilst he stood below her.\n\n'Good-bye,' she whispered.\n\nHe kissed her dutifully, and turned away.\n\nShe suffered torments hearing his firm tread going so distinctly down\nthe road. Ah, the insensitiveness of that firm tread!\n\nShe closed the gate, and crept quickly and noiselessly back to bed.\nWhen she was in her room, and the door closed, and all safe, she\nbreathed freely, and a great weight fell off her. She nestled down in\nbed, in the groove his body had made, in the warmth he had left. And\nexcited, worn-out, yet still satisfied, she fell soon into a deep,\nheavy sleep.\n\nGerald walked quickly through the raw darkness of the coming dawn. He\nmet nobody. His mind was beautifully still and thoughtless, like a\nstill pool, and his body full and warm and rich. He went quickly along\ntowards Shortlands, in a grateful self-sufficiency.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXV.\n\nMARRIAGE OR NOT\n\n\nThe Brangwen family was going to move from Beldover. It was necessary\nnow for the father to be in town.\n\nBirkin had taken out a marriage licence, yet Ursula deferred from day\nto day. She would not fix any definite time--she still wavered. Her\nmonth's notice to leave the Grammar School was in its third week.\nChristmas was not far off.\n\nGerald waited for the Ursula-Birkin marriage. It was something crucial\nto him.\n\n'Shall we make it a double-barrelled affair?' he said to Birkin one\nday.\n\n'Who for the second shot?' asked Birkin.\n\n'Gudrun and me,' said Gerald, the venturesome twinkle in his eyes.\n\nBirkin looked at him steadily, as if somewhat taken aback.\n\n'Serious--or joking?' he asked.\n\n'Oh, serious. Shall I? Shall Gudrun and I rush in along with you?'\n\n'Do by all means,' said Birkin. 'I didn't know you'd got that length.'\n\n'What length?' said Gerald, looking at the other man, and laughing.\n\n'Oh yes, we've gone all the lengths.'\n\n'There remains to put it on a broad social basis, and to achieve a high\nmoral purpose,' said Birkin.\n\n'Something like that: the length and breadth and height of it,' replied\nGerald, smiling.\n\n'Oh well,' said Birkin,' it's a very admirable step to take, I should\nsay.'\n\nGerald looked at him closely.\n\n'Why aren't you enthusiastic?' he asked. 'I thought you were such dead\nnuts on marriage.'\n\nBirkin lifted his shoulders.\n\n'One might as well be dead nuts on noses. There are all sorts of noses,\nsnub and otherwise-'\n\nGerald laughed.\n\n'And all sorts of marriage, also snub and otherwise?' he said.\n\n'That's it.'\n\n'And you think if I marry, it will be snub?' asked Gerald quizzically,\nhis head a little on one side.\n\nBirkin laughed quickly.\n\n'How do I know what it will be!' he said. 'Don't lambaste me with my\nown parallels-'\n\nGerald pondered a while.\n\n'But I should like to know your opinion, exactly,' he said.\n\n'On your marriage?--or marrying? Why should you want my opinion? I've\ngot no opinions. I'm not interested in legal marriage, one way or\nanother. It's a mere question of convenience.'\n\nStill Gerald watched him closely.\n\n'More than that, I think,' he said seriously. 'However you may be bored\nby the ethics of marriage, yet really to marry, in one's own personal\ncase, is something critical, final-'\n\n'You mean there is something final in going to the registrar with a\nwoman?'\n\n'If you're coming back with her, I do,' said Gerald. 'It is in some way\nirrevocable.'\n\n'Yes, I agree,' said Birkin.\n\n'No matter how one regards legal marriage, yet to enter into the\nmarried state, in one's own personal instance, is final-'\n\n'I believe it is,' said Birkin, 'somewhere.'\n\n'The question remains then, should one do it,' said Gerald.\n\nBirkin watched him narrowly, with amused eyes.\n\n'You are like Lord Bacon, Gerald,' he said. 'You argue it like a\nlawyer--or like Hamlet's to-be-or-not-to-be. If I were you I would NOT\nmarry: but ask Gudrun, not me. You're not marrying me, are you?'\n\nGerald did not heed the latter part of this speech.\n\n'Yes,' he said, 'one must consider it coldly. It is something critical.\nOne comes to the point where one must take a step in one direction or\nanother. And marriage is one direction-'\n\n'And what is the other?' asked Birkin quickly.\n\nGerald looked up at him with hot, strangely-conscious eyes, that the\nother man could not understand.\n\n'I can't say,' he replied. 'If I knew THAT--' He moved uneasily on his\nfeet, and did not finish.\n\n'You mean if you knew the alternative?' asked Birkin. 'And since you\ndon't know it, marriage is a PIS ALLER.'\n\nGerald looked up at Birkin with the same hot, constrained eyes.\n\n'One does have the feeling that marriage is a PIS ALLER,' he admitted.\n\n'Then don't do it,' said Birkin. 'I tell you,' he went on, 'the same as\nI've said before, marriage in the old sense seems to me repulsive.\nEGOISME A DEUX is nothing to it. It's a sort of tacit hunting in\ncouples: the world all in couples, each couple in its own little house,\nwatching its own little interests, and stewing in its own little\nprivacy--it's the most repulsive thing on earth.'\n\n'I quite agree,' said Gerald. 'There's something inferior about it. But\nas I say, what's the alternative.'\n\n'One should avoid this HOME instinct. It's not an instinct, it's a\nhabit of cowardliness. One should never have a HOME.'\n\n'I agree really,' said Gerald. 'But there's no alternative.'\n\n'We've got to find one. I do believe in a permanent union between a man\nand a woman. Chopping about is merely an exhaustive process. But a\npermanent relation between a man and a woman isn't the last word--it\ncertainly isn't.'\n\n'Quite,' said Gerald.\n\n'In fact,' said Birkin, 'because the relation between man and woman is\nmade the supreme and exclusive relationship, that's where all the\ntightness and meanness and insufficiency comes in.'\n\n'Yes, I believe you,' said Gerald.\n\n'You've got to take down the love-and-marriage ideal from its pedestal.\nWe want something broader. I believe in the ADDITIONAL perfect\nrelationship between man and man--additional to marriage.'\n\n'I can never see how they can be the same,' said Gerald.\n\n'Not the same--but equally important, equally creative, equally sacred,\nif you like.'\n\n'I know,' said Gerald, 'you believe something like that. Only I can't\nFEEL it, you see.' He put his hand on Birkin's arm, with a sort of\ndeprecating affection. And he smiled as if triumphantly.\n\nHe was ready to be doomed. Marriage was like a doom to him. He was\nwilling to condemn himself in marriage, to become like a convict\ncondemned to the mines of the underworld, living no life in the sun,\nbut having a dreadful subterranean activity. He was willing to accept\nthis. And marriage was the seal of his condemnation. He was willing to\nbe sealed thus in the underworld, like a soul damned but living forever\nin damnation. But he would not make any pure relationship with any\nother soul. He could not. Marriage was not the committing of himself\ninto a relationship with Gudrun. It was a committing of himself in\nacceptance of the established world, he would accept the established\norder, in which he did not livingly believe, and then he would retreat\nto the underworld for his life. This he would do.\n\nThe other way was to accept Rupert's offer of alliance, to enter into\nthe bond of pure trust and love with the other man, and then\nsubsequently with the woman. If he pledged himself with the man he\nwould later be able to pledge himself with the woman: not merely in\nlegal marriage, but in absolute, mystic marriage.\n\nYet he could not accept the offer. There was a numbness upon him, a\nnumbness either of unborn, absent volition, or of atrophy. Perhaps it\nwas the absence of volition. For he was strangely elated at Rupert's\noffer. Yet he was still more glad to reject it, not to be committed.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXVI.\n\nA CHAIR\n\n\nThere was a jumble market every Monday afternoon in the old\nmarket-place in town. Ursula and Birkin strayed down there one\nafternoon. They had been talking of furniture, and they wanted to see\nif there was any fragment they would like to buy, amid the heaps of\nrubbish collected on the cobble-stones.\n\nThe old market-square was not very large, a mere bare patch of granite\nsetts, usually with a few fruit-stalls under a wall. It was in a poor\nquarter of the town. Meagre houses stood down one side, there was a\nhosiery factory, a great blank with myriad oblong windows, at the end,\na street of little shops with flagstone pavement down the other side,\nand, for a crowning monument, the public baths, of new red brick, with\na clock-tower. The people who moved about seemed stumpy and sordid, the\nair seemed to smell rather dirty, there was a sense of many mean\nstreets ramifying off into warrens of meanness. Now and again a great\nchocolate-and-yellow tramcar ground round a difficult bend under the\nhosiery factory.\n\nUrsula was superficially thrilled when she found herself out among the\ncommon people, in the jumbled place piled with old bedding, heaps of\nold iron, shabby crockery in pale lots, muffled lots of unthinkable\nclothing. She and Birkin went unwillingly down the narrow aisle between\nthe rusty wares. He was looking at the goods, she at the people.\n\nShe excitedly watched a young woman, who was going to have a baby, and\nwho was turning over a mattress and making a young man, down-at-heel\nand dejected, feel it also. So secretive and active and anxious the\nyoung woman seemed, so reluctant, slinking, the young man. He was going\nto marry her because she was having a child.\n\nWhen they had felt the mattress, the young woman asked the old man\nseated on a stool among his wares, how much it was. He told her, and\nshe turned to the young man. The latter was ashamed, and selfconscious.\nHe turned his face away, though he left his body standing there, and\nmuttered aside. And again the woman anxiously and actively fingered the\nmattress and added up in her mind and bargained with the old, unclean\nman. All the while, the young man stood by, shamefaced and\ndown-at-heel, submitting.\n\n'Look,' said Birkin, 'there is a pretty chair.'\n\n'Charming!' cried Ursula. 'Oh, charming.'\n\nIt was an arm-chair of simple wood, probably birch, but of such fine\ndelicacy of grace, standing there on the sordid stones, it almost\nbrought tears to the eyes. It was square in shape, of the purest,\nslender lines, and four short lines of wood in the back, that reminded\nUrsula of harpstrings.\n\n'It was once,' said Birkin, 'gilded--and it had a cane seat. Somebody\nhas nailed this wooden seat in. Look, here is a trifle of the red that\nunderlay the gilt. The rest is all black, except where the wood is worn\npure and glossy. It is the fine unity of the lines that is so\nattractive. Look, how they run and meet and counteract. But of course\nthe wooden seat is wrong--it destroys the perfect lightness and unity\nin tension the cane gave. I like it though--'\n\n'Ah yes,' said Ursula, 'so do I.'\n\n'How much is it?' Birkin asked the man.\n\n'Ten shillings.'\n\n'And you will send it--?'\n\nIt was bought.\n\n'So beautiful, so pure!' Birkin said. 'It almost breaks my heart.' They\nwalked along between the heaps of rubbish. 'My beloved country--it had\nsomething to express even when it made that chair.'\n\n'And hasn't it now?' asked Ursula. She was always angry when he took\nthis tone.\n\n'No, it hasn't. When I see that clear, beautiful chair, and I think of\nEngland, even Jane Austen's England--it had living thoughts to unfold\neven then, and pure happiness in unfolding them. And now, we can only\nfish among the rubbish heaps for the remnants of their old expression.\nThere is no production in us now, only sordid and foul mechanicalness.'\n\n'It isn't true,' cried Ursula. 'Why must you always praise the past, at\nthe expense of the present? REALLY, I don't think so much of Jane\nAusten's England. It was materialistic enough, if you like--'\n\n'It could afford to be materialistic,' said Birkin, 'because it had the\npower to be something other--which we haven't. We are materialistic\nbecause we haven't the power to be anything else--try as we may, we\ncan't bring off anything but materialism: mechanism, the very soul of\nmaterialism.'\n\nUrsula was subdued into angry silence. She did not heed what he said.\nShe was rebelling against something else.\n\n'And I hate your past. I'm sick of it,' she cried. 'I believe I even\nhate that old chair, though it IS beautiful. It isn't MY sort of\nbeauty. I wish it had been smashed up when its day was over, not left\nto preach the beloved past to us. I'm sick of the beloved past.'\n\n'Not so sick as I am of the accursed present,' he said.\n\n'Yes, just the same. I hate the present--but I don't want the past to\ntake its place--I don't want that old chair.'\n\nHe was rather angry for a moment. Then he looked at the sky shining\nbeyond the tower of the public baths, and he seemed to get over it all.\nHe laughed.\n\n'All right,' he said, 'then let us not have it. I'm sick of it all,\ntoo. At any rate one can't go on living on the old bones of beauty.'\n\n'One can't,' she cried. 'I DON'T want old things.'\n\n'The truth is, we don't want things at all,' he replied. 'The thought\nof a house and furniture of my own is hateful to me.'\n\nThis startled her for a moment. Then she replied:\n\n'So it is to me. But one must live somewhere.'\n\n'Not somewhere--anywhere,' he said. 'One should just live anywhere--not\nhave a definite place. I don't want a definite place. As soon as you\nget a room, and it is COMPLETE, you want to run from it. Now my rooms\nat the Mill are quite complete, I want them at the bottom of the sea.\nIt is a horrible tyranny of a fixed milieu, where each piece of\nfurniture is a commandment-stone.'\n\nShe clung to his arm as they walked away from the market.\n\n'But what are we going to do?' she said. 'We must live somehow. And I\ndo want some beauty in my surroundings. I want a sort of natural\nGRANDEUR even, SPLENDOUR.'\n\n'You'll never get it in houses and furniture--or even clothes. Houses\nand furniture and clothes, they are all terms of an old base world, a\ndetestable society of man. And if you have a Tudor house and old,\nbeautiful furniture, it is only the past perpetuated on top of you,\nhorrible. And if you have a perfect modern house done for you by\nPoiret, it is something else perpetuated on top of you. It is all\nhorrible. It is all possessions, possessions, bullying you and turning\nyou into a generalisation. You have to be like Rodin, Michelangelo, and\nleave a piece of raw rock unfinished to your figure. You must leave\nyour surroundings sketchy, unfinished, so that you are never contained,\nnever confined, never dominated from the outside.'\n\nShe stood in the street contemplating.\n\n'And we are never to have a complete place of our own--never a home?'\nshe said.\n\n'Pray God, in this world, no,' he answered.\n\n'But there's only this world,' she objected.\n\nHe spread out his hands with a gesture of indifference.\n\n'Meanwhile, then, we'll avoid having things of our own,' he said.\n\n'But you've just bought a chair,' she said.\n\n'I can tell the man I don't want it,' he replied.\n\nShe pondered again. Then a queer little movement twitched her face.\n\n'No,' she said, 'we don't want it. I'm sick of old things.'\n\n'New ones as well,' he said.\n\nThey retraced their steps.\n\nThere--in front of some furniture, stood the young couple, the woman\nwho was going to have a baby, and the narrow-faced youth. She was fair,\nrather short, stout. He was of medium height, attractively built. His\ndark hair fell sideways over his brow, from under his cap, he stood\nstrangely aloof, like one of the damned.\n\n'Let us give it to THEM,' whispered Ursula. 'Look they are getting a\nhome together.'\n\n'I won't aid abet them in it,' he said petulantly, instantly\nsympathising with the aloof, furtive youth, against the active,\nprocreant female.\n\n'Oh yes,' cried Ursula. 'It's right for them--there's nothing else for\nthem.'\n\n'Very well,' said Birkin, 'you offer it to them. I'll watch.'\n\nUrsula went rather nervously to the young couple, who were discussing\nan iron washstand--or rather, the man was glancing furtively and\nwonderingly, like a prisoner, at the abominable article, whilst the\nwoman was arguing.\n\n'We bought a chair,' said Ursula, 'and we don't want it. Would you have\nit? We should be glad if you would.'\n\nThe young couple looked round at her, not believing that she could be\naddressing them.\n\n'Would you care for it?' repeated Ursula. 'It's really VERY\npretty--but--but--' she smiled rather dazzlingly.\n\nThe young couple only stared at her, and looked significantly at each\nother, to know what to do. And the man curiously obliterated himself,\nas if he could make himself invisible, as a rat can.\n\n'We wanted to GIVE it to you,' explained Ursula, now overcome with\nconfusion and dread of them. She was attracted by the young man. He was\na still, mindless creature, hardly a man at all, a creature that the\ntowns have produced, strangely pure-bred and fine in one sense,\nfurtive, quick, subtle. His lashes were dark and long and fine over his\neyes, that had no mind in them, only a dreadful kind of subject, inward\nconsciousness, glazed and dark. His dark brows and all his lines, were\nfinely drawn. He would be a dreadful, but wonderful lover to a woman,\nso marvellously contributed. His legs would be marvellously subtle and\nalive, under the shapeless, trousers, he had some of the fineness and\nstillness and silkiness of a dark-eyed, silent rat.\n\nUrsula had apprehended him with a fine FRISSON of attraction. The\nfull-built woman was staring offensively. Again Ursula forgot him.\n\n'Won't you have the chair?' she said.\n\nThe man looked at her with a sideways look of appreciation, yet faroff,\nalmost insolent. The woman drew herself up. There was a certain\ncostermonger richness about her. She did not know what Ursula was\nafter, she was on her guard, hostile. Birkin approached, smiling\nwickedly at seeing Ursula so nonplussed and frightened.\n\n'What's the matter?' he said, smiling. His eyelids had dropped\nslightly, there was about him the same suggestive, mocking secrecy that\nwas in the bearing of the two city creatures. The man jerked his head a\nlittle on one side, indicating Ursula, and said, with curious amiable,\njeering warmth:\n\n'What she warnt?--eh?' An odd smile writhed his lips.\n\nBirkin looked at him from under his slack, ironical eyelids.\n\n'To give you a chair--that--with the label on it,' he said, pointing.\n\nThe man looked at the object indicated. There was a curious hostility\nin male, outlawed understanding between the two men.\n\n'What's she warnt to give it US for, guvnor,' he replied, in a tone of\nfree intimacy that insulted Ursula.\n\n'Thought you'd like it--it's a pretty chair. We bought it and don't\nwant it. No need for you to have it, don't be frightened,' said Birkin,\nwith a wry smile.\n\nThe man glanced up at him, half inimical, half recognising.\n\n'Why don't you want it for yourselves, if you've just bought it?' asked\nthe woman coolly. ''Taint good enough for you, now you've had a look at\nit. Frightened it's got something in it, eh?'\n\nShe was looking at Ursula, admiringly, but with some resentment.\n\n'I'd never thought of that,' said Birkin. 'But no, the wood's too thin\neverywhere.'\n\n'You see,' said Ursula, her face luminous and pleased. 'WE are just\ngoing to get married, and we thought we'd buy things. Then we decided,\njust now, that we wouldn't have furniture, we'd go abroad.'\n\nThe full-built, slightly blowsy city girl looked at the fine face of\nthe other woman, with appreciation. They appreciated each other. The\nyouth stood aside, his face expressionless and timeless, the thin line\nof the black moustache drawn strangely suggestive over his rather wide,\nclosed mouth. He was impassive, abstract, like some dark suggestive\npresence, a gutter-presence.\n\n'It's all right to be some folks,' said the city girl, turning to her\nown young man. He did not look at her, but he smiled with the lower\npart of his face, putting his head aside in an odd gesture of assent.\nHis eyes were unchanging, glazed with darkness.\n\n'Cawsts something to change your mind,' he said, in an incredibly low\naccent.\n\n'Only ten shillings this time,' said Birkin.\n\nThe man looked up at him with a grimace of a smile, furtive, unsure.\n\n'Cheap at 'arf a quid, guvnor,' he said. 'Not like getting divawced.'\n\n'We're not married yet,' said Birkin.\n\n'No, no more aren't we,' said the young woman loudly. 'But we shall be,\na Saturday.'\n\nAgain she looked at the young man with a determined, protective look,\nat once overbearing and very gentle. He grinned sicklily, turning away\nhis head. She had got his manhood, but Lord, what did he care! He had a\nstrange furtive pride and slinking singleness.\n\n'Good luck to you,' said Birkin.\n\n'Same to you,' said the young woman. Then, rather tentatively: 'When's\nyours coming off, then?'\n\nBirkin looked round at Ursula.\n\n'It's for the lady to say,' he replied. 'We go to the registrar the\nmoment she's ready.'\n\nUrsula laughed, covered with confusion and bewilderment.\n\n'No 'urry,' said the young man, grinning suggestive.\n\n'Oh, don't break your neck to get there,' said the young woman. ''Slike\nwhen you're dead--you're long time married.'\n\nThe young man turned aside as if this hit him.\n\n'The longer the better, let us hope,' said Birkin.\n\n'That's it, guvnor,' said the young man admiringly. 'Enjoy it while it\nlarsts--niver whip a dead donkey.'\n\n'Only when he's shamming dead,' said the young woman, looking at her\nyoung man with caressive tenderness of authority.\n\n'Aw, there's a difference,' he said satirically.\n\n'What about the chair?' said Birkin.\n\n'Yes, all right,' said the woman.\n\nThey trailed off to the dealer, the handsome but abject young fellow\nhanging a little aside.\n\n'That's it,' said Birkin. 'Will you take it with you, or have the\naddress altered.'\n\n'Oh, Fred can carry it. Make him do what he can for the dear old 'ome.'\n\n'Mike use of'im,' said Fred, grimly humorous, as he took the chair from\nthe dealer. His movements were graceful, yet curiously abject,\nslinking.\n\n''Ere's mother's cosy chair,' he said. 'Warnts a cushion.' And he stood\nit down on the market stones.\n\n'Don't you think it's pretty?' laughed Ursula.\n\n'Oh, I do,' said the young woman.\n\n''Ave a sit in it, you'll wish you'd kept it,' said the young man.\n\nUrsula promptly sat down in the middle of the market-place.\n\n'Awfully comfortable,' she said. 'But rather hard. You try it.' She\ninvited the young man to a seat. But he turned uncouthly, awkwardly\naside, glancing up at her with quick bright eyes, oddly suggestive,\nlike a quick, live rat.\n\n'Don't spoil him,' said the young woman. 'He's not used to arm-chairs,\n'e isn't.\n\nThe young man turned away, and said, with averted grin:\n\n'Only warnts legs on 'is.'\n\nThe four parted. The young woman thanked them.\n\n'Thank you for the chair--it'll last till it gives way.'\n\n'Keep it for an ornyment,' said the young man.\n\n'Good afternoon--Good afternoon,' said Ursula and Birkin.\n\n'Goo'-luck to you,' said the young man, glancing and avoiding Birkin's\neyes, as he turned aside his head.\n\nThe two couples went asunder, Ursula clinging to Birkin's arm. When\nthey had gone some distance, she glanced back and saw the young man\ngoing beside the full, easy young woman. His trousers sank over his\nheels, he moved with a sort of slinking evasion, more crushed with odd\nself-consciousness now he had the slim old arm-chair to carry, his arm\nover the back, the four fine, square tapering legs swaying perilously\nnear the granite setts of the pavement. And yet he was somewhere\nindomitable and separate, like a quick, vital rat. He had a queer,\nsubterranean beauty, repulsive too.\n\n'How strange they are!' said Ursula.\n\n'Children of men,' he said. 'They remind me of Jesus: \"The meek shall\ninherit the earth.\"'\n\n'But they aren't the meek,' said Ursula.\n\n'Yes, I don't know why, but they are,' he replied.\n\nThey waited for the tramcar. Ursula sat on top and looked out on the\ntown. The dusk was just dimming the hollows of crowded houses.\n\n'And are they going to inherit the earth?' she said.\n\n'Yes--they.'\n\n'Then what are we going to do?' she asked. 'We're not like them--are\nwe? We're not the meek?'\n\n'No. We've got to live in the chinks they leave us.'\n\n'How horrible!' cried Ursula. 'I don't want to live in chinks.'\n\n'Don't worry,' he said. 'They are the children of men, they like\nmarket-places and street-corners best. That leaves plenty of chinks.'\n\n'All the world,' she said.\n\n'Ah no--but some room.'\n\nThe tramcar mounted slowly up the hill, where the ugly winter-grey\nmasses of houses looked like a vision of hell that is cold and angular.\nThey sat and looked. Away in the distance was an angry redness of\nsunset. It was all cold, somehow small, crowded, and like the end of\nthe world.\n\n'I don't mind it even then,' said Ursula, looking at the repulsiveness\nof it all. 'It doesn't concern me.'\n\n'No more it does,' he replied, holding her hand. 'One needn't see. One\ngoes one's way. In my world it is sunny and spacious--'\n\n'It is, my love, isn't it?' she cried, hugging near to him on the top\nof the tramcar, so that the other passengers stared at them.\n\n'And we will wander about on the face of the earth,' he said, 'and\nwe'll look at the world beyond just this bit.'\n\nThere was a long silence. Her face was radiant like gold, as she sat\nthinking.\n\n'I don't want to inherit the earth,' she said. 'I don't want to inherit\nanything.'\n\nHe closed his hand over hers.\n\n'Neither do I. I want to be disinherited.'\n\nShe clasped his fingers closely.\n\n'We won't care about ANYTHING,' she said.\n\nHe sat still, and laughed.\n\n'And we'll be married, and have done with them,' she added.\n\nAgain he laughed.\n\n'It's one way of getting rid of everything,' she said, 'to get\nmarried.'\n\n'And one way of accepting the whole world,' he added.\n\n'A whole other world, yes,' she said happily.\n\n'Perhaps there's Gerald--and Gudrun--' he said.\n\n'If there is there is, you see,' she said. 'It's no good our worrying.\nWe can't really alter them, can we?'\n\n'No,' he said. 'One has no right to try--not with the best intentions\nin the world.'\n\n'Do you try to force them?' she asked.\n\n'Perhaps,' he said. 'Why should I want him to be free, if it isn't his\nbusiness?'\n\nShe paused for a time.\n\n'We can't MAKE him happy, anyhow,' she said. 'He'd have to be it of\nhimself.'\n\n'I know,' he said. 'But we want other people with us, don't we?'\n\n'Why should we?' she asked.\n\n'I don't know,' he said uneasily. 'One has a hankering after a sort of\nfurther fellowship.'\n\n'But why?' she insisted. 'Why should you hanker after other people? Why\nshould you need them?'\n\nThis hit him right on the quick. His brows knitted.\n\n'Does it end with just our two selves?' he asked, tense.\n\n'Yes--what more do you want? If anybody likes to come along, let them.\nBut why must you run after them?'\n\nHis face was tense and unsatisfied.\n\n'You see,' he said, 'I always imagine our being really happy with some\nfew other people--a little freedom with people.'\n\nShe pondered for a moment.\n\n'Yes, one does want that. But it must HAPPEN. You can't do anything for\nit with your will. You always seem to think you can FORCE the flowers\nto come out. People must love us because they love us--you can't MAKE\nthem.'\n\n'I know,' he said. 'But must one take no steps at all? Must one just go\nas if one were alone in the world--the only creature in the world?'\n\n'You've got me,' she said. 'Why should you NEED others? Why must you\nforce people to agree with you? Why can't you be single by yourself, as\nyou are always saying? You try to bully Gerald--as you tried to bully\nHermione. You must learn to be alone. And it's so horrid of you. You've\ngot me. And yet you want to force other people to love you as well. You\ndo try to bully them to love you. And even then, you don't want their\nlove.'\n\nHis face was full of real perplexity.\n\n'Don't I?' he said. 'It's the problem I can't solve. I KNOW I want a\nperfect and complete relationship with you: and we've nearly got it--we\nreally have. But beyond that. DO I want a real, ultimate relationship\nwith Gerald? Do I want a final, almost extra-human relationship with\nhim--a relationship in the ultimate of me and him--or don't I?'\n\nShe looked at him for a long time, with strange bright eyes, but she\ndid not answer.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXVII.\n\nFLITTING\n\n\nThat evening Ursula returned home very bright-eyed and wondrous--which\nirritated her people. Her father came home at suppertime, tired after\nthe evening class, and the long journey home. Gudrun was reading, the\nmother sat in silence.\n\nSuddenly Ursula said to the company at large, in a bright voice,\n'Rupert and I are going to be married tomorrow.'\n\nHer father turned round, stiffly.\n\n'You what?' he said.\n\n'Tomorrow!' echoed Gudrun.\n\n'Indeed!' said the mother.\n\nBut Ursula only smiled wonderfully, and did not reply.\n\n'Married tomorrow!' cried her father harshly. 'What are you talking\nabout.'\n\n'Yes,' said Ursula. 'Why not?' Those two words, from her, always drove\nhim mad. 'Everything is all right--we shall go to the registrar's\noffice-'\n\nThere was a second's hush in the room, after Ursula's blithe vagueness.\n\n'REALLY, Ursula!' said Gudrun.\n\n'Might we ask why there has been all this secrecy?' demanded the\nmother, rather superbly.\n\n'But there hasn't,' said Ursula. 'You knew.'\n\n'Who knew?' now cried the father. 'Who knew? What do you mean by your\n\"you knew\"?'\n\nHe was in one of his stupid rages, she instantly closed against him.\n\n'Of course you knew,' she said coolly. 'You knew we were going to get\nmarried.'\n\nThere was a dangerous pause.\n\n'We knew you were going to get married, did we? Knew! Why, does anybody\nknow anything about you, you shifty bitch!'\n\n'Father!' cried Gudrun, flushing deep in violent remonstrance. Then, in\na cold, but gentle voice, as if to remind her sister to be tractable:\n'But isn't it a FEARFULLY sudden decision, Ursula?' she asked.\n\n'No, not really,' replied Ursula, with the same maddening cheerfulness.\n'He's been WANTING me to agree for weeks--he's had the licence ready.\nOnly I--I wasn't ready in myself. Now I am ready--is there anything to\nbe disagreeable about?'\n\n'Certainly not,' said Gudrun, but in a tone of cold reproof. 'You are\nperfectly free to do as you like.'\n\n'\"Ready in yourself\"--YOURSELF, that's all that matters, isn't it! \"I\nwasn't ready in myself,\"' he mimicked her phrase offensively. 'You and\nYOURSELF, you're of some importance, aren't you?'\n\nShe drew herself up and set back her throat, her eyes shining yellow\nand dangerous.\n\n'I am to myself,' she said, wounded and mortified. 'I know I am not to\nanybody else. You only wanted to BULLY me--you never cared for my\nhappiness.'\n\nHe was leaning forward watching her, his face intense like a spark.\n\n'Ursula, what are you saying? Keep your tongue still,' cried her\nmother.\n\nUrsula swung round, and the lights in her eyes flashed.\n\n'No, I won't,' she cried. 'I won't hold my tongue and be bullied. What\ndoes it matter which day I get married--what does it MATTER! It doesn't\naffect anybody but myself.'\n\nHer father was tense and gathered together like a cat about to spring.\n\n'Doesn't it?' he cried, coming nearer to her. She shrank away.\n\n'No, how can it?' she replied, shrinking but stubborn.\n\n'It doesn't matter to ME then, what you do--what becomes of you?' he\ncried, in a strange voice like a cry.\n\nThe mother and Gudrun stood back as if hypnotised.\n\n'No,' stammered Ursula. Her father was very near to her. 'You only want\nto-'\n\nShe knew it was dangerous, and she stopped. He was gathered together,\nevery muscle ready.\n\n'What?' he challenged.\n\n'Bully me,' she muttered, and even as her lips were moving, his hand\nhad caught her smack at the side of the face and she was sent up\nagainst the door.\n\n'Father!' cried Gudrun in a high voice, 'it is impossible!'\n\nHe stood unmoving. Ursula recovered, her hand was on the door handle.\nShe slowly drew herself up. He seemed doubtful now.\n\n'It's true,' she declared, with brilliant tears in her eyes, her head\nlifted up in defiance. 'What has your love meant, what did it ever\nmean?--bullying, and denial-it did-'\n\nHe was advancing again with strange, tense movements, and clenched\nfist, and the face of a murderer. But swift as lightning she had\nflashed out of the door, and they heard her running upstairs.\n\nHe stood for a moment looking at the door. Then, like a defeated\nanimal, he turned and went back to his seat by the fire.\n\nGudrun was very white. Out of the intense silence, the mother's voice\nwas heard saying, cold and angry:\n\n'Well, you shouldn't take so much notice of her.'\n\nAgain the silence fell, each followed a separate set of emotions and\nthoughts.\n\nSuddenly the door opened again: Ursula, dressed in hat and furs, with a\nsmall valise in her hand:\n\n'Good-bye!' she said, in her maddening, bright, almost mocking tone.\n'I'm going.'\n\nAnd in the next instant the door was closed, they heard the outer door,\nthen her quick steps down the garden path, then the gate banged, and\nher light footfall was gone. There was a silence like death in the\nhouse.\n\nUrsula went straight to the station, hastening heedlessly on winged\nfeet. There was no train, she must walk on to the junction. As she went\nthrough the darkness, she began to cry, and she wept bitterly, with a\ndumb, heart-broken, child's anguish, all the way on the road, and in\nthe train. Time passed unheeded and unknown, she did not know where she\nwas, nor what was taking place. Only she wept from fathomless depths of\nhopeless, hopeless grief, the terrible grief of a child, that knows no\nextenuation.\n\nYet her voice had the same defensive brightness as she spoke to\nBirkin's landlady at the door.\n\n'Good evening! Is Mr Birkin in? Can I see him?'\n\n'Yes, he's in. He's in his study.'\n\nUrsula slipped past the woman. His door opened. He had heard her voice.\n\n'Hello!' he exclaimed in surprise, seeing her standing there with the\nvalise in her hand, and marks of tears on her face. She was one who\nwept without showing many traces, like a child.\n\n'Do I look a sight?' she said, shrinking.\n\n'No--why? Come in,' he took the bag from her hand and they went into\nthe study.\n\nThere--immediately, her lips began to tremble like those of a child\nthat remembers again, and the tears came rushing up.\n\n'What's the matter?' he asked, taking her in his arms. She sobbed\nviolently on his shoulder, whilst he held her still, waiting.\n\n'What's the matter?' he said again, when she was quieter. But she only\npressed her face further into his shoulder, in pain, like a child that\ncannot tell.\n\n'What is it, then?' he asked. Suddenly she broke away, wiped her eyes,\nregained her composure, and went and sat in a chair.\n\n'Father hit me,' she announced, sitting bunched up, rather like a\nruffled bird, her eyes very bright.\n\n'What for?' he said.\n\nShe looked away, and would not answer. There was a pitiful redness\nabout her sensitive nostrils, and her quivering lips.\n\n'Why?' he repeated, in his strange, soft, penetrating voice.\n\nShe looked round at him, rather defiantly.\n\n'Because I said I was going to be married tomorrow, and he bullied me.'\n\n'Why did he bully you?'\n\nHer mouth dropped again, she remembered the scene once more, the tears\ncame up.\n\n'Because I said he didn't care--and he doesn't, it's only his\ndomineeringness that's hurt--' she said, her mouth pulled awry by her\nweeping, all the time she spoke, so that he almost smiled, it seemed so\nchildish. Yet it was not childish, it was a mortal conflict, a deep\nwound.\n\n'It isn't quite true,' he said. 'And even so, you shouldn't SAY it.'\n\n'It IS true--it IS true,' she wept, 'and I won't be bullied by his\npretending it's love--when it ISN'T--he doesn't care, how can he--no,\nhe can't-'\n\nHe sat in silence. She moved him beyond himself.\n\n'Then you shouldn't rouse him, if he can't,' replied Birkin quietly.\n\n'And I HAVE loved him, I have,' she wept. 'I've loved him always, and\nhe's always done this to me, he has--'\n\n'It's been a love of opposition, then,' he said. 'Never mind--it will\nbe all right. It's nothing desperate.'\n\n'Yes,' she wept, 'it is, it is.'\n\n'Why?'\n\n'I shall never see him again--'\n\n'Not immediately. Don't cry, you had to break with him, it had to\nbe--don't cry.'\n\nHe went over to her and kissed her fine, fragile hair, touching her wet\ncheeks gently.\n\n'Don't cry,' he repeated, 'don't cry any more.'\n\nHe held her head close against him, very close and quiet.\n\nAt last she was still. Then she looked up, her eyes wide and frightened.\n\n'Don't you want me?' she asked.\n\n'Want you?' His darkened, steady eyes puzzled her and did not give her\nplay.\n\n'Do you wish I hadn't come?' she asked, anxious now again for fear she\nmight be out of place.\n\n'No,' he said. 'I wish there hadn't been the violence--so much\nugliness--but perhaps it was inevitable.'\n\nShe watched him in silence. He seemed deadened.\n\n'But where shall I stay?' she asked, feeling humiliated.\n\nHe thought for a moment.\n\n'Here, with me,' he said. 'We're married as much today as we shall be\ntomorrow.'\n\n'But--'\n\n'I'll tell Mrs Varley,' he said. 'Never mind now.'\n\nHe sat looking at her. She could feel his darkened steady eyes looking\nat her all the time. It made her a little bit frightened. She pushed\nher hair off her forehead nervously.\n\n'Do I look ugly?' she said.\n\nAnd she blew her nose again.\n\nA small smile came round his eyes.\n\n'No,' he said, 'fortunately.'\n\nAnd he went across to her, and gathered her like a belonging in his\narms. She was so tenderly beautiful, he could not bear to see her, he\ncould only bear to hide her against himself. Now; washed all clean by\nher tears, she was new and frail like a flower just unfolded, a flower\nso new, so tender, so made perfect by inner light, that he could not\nbear to look at her, he must hide her against himself, cover his eyes\nagainst her. She had the perfect candour of creation, something\ntranslucent and simple, like a radiant, shining flower that moment\nunfolded in primal blessedness. She was so new, so wonder-clear, so\nundimmed. And he was so old, so steeped in heavy memories. Her soul was\nnew, undefined and glimmering with the unseen. And his soul was dark\nand gloomy, it had only one grain of living hope, like a grain of\nmustard seed. But this one living grain in him matched the perfect\nyouth in her.\n\n'I love you,' he whispered as he kissed her, and trembled with pure\nhope, like a man who is born again to a wonderful, lively hope far\nexceeding the bounds of death.\n\nShe could not know how much it meant to him, how much he meant by the\nfew words. Almost childish, she wanted proof, and statement, even\nover-statement, for everything seemed still uncertain, unfixed to her.\n\nBut the passion of gratitude with which he received her into his soul,\nthe extreme, unthinkable gladness of knowing himself living and fit to\nunite with her, he, who was so nearly dead, who was so near to being\ngone with the rest of his race down the slope of mechanical death,\ncould never be understood by her. He worshipped her as age worships\nyouth, he gloried in her, because, in his one grain of faith, he was\nyoung as she, he was her proper mate. This marriage with her was his\nresurrection and his life.\n\nAll this she could not know. She wanted to be made much of, to be\nadored. There were infinite distances of silence between them. How\ncould he tell her of the immanence of her beauty, that was not form, or\nweight, or colour, but something like a strange, golden light! How\ncould he know himself what her beauty lay in, for him. He said 'Your\nnose is beautiful, your chin is adorable.' But it sounded like lies,\nand she was disappointed, hurt. Even when he said, whispering with\ntruth, 'I love you, I love you,' it was not the real truth. It was\nsomething beyond love, such a gladness of having surpassed oneself, of\nhaving transcended the old existence. How could he say \"I\" when he was\nsomething new and unknown, not himself at all? This I, this old formula\nof the age, was a dead letter.\n\nIn the new, superfine bliss, a peace superseding knowledge, there was\nno I and you, there was only the third, unrealised wonder, the wonder\nof existing not as oneself, but in a consummation of my being and of\nher being in a new one, a new, paradisal unit regained from the\nduality. Nor can I say 'I love you,' when I have ceased to be, and you\nhave ceased to be: we are both caught up and transcended into a new\noneness where everything is silent, because there is nothing to answer,\nall is perfect and at one. Speech travels between the separate parts.\nBut in the perfect One there is perfect silence of bliss.\n\nThey were married by law on the next day, and she did as he bade her,\nshe wrote to her father and mother. Her mother replied, not her father.\n\nShe did not go back to school. She stayed with Birkin in his rooms, or\nat the Mill, moving with him as he moved. But she did not see anybody,\nsave Gudrun and Gerald. She was all strange and wondering as yet, but\nrelieved as by dawn.\n\nGerald sat talking to her one afternoon in the warm study down at the\nMill. Rupert had not yet come home.\n\n'You are happy?' Gerald asked her, with a smile.\n\n'Very happy!' she cried, shrinking a little in her brightness.\n\n'Yes, one can see it.'\n\n'Can one?' cried Ursula in surprise.\n\nHe looked up at her with a communicative smile.\n\n'Oh yes, plainly.'\n\nShe was pleased. She meditated a moment.\n\n'And can you see that Rupert is happy as well?'\n\nHe lowered his eyelids, and looked aside.\n\n'Oh yes,' he said.\n\n'Really!'\n\n'Oh yes.'\n\nHe was very quiet, as if it were something not to be talked about by\nhim. He seemed sad.\n\nShe was very sensitive to suggestion. She asked the question he wanted\nher to ask.\n\n'Why don't you be happy as well?' she said. 'You could be just the\nsame.'\n\nHe paused a moment.\n\n'With Gudrun?' he asked.\n\n'Yes!' she cried, her eyes glowing. But there was a strange tension, an\nemphasis, as if they were asserting their wishes, against the truth.\n\n'You think Gudrun would have me, and we should be happy?' he said.\n\n'Yes, I'm SURE!' she cried.\n\nHer eyes were round with delight. Yet underneath she was constrained,\nshe knew her own insistence.\n\n'Oh, I'm SO glad,' she added.\n\nHe smiled.\n\n'What makes you glad?' he said.\n\n'For HER sake,' she replied. 'I'm sure you'd--you're the right man for\nher.'\n\n'You are?' he said. 'And do you think she would agree with you?'\n\n'Oh yes!' she exclaimed hastily. Then, upon reconsideration, very\nuneasy: 'Though Gudrun isn't so very simple, is she? One doesn't know\nher in five minutes, does one? She's not like me in that.' She laughed\nat him with her strange, open, dazzled face.\n\n'You think she's not much like you?' Gerald asked.\n\nShe knitted her brows.\n\n'Oh, in many ways she is. But I never know what she will do when\nanything new comes.'\n\n'You don't?' said Gerald. He was silent for some moments. Then he moved\ntentatively. 'I was going to ask her, in any case, to go away with me\nat Christmas,' he said, in a very small, cautious voice.\n\n'Go away with you? For a time, you mean?'\n\n'As long as she likes,' he said, with a deprecating movement.\n\nThey were both silent for some minutes.\n\n'Of course,' said Ursula at last, 'she MIGHT just be willing to rush\ninto marriage. You can see.'\n\n'Yes,' smiled Gerald. 'I can see. But in case she won't--do you think\nshe would go abroad with me for a few days--or for a fortnight?'\n\n'Oh yes,' said Ursula. 'I'd ask her.'\n\n'Do you think we might all go together?'\n\n'All of us?' Again Ursula's face lighted up. 'It would be rather fun,\ndon't you think?'\n\n'Great fun,' he said.\n\n'And then you could see,' said Ursula.\n\n'What?'\n\n'How things went. I think it is best to take the honeymoon before the\nwedding--don't you?'\n\nShe was pleased with this MOT. He laughed.\n\n'In certain cases,' he said. 'I'd rather it were so in my own case.'\n\n'Would you!' exclaimed Ursula. Then doubtingly, 'Yes, perhaps you're\nright. One should please oneself.'\n\nBirkin came in a little later, and Ursula told him what had been said.\n\n'Gudrun!' exclaimed Birkin. 'She's a born mistress, just as Gerald is a\nborn lover--AMANT EN TITRE. If as somebody says all women are either\nwives or mistresses, then Gudrun is a mistress.'\n\n'And all men either lovers or husbands,' cried Ursula. 'But why not\nboth?'\n\n'The one excludes the other,' he laughed.\n\n'Then I want a lover,' cried Ursula.\n\n'No you don't,' he said.\n\n'But I do,' she wailed.\n\nHe kissed her, and laughed.\n\nIt was two days after this that Ursula was to go to fetch her things\nfrom the house in Beldover. The removal had taken place, the family had\ngone. Gudrun had rooms in Willey Green.\n\nUrsula had not seen her parents since her marriage. She wept over the\nrupture, yet what was the good of making it up! Good or not good, she\ncould not go to them. So her things had been left behind and she and\nGudrun were to walk over for them, in the afternoon.\n\nIt was a wintry afternoon, with red in the sky, when they arrived at\nthe house. The windows were dark and blank, already the place was\nfrightening. A stark, void entrance-hall struck a chill to the hearts\nof the girls.\n\n'I don't believe I dare have come in alone,' said Ursula. 'It frightens\nme.'\n\n'Ursula!' cried Gudrun. 'Isn't it amazing! Can you believe you lived in\nthis place and never felt it? How I lived here a day without dying of\nterror, I cannot conceive!'\n\nThey looked in the big dining-room. It was a good-sized room, but now a\ncell would have been lovelier. The large bay windows were naked, the\nfloor was stripped, and a border of dark polish went round the tract of\npale boarding.\n\nIn the faded wallpaper were dark patches where furniture had stood,\nwhere pictures had hung. The sense of walls, dry, thin, flimsy-seeming\nwalls, and a flimsy flooring, pale with its artificial black edges, was\nneutralising to the mind. Everything was null to the senses, there was\nenclosure without substance, for the walls were dry and papery. Where\nwere they standing, on earth, or suspended in some cardboard box? In\nthe hearth was burnt paper, and scraps of half-burnt paper.\n\n'Imagine that we passed our days here!' said Ursula.\n\n'I know,' cried Gudrun. 'It is too appalling. What must we be like, if\nwe are the contents of THIS!'\n\n'Vile!' said Ursula. 'It really is.'\n\nAnd she recognised half-burnt covers of 'Vogue'--half-burnt\nrepresentations of women in gowns--lying under the grate.\n\nThey went to the drawing-room. Another piece of shut-in air; without\nweight or substance, only a sense of intolerable papery imprisonment in\nnothingness. The kitchen did look more substantial, because of the\nred-tiled floor and the stove, but it was cold and horrid.\n\nThe two girls tramped hollowly up the bare stairs. Every sound reechoed\nunder their hearts. They tramped down the bare corridor. Against the\nwall of Ursula's bedroom were her things--a trunk, a work-basket, some\nbooks, loose coats, a hat-box, standing desolate in the universal\nemptiness of the dusk.\n\n'A cheerful sight, aren't they?' said Ursula, looking down at her\nforsaken possessions.\n\n'Very cheerful,' said Gudrun.\n\nThe two girls set to, carrying everything down to the front door. Again\nand again they made the hollow, re-echoing transit. The whole place\nseemed to resound about them with a noise of hollow, empty futility. In\nthe distance the empty, invisible rooms sent forth a vibration almost\nof obscenity. They almost fled with the last articles, into the\nout-of-door.\n\nBut it was cold. They were waiting for Birkin, who was coming with the\ncar. They went indoors again, and upstairs to their parents' front\nbedroom, whose windows looked down on the road, and across the country\nat the black-barred sunset, black and red barred, without light.\n\nThey sat down in the window-seat, to wait. Both girls were looking over\nthe room. It was void, with a meaninglessness that was almost dreadful.\n\n'Really,' said Ursula, 'this room COULDN'T be sacred, could it?'\n\nGudrun looked over it with slow eyes.\n\n'Impossible,' she replied.\n\n'When I think of their lives--father's and mother's, their love, and\ntheir marriage, and all of us children, and our bringing-up--would you\nhave such a life, Prune?'\n\n'I wouldn't, Ursula.'\n\n'It all seems so NOTHING--their two lives--there's no meaning in it.\nReally, if they had NOT met, and NOT married, and not lived\ntogether--it wouldn't have mattered, would it?'\n\n'Of course--you can't tell,' said Gudrun.\n\n'No. But if I thought my life was going to be like it--Prune,' she\ncaught Gudrun's arm, 'I should run.'\n\nGudrun was silent for a few moments.\n\n'As a matter of fact, one cannot contemplate the ordinary life--one\ncannot contemplate it,' replied Gudrun. 'With you, Ursula, it is quite\ndifferent. You will be out of it all, with Birkin. He's a special case.\nBut with the ordinary man, who has his life fixed in one place,\nmarriage is just impossible. There may be, and there ARE, thousands of\nwomen who want it, and could conceive of nothing else. But the very\nthought of it sends me MAD. One must be free, above all, one must be\nfree. One may forfeit everything else, but one must be free--one must\nnot become 7, Pinchbeck Street--or Somerset Drive--or Shortlands. No\nman will be sufficient to make that good--no man! To marry, one must\nhave a free lance, or nothing, a comrade-in-arms, a Glckstritter. A man\nwith a position in the social world--well, it is just impossible,\nimpossible!'\n\n'What a lovely word--a Glckstritter!' said Ursula. 'So much nicer than\na soldier of fortune.'\n\n'Yes, isn't it?' said Gudrun. 'I'd tilt the world with a Glcksritter.\nBut a home, an establishment! Ursula, what would it mean?--think!'\n\n'I know,' said Ursula. 'We've had one home--that's enough for me.'\n\n'Quite enough,' said Gudrun.\n\n'The little grey home in the west,' quoted Ursula ironically.\n\n'Doesn't it sound grey, too,' said Gudrun grimly.\n\nThey were interrupted by the sound of the car. There was Birkin. Ursula\nwas surprised that she felt so lit up, that she became suddenly so free\nfrom the problems of grey homes in the west.\n\nThey heard his heels click on the hall pavement below.\n\n'Hello!' he called, his voice echoing alive through the house. Ursula\nsmiled to herself. HE was frightened of the place too.\n\n'Hello! Here we are,' she called downstairs. And they heard him quickly\nrunning up.\n\n'This is a ghostly situation,' he said.\n\n'These houses don't have ghosts--they've never had any personality, and\nonly a place with personality can have a ghost,' said Gudrun.\n\n'I suppose so. Are you both weeping over the past?'\n\n'We are,' said Gudrun, grimly.\n\nUrsula laughed.\n\n'Not weeping that it's gone, but weeping that it ever WAS,' she said.\n\n'Oh,' he replied, relieved.\n\nHe sat down for a moment. There was something in his presence, Ursula\nthought, lambent and alive. It made even the impertinent structure of\nthis null house disappear.\n\n'Gudrun says she could not bear to be married and put into a house,'\nsaid Ursula meaningful--they knew this referred to Gerald.\n\nHe was silent for some moments.\n\n'Well,' he said, 'if you know beforehand you couldn't stand it, you're\nsafe.'\n\n'Quite!' said Gudrun.\n\n'Why DOES every woman think her aim in life is to have a hubby and a\nlittle grey home in the west? Why is this the goal of life? Why should\nit be?' said Ursula.\n\n'Il faut avoir le respect de ses btises,' said Birkin.\n\n'But you needn't have the respect for the BETISE before you've\ncommitted it,' laughed Ursula.\n\n'Ah then, des betises du papa?'\n\n'Et de la maman,' added Gudrun satirically.\n\n'Et des voisins,' said Ursula.\n\nThey all laughed, and rose. It was getting dark. They carried the\nthings to the car. Gudrun locked the door of the empty house. Birkin\nhad lighted the lamps of the automobile. It all seemed very happy, as\nif they were setting out.\n\n'Do you mind stopping at Coulsons. I have to leave the key there,' said\nGudrun.\n\n'Right,' said Birkin, and they moved off.\n\nThey stopped in the main street. The shops were just lighted, the last\nminers were passing home along the causeways, half-visible shadows in\ntheir grey pit-dirt, moving through the blue air. But their feet rang\nharshly in manifold sound, along the pavement.\n\nHow pleased Gudrun was to come out of the shop, and enter the car, and\nbe borne swiftly away into the downhill of palpable dusk, with Ursula\nand Birkin! What an adventure life seemed at this moment! How deeply,\nhow suddenly she envied Ursula! Life for her was so quick, and an open\ndoor--so reckless as if not only this world, but the world that was\ngone and the world to come were nothing to her. Ah, if she could be\nJUST LIKE THAT, it would be perfect.\n\nFor always, except in her moments of excitement, she felt a want within\nherself. She was unsure. She had felt that now, at last, in Gerald's\nstrong and violent love, she was living fully and finally. But when she\ncompared herself with Ursula, already her soul was jealous,\nunsatisfied. She was not satisfied--she was never to be satisfied.\n\nWhat was she short of now? It was marriage--it was the wonderful\nstability of marriage. She did want it, let her say what she might. She\nhad been lying. The old idea of marriage was right even now--marriage\nand the home. Yet her mouth gave a little grimace at the words. She\nthought of Gerald and Shortlands--marriage and the home! Ah well, let\nit rest! He meant a great deal to her--but--! Perhaps it was not in her\nto marry. She was one of life's outcasts, one of the drifting lives\nthat have no root. No, no it could not be so. She suddenly conjured up\na rosy room, with herself in a beautiful gown, and a handsome man in\nevening dress who held her in his arms in the firelight, and kissed\nher. This picture she entitled 'Home.' It would have done for the Royal\nAcademy.\n\n'Come with us to tea--DO,' said Ursula, as they ran nearer to the\ncottage of Willey Green.\n\n'Thanks awfully--but I MUST go in--' said Gudrun. She wanted very much\nto go on with Ursula and Birkin.\n\nThat seemed like life indeed to her. Yet a certain perversity would not\nlet her.\n\n'Do come--yes, it would be so nice,' pleaded Ursula.\n\n'I'm awfully sorry--I should love to--but I can't--really--'\n\nShe descended from the car in trembling haste.\n\n'Can't you really!' came Ursula's regretful voice.\n\n'No, really I can't,' responded Gudrun's pathetic, chagrined words out\nof the dusk.\n\n'All right, are you?' called Birkin.\n\n'Quite!' said Gudrun. 'Good-night!'\n\n'Good-night,' they called.\n\n'Come whenever you like, we shall be glad,' called Birkin.\n\n'Thank you very much,' called Gudrun, in the strange, twanging voice of\nlonely chagrin that was very puzzling to him. She turned away to her\ncottage gate, and they drove on. But immediately she stood to watch\nthem, as the car ran vague into the distance. And as she went up the\npath to her strange house, her heart was full of incomprehensible\nbitterness.\n\nIn her parlour was a long-case clock, and inserted into its dial was a\nruddy, round, slant-eyed, joyous-painted face, that wagged over with\nthe most ridiculous ogle when the clock ticked, and back again with the\nsame absurd glad-eye at the next tick. All the time the absurd smooth,\nbrown-ruddy face gave her an obtrusive 'glad-eye.' She stood for\nminutes, watching it, till a sort of maddened disgust overcame her, and\nshe laughed at herself hollowly. And still it rocked, and gave her the\nglad-eye from one side, then from the other, from one side, then from\nthe other. Ah, how unhappy she was! In the midst of her most active\nhappiness, ah, how unhappy she was! She glanced at the table.\nGooseberry jam, and the same home-made cake with too much soda in it!\nStill, gooseberry jam was good, and one so rarely got it.\n\nAll the evening she wanted to go to the Mill. But she coldly refused to\nallow herself. She went the next afternoon instead. She was happy to\nfind Ursula alone. It was a lovely, intimate secluded atmosphere. They\ntalked endlessly and delightedly. 'Aren't you FEARFULLY happy here?'\nsaid Gudrun to her sister glancing at her own bright eyes in the\nmirror. She always envied, almost with resentment, the strange positive\nfullness that subsisted in the atmosphere around Ursula and Birkin.\n\nHow really beautifully this room is done,' she said aloud. 'This hard\nplaited matting--what a lovely colour it is, the colour of cool light!'\n\nAnd it seemed to her perfect.\n\n'Ursula,' she said at length, in a voice of question and detachment,\n'did you know that Gerald Crich had suggested our going away all\ntogether at Christmas?'\n\n'Yes, he's spoken to Rupert.'\n\nA deep flush dyed Gudrun's cheek. She was silent a moment, as if taken\naback, and not knowing what to say.\n\n'But don't you thing,' she said at last, 'it is AMAZINGLY COOL!'\n\nUrsula laughed.\n\n'I like him for it,' she said.\n\nGudrun was silent. It was evident that, whilst she was almost mortified\nby Gerald's taking the liberty of making such a suggestion to Birkin,\nyet the idea itself attracted her strongly.\n\n'There's rather lovely simplicity about Gerald, I think,' said Ursula,\n'so defiant, somehow! Oh, I think he's VERY lovable.'\n\nGudrun did not reply for some moments. She had still to get over the\nfeeling of insult at the liberty taken with her freedom.\n\n'What did Rupert say--do you know?' she asked.\n\n'He said it would be most awfully jolly,' said Ursula.\n\nAgain Gudrun looked down, and was silent.\n\n'Don't you think it would?' said Ursula, tentatively. She was never\nquite sure how many defences Gudrun was having round herself.\n\nGudrun raised her face with difficulty and held it averted.\n\n'I think it MIGHT be awfully jolly, as you say,' she replied. 'But\ndon't you think it was an unpardonable liberty to take--to talk of such\nthings to Rupert--who after all--you see what I mean, Ursula--they\nmight have been two men arranging an outing with some little TYPE\nthey'd picked up. Oh, I think it's unforgivable, quite!' She used the\nFrench word 'TYPE.'\n\nHer eyes flashed, her soft face was flushed and sullen. Ursula looked\non, rather frightened, frightened most of all because she thought\nGudrun seemed rather common, really like a little TYPE. But she had not\nthe courage quite to think this--not right out.\n\n'Oh no,' she cried, stammering. 'Oh no--not at all like that--oh no!\nNo, I think it's rather beautiful, the friendship between Rupert and\nGerald. They just are simple--they say anything to each other, like\nbrothers.'\n\nGudrun flushed deeper. She could not BEAR it that Gerald gave her\naway--even to Birkin.\n\n'But do you think even brothers have any right to exchange confidences\nof that sort?' she asked, with deep anger.\n\n'Oh yes,' said Ursula. 'There's never anything said that isn't\nperfectly straightforward. No, the thing that's amazed me most in\nGerald--how perfectly simple and direct he can be! And you know, it\ntakes rather a big man. Most of them MUST be indirect, they are such\ncowards.'\n\nBut Gudrun was still silent with anger. She wanted the absolute secrecy\nkept, with regard to her movements.\n\n'Won't you go?' said Ursula. 'Do, we might all be so happy! There is\nsomething I LOVE about Gerald--he's MUCH more lovable than I thought\nhim. He's free, Gudrun, he really is.'\n\nGudrun's mouth was still closed, sullen and ugly. She opened it at\nlength.\n\n'Do you know where he proposes to go?' she asked.\n\n'Yes--to the Tyrol, where he used to go when he was in Germany--a\nlovely place where students go, small and rough and lovely, for winter\nsport!'\n\nThrough Gudrun's mind went the angry thought--'they know everything.'\n\n'Yes,' she said aloud, 'about forty kilometres from Innsbruck, isn't\nit?'\n\n'I don't know exactly where--but it would be lovely, don't you think,\nhigh in the perfect snow--?'\n\n'Very lovely!' said Gudrun, sarcastically.\n\nUrsula was put out.\n\n'Of course,' she said, 'I think Gerald spoke to Rupert so that it\nshouldn't seem like an outing with a TYPE--'\n\n'I know, of course,' said Gudrun, 'that he quite commonly does take up\nwith that sort.'\n\n'Does he!' said Ursula. 'Why how do you know?'\n\n'I know of a model in Chelsea,' said Gudrun coldly. Now Ursula was\nsilent. 'Well,' she said at last, with a doubtful laugh, 'I hope he has\na good time with her.' At which Gudrun looked more glum.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXVIII.\n\nGUDRUN IN THE POMPADOUR\n\n\nChristmas drew near, all four prepared for flight. Birkin and Ursula\nwere busy packing their few personal things, making them ready to be\nsent off, to whatever country and whatever place they might choose at\nlast. Gudrun was very much excited. She loved to be on the wing.\n\nShe and Gerald, being ready first, set off via London and Paris to\nInnsbruck, where they would meet Ursula and Birkin. In London they\nstayed one night. They went to the music-hall, and afterwards to the\nPompadour Cafe.\n\nGudrun hated the Cafe, yet she always went back to it, as did most of\nthe artists of her acquaintance. She loathed its atmosphere of petty\nvice and petty jealousy and petty art. Yet she always called in again,\nwhen she was in town. It was as if she HAD to return to this small,\nslow, central whirlpool of disintegration and dissolution: just give it\na look.\n\nShe sat with Gerald drinking some sweetish liqueur, and staring with\nblack, sullen looks at the various groups of people at the tables. She\nwould greet nobody, but young men nodded to her frequently, with a kind\nof sneering familiarity. She cut them all. And it gave her pleasure to\nsit there, cheeks flushed, eyes black and sullen, seeing them all\nobjectively, as put away from her, like creatures in some menagerie of\napish degraded souls. God, what a foul crew they were! Her blood beat\nblack and thick in her veins with rage and loathing. Yet she must sit\nand watch, watch. One or two people came to speak to her. From every\nside of the Cafe, eyes turned half furtively, half jeeringly at her,\nmen looking over their shoulders, women under their hats.\n\nThe old crowd was there, Carlyon in his corner with his pupils and his\ngirl, Halliday and Libidnikov and the Pussum--they were all there.\nGudrun watched Gerald. She watched his eyes linger a moment on\nHalliday, on Halliday's party. These last were on the look-out--they\nnodded to him, he nodded again. They giggled and whispered among\nthemselves. Gerald watched them with the steady twinkle in his eyes.\nThey were urging the Pussum to something.\n\nShe at last rose. She was wearing a curious dress of dark silk splashed\nand spattered with different colours, a curious motley effect. She was\nthinner, her eyes were perhaps hotter, more disintegrated. Otherwise\nshe was just the same. Gerald watched her with the same steady twinkle\nin his eyes as she came across. She held out her thin brown hand to\nhim.\n\n'How are you?' she said.\n\nHe shook hands with her, but remained seated, and let her stand near\nhim, against the table. She nodded blackly to Gudrun, whom she did not\nknow to speak to, but well enough by sight and reputation.\n\n'I am very well,' said Gerald. 'And you?'\n\n'Oh I'm all wight. What about Wupert?'\n\n'Rupert? He's very well, too.'\n\n'Yes, I don't mean that. What about him being married?'\n\n'Oh--yes, he is married.'\n\nThe Pussum's eyes had a hot flash.\n\n'Oh, he's weally bwought it off then, has he? When was he married?'\n\n'A week or two ago.'\n\n'Weally! He's never written.'\n\n'No.'\n\n'No. Don't you think it's too bad?'\n\nThis last was in a tone of challenge. The Pussum let it be known by her\ntone, that she was aware of Gudrun's listening.\n\n'I suppose he didn't feel like it,' replied Gerald.\n\n'But why didn't he?' pursued the Pussum.\n\nThis was received in silence. There was an ugly, mocking persistence in\nthe small, beautiful figure of the short-haired girl, as she stood near\nGerald.\n\n'Are you staying in town long?' she asked.\n\n'Tonight only.'\n\n'Oh, only tonight. Are you coming over to speak to Julius?'\n\n'Not tonight.'\n\n'Oh very well. I'll tell him then.' Then came her touch of diablerie.\n'You're looking awf'lly fit.'\n\n'Yes--I feel it.' Gerald was quite calm and easy, a spark of satiric\namusement in his eye.\n\n'Are you having a good time?'\n\nThis was a direct blow for Gudrun, spoken in a level, toneless voice of\ncallous ease.\n\n'Yes,' he replied, quite colourlessly.\n\n'I'm awf'lly sorry you aren't coming round to the flat. You aren't very\nfaithful to your fwiends.'\n\n'Not very,' he said.\n\nShe nodded them both 'Good-night', and went back slowly to her own set.\nGudrun watched her curious walk, stiff and jerking at the loins. They\nheard her level, toneless voice distinctly.\n\n'He won't come over;--he is otherwise engaged,' it said. There was more\nlaughter and lowered voices and mockery at the table.\n\n'Is she a friend of yours?' said Gudrun, looking calmly at Gerald.\n\n'I've stayed at Halliday's flat with Birkin,' he said, meeting her\nslow, calm eyes. And she knew that the Pussum was one of his\nmistresses--and he knew she knew.\n\nShe looked round, and called for the waiter. She wanted an iced\ncocktail, of all things. This amused Gerald--he wondered what was up.\n\nThe Halliday party was tipsy, and malicious. They were talking out\nloudly about Birkin, ridiculing him on every point, particularly on his\nmarriage.\n\n'Oh, DON'T make me think of Birkin,' Halliday was squealing. 'He makes\nme perfectly sick. He is as bad as Jesus. \"Lord, WHAT must I do to be\nsaved!\"'\n\nHe giggled to himself tipsily.\n\n'Do you remember,' came the quick voice of the Russian, 'the letters he\nused to send. \"Desire is holy-\"'\n\n'Oh yes!' cried Halliday. 'Oh, how perfectly splendid. Why, I've got\none in my pocket. I'm sure I have.'\n\nHe took out various papers from his pocket book.\n\n'I'm sure I've--HIC! OH DEAR!--got one.'\n\nGerald and Gudrun were watching absorbedly.\n\n'Oh yes, how perfectly--HIC!--splendid! Don't make me laugh, Pussum, it\ngives me the hiccup. Hic!--' They all giggled.\n\n'What did he say in that one?' the Pussum asked, leaning forward, her\ndark, soft hair falling and swinging against her face. There was\nsomething curiously indecent, obscene, about her small, longish, dark\nskull, particularly when the ears showed.\n\n'Wait--oh do wait! NO-O, I won't give it to you, I'll read it aloud.\nI'll read you the choice bits,--hic! Oh dear! Do you think if I drink\nwater it would take off this hiccup? HIC! Oh, I feel perfectly\nhelpless.'\n\n'Isn't that the letter about uniting the dark and the light--and the\nFlux of Corruption?' asked Maxim, in his precise, quick voice.\n\n'I believe so,' said the Pussum.\n\n'Oh is it? I'd forgotten--HIC!--it was that one,' Halliday said,\nopening the letter. 'HIC! Oh yes. How perfectly splendid! This is one\nof the best. \"There is a phase in every race--\"' he read in the\nsing-song, slow, distinct voice of a clergyman reading the Scriptures,\n'\"When the desire for destruction overcomes every other desire. In the\nindividual, this desire is ultimately a desire for destruction in the\nself\"--HIC!--' he paused and looked up.\n\n'I hope he's going ahead with the destruction of himself,' said the\nquick voice of the Russian. Halliday giggled, and lolled his head back,\nvaguely.\n\n'There's not much to destroy in him,' said the Pussum. 'He's so thin\nalready, there's only a fag-end to start on.'\n\n'Oh, isn't it beautiful! I love reading it! I believe it has cured my\nhiccup!' squealed Halliday. 'Do let me go on. \"It is a desire for the\nreduction process in oneself, a reducing back to the origin, a return\nalong the Flux of Corruption, to the original rudimentary conditions of\nbeing--!\" Oh, but I DO think it is wonderful. It almost supersedes the\nBible-'\n\n'Yes--Flux of Corruption,' said the Russian, 'I remember that phrase.'\n\n'Oh, he was always talking about Corruption,' said the Pussum. 'He must\nbe corrupt himself, to have it so much on his mind.'\n\n'Exactly!' said the Russian.\n\n'Do let me go on! Oh, this is a perfectly wonderful piece! But do\nlisten to this. \"And in the great retrogression, the reducing back of\nthe created body of life, we get knowledge, and beyond knowledge, the\nphosphorescent ecstasy of acute sensation.\" Oh, I do think these\nphrases are too absurdly wonderful. Oh but don't you think they\nARE--they're nearly as good as Jesus. \"And if, Julius, you want this\necstasy of reduction with the Pussum, you must go on till it is\nfulfilled. But surely there is in you also, somewhere, the living\ndesire for positive creation, relationships in ultimate faith, when all\nthis process of active corruption, with all its flowers of mud, is\ntranscended, and more or less finished--\" I do wonder what the flowers\nof mud are. Pussum, you are a flower of mud.'\n\n'Thank you--and what are you?'\n\n'Oh, I'm another, surely, according to this letter! We're all flowers\nof mud--FLEURS--HIC! DU MAL! It's perfectly wonderful, Birkin harrowing\nHell--harrowing the Pompadour--HIC!'\n\n'Go on--go on,' said Maxim. 'What comes next? It's really very\ninteresting.'\n\n'I think it's awful cheek to write like that,' said the Pussum.\n\n'Yes--yes, so do I,' said the Russian. 'He is a megalomaniac, of\ncourse, it is a form of religious mania. He thinks he is the Saviour of\nman--go on reading.'\n\n'Surely,' Halliday intoned, '\"surely goodness and mercy hath followed\nme all the days of my life--\"' he broke off and giggled. Then he began\nagain, intoning like a clergyman. '\"Surely there will come an end in\nus to this desire--for the constant going apart,--this passion for\nputting asunder--everything--ourselves, reducing ourselves part from\npart--reacting in intimacy only for destruction,--using sex as a great\nreducing agent, reducing the two great elements of male and female from\ntheir highly complex unity--reducing the old ideas, going back to the\nsavages for our sensations,--always seeking to LOSE ourselves in some\nultimate black sensation, mindless and infinite--burning only with\ndestructive fires, raging on with the hope of being burnt out\nutterly--\"'\n\n'I want to go,' said Gudrun to Gerald, as she signalled the waiter. Her\neyes were flashing, her cheeks were flushed. The strange effect of\nBirkin's letter read aloud in a perfect clerical sing-song, clear and\nresonant, phrase by phrase, made the blood mount into her head as if\nshe were mad.\n\nShe rose, whilst Gerald was paying the bill, and walked over to\nHalliday's table. They all glanced up at her.\n\n'Excuse me,' she said. 'Is that a genuine letter you are reading?'\n\n'Oh yes,' said Halliday. 'Quite genuine.'\n\n'May I see?'\n\nSmiling foolishly he handed it to her, as if hypnotised.\n\n'Thank you,' she said.\n\nAnd she turned and walked out of the Cafe with the letter, all down the\nbrilliant room, between the tables, in her measured fashion. It was\nsome moments before anybody realised what was happening.\n\nFrom Halliday's table came half articulate cries, then somebody booed,\nthen all the far end of the place began booing after Gudrun's\nretreating form. She was fashionably dressed in blackish-green and\nsilver, her hat was brilliant green, like the sheen on an insect, but\nthe brim was soft dark green, a falling edge with fine silver, her coat\nwas dark green, lustrous, with a high collar of grey fur, and great fur\ncuffs, the edge of her dress showed silver and black velvet, her\nstockings and shoes were silver grey. She moved with slow, fashionable\nindifference to the door. The porter opened obsequiously for her, and,\nat her nod, hurried to the edge of the pavement and whistled for a\ntaxi. The two lights of a vehicle almost immediately curved round\ntowards her, like two eyes.\n\nGerald had followed in wonder, amid all the booing, not having caught\nher misdeed. He heard the Pussum's voice saying:\n\n'Go and get it back from her. I never heard of such a thing! Go and get\nit back from her. Tell Gerald Crich--there he goes--go and make him\ngive it up.'\n\nGudrun stood at the door of the taxi, which the man held open for her.\n\n'To the hotel?' she asked, as Gerald came out, hurriedly.\n\n'Where you like,' he answered.\n\n'Right!' she said. Then to the driver, 'Wagstaff's--Barton Street.'\n\nThe driver bowed his head, and put down the flag.\n\nGudrun entered the taxi, with the deliberate cold movement of a woman\nwho is well-dressed and contemptuous in her soul. Yet she was frozen\nwith overwrought feelings. Gerald followed her.\n\n'You've forgotten the man,' she said cooly, with a slight nod of her\nhat. Gerald gave the porter a shilling. The man saluted. They were in\nmotion.\n\n'What was all the row about?' asked Gerald, in wondering excitement.\n\n'I walked away with Birkin's letter,' she said, and he saw the crushed\npaper in her hand.\n\nHis eyes glittered with satisfaction.\n\n'Ah!' he said. 'Splendid! A set of jackasses!'\n\n'I could have KILLED them!' she cried in passion. 'DOGS!--they are\ndogs! Why is Rupert such a FOOL as to write such letters to them? Why\ndoes he give himself away to such canaille? It's a thing that CANNOT BE\nBORNE.'\n\nGerald wondered over her strange passion.\n\nAnd she could not rest any longer in London. They must go by the\nmorning train from Charing Cross. As they drew over the bridge, in the\ntrain, having glimpses of the river between the great iron girders, she\ncried:\n\n'I feel I could NEVER see this foul town again--I couldn't BEAR to come\nback to it.'\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIX.\n\nCONTINENTAL\n\n\nUrsula went on in an unreal suspense, the last weeks before going away.\nShe was not herself,--she was not anything. She was something that is\ngoing to be--soon--soon--very soon. But as yet, she was only imminent.\n\nShe went to see her parents. It was a rather stiff, sad meeting, more\nlike a verification of separateness than a reunion. But they were all\nvague and indefinite with one another, stiffened in the fate that moved\nthem apart.\n\nShe did not really come to until she was on the ship crossing from\nDover to Ostend. Dimly she had come down to London with Birkin, London\nhad been a vagueness, so had the train-journey to Dover. It was all\nlike a sleep.\n\nAnd now, at last, as she stood in the stern of the ship, in a\npitch-dark, rather blowy night, feeling the motion of the sea, and\nwatching the small, rather desolate little lights that twinkled on the\nshores of England, as on the shores of nowhere, watched them sinking\nsmaller and smaller on the profound and living darkness, she felt her\nsoul stirring to awake from its anaesthetic sleep.\n\n'Let us go forward, shall we?' said Birkin. He wanted to be at the tip\nof their projection. So they left off looking at the faint sparks that\nglimmered out of nowhere, in the far distance, called England, and\nturned their faces to the unfathomed night in front.\n\nThey went right to the bows of the softly plunging vessel. In the\ncomplete obscurity, Birkin found a comparatively sheltered nook, where\na great rope was coiled up. It was quite near the very point of the\nship, near the black, unpierced space ahead. There they sat down,\nfolded together, folded round with the same rug, creeping in nearer and\never nearer to one another, till it seemed they had crept right into\neach other, and become one substance. It was very cold, and the\ndarkness was palpable.\n\nOne of the ship's crew came along the deck, dark as the darkness, not\nreally visible. They then made out the faintest pallor of his face. He\nfelt their presence, and stopped, unsure--then bent forward. When his\nface was near them, he saw the faint pallor of their faces. Then he\nwithdrew like a phantom. And they watched him without making any sound.\n\nThey seemed to fall away into the profound darkness. There was no sky,\nno earth, only one unbroken darkness, into which, with a soft, sleeping\nmotion, they seemed to fall like one closed seed of life falling\nthrough dark, fathomless space.\n\nThey had forgotten where they were, forgotten all that was and all that\nhad been, conscious only in their heart, and there conscious only of\nthis pure trajectory through the surpassing darkness. The ship's prow\ncleaved on, with a faint noise of cleavage, into the complete night,\nwithout knowing, without seeing, only surging on.\n\nIn Ursula the sense of the unrealised world ahead triumphed over\neverything. In the midst of this profound darkness, there seemed to\nglow on her heart the effulgence of a paradise unknown and unrealised.\nHer heart was full of the most wonderful light, golden like honey of\ndarkness, sweet like the warmth of day, a light which was not shed on\nthe world, only on the unknown paradise towards which she was going, a\nsweetness of habitation, a delight of living quite unknown, but hers\ninfallibly. In her transport she lifted her face suddenly to him, and\nhe touched it with his lips. So cold, so fresh, so sea-clear her face\nwas, it was like kissing a flower that grows near the surf.\n\nBut he did not know the ecstasy of bliss in fore-knowledge that she\nknew. To him, the wonder of this transit was overwhelming. He was\nfalling through a gulf of infinite darkness, like a meteorite plunging\nacross the chasm between the worlds. The world was torn in two, and he\nwas plunging like an unlit star through the ineffable rift. What was\nbeyond was not yet for him. He was overcome by the trajectory.\n\nIn a trance he lay enfolding Ursula round about. His face was against\nher fine, fragile hair, he breathed its fragrance with the sea and the\nprofound night. And his soul was at peace; yielded, as he fell into the\nunknown. This was the first time that an utter and absolute peace had\nentered his heart, now, in this final transit out of life.\n\nWhen there came some stir on the deck, they roused. They stood up. How\nstiff and cramped they were, in the night-time! And yet the paradisal\nglow on her heart, and the unutterable peace of darkness in his, this\nwas the all-in-all.\n\nThey stood up and looked ahead. Low lights were seen down the darkness.\nThis was the world again. It was not the bliss of her heart, nor the\npeace of his. It was the superficial unreal world of fact. Yet not\nquite the old world. For the peace and the bliss in their hearts was\nenduring.\n\nStrange, and desolate above all things, like disembarking from the Styx\ninto the desolated underworld, was this landing at night. There was the\nraw, half-lighted, covered-in vastness of the dark place, boarded and\nhollow underfoot, with only desolation everywhere. Ursula had caught\nsight of the big, pallid, mystic letters 'OSTEND,' standing in the\ndarkness. Everybody was hurrying with a blind, insect-like intentness\nthrough the dark grey air, porters were calling in un-English English,\nthen trotting with heavy bags, their colourless blouses looking ghostly\nas they disappeared; Ursula stood at a long, low, zinc-covered barrier,\nalong with hundreds of other spectral people, and all the way down the\nvast, raw darkness was this low stretch of open bags and spectral\npeople, whilst, on the other side of the barrier, pallid officials in\npeaked caps and moustaches were turning the underclothing in the bags,\nthen scrawling a chalk-mark.\n\nIt was done. Birkin snapped the hand bags, off they went, the porter\ncoming behind. They were through a great doorway, and in the open night\nagain--ah, a railway platform! Voices were still calling in inhuman\nagitation through the dark-grey air, spectres were running along the\ndarkness between the train.\n\n'Koln--Berlin--' Ursula made out on the boards hung on the high train\non one side.\n\n'Here we are,' said Birkin. And on her side she saw:\n'Elsass--Lothringen--Luxembourg, Metz--Basle.'\n\n'That was it, Basle!'\n\nThe porter came up.\n\n'A Bale--deuxieme classe?--Voila!' And he clambered into the high\ntrain. They followed. The compartments were already some of them taken.\nBut many were dim and empty. The luggage was stowed, the porter was\ntipped.\n\n'Nous avons encore--?' said Birkin, looking at his watch and at the\nporter.\n\n'Encore une demi-heure.' With which, in his blue blouse, he\ndisappeared. He was ugly and insolent.\n\n'Come,' said Birkin. 'It is cold. Let us eat.'\n\nThere was a coffee-wagon on the platform. They drank hot, watery\ncoffee, and ate the long rolls, split, with ham between, which were\nsuch a wide bite that it almost dislocated Ursula's jaw; and they\nwalked beside the high trains. It was all so strange, so extremely\ndesolate, like the underworld, grey, grey, dirt grey, desolate,\nforlorn, nowhere--grey, dreary nowhere.\n\nAt last they were moving through the night. In the darkness Ursula made\nout the flat fields, the wet flat dreary darkness of the Continent.\nThey pulled up surprisingly soon--Bruges! Then on through the level\ndarkness, with glimpses of sleeping farms and thin poplar trees and\ndeserted high-roads. She sat dismayed, hand in hand with Birkin. He\npale, immobile like a REVENANT himself, looked sometimes out of the\nwindow, sometimes closed his eyes. Then his eyes opened again, dark as\nthe darkness outside.\n\nA flash of a few lights on the darkness--Ghent station! A few more\nspectres moving outside on the platform--then the bell--then motion\nagain through the level darkness. Ursula saw a man with a lantern come\nout of a farm by the railway, and cross to the dark farm-buildings. She\nthought of the Marsh, the old, intimate farm-life at Cossethay. My God,\nhow far was she projected from her childhood, how far was she still to\ngo! In one life-time one travelled through aeons. The great chasm of\nmemory from her childhood in the intimate country surroundings of\nCossethay and the Marsh Farm--she remembered the servant Tilly, who\nused to give her bread and butter sprinkled with brown sugar, in the\nold living-room where the grandfather clock had two pink roses in a\nbasket painted above the figures on the face--and now when she was\ntravelling into the unknown with Birkin, an utter stranger--was so\ngreat, that it seemed she had no identity, that the child she had been,\nplaying in Cossethay churchyard, was a little creature of history, not\nreally herself.\n\nThey were at Brussels--half an hour for breakfast. They got down. On\nthe great station clock it said six o'clock. They had coffee and rolls\nand honey in the vast desert refreshment room, so dreary, always so\ndreary, dirty, so spacious, such desolation of space. But she washed\nher face and hands in hot water, and combed her hair--that was a\nblessing.\n\nSoon they were in the train again and moving on. The greyness of dawn\nbegan. There were several people in the compartment, large florid\nBelgian business-men with long brown beards, talking incessantly in an\nugly French she was too tired to follow.\n\nIt seemed the train ran by degrees out of the darkness into a faint\nlight, then beat after beat into the day. Ah, how weary it was!\nFaintly, the trees showed, like shadows. Then a house, white, had a\ncurious distinctness. How was it? Then she saw a village--there were\nalways houses passing.\n\nThis was an old world she was still journeying through, winter-heavy\nand dreary. There was plough-land and pasture, and copses of bare\ntrees, copses of bushes, and homesteads naked and work-bare. No new\nearth had come to pass.\n\nShe looked at Birkin's face. It was white and still and eternal, too\neternal. She linked her fingers imploringly in his, under the cover of\nher rug. His fingers responded, his eyes looked back at her. How dark,\nlike a night, his eyes were, like another world beyond! Oh, if he were\nthe world as well, if only the world were he! If only he could call a\nworld into being, that should be their own world!\n\nThe Belgians left, the train ran on, through Luxembourg, through\nAlsace-Lorraine, through Metz. But she was blind, she could see no\nmore. Her soul did not look out.\n\nThey came at last to Basle, to the hotel. It was all a drifting trance,\nfrom which she never came to. They went out in the morning, before the\ntrain departed. She saw the street, the river, she stood on the bridge.\nBut it all meant nothing. She remembered some shops--one full of\npictures, one with orange velvet and ermine. But what did these\nsignify?--nothing.\n\nShe was not at ease till they were in the train again. Then she was\nrelieved. So long as they were moving onwards, she was satisfied. They\ncame to Zurich, then, before very long, ran under the mountains, that\nwere deep in snow. At last she was drawing near. This was the other\nworld now.\n\nInnsbruck was wonderful, deep in snow, and evening. They drove in an\nopen sledge over the snow: the train had been so hot and stifling. And\nthe hotel, with the golden light glowing under the porch, seemed like a\nhome.\n\nThey laughed with pleasure when they were in the hall. The place seemed\nfull and busy.\n\n'Do you know if Mr and Mrs Crich--English--from Paris, have arrived?'\nBirkin asked in German.\n\nThe porter reflected a moment, and was just going to answer, when\nUrsula caught sight of Gudrun sauntering down the stairs, wearing her\ndark glossy coat, with grey fur.\n\n'Gudrun! Gudrun!' she called, waving up the well of the staircase.\n'Shu-hu!'\n\nGudrun looked over the rail, and immediately lost her sauntering,\ndiffident air. Her eyes flashed.\n\n'Really--Ursula!' she cried. And she began to move downstairs as Ursula\nran up. They met at a turn and kissed with laughter and exclamations\ninarticulate and stirring.\n\n'But!' cried Gudrun, mortified. 'We thought it was TOMORROW you were\ncoming! I wanted to come to the station.'\n\n'No, we've come today!' cried Ursula. 'Isn't it lovely here!'\n\n'Adorable!' said Gudrun. 'Gerald's just gone out to get something.\nUrsula, aren't you FEARFULLY tired?'\n\n'No, not so very. But I look a filthy sight, don't I!'\n\n'No, you don't. You look almost perfectly fresh. I like that fur cap\nIMMENSELY!' She glanced over Ursula, who wore a big soft coat with a\ncollar of deep, soft, blond fur, and a soft blond cap of fur.\n\n'And you!' cried Ursula. 'What do you think YOU look like!'\n\nGudrun assumed an unconcerned, expressionless face.\n\n'Do you like it?' she said.\n\n'It's VERY fine!' cried Ursula, perhaps with a touch of satire.\n\n'Go up--or come down,' said Birkin. For there the sisters stood, Gudrun\nwith her hand on Ursula's arm, on the turn of the stairs half way to\nthe first landing, blocking the way and affording full entertainment to\nthe whole of the hall below, from the door porter to the plump Jew in\nblack clothes.\n\nThe two young women slowly mounted, followed by Birkin and the waiter.\n\n'First floor?' asked Gudrun, looking back over her shoulder.\n\n'Second Madam--the lift!' the waiter replied. And he darted to the\nelevator to forestall the two women. But they ignored him, as,\nchattering without heed, they set to mount the second flight. Rather\nchagrined, the waiter followed.\n\nIt was curious, the delight of the sisters in each other, at this\nmeeting. It was as if they met in exile, and united their solitary\nforces against all the world. Birkin looked on with some mistrust and\nwonder.\n\nWhen they had bathed and changed, Gerald came in. He looked shining\nlike the sun on frost.\n\n'Go with Gerald and smoke,' said Ursula to Birkin. 'Gudrun and I want\nto talk.'\n\nThen the sisters sat in Gudrun's bedroom, and talked clothes, and\nexperiences. Gudrun told Ursula the experience of the Birkin letter in\nthe cafe. Ursula was shocked and frightened.\n\n'Where is the letter?' she asked.\n\n'I kept it,' said Gudrun.\n\n'You'll give it me, won't you?' she said.\n\nBut Gudrun was silent for some moments, before she replied:\n\n'Do you really want it, Ursula?'\n\n'I want to read it,' said Ursula.\n\n'Certainly,' said Gudrun.\n\nEven now, she could not admit, to Ursula, that she wanted to keep it,\nas a memento, or a symbol. But Ursula knew, and was not pleased. So the\nsubject was switched off.\n\n'What did you do in Paris?' asked Ursula.\n\n'Oh,' said Gudrun laconically--'the usual things. We had a FINE party\none night in Fanny Bath's studio.'\n\n'Did you? And you and Gerald were there! Who else? Tell me about it.'\n\n'Well,' said Gudrun. 'There's nothing particular to tell. You know\nFanny is FRIGHTFULLY in love with that painter, Billy Macfarlane. He\nwas there--so Fanny spared nothing, she spent VERY freely. It was\nreally remarkable! Of course, everybody got fearfully drunk--but in an\ninteresting way, not like that filthy London crowd. The fact is these\nwere all people that matter, which makes all the difference. There was\na Roumanian, a fine chap. He got completely drunk, and climbed to the\ntop of a high studio ladder, and gave the most marvellous\naddress--really, Ursula, it was wonderful! He began in French--La vie,\nc'est une affaire d'ames imperiales--in a most beautiful voice--he was\na fine-looking chap--but he had got into Roumanian before he had\nfinished, and not a soul understood. But Donald Gilchrist was worked to\na frenzy. He dashed his glass to the ground, and declared, by God, he\nwas glad he had been born, by God, it was a miracle to be alive. And do\nyou know, Ursula, so it was--' Gudrun laughed rather hollowly.\n\n'But how was Gerald among them all?' asked Ursula.\n\n'Gerald! Oh, my word, he came out like a dandelion in the sun! HE'S a\nwhole saturnalia in himself, once he is roused. I shouldn't like to say\nwhose waist his arm did not go round. Really, Ursula, he seems to reap\nthe women like a harvest. There wasn't one that would have resisted\nhim. It was too amazing! Can you understand it?'\n\nUrsula reflected, and a dancing light came into her eyes.\n\n'Yes,' she said. 'I can. He is such a whole-hogger.'\n\n'Whole-hogger! I should think so!' exclaimed Gudrun. 'But it is true,\nUrsula, every woman in the room was ready to surrender to him.\nChanticleer isn't in it--even Fanny Bath, who is GENUINELY in love with\nBilly Macfarlane! I never was more amazed in my life! And you know,\nafterwards--I felt I was a whole ROOMFUL of women. I was no more myself\nto him, than I was Queen Victoria. I was a whole roomful of women at\nonce. It was most astounding! But my eye, I'd caught a Sultan that\ntime--'\n\nGudrun's eyes were flashing, her cheek was hot, she looked strange,\nexotic, satiric. Ursula was fascinated at once--and yet uneasy.\n\nThey had to get ready for dinner. Gudrun came down in a daring gown of\nvivid green silk and tissue of gold, with green velvet bodice and a\nstrange black-and-white band round her hair. She was really brilliantly\nbeautiful and everybody noticed her. Gerald was in that full-blooded,\ngleaming state when he was most handsome. Birkin watched them with\nquick, laughing, half-sinister eyes, Ursula quite lost her head. There\nseemed a spell, almost a blinding spell, cast round their table, as if\nthey were lighted up more strongly than the rest of the dining-room.\n\n'Don't you love to be in this place?' cried Gudrun. 'Isn't the snow\nwonderful! Do you notice how it exalts everything? It is simply\nmarvellous. One really does feel LIBERMENSCHLICH--more than human.'\n\n'One does,' cried Ursula. 'But isn't that partly the being out of\nEngland?'\n\n'Oh, of course,' cried Gudrun. 'One could never feel like this in\nEngland, for the simple reason that the damper is NEVER lifted off one,\nthere. It is quite impossible really to let go, in England, of that I\nam assured.'\n\nAnd she turned again to the food she was eating. She was fluttering\nwith vivid intensity.\n\n'It's quite true,' said Gerald, 'it never is quite the same in England.\nBut perhaps we don't want it to be--perhaps it's like bringing the\nlight a little too near the powder-magazine, to let go altogether, in\nEngland. One is afraid what might happen, if EVERYBODY ELSE let go.'\n\n'My God!' cried Gudrun. 'But wouldn't it be wonderful, if all England\ndid suddenly go off like a display of fireworks.'\n\n'It couldn't,' said Ursula. 'They are all too damp, the powder is damp\nin them.'\n\n'I'm not so sure of that,' said Gerald.\n\n'Nor I,' said Birkin. 'When the English really begin to go off, EN\nMASSE, it'll be time to shut your ears and run.'\n\n'They never will,' said Ursula.\n\n'We'll see,' he replied.\n\n'Isn't it marvellous,' said Gudrun, 'how thankful one can be, to be out\nof one's country. I cannot believe myself, I am so transported, the\nmoment I set foot on a foreign shore. I say to myself \"Here steps a new\ncreature into life.\"'\n\n'Don't be too hard on poor old England,' said Gerald. 'Though we curse\nit, we love it really.'\n\nTo Ursula, there seemed a fund of cynicism in these words.\n\n'We may,' said Birkin. 'But it's a damnably uncomfortable love: like a\nlove for an aged parent who suffers horribly from a complication of\ndiseases, for which there is no hope.'\n\nGudrun looked at him with dilated dark eyes.\n\n'You think there is no hope?' she asked, in her pertinent fashion.\n\nBut Birkin backed away. He would not answer such a question.\n\n'Any hope of England's becoming real? God knows. It's a great actual\nunreality now, an aggregation into unreality. It might be real, if\nthere were no Englishmen.'\n\n'You think the English will have to disappear?' persisted Gudrun. It\nwas strange, her pointed interest in his answer. It might have been her\nown fate she was inquiring after. Her dark, dilated eyes rested on\nBirkin, as if she could conjure the truth of the future out of him, as\nout of some instrument of divination.\n\nHe was pale. Then, reluctantly, he answered:\n\n'Well--what else is in front of them, but disappearance? They've got to\ndisappear from their own special brand of Englishness, anyhow.'\n\nGudrun watched him as if in a hypnotic state, her eyes wide and fixed\non him.\n\n'But in what way do you mean, disappear?--' she persisted.\n\n'Yes, do you mean a change of heart?' put in Gerald.\n\n'I don't mean anything, why should I?' said Birkin. 'I'm an Englishman,\nand I've paid the price of it. I can't talk about England--I can only\nspeak for myself.'\n\n'Yes,' said Gudrun slowly, 'you love England immensely, IMMENSELY,\nRupert.'\n\n'And leave her,' he replied.\n\n'No, not for good. You'll come back,' said Gerald, nodding sagely.\n\n'They say the lice crawl off a dying body,' said Birkin, with a glare\nof bitterness. 'So I leave England.'\n\n'Ah, but you'll come back,' said Gudrun, with a sardonic smile.\n\n'Tant pis pour moi,' he replied.\n\n'Isn't he angry with his mother country!' laughed Gerald, amused.\n\n'Ah, a patriot!' said Gudrun, with something like a sneer.\n\nBirkin refused to answer any more.\n\nGudrun watched him still for a few seconds. Then she turned away. It\nwas finished, her spell of divination in him. She felt already purely\ncynical. She looked at Gerald. He was wonderful like a piece of radium\nto her. She felt she could consume herself and know ALL, by means of\nthis fatal, living metal. She smiled to herself at her fancy. And what\nwould she do with herself, when she had destroyed herself? For if\nspirit, if integral being is destructible, Matter is indestructible.\n\nHe was looking bright and abstracted, puzzled, for the moment. She\nstretched out her beautiful arm, with its fluff of green tulle, and\ntouched his chin with her subtle, artist's fingers.\n\n'What are they then?' she asked, with a strange, knowing smile.\n\n'What?' he replied, his eyes suddenly dilating with wonder.\n\n'Your thoughts.'\n\nGerald looked like a man coming awake.\n\n'I think I had none,' he said.\n\n'Really!' she said, with grave laughter in her voice.\n\nAnd to Birkin it was as if she killed Gerald, with that touch.\n\n'Ah but,' cried Gudrun, 'let us drink to Britannia--let us drink to\nBritannia.'\n\nIt seemed there was wild despair in her voice. Gerald laughed, and\nfilled the glasses.\n\n'I think Rupert means,' he said, 'that NATIONALLY all Englishmen must\ndie, so that they can exist individually and--'\n\n'Super-nationally--' put in Gudrun, with a slight ironic grimace,\nraising her glass.\n\nThe next day, they descended at the tiny railway station of\nHohenhausen, at the end of the tiny valley railway. It was snow\neverywhere, a white, perfect cradle of snow, new and frozen, sweeping\nup an either side, black crags, and white sweeps of silver towards the\nblue pale heavens.\n\nAs they stepped out on the naked platform, with only snow around and\nabove, Gudrun shrank as if it chilled her heart.\n\n'My God, Jerry,' she said, turning to Gerald with sudden intimacy,\n'you've done it now.'\n\n'What?'\n\nShe made a faint gesture, indicating the world on either hand.\n\n'Look at it!'\n\nShe seemed afraid to go on. He laughed.\n\nThey were in the heart of the mountains. From high above, on either\nside, swept down the white fold of snow, so that one seemed small and\ntiny in a valley of pure concrete heaven, all strangely radiant and\nchangeless and silent.\n\n'It makes one feel so small and alone,' said Ursula, turning to Birkin\nand laying her hand on his arm.\n\n'You're not sorry you've come, are you?' said Gerald to Gudrun.\n\nShe looked doubtful. They went out of the station between banks of\nsnow.\n\n'Ah,' said Gerald, sniffing the air in elation, 'this is perfect.\nThere's our sledge. We'll walk a bit--we'll run up the road.'\n\nGudrun, always doubtful, dropped her heavy coat on the sledge, as he\ndid his, and they set off. Suddenly she threw up her head and set off\nscudding along the road of snow, pulling her cap down over her ears.\nHer blue, bright dress fluttered in the wind, her thick scarlet\nstockings were brilliant above the whiteness. Gerald watched her: she\nseemed to be rushing towards her fate, and leaving him behind. He let\nher get some distance, then, loosening his limbs, he went after her.\n\nEverywhere was deep and silent snow. Great snow-eaves weighed down the\nbroad-roofed Tyrolese houses, that were sunk to the window-sashes in\nsnow. Peasant-women, full-skirted, wearing each a cross-over shawl, and\nthick snow-boots, turned in the way to look at the soft, determined\ngirl running with such heavy fleetness from the man, who was overtaking\nher, but not gaining any power over her.\n\nThey passed the inn with its painted shutters and balcony, a few\ncottages, half buried in the snow; then the snow-buried silent sawmill\nby the roofed bridge, which crossed the hidden stream, over which they\nran into the very depth of the untouched sheets of snow. It was a\nsilence and a sheer whiteness exhilarating to madness. But the perfect\nsilence was most terrifying, isolating the soul, surrounding the heart\nwith frozen air.\n\n'It's a marvellous place, for all that,' said Gudrun, looking into his\neyes with a strange, meaning look. His soul leapt.\n\n'Good,' he said.\n\nA fierce electric energy seemed to flow over all his limbs, his muscles\nwere surcharged, his hands felt hard with strength. They walked along\nrapidly up the snow-road, that was marked by withered branches of trees\nstuck in at intervals. He and she were separate, like opposite poles of\none fierce energy. But they felt powerful enough to leap over the\nconfines of life into the forbidden places, and back again.\n\nBirkin and Ursula were running along also, over the snow. He had\ndisposed of the luggage, and they had a little start of the sledges.\nUrsula was excited and happy, but she kept turning suddenly to catch\nhold of Birkin's arm, to make sure of him.\n\n'This is something I never expected,' she said. 'It is a different\nworld, here.'\n\nThey went on into a snow meadow. There they were overtaken by the\nsledge, that came tinkling through the silence. It was another mile\nbefore they came upon Gudrun and Gerald on the steep up-climb, beside\nthe pink, half-buried shrine.\n\nThen they passed into a gulley, where were walls of black rock and a\nriver filled with snow, and a still blue sky above. Through a covered\nbridge they went, drumming roughly over the boards, crossing the\nsnow-bed once more, then slowly up and up, the horses walking swiftly,\nthe driver cracking his long whip as he walked beside, and calling his\nstrange wild HUE-HUE!, the walls of rock passing slowly by, till they\nemerged again between slopes and masses of snow. Up and up, gradually\nthey went, through the cold shadow-radiance of the afternoon, silenced\nby the imminence of the mountains, the luminous, dazing sides of snow\nthat rose above them and fell away beneath.\n\nThey came forth at last in a little high table-land of snow, where\nstood the last peaks of snow like the heart petals of an open rose. In\nthe midst of the last deserted valleys of heaven stood a lonely\nbuilding with brown wooden walls and white heavy roof, deep and\ndeserted in the waste of snow, like a dream. It stood like a rock that\nhad rolled down from the last steep slopes, a rock that had taken the\nform of a house, and was now half-buried. It was unbelievable that one\ncould live there uncrushed by all this terrible waste of whiteness and\nsilence and clear, upper, ringing cold.\n\nYet the sledges ran up in fine style, people came to the door laughing\nand excited, the floor of the hostel rang hollow, the passage was wet\nwith snow, it was a real, warm interior.\n\nThe new-comers tramped up the bare wooden stairs, following the serving\nwoman. Gudrun and Gerald took the first bedroom. In a moment they found\nthemselves alone in a bare, smallish, close-shut room that was all of\ngolden-coloured wood, floor, walls, ceiling, door, all of the same warm\ngold panelling of oiled pine. There was a window opposite the door, but\nlow down, because the roof sloped. Under the slope of the ceiling were\nthe table with wash-hand bowl and jug, and across, another table with\nmirror. On either side the door were two beds piled high with an\nenormous blue-checked overbolster, enormous.\n\nThis was all--no cupboard, none of the amenities of life. Here they\nwere shut up together in this cell of golden-coloured wood, with two\nblue checked beds. They looked at each other and laughed, frightened by\nthis naked nearness of isolation.\n\nA man knocked and came in with the luggage. He was a sturdy fellow with\nflattish cheek-bones, rather pale, and with coarse fair moustache.\nGudrun watched him put down the bags, in silence, then tramp heavily\nout.\n\n'It isn't too rough, is it?' Gerald asked.\n\nThe bedroom was not very warm, and she shivered slightly.\n\n'It is wonderful,' she equivocated. 'Look at the colour of this\npanelling--it's wonderful, like being inside a nut.'\n\nHe was standing watching her, feeling his short-cut moustache, leaning\nback slightly and watching her with his keen, undaunted eyes, dominated\nby the constant passion, that was like a doom upon him.\n\nShe went and crouched down in front of the window, curious.\n\n'Oh, but this--!' she cried involuntarily, almost in pain.\n\nIn front was a valley shut in under the sky, the last huge slopes of\nsnow and black rock, and at the end, like the navel of the earth, a\nwhite-folded wall, and two peaks glimmering in the late light. Straight\nin front ran the cradle of silent snow, between the great slopes that\nwere fringed with a little roughness of pine-trees, like hair, round\nthe base. But the cradle of snow ran on to the eternal closing-in,\nwhere the walls of snow and rock rose impenetrable, and the mountain\npeaks above were in heaven immediate. This was the centre, the knot,\nthe navel of the world, where the earth belonged to the skies, pure,\nunapproachable, impassable.\n\nIt filled Gudrun with a strange rapture. She crouched in front of the\nwindow, clenching her face in her hands, in a sort of trance. At last\nshe had arrived, she had reached her place. Here at last she folded her\nventure and settled down like a crystal in the navel of snow, and was\ngone.\n\nGerald bent above her and was looking out over her shoulder. Already he\nfelt he was alone. She was gone. She was completely gone, and there was\nicy vapour round his heart. He saw the blind valley, the great\ncul-de-sac of snow and mountain peaks, under the heaven. And there was\nno way out. The terrible silence and cold and the glamorous whiteness\nof the dusk wrapped him round, and she remained crouching before the\nwindow, as at a shrine, a shadow.\n\n'Do you like it?' he asked, in a voice that sounded detached and\nforeign. At least she might acknowledge he was with her. But she only\naverted her soft, mute face a little from his gaze. And he knew that\nthere were tears in her eyes, her own tears, tears of her strange\nreligion, that put him to nought.\n\nQuite suddenly, he put his hand under her chin and lifted up her face\nto him. Her dark blue eyes, in their wetness of tears, dilated as if\nshe was startled in her very soul. They looked at him through their\ntears in terror and a little horror. His light blue eyes were keen,\nsmall-pupilled and unnatural in their vision. Her lips parted, as she\nbreathed with difficulty.\n\nThe passion came up in him, stroke after stroke, like the ringing of a\nbronze bell, so strong and unflawed and indomitable. His knees\ntightened to bronze as he hung above her soft face, whose lips parted\nand whose eyes dilated in a strange violation. In the grasp of his hand\nher chin was unutterably soft and silken. He felt strong as winter, his\nhands were living metal, invincible and not to be turned aside. His\nheart rang like a bell clanging inside him.\n\nHe took her up in his arms. She was soft and inert, motionless. All the\nwhile her eyes, in which the tears had not yet dried, were dilated as\nif in a kind of swoon of fascination and helplessness. He was\nsuperhumanly strong, and unflawed, as if invested with supernatural\nforce.\n\nHe lifted her close and folded her against him. Her softness, her\ninert, relaxed weight lay against his own surcharged, bronze-like limbs\nin a heaviness of desirability that would destroy him, if he were not\nfulfilled. She moved convulsively, recoiling away from him. His heart\nwent up like a flame of ice, he closed over her like steel. He would\ndestroy her rather than be denied.\n\nBut the overweening power of his body was too much for her. She relaxed\nagain, and lay loose and soft, panting in a little delirium. And to\nhim, she was so sweet, she was such bliss of release, that he would\nhave suffered a whole eternity of torture rather than forego one second\nof this pang of unsurpassable bliss.\n\n'My God,' he said to her, his face drawn and strange, transfigured,\n'what next?'\n\nShe lay perfectly still, with a still, child-like face and dark eyes,\nlooking at him. She was lost, fallen right away.\n\n'I shall always love you,' he said, looking at her.\n\nBut she did not hear. She lay, looking at him as at something she could\nnever understand, never: as a child looks at a grown-up person, without\nhope of understanding, only submitting.\n\nHe kissed her, kissed her eyes shut, so that she could not look any\nmore. He wanted something now, some recognition, some sign, some\nadmission. But she only lay silent and child-like and remote, like a\nchild that is overcome and cannot understand, only feels lost. He\nkissed her again, giving up.\n\n'Shall we go down and have coffee and Kuchen?' he asked.\n\nThe twilight was falling slate-blue at the window. She closed her eyes,\nclosed away the monotonous level of dead wonder, and opened them again\nto the every-day world.\n\n'Yes,' she said briefly, regaining her will with a click. She went\nagain to the window. Blue evening had fallen over the cradle of snow\nand over the great pallid slopes. But in the heaven the peaks of snow\nwere rosy, glistening like transcendent, radiant spikes of blossom in\nthe heavenly upper-world, so lovely and beyond.\n\nGudrun saw all their loveliness, she KNEW how immortally beautiful they\nwere, great pistils of rose-coloured, snow-fed fire in the blue\ntwilight of the heaven. She could SEE it, she knew it, but she was not\nof it. She was divorced, debarred, a soul shut out.\n\nWith a last look of remorse, she turned away, and was doing her hair.\nHe had unstrapped the luggage, and was waiting, watching her. She knew\nhe was watching her. It made her a little hasty and feverish in her\nprecipitation.\n\nThey went downstairs, both with a strange other-world look on their\nfaces, and with a glow in their eyes. They saw Birkin and Ursula\nsitting at the long table in a corner, waiting for them.\n\n'How good and simple they look together,' Gudrun thought, jealously.\nShe envied them some spontaneity, a childish sufficiency to which she\nherself could never approach. They seemed such children to her.\n\n'Such good Kranzkuchen!' cried Ursula greedily. 'So good!'\n\n'Right,' said Gudrun. 'Can we have Kaffee mit Kranzkuchen?' she added\nto the waiter.\n\nAnd she seated herself on the bench beside Gerald. Birkin, looking at\nthem, felt a pain of tenderness for them.\n\n'I think the place is really wonderful, Gerald,' he said; 'prachtvoll\nand wunderbar and wunderschon and unbeschreiblich and all the other\nGerman adjectives.'\n\nGerald broke into a slight smile.\n\n'I like it,' he said.\n\nThe tables, of white scrubbed wood, were placed round three sides of\nthe room, as in a Gasthaus. Birkin and Ursula sat with their backs to\nthe wall, which was of oiled wood, and Gerald and Gudrun sat in the\ncorner next them, near to the stove. It was a fairly large place, with\na tiny bar, just like a country inn, but quite simple and bare, and all\nof oiled wood, ceilings and walls and floor, the only furniture being\nthe tables and benches going round three sides, the great green stove,\nand the bar and the doors on the fourth side. The windows were double,\nand quite uncurtained. It was early evening.\n\nThe coffee came--hot and good--and a whole ring of cake.\n\n'A whole Kuchen!' cried Ursula. 'They give you more than us! I want\nsome of yours.'\n\nThere were other people in the place, ten altogether, so Birkin had\nfound out: two artists, three students, a man and wife, and a Professor\nand two daughters--all Germans. The four English people, being\nnewcomers, sat in their coign of vantage to watch. The Germans peeped\nin at the door, called a word to the waiter, and went away again. It\nwas not meal-time, so they did not come into this dining-room, but\nbetook themselves, when their boots were changed, to the Reunionsaal.\n\nThe English visitors could hear the occasional twanging of a zither,\nthe strumming of a piano, snatches of laughter and shouting and\nsinging, a faint vibration of voices. The whole building being of wood,\nit seemed to carry every sound, like a drum, but instead of increasing\neach particular noise, it decreased it, so that the sound of the zither\nseemed tiny, as if a diminutive zither were playing somewhere, and it\nseemed the piano must be a small one, like a little spinet.\n\nThe host came when the coffee was finished. He was a Tyrolese, broad,\nrather flat-cheeked, with a pale, pock-marked skin and flourishing\nmoustaches.\n\n'Would you like to go to the Reunionsaal to be introduced to the other\nladies and gentlemen?' he asked, bending forward and smiling, showing\nhis large, strong teeth. His blue eyes went quickly from one to the\nother--he was not quite sure of his ground with these English people.\nHe was unhappy too because he spoke no English and he was not sure\nwhether to try his French.\n\n'Shall we go to the Reunionsaal, and be introduced to the other\npeople?' repeated Gerald, laughing.\n\nThere was a moment's hesitation.\n\n'I suppose we'd better--better break the ice,' said Birkin.\n\nThe women rose, rather flushed. And the Wirt's black, beetle-like,\nbroad-shouldered figure went on ignominiously in front, towards the\nnoise. He opened the door and ushered the four strangers into the\nplay-room.\n\nInstantly a silence fell, a slight embarrassment came over the company.\nThe newcomers had a sense of many blond faces looking their way. Then,\nthe host was bowing to a short, energetic-looking man with large\nmoustaches, and saying in a low voice:\n\n'Herr Professor, darf ich vorstellen-'\n\nThe Herr Professor was prompt and energetic. He bowed low to the\nEnglish people, smiling, and began to be a comrade at once.\n\n'Nehmen die Herrschaften teil an unserer Unterhaltung?' he said, with a\nvigorous suavity, his voice curling up in the question.\n\nThe four English people smiled, lounging with an attentive uneasiness\nin the middle of the room. Gerald, who was spokesman, said that they\nwould willingly take part in the entertainment. Gudrun and Ursula,\nlaughing, excited, felt the eyes of all the men upon them, and they\nlifted their heads and looked nowhere, and felt royal.\n\nThe Professor announced the names of those present, SANS CEREMONIE.\nThere was a bowing to the wrong people and to the right people.\nEverybody was there, except the man and wife. The two tall,\nclear-skinned, athletic daughters of the professor, with their\nplain-cut, dark blue blouses and loden skirts, their rather long,\nstrong necks, their clear blue eyes and carefully banded hair, and\ntheir blushes, bowed and stood back; the three students bowed very low,\nin the humble hope of making an impression of extreme good-breeding;\nthen there was a thin, dark-skinned man with full eyes, an odd\ncreature, like a child, and like a troll, quick, detached; he bowed\nslightly; his companion, a large fair young man, stylishly dressed,\nblushed to the eyes and bowed very low.\n\nIt was over.\n\n'Herr Loerke was giving us a recitation in the Cologne dialect,' said\nthe Professor.\n\n'He must forgive us for interrupting him,' said Gerald, 'we should like\nvery much to hear it.'\n\nThere was instantly a bowing and an offering of seats. Gudrun and\nUrsula, Gerald and Birkin sat in the deep sofas against the wall. The\nroom was of naked oiled panelling, like the rest of the house. It had a\npiano, sofas and chairs, and a couple of tables with books and\nmagazines. In its complete absence of decoration, save for the big,\nblue stove, it was cosy and pleasant.\n\nHerr Loerke was the little man with the boyish figure, and the round,\nfull, sensitive-looking head, and the quick, full eyes, like a mouse's.\nHe glanced swiftly from one to the other of the strangers, and held\nhimself aloof.\n\n'Please go on with the recitation,' said the Professor, suavely, with\nhis slight authority. Loerke, who was sitting hunched on the piano\nstool, blinked and did not answer.\n\n'It would be a great pleasure,' said Ursula, who had been getting the\nsentence ready, in German, for some minutes.\n\nThen, suddenly, the small, unresponding man swung aside, towards his\nprevious audience and broke forth, exactly as he had broken off; in a\ncontrolled, mocking voice, giving an imitation of a quarrel between an\nold Cologne woman and a railway guard.\n\nHis body was slight and unformed, like a boy's, but his voice was\nmature, sardonic, its movement had the flexibility of essential energy,\nand of a mocking penetrating understanding. Gudrun could not understand\na word of his monologue, but she was spell-bound, watching him. He must\nbe an artist, nobody else could have such fine adjustment and\nsingleness. The Germans were doubled up with laughter, hearing his\nstrange droll words, his droll phrases of dialect. And in the midst of\ntheir paroxysms, they glanced with deference at the four English\nstrangers, the elect. Gudrun and Ursula were forced to laugh. The room\nrang with shouts of laughter. The blue eyes of the Professor's\ndaughters were swimming over with laughter-tears, their clear cheeks\nwere flushed crimson with mirth, their father broke out in the most\nastonishing peals of hilarity, the students bowed their heads on their\nknees in excess of joy. Ursula looked round amazed, the laughter was\nbubbling out of her involuntarily. She looked at Gudrun. Gudrun looked\nat her, and the two sisters burst out laughing, carried away. Loerke\nglanced at them swiftly, with his full eyes. Birkin was sniggering\ninvoluntarily. Gerald Crich sat erect, with a glistening look of\namusement on his face. And the laughter crashed out again, in wild\nparoxysms, the Professor's daughters were reduced to shaking\nhelplessness, the veins of the Professor's neck were swollen, his face\nwas purple, he was strangled in ultimate, silent spasms of laughter.\nThe students were shouting half-articulated words that tailed off in\nhelpless explosions. Then suddenly the rapid patter of the artist\nceased, there were little whoops of subsiding mirth, Ursula and Gudrun\nwere wiping their eyes, and the Professor was crying loudly.\n\n'Das war ausgezeichnet, das war famos--'\n\n'Wirklich famos,' echoed his exhausted daughters, faintly.\n\n'And we couldn't understand it,' cried Ursula.\n\n'Oh leider, leider!' cried the Professor.\n\n'You couldn't understand it?' cried the Students, let loose at last in\nspeech with the newcomers. 'Ja, das ist wirklich schade, das ist\nschade, gnadige Frau. Wissen Sie--'\n\nThe mixture was made, the newcomers were stirred into the party, like\nnew ingredients, the whole room was alive. Gerald was in his element,\nhe talked freely and excitedly, his face glistened with a strange\namusement. Perhaps even Birkin, in the end, would break forth. He was\nshy and withheld, though full of attention.\n\nUrsula was prevailed upon to sing 'Annie Lowrie,' as the Professor\ncalled it. There was a hush of EXTREME deference. She had never been so\nflattered in her life. Gudrun accompanied her on the piano, playing\nfrom memory.\n\nUrsula had a beautiful ringing voice, but usually no confidence, she\nspoiled everything. This evening she felt conceited and untrammelled.\nBirkin was well in the background, she shone almost in reaction, the\nGermans made her feel fine and infallible, she was liberated into\noverweening self-confidence. She felt like a bird flying in the air, as\nher voice soared out, enjoying herself extremely in the balance and\nflight of the song, like the motion of a bird's wings that is up in the\nwind, sliding and playing on the air, she played with sentimentality,\nsupported by rapturous attention. She was very happy, singing that song\nby herself, full of a conceit of emotion and power, working upon all\nthose people, and upon herself, exerting herself with gratification,\ngiving immeasurable gratification to the Germans.\n\nAt the end, the Germans were all touched with admiring, delicious\nmelancholy, they praised her in soft, reverent voices, they could not\nsay too much.\n\n'Wie schon, wie ruhrend! Ach, die Schottischen Lieder, sie haben so\nviel Stimmung! Aber die gnadige Frau hat eine WUNDERBARE Stimme; die\ngnadige Frau ist wirklich eine Kunstlerin, aber wirklich!'\n\nShe was dilated and brilliant, like a flower in the morning sun. She\nfelt Birkin looking at her, as if he were jealous of her, and her\nbreasts thrilled, her veins were all golden. She was as happy as the\nsun that has just opened above clouds. And everybody seemed so admiring\nand radiant, it was perfect.\n\nAfter dinner she wanted to go out for a minute, to look at the world.\nThe company tried to dissuade her--it was so terribly cold. But just to\nlook, she said.\n\nThey all four wrapped up warmly, and found themselves in a vague,\nunsubstantial outdoors of dim snow and ghosts of an upper-world, that\nmade strange shadows before the stars. It was indeed cold, bruisingly,\nfrighteningly, unnaturally cold. Ursula could not believe the air in\nher nostrils. It seemed conscious, malevolent, purposive in its intense\nmurderous coldness.\n\nYet it was wonderful, an intoxication, a silence of dim, unrealised\nsnow, of the invisible intervening between her and the visible, between\nher and the flashing stars. She could see Orion sloping up. How\nwonderful he was, wonderful enough to make one cry aloud.\n\nAnd all around was this cradle of snow, and there was firm snow\nunderfoot, that struck with heavy cold through her boot-soles. It was\nnight, and silence. She imagined she could hear the stars. She imagined\ndistinctly she could hear the celestial, musical motion of the stars,\nquite near at hand. She seemed like a bird flying amongst their\nharmonious motion.\n\nAnd she clung close to Birkin. Suddenly she realised she did not know\nwhat he was thinking. She did not know where he was ranging.\n\n'My love!' she said, stopping to look at him.\n\nHis face was pale, his eyes dark, there was a faint spark of starlight\non them. And he saw her face soft and upturned to him, very near. He\nkissed her softly.\n\n'What then?' he asked.\n\n'Do you love me?' she asked.\n\n'Too much,' he answered quietly.\n\nShe clung a little closer.\n\n'Not too much,' she pleaded.\n\n'Far too much,' he said, almost sadly.\n\n'And does it make you sad, that I am everything to you?' she asked,\nwistful. He held her close to him, kissing her, and saying, scarcely\naudible:\n\n'No, but I feel like a beggar--I feel poor.'\n\nShe was silent, looking at the stars now. Then she kissed him.\n\n'Don't be a beggar,' she pleaded, wistfully. 'It isn't ignominious that\nyou love me.'\n\n'It is ignominious to feel poor, isn't it?' he replied.\n\n'Why? Why should it be?' she asked. He only stood still, in the\nterribly cold air that moved invisibly over the mountain tops, folding\nher round with his arms.\n\n'I couldn't bear this cold, eternal place without you,' he said. 'I\ncouldn't bear it, it would kill the quick of my life.'\n\nShe kissed him again, suddenly.\n\n'Do you hate it?' she asked, puzzled, wondering.\n\n'If I couldn't come near to you, if you weren't here, I should hate it.\nI couldn't bear it,' he answered.\n\n'But the people are nice,' she said.\n\n'I mean the stillness, the cold, the frozen eternality,' he said.\n\nShe wondered. Then her spirit came home to him, nestling unconscious in\nhim.\n\n'Yes, it is good we are warm and together,' she said.\n\nAnd they turned home again. They saw the golden lights of the hotel\nglowing out in the night of snow-silence, small in the hollow, like a\ncluster of yellow berries. It seemed like a bunch of sun-sparks, tiny\nand orange in the midst of the snow-darkness. Behind, was a high shadow\nof a peak, blotting out the stars, like a ghost.\n\nThey drew near to their home. They saw a man come from the dark\nbuilding, with a lighted lantern which swung golden, and made that his\ndark feet walked in a halo of snow. He was a small, dark figure in the\ndarkened snow. He unlatched the door of an outhouse. A smell of cows,\nhot, animal, almost like beef, came out on the heavily cold air. There\nwas a glimpse of two cattle in their dark stalls, then the door was\nshut again, and not a chink of light showed. It had reminded Ursula\nagain of home, of the Marsh, of her childhood, and of the journey to\nBrussels, and, strangely, of Anton Skrebensky.\n\nOh, God, could one bear it, this past which was gone down the abyss?\nCould she bear, that it ever had been! She looked round this silent,\nupper world of snow and stars and powerful cold. There was another\nworld, like views on a magic lantern; The Marsh, Cossethay, Ilkeston,\nlit up with a common, unreal light. There was a shadowy unreal Ursula,\na whole shadow-play of an unreal life. It was as unreal, and\ncircumscribed, as a magic-lantern show. She wished the slides could all\nbe broken. She wished it could be gone for ever, like a lantern-slide\nwhich was broken. She wanted to have no past. She wanted to have come\ndown from the slopes of heaven to this place, with Birkin, not to have\ntoiled out of the murk of her childhood and her upbringing, slowly, all\nsoiled. She felt that memory was a dirty trick played upon her. What\nwas this decree, that she should 'remember'! Why not a bath of pure\noblivion, a new birth, without any recollections or blemish of a past\nlife. She was with Birkin, she had just come into life, here in the\nhigh snow, against the stars. What had she to do with parents and\nantecedents? She knew herself new and unbegotten, she had no father, no\nmother, no anterior connections, she was herself, pure and silvery, she\nbelonged only to the oneness with Birkin, a oneness that struck deeper\nnotes, sounding into the heart of the universe, the heart of reality,\nwhere she had never existed before.\n\nEven Gudrun was a separate unit, separate, separate, having nothing to\ndo with this self, this Ursula, in her new world of reality. That old\nshadow-world, the actuality of the past--ah, let it go! She rose free\non the wings of her new condition.\n\nGudrun and Gerald had not come in. They had walked up the valley\nstraight in front of the house, not like Ursula and Birkin, on to the\nlittle hill at the right. Gudrun was driven by a strange desire. She\nwanted to plunge on and on, till she came to the end of the valley of\nsnow. Then she wanted to climb the wall of white finality, climb over,\ninto the peaks that sprang up like sharp petals in the heart of the\nfrozen, mysterious navel of the world. She felt that there, over the\nstrange blind, terrible wall of rocky snow, there in the navel of the\nmystic world, among the final cluster of peaks, there, in the infolded\nnavel of it all, was her consummation. If she could but come there,\nalone, and pass into the infolded navel of eternal snow and of\nuprising, immortal peaks of snow and rock, she would be a oneness with\nall, she would be herself the eternal, infinite silence, the sleeping,\ntimeless, frozen centre of the All.\n\nThey went back to the house, to the Reunionsaal. She was curious to see\nwhat was going on. The men there made her alert, roused her curiosity.\nIt was a new taste of life for her, they were so prostrate before her,\nyet so full of life.\n\nThe party was boisterous; they were dancing all together, dancing the\nSchuhplatteln, the Tyrolese dance of the clapping hands and tossing the\npartner in the air at the crisis. The Germans were all proficient--they\nwere from Munich chiefly. Gerald also was quite passable. There were\nthree zithers twanging away in a corner. It was a scene of great\nanimation and confusion. The Professor was initiating Ursula into the\ndance, stamping, clapping, and swinging her high, with amazing force\nand zest. When the crisis came even Birkin was behaving manfully with\none of the Professor's fresh, strong daughters, who was exceedingly\nhappy. Everybody was dancing, there was the most boisterous turmoil.\n\nGudrun looked on with delight. The solid wooden floor resounded to the\nknocking heels of the men, the air quivered with the clapping hands and\nthe zither music, there was a golden dust about the hanging lamps.\n\nSuddenly the dance finished, Loerke and the students rushed out to\nbring in drinks. There was an excited clamour of voices, a clinking of\nmug-lids, a great crying of 'Prosit--Prosit!' Loerke was everywhere at\nonce, like a gnome, suggesting drinks for the women, making an obscure,\nslightly risky joke with the men, confusing and mystifying the waiter.\n\nHe wanted very much to dance with Gudrun. From the first moment he had\nseen her, he wanted to make a connection with her. Instinctively she\nfelt this, and she waited for him to come up. But a kind of sulkiness\nkept him away from her, so she thought he disliked her.\n\n'Will you schuhplatteln, gnadige Frau?' said the large, fair youth,\nLoerke's companion. He was too soft, too humble for Gudrun's taste. But\nshe wanted to dance, and the fair youth, who was called Leitner, was\nhandsome enough in his uneasy, slightly abject fashion, a humility that\ncovered a certain fear. She accepted him as a partner.\n\nThe zithers sounded out again, the dance began. Gerald led them,\nlaughing, with one of the Professor's daughters. Ursula danced with one\nof the students, Birkin with the other daughter of the Professor, the\nProfessor with Frau Kramer, and the rest of the men danced together,\nwith quite as much zest as if they had had women partners.\n\nBecause Gudrun had danced with the well-built, soft youth, his\ncompanion, Loerke, was more pettish and exasperated than ever, and\nwould not even notice her existence in the room. This piqued her, but\nshe made up to herself by dancing with the Professor, who was strong as\na mature, well-seasoned bull, and as full of coarse energy. She could\nnot bear him, critically, and yet she enjoyed being rushed through the\ndance, and tossed up into the air, on his coarse, powerful impetus. The\nProfessor enjoyed it too, he eyed her with strange, large blue eyes,\nfull of galvanic fire. She hated him for the seasoned, semi-paternal\nanimalism with which he regarded her, but she admired his weight of\nstrength.\n\nThe room was charged with excitement and strong, animal emotion. Loerke\nwas kept away from Gudrun, to whom he wanted to speak, as by a hedge of\nthorns, and he felt a sardonic ruthless hatred for this young\nlove-companion, Leitner, who was his penniless dependent. He mocked the\nyouth, with an acid ridicule, that made Leitner red in the face and\nimpotent with resentment.\n\nGerald, who had now got the dance perfectly, was dancing again with the\nyounger of the Professor's daughters, who was almost dying of virgin\nexcitement, because she thought Gerald so handsome, so superb. He had\nher in his power, as if she were a palpitating bird, a fluttering,\nflushing, bewildered creature. And it made him smile, as she shrank\nconvulsively between his hands, violently, when he must throw her into\nthe air. At the end, she was so overcome with prostrate love for him,\nthat she could scarcely speak sensibly at all.\n\nBirkin was dancing with Ursula. There were odd little fires playing in\nhis eyes, he seemed to have turned into something wicked and\nflickering, mocking, suggestive, quite impossible. Ursula was\nfrightened of him, and fascinated. Clear, before her eyes, as in a\nvision, she could see the sardonic, licentious mockery of his eyes, he\nmoved towards her with subtle, animal, indifferent approach. The\nstrangeness of his hands, which came quick and cunning, inevitably to\nthe vital place beneath her breasts, and, lifting with mocking,\nsuggestive impulse, carried her through the air as if without strength,\nthrough blackmagic, made her swoon with fear. For a moment she\nrevolted, it was horrible. She would break the spell. But before the\nresolution had formed she had submitted again, yielded to her fear. He\nknew all the time what he was doing, she could see it in his smiling,\nconcentrated eyes. It was his responsibility, she would leave it to\nhim.\n\nWhen they were alone in the darkness, she felt the strange,\nlicentiousness of him hovering upon her. She was troubled and repelled.\nWhy should he turn like this?\n\n'What is it?' she asked in dread.\n\nBut his face only glistened on her, unknown, horrible. And yet she was\nfascinated. Her impulse was to repel him violently, break from this\nspell of mocking brutishness. But she was too fascinated, she wanted to\nsubmit, she wanted to know. What would he do to her?\n\nHe was so attractive, and so repulsive at one. The sardonic\nsuggestivity that flickered over his face and looked from his narrowed\neyes, made her want to hide, to hide herself away from him and watch\nhim from somewhere unseen.\n\n'Why are you like this?' she demanded again, rousing against him with\nsudden force and animosity.\n\nThe flickering fires in his eyes concentrated as he looked into her\neyes. Then the lids drooped with a faint motion of satiric contempt.\nThen they rose again to the same remorseless suggestivity. And she gave\nway, he might do as he would. His licentiousness was repulsively\nattractive. But he was self-responsible, she would see what it was.\n\nThey might do as they liked--this she realised as she went to sleep.\nHow could anything that gave one satisfaction be excluded? What was\ndegrading? Who cared? Degrading things were real, with a different\nreality. And he was so unabashed and unrestrained. Wasn't it rather\nhorrible, a man who could be so soulful and spiritual, now to be\nso--she balked at her own thoughts and memories: then she added--so\nbestial? So bestial, they two!--so degraded! She winced. But after all,\nwhy not? She exulted as well. Why not be bestial, and go the whole\nround of experience? She exulted in it. She was bestial. How good it\nwas to be really shameful! There would be no shameful thing she had not\nexperienced. Yet she was unabashed, she was herself. Why not? She was\nfree, when she knew everything, and no dark shameful things were denied\nher.\n\nGudrun, who had been watching Gerald in the Reunionsaal, suddenly\nthought:\n\n'He should have all the women he can--it is his nature. It is absurd to\ncall him monogamous--he is naturally promiscuous. That is his nature.'\n\nThe thought came to her involuntarily. It shocked her somewhat. It was\nas if she had seen some new MENE! MENE! upon the wall. Yet it was\nmerely true. A voice seemed to have spoken it to her so clearly, that\nfor the moment she believed in inspiration.\n\n'It is really true,' she said to herself again.\n\nShe knew quite well she had believed it all along. She knew it\nimplicitly. But she must keep it dark--almost from herself. She must\nkeep it completely secret. It was knowledge for her alone, and scarcely\neven to be admitted to herself.\n\nThe deep resolve formed in her, to combat him. One of them must triumph\nover the other. Which should it be? Her soul steeled itself with\nstrength. Almost she laughed within herself, at her confidence. It woke\na certain keen, half contemptuous pity, tenderness for him: she was so\nruthless.\n\nEverybody retired early. The Professor and Loerke went into a small\nlounge to drink. They both watched Gudrun go along the landing by the\nrailing upstairs.\n\n'Ein schones Frauenzimmer,' said the Professor.\n\n'Ja!' asserted Loerke, shortly.\n\nGerald walked with his queer, long wolf-steps across the bedroom to the\nwindow, stooped and looked out, then rose again, and turned to Gudrun,\nhis eyes sharp with an abstract smile. He seemed very tall to her, she\nsaw the glisten of his whitish eyebrows, that met between his brows.\n\n'How do you like it?' he said.\n\nHe seemed to be laughing inside himself, quite unconsciously. She\nlooked at him. He was a phenomenon to her, not a human being: a sort of\ncreature, greedy.\n\n'I like it very much,' she replied.\n\n'Who do you like best downstairs?' he asked, standing tall and\nglistening above her, with his glistening stiff hair erect.\n\n'Who do I like best?' she repeated, wanting to answer his question, and\nfinding it difficult to collect herself. 'Why I don't know, I don't\nknow enough about them yet, to be able to say. Who do YOU like best?'\n\n'Oh, I don't care--I don't like or dislike any of them. It doesn't\nmatter about me. I wanted to know about you.'\n\n'But why?' she asked, going rather pale. The abstract, unconscious\nsmile in his eyes was intensified.\n\n'I wanted to know,' he said.\n\nShe turned aside, breaking the spell. In some strange way, she felt he\nwas getting power over her.\n\n'Well, I can't tell you already,' she said.\n\nShe went to the mirror to take out the hairpins from her hair. She\nstood before the mirror every night for some minutes, brushing her fine\ndark hair. It was part of the inevitable ritual of her life.\n\nHe followed her, and stood behind her. She was busy with bent head,\ntaking out the pins and shaking her warm hair loose. When she looked\nup, she saw him in the glass standing behind her, watching\nunconsciously, not consciously seeing her, and yet watching, with\nfinepupilled eyes that SEEMED to smile, and which were not really\nsmiling.\n\nShe started. It took all her courage for her to continue brushing her\nhair, as usual, for her to pretend she was at her ease. She was far,\nfar from being at her ease with him. She beat her brains wildly for\nsomething to say to him.\n\n'What are your plans for tomorrow?' she asked nonchalantly, whilst her\nheart was beating so furiously, her eyes were so bright with strange\nnervousness, she felt he could not but observe. But she knew also that\nhe was completely blind, blind as a wolf looking at her. It was a\nstrange battle between her ordinary consciousness and his uncanny,\nblack-art consciousness.\n\n'I don't know,' he replied, 'what would you like to do?'\n\nHe spoke emptily, his mind was sunk away.\n\n'Oh,' she said, with easy protestation, 'I'm ready for\nanything--anything will be fine for ME, I'm sure.'\n\nAnd to herself she was saying: 'God, why am I so nervous--why are you\nso nervous, you fool. If he sees it I'm done for forever--you KNOW\nyou're done for forever, if he sees the absurd state you're in.'\n\nAnd she smiled to herself as if it were all child's play. Meanwhile her\nheart was plunging, she was almost fainting. She could see him, in the\nmirror, as he stood there behind her, tall and over-arching--blond and\nterribly frightening. She glanced at his reflection with furtive eyes,\nwilling to give anything to save him from knowing she could see him. He\ndid not know she could see his reflection. He was looking\nunconsciously, glisteningly down at her head, from which the hair fell\nloose, as she brushed it with wild, nervous hand. She held her head\naside and brushed and brushed her hair madly. For her life, she could\nnot turn round and face him. For her life, SHE COULD NOT. And the\nknowledge made her almost sink to the ground in a faint, helpless,\nspent. She was aware of his frightening, impending figure standing\nclose behind her, she was aware of his hard, strong, unyielding chest,\nclose upon her back. And she felt she could not bear it any more, in a\nfew minutes she would fall down at his feet, grovelling at his feet,\nand letting him destroy her.\n\nThe thought pricked up all her sharp intelligence and presence of mind.\nShe dared not turn round to him--and there he stood motionless,\nunbroken. Summoning all her strength, she said, in a full, resonant,\nnonchalant voice, that was forced out with all her remaining\nself-control:\n\n'Oh, would you mind looking in that bag behind there and giving me\nmy--'\n\nHere her power fell inert. 'My what--my what--?' she screamed in\nsilence to herself.\n\nBut he had started round, surprised and startled that she should ask\nhim to look in her bag, which she always kept so VERY private to\nherself.\n\nShe turned now, her face white, her dark eyes blazing with uncanny,\noverwrought excitement. She saw him stooping to the bag, undoing the\nloosely buckled strap, unattentive.\n\n'Your what?' he asked.\n\n'Oh, a little enamel box--yellow--with a design of a cormorant plucking\nher breast--'\n\nShe went towards him, stooping her beautiful, bare arm, and deftly\nturned some of her things, disclosing the box, which was exquisitely\npainted.\n\n'That is it, see,' she said, taking it from under his eyes.\n\nAnd he was baffled now. He was left to fasten up the bag, whilst she\nswiftly did up her hair for the night, and sat down to unfasten her\nshoes. She would not turn her back to him any more.\n\nHe was baffled, frustrated, but unconscious. She had the whip hand over\nhim now. She knew he had not realised her terrible panic. Her heart was\nbeating heavily still. Fool, fool that she was, to get into such a\nstate! How she thanked God for Gerald's obtuse blindness. Thank God he\ncould see nothing.\n\nShe sat slowly unlacing her shoes, and he too commenced to undress.\nThank God that crisis was over. She felt almost fond of him now, almost\nin love with him.\n\n'Ah, Gerald,' she laughed, caressively, teasingly, 'Ah, what a fine\ngame you played with the Professor's daughter--didn't you now?'\n\n'What game?' he asked, looking round.\n\n'ISN'T she in love with you--oh DEAR, isn't she in love with you!' said\nGudrun, in her gayest, most attractive mood.\n\n'I shouldn't think so,' he said.\n\n'Shouldn't think so!' she teased. 'Why the poor girl is lying at this\nmoment overwhelmed, dying with love for you. She thinks you're\nWONDERFUL--oh marvellous, beyond what man has ever been. REALLY, isn't\nit funny?'\n\n'Why funny, what is funny?' he asked.\n\n'Why to see you working it on her,' she said, with a half reproach that\nconfused the male conceit in him. 'Really Gerald, the poor girl--!'\n\n'I did nothing to her,' he said.\n\n'Oh, it was too shameful, the way you simply swept her off her feet.'\n\n'That was Schuhplatteln,' he replied, with a bright grin.\n\n'Ha--ha--ha!' laughed Gudrun.\n\nHer mockery quivered through his muscles with curious re-echoes. When\nhe slept he seemed to crouch down in the bed, lapped up in his own\nstrength, that yet was hollow.\n\nAnd Gudrun slept strongly, a victorious sleep. Suddenly, she was almost\nfiercely awake. The small timber room glowed with the dawn, that came\nupwards from the low window. She could see down the valley when she\nlifted her head: the snow with a pinkish, half-revealed magic, the\nfringe of pine-trees at the bottom of the slope. And one tiny figure\nmoved over the vaguely-illuminated space.\n\nShe glanced at his watch; it was seven o'clock. He was still completely\nasleep. And she was so hard awake, it was almost frightening--a hard,\nmetallic wakefulness. She lay looking at him.\n\nHe slept in the subjection of his own health and defeat. She was\novercome by a sincere regard for him. Till now, she was afraid before\nhim. She lay and thought about him, what he was, what he represented in\nthe world. A fine, independent will, he had. She thought of the\nrevolution he had worked in the mines, in so short a time. She knew\nthat, if he were confronted with any problem, any hard actual\ndifficulty, he would overcome it. If he laid hold of any idea, he would\ncarry it through. He had the faculty of making order out of confusion.\nOnly let him grip hold of a situation, and he would bring to pass an\ninevitable conclusion.\n\nFor a few moments she was borne away on the wild wings of ambition.\nGerald, with his force of will and his power for comprehending the\nactual world, should be set to solve the problems of the day, the\nproblem of industrialism in the modern world. She knew he would, in the\ncourse of time, effect the changes he desired, he could re-organise the\nindustrial system. She knew he could do it. As an instrument, in these\nthings, he was marvellous, she had never seen any man with his\npotentiality. He was unaware of it, but she knew.\n\nHe only needed to be hitched on, he needed that his hand should be set\nto the task, because he was so unconscious. And this she could do. She\nwould marry him, he would go into Parliament in the Conservative\ninterest, he would clear up the great muddle of labour and industry. He\nwas so superbly fearless, masterful, he knew that every problem could\nbe worked out, in life as in geometry. And he would care neither about\nhimself nor about anything but the pure working out of the problem. He\nwas very pure, really.\n\nHer heart beat fast, she flew away on wings of elation, imagining a\nfuture. He would be a Napoleon of peace, or a Bismarck--and she the\nwoman behind him. She had read Bismarck's letters, and had been deeply\nmoved by them. And Gerald would be freer, more dauntless than Bismarck.\n\nBut even as she lay in fictitious transport, bathed in the strange,\nfalse sunshine of hope in life, something seemed to snap in her, and a\nterrible cynicism began to gain upon her, blowing in like a wind.\nEverything turned to irony with her: the last flavour of everything was\nironical. When she felt her pang of undeniable reality, this was when\nshe knew the hard irony of hopes and ideas.\n\nShe lay and looked at him, as he slept. He was sheerly beautiful, he\nwas a perfect instrument. To her mind, he was a pure, inhuman, almost\nsuperhuman instrument. His instrumentality appealed so strongly to her,\nshe wished she were God, to use him as a tool.\n\nAnd at the same instant, came the ironical question: 'What for?' She\nthought of the colliers' wives, with their linoleum and their lace\ncurtains and their little girls in high-laced boots. She thought of the\nwives and daughters of the pit-managers, their tennis-parties, and\ntheir terrible struggles to be superior each to the other, in the\nsocial scale. There was Shortlands with its meaningless distinction,\nthe meaningless crowd of the Criches. There was London, the House of\nCommons, the extant social world. My God!\n\nYoung as she was, Gudrun had touched the whole pulse of social England.\nShe had no ideas of rising in the world. She knew, with the perfect\ncynicism of cruel youth, that to rise in the world meant to have one\noutside show instead of another, the advance was like having a spurious\nhalf-crown instead of a spurious penny. The whole coinage of valuation\nwas spurious. Yet of course, her cynicism knew well enough that, in a\nworld where spurious coin was current, a bad sovereign was better than\na bad farthing. But rich and poor, she despised both alike.\n\nAlready she mocked at herself for her dreams. They could be fulfilled\neasily enough. But she recognised too well, in her spirit, the mockery\nof her own impulses. What did she care, that Gerald had created a\nrichly-paying industry out of an old worn-out concern? What did she\ncare? The worn-out concern and the rapid, splendidly organised\nindustry, they were bad money. Yet of course, she cared a great deal,\noutwardly--and outwardly was all that mattered, for inwardly was a bad\njoke.\n\nEverything was intrinsically a piece of irony to her. She leaned over\nGerald and said in her heart, with compassion:\n\n'Oh, my dear, my dear, the game isn't worth even you. You are a fine\nthing really--why should you be used on such a poor show!'\n\nHer heart was breaking with pity and grief for him. And at the same\nmoment, a grimace came over her mouth, of mocking irony at her own\nunspoken tirade. Ah, what a farce it was! She thought of Parnell and\nKatherine O'Shea. Parnell! After all, who can take the nationalisation\nof Ireland seriously? Who can take political Ireland really seriously,\nwhatever it does? And who can take political England seriously? Who\ncan? Who can care a straw, really, how the old patched-up Constitution\nis tinkered at any more? Who cares a button for our national ideas, any\nmore than for our national bowler hat? Aha, it is all old hat, it is\nall old bowler hat!\n\nThat's all it is, Gerald, my young hero. At any rate we'll spare\nourselves the nausea of stirring the old broth any more. You be\nbeautiful, my Gerald, and reckless. There ARE perfect moments. Wake up,\nGerald, wake up, convince me of the perfect moments. Oh, convince me, I\nneed it.\n\nHe opened his eyes, and looked at her. She greeted him with a mocking,\nenigmatic smile in which was a poignant gaiety. Over his face went the\nreflection of the smile, he smiled, too, purely unconsciously.\n\nThat filled her with extraordinary delight, to see the smile cross his\nface, reflected from her face. She remembered that was how a baby\nsmiled. It filled her with extraordinary radiant delight.\n\n'You've done it,' she said.\n\n'What?' he asked, dazed.\n\n'Convinced me.'\n\nAnd she bent down, kissing him passionately, passionately, so that he\nwas bewildered. He did not ask her of what he had convinced her, though\nhe meant to. He was glad she was kissing him. She seemed to be feeling\nfor his very heart to touch the quick of him. And he wanted her to\ntouch the quick of his being, he wanted that most of all.\n\nOutside, somebody was singing, in a manly, reckless handsome voice:\n\n  'Mach mir auf, mach mir auf, du Stolze,\n  Mach mir ein Feuer von Holze.\n  Vom Regen bin ich nass\n  Vom Regen bin ich nass-'\n\n\nGudrun knew that that song would sound through her eternity, sung in a\nmanly, reckless, mocking voice. It marked one of her supreme moments,\nthe supreme pangs of her nervous gratification. There it was, fixed in\neternity for her.\n\nThe day came fine and bluish. There was a light wind blowing among the\nmountain tops, keen as a rapier where it touched, carrying with it a\nfine dust of snow-powder. Gerald went out with the fine, blind face of\na man who is in his state of fulfilment. Gudrun and he were in perfect\nstatic unity this morning, but unseeing and unwitting. They went out\nwith a toboggan, leaving Ursula and Birkin to follow.\n\nGudrun was all scarlet and royal blue--a scarlet jersey and cap, and a\nroyal blue skirt and stockings. She went gaily over the white snow,\nwith Gerald beside her, in white and grey, pulling the little toboggan.\nThey grew small in the distance of snow, climbing the steep slope.\n\nFor Gudrun herself, she seemed to pass altogether into the whiteness of\nthe snow, she became a pure, thoughtless crystal. When she reached the\ntop of the slope, in the wind, she looked round, and saw peak beyond\npeak of rock and snow, bluish, transcendent in heaven. And it seemed to\nher like a garden, with the peaks for pure flowers, and her heart\ngathering them. She had no separate consciousness for Gerald.\n\nShe held on to him as they went sheering down over the keen slope. She\nfelt as if her senses were being whetted on some fine grindstone, that\nwas keen as flame. The snow sprinted on either side, like sparks from a\nblade that is being sharpened, the whiteness round about ran swifter,\nswifter, in pure flame the white slope flew against her, and she fused\nlike one molten, dancing globule, rushed through a white intensity.\nThen there was a great swerve at the bottom, when they swung as it were\nin a fall to earth, in the diminishing motion.\n\nThey came to rest. But when she rose to her feet, she could not stand.\nShe gave a strange cry, turned and clung to him, sinking her face on\nhis breast, fainting in him. Utter oblivion came over her, as she lay\nfor a few moments abandoned against him.\n\n'What is it?' he was saying. 'Was it too much for you?'\n\nBut she heard nothing.\n\nWhen she came to, she stood up and looked round, astonished. Her face\nwas white, her eyes brilliant and large.\n\n'What is it?' he repeated. 'Did it upset you?'\n\nShe looked at him with her brilliant eyes that seemed to have undergone\nsome transfiguration, and she laughed, with a terrible merriment.\n\n'No,' she cried, with triumphant joy. 'It was the complete moment of my\nlife.'\n\nAnd she looked at him with her dazzling, overweening laughter, like one\npossessed. A fine blade seemed to enter his heart, but he did not care,\nor take any notice.\n\nBut they climbed up the slope again, and they flew down through the\nwhite flame again, splendidly, splendidly. Gudrun was laughing and\nflashing, powdered with snow-crystals, Gerald worked perfectly. He felt\nhe could guide the toboggan to a hair-breadth, almost he could make it\npierce into the air and right into the very heart of the sky. It seemed\nto him the flying sledge was but his strength spread out, he had but to\nmove his arms, the motion was his own. They explored the great slopes,\nto find another slide. He felt there must be something better than they\nhad known. And he found what he desired, a perfect long, fierce sweep,\nsheering past the foot of a rock and into the trees at the base. It was\ndangerous, he knew. But then he knew also he would direct the sledge\nbetween his fingers.\n\nThe first days passed in an ecstasy of physical motion, sleighing,\nskiing, skating, moving in an intensity of speed and white light that\nsurpassed life itself, and carried the souls of the human beings beyond\ninto an inhuman abstraction of velocity and weight and eternal, frozen\nsnow.\n\nGerald's eyes became hard and strange, and as he went by on his skis he\nwas more like some powerful, fateful sigh than a man, his muscles\nelastic in a perfect, soaring trajectory, his body projected in pure\nflight, mindless, soulless, whirling along one perfect line of force.\n\nLuckily there came a day of snow, when they must all stay indoors:\notherwise Birkin said, they would all lose their faculties, and begin\nto utter themselves in cries and shrieks, like some strange, unknown\nspecies of snow-creatures.\n\nIt happened in the afternoon that Ursula sat in the Reunionsaal talking\nto Loerke. The latter had seemed unhappy lately. He was lively and full\nof mischievous humour, as usual.\n\nBut Ursula had thought he was sulky about something. His partner, too,\nthe big, fair, good-looking youth, was ill at ease, going about as if\nhe belonged to nowhere, and was kept in some sort of subjection,\nagainst which he was rebelling.\n\nLoerke had hardly talked to Gudrun. His associate, on the other hand,\nhad paid her constantly a soft, over-deferential attention. Gudrun\nwanted to talk to Loerke. He was a sculptor, and she wanted to hear his\nview of his art. And his figure attracted her. There was the look of a\nlittle wastrel about him, that intrigued her, and an old man's look,\nthat interested her, and then, beside this, an uncanny singleness, a\nquality of being by himself, not in contact with anybody else, that\nmarked out an artist to her. He was a chatterer, a magpie, a maker of\nmischievous word-jokes, that were sometimes very clever, but which\noften were not. And she could see in his brown, gnome's eyes, the black\nlook of inorganic misery, which lay behind all his small buffoonery.\n\nHis figure interested her--the figure of a boy, almost a street arab.\nHe made no attempt to conceal it. He always wore a simple loden suit,\nwith knee breeches. His legs were thin, and he made no attempt to\ndisguise the fact: which was of itself remarkable, in a German. And he\nnever ingratiated himself anywhere, not in the slightest, but kept to\nhimself, for all his apparent playfulness.\n\nLeitner, his companion, was a great sportsman, very handsome with his\nbig limbs and his blue eyes. Loerke would go toboganning or skating, in\nlittle snatches, but he was indifferent. And his fine, thin nostrils,\nthe nostrils of a pure-bred street arab, would quiver with contempt at\nLeitner's splothering gymnastic displays. It was evident that the two\nmen who had travelled and lived together, sharing the same bedroom, had\nnow reached the stage of loathing. Leitner hated Loerke with an\ninjured, writhing, impotent hatred, and Loerke treated Leitner with a\nfine-quivering contempt and sarcasm. Soon the two would have to go\napart.\n\nAlready they were rarely together. Leitner ran attaching himself to\nsomebody or other, always deferring, Loerke was a good deal alone. Out\nof doors he wore a Westphalian cap, a close brown-velvet head with big\nbrown velvet flaps down over his ears, so that he looked like a\nlop-eared rabbit, or a troll. His face was brown-red, with a dry,\nbright skin, that seemed to crinkle with his mobile expressions. His\neyes were arresting--brown, full, like a rabbit's, or like a troll's,\nor like the eyes of a lost being, having a strange, dumb, depraved look\nof knowledge, and a quick spark of uncanny fire. Whenever Gudrun had\ntried to talk to him he had shied away unresponsive, looking at her\nwith his watchful dark eyes, but entering into no relation with her. He\nhad made her feel that her slow French and her slower German, were\nhateful to him. As for his own inadequate English, he was much too\nawkward to try it at all. But he understood a good deal of what was\nsaid, nevertheless. And Gudrun, piqued, left him alone.\n\nThis afternoon, however, she came into the lounge as he was talking to\nUrsula. His fine, black hair somehow reminded her of a bat, thin as it\nwas on his full, sensitive-looking head, and worn away at the temples.\nHe sat hunched up, as if his spirit were bat-like. And Gudrun could see\nhe was making some slow confidence to Ursula, unwilling, a slow,\ngrudging, scanty self-revelation. She went and sat by her sister.\n\nHe looked at her, then looked away again, as if he took no notice of\nher. But as a matter of fact, she interested him deeply.\n\n'Isn't it interesting, Prune,' said Ursula, turning to her sister,\n'Herr Loerke is doing a great frieze for a factory in Cologne, for the\noutside, the street.'\n\nShe looked at him, at his thin, brown, nervous hands, that were\nprehensile, and somehow like talons, like 'griffes,' inhuman.\n\n'What IN?' she asked.\n\n'AUS WAS?' repeated Ursula.\n\n'GRANIT,' he replied.\n\nIt had become immediately a laconic series of question and answer\nbetween fellow craftsmen.\n\n'What is the relief?' asked Gudrun.\n\n'Alto relievo.'\n\n'And at what height?'\n\nIt was very interesting to Gudrun to think of his making the great\ngranite frieze for a great granite factory in Cologne. She got from him\nsome notion of the design. It was a representation of a fair, with\npeasants and artisans in an orgy of enjoyment, drunk and absurd in\ntheir modern dress, whirling ridiculously in roundabouts, gaping at\nshows, kissing and staggering and rolling in knots, swinging in\nswing-boats, and firing down shooting galleries, a frenzy of chaotic\nmotion.\n\nThere was a swift discussion of technicalities. Gudrun was very much\nimpressed.\n\n'But how wonderful, to have such a factory!' cried Ursula. 'Is the\nwhole building fine?'\n\n'Oh yes,' he replied. 'The frieze is part of the whole architecture.\nYes, it is a colossal thing.'\n\nThen he seemed to stiffen, shrugged his shoulders, and went on:\n\n'Sculpture and architecture must go together. The day for irrelevant\nstatues, as for wall pictures, is over. As a matter of fact sculpture\nis always part of an architectural conception. And since churches are\nall museum stuff, since industry is our business, now, then let us make\nour places of industry our art--our factory-area our Parthenon, ECCO!'\n\nUrsula pondered.\n\n'I suppose,' she said, 'there is no NEED for our great works to be so\nhideous.'\n\nInstantly he broke into motion.\n\n'There you are!' he cried, 'there you are! There is not only NO NEED\nfor our places of work to be ugly, but their ugliness ruins the work,\nin the end. Men will not go on submitting to such intolerable ugliness.\nIn the end it will hurt too much, and they will wither because of it.\nAnd this will wither the WORK as well. They will think the work itself\nis ugly: the machines, the very act of labour. Whereas the machinery\nand the acts of labour are extremely, maddeningly beautiful. But this\nwill be the end of our civilisation, when people will not work because\nwork has become so intolerable to their senses, it nauseates them too\nmuch, they would rather starve. THEN we shall see the hammer used only\nfor smashing, then we shall see it. Yet here we are--we have the\nopportunity to make beautiful factories, beautiful machine-houses--we\nhave the opportunity--'\n\nGudrun could only partly understand. She could have cried with\nvexation.\n\n'What does he say?' she asked Ursula. And Ursula translated, stammering\nand brief. Loerke watched Gudrun's face, to see her judgment.\n\n'And do you think then,' said Gudrun, 'that art should serve industry?'\n\n'Art should INTERPRET industry, as art once interpreted religion,' he\nsaid.\n\n'But does your fair interpret industry?' she asked him.\n\n'Certainly. What is man doing, when he is at a fair like this? He is\nfulfilling the counterpart of labour--the machine works him, instead of\nhe the machine. He enjoys the mechanical motion, in his own body.'\n\n'But is there nothing but work--mechanical work?' said Gudrun.\n\n'Nothing but work!' he repeated, leaning forward, his eyes two\ndarknesses, with needle-points of light. 'No, it is nothing but this,\nserving a machine, or enjoying the motion of a machine--motion, that is\nall. You have never worked for hunger, or you would know what god\ngoverns us.'\n\nGudrun quivered and flushed. For some reason she was almost in tears.\n\n'No, I have not worked for hunger,' she replied, 'but I have worked!'\n\n'Travaille--lavorato?' he asked. 'E che lavoro--che lavoro? Quel\ntravail est-ce que vous avez fait?'\n\nHe broke into a mixture of Italian and French, instinctively using a\nforeign language when he spoke to her.\n\n'You have never worked as the world works,' he said to her, with\nsarcasm.\n\n'Yes,' she said. 'I have. And I do--I work now for my daily bread.'\n\nHe paused, looked at her steadily, then dropped the subject entirely.\nShe seemed to him to be trifling.\n\n'But have YOU ever worked as the world works?' Ursula asked him.\n\nHe looked at her untrustful.\n\n'Yes,' he replied, with a surly bark. 'I have known what it was to lie\nin bed for three days, because I had nothing to eat.'\n\nGudrun was looking at him with large, grave eyes, that seemed to draw\nthe confession from him as the marrow from his bones. All his nature\nheld him back from confessing. And yet her large, grave eyes upon him\nseemed to open some valve in his veins, and involuntarily he was\ntelling.\n\n'My father was a man who did not like work, and we had no mother. We\nlived in Austria, Polish Austria. How did we live? Ha!--somehow! Mostly\nin a room with three other families--one set in each corner--and the\nW.C. in the middle of the room--a pan with a plank on it--ha! I had two\nbrothers and a sister--and there might be a woman with my father. He\nwas a free being, in his way--would fight with any man in the town--a\ngarrison town--and was a little man too. But he wouldn't work for\nanybody--set his heart against it, and wouldn't.'\n\n'And how did you live then?' asked Ursula.\n\nHe looked at her--then, suddenly, at Gudrun.\n\n'Do you understand?' he asked.\n\n'Enough,' she replied.\n\nTheir eyes met for a moment. Then he looked away. He would say no more.\n\n'And how did you become a sculptor?' asked Ursula.\n\n'How did I become a sculptor--' he paused. 'Dunque--' he resumed, in a\nchanged manner, and beginning to speak French--'I became old enough--I\nused to steal from the market-place. Later I went to work--imprinted\nthe stamp on clay bottles, before they were baked. It was an\nearthenware-bottle factory. There I began making models. One day, I had\nhad enough. I lay in the sun and did not go to work. Then I walked to\nMunich--then I walked to Italy--begging, begging everything.'\n\n'The Italians were very good to me--they were good and honourable to\nme. From Bozen to Rome, almost every night I had a meal and a bed,\nperhaps of straw, with some peasant. I love the Italian people, with\nall my heart.\n\n'Dunque, adesso--maintenant--I earn a thousand pounds in a year, or I\nearn two thousand--'\n\nHe looked down at the ground, his voice tailing off into silence.\n\nGudrun looked at his fine, thin, shiny skin, reddish-brown from the\nsun, drawn tight over his full temples; and at his thin hair--and at\nthe thick, coarse, brush-like moustache, cut short about his mobile,\nrather shapeless mouth.\n\n'How old are you?' she asked.\n\nHe looked up at her with his full, elfin eyes startled.\n\n'WIE ALT?' he repeated. And he hesitated. It was evidently one of his\nreticencies.\n\n'How old are YOU?' he replied, without answering.\n\n'I am twenty-six,' she answered.\n\n'Twenty-six,' he repeated, looking into her eyes. He paused. Then he\nsaid:\n\n'UND IHR HERR GEMAHL, WIE ALT IS ER?'\n\n'Who?' asked Gudrun.\n\n'Your husband,' said Ursula, with a certain irony.\n\n'I haven't got a husband,' said Gudrun in English. In German she\nanswered,\n\n'He is thirty-one.'\n\nBut Loerke was watching closely, with his uncanny, full, suspicious\neyes. Something in Gudrun seemed to accord with him. He was really like\none of the 'little people' who have no soul, who has found his mate in\na human being. But he suffered in his discovery. She too was fascinated\nby him, fascinated, as if some strange creature, a rabbit or a bat, or\na brown seal, had begun to talk to her. But also, she knew what he was\nunconscious of, his tremendous power of understanding, of apprehending\nher living motion. He did not know his own power. He did not know how,\nwith his full, submerged, watchful eyes, he could look into her and see\nher, what she was, see her secrets. He would only want her to be\nherself--he knew her verily, with a subconscious, sinister knowledge,\ndevoid of illusions and hopes.\n\nTo Gudrun, there was in Loerke the rock-bottom of all life. Everybody\nelse had their illusion, must have their illusion, their before and\nafter. But he, with a perfect stoicism, did without any before and\nafter, dispensed with all illusion. He did not deceive himself in the\nlast issue. In the last issue he cared about nothing, he was troubled\nabout nothing, he made not the slightest attempt to be at one with\nanything. He existed a pure, unconnected will, stoical and\nmomentaneous. There was only his work.\n\nIt was curious too, how his poverty, the degradation of his earlier\nlife, attracted her. There was something insipid and tasteless to her,\nin the idea of a gentleman, a man who had gone the usual course through\nschool and university. A certain violent sympathy, however, came up in\nher for this mud-child. He seemed to be the very stuff of the\nunderworld of life. There was no going beyond him.\n\nUrsula too was attracted by Loerke. In both sisters he commanded a\ncertain homage. But there were moments when to Ursula he seemed\nindescribably inferior, false, a vulgarism.\n\nBoth Birkin and Gerald disliked him, Gerald ignoring him with some\ncontempt, Birkin exasperated.\n\n'What do the women find so impressive in that little brat?' Gerald\nasked.\n\n'God alone knows,' replied Birkin, 'unless it's some sort of appeal he\nmakes to them, which flatters them and has such a power over them.'\n\nGerald looked up in surprise.\n\n'DOES he make an appeal to them?' he asked.\n\n'Oh yes,' replied Birkin. 'He is the perfectly subjected being,\nexisting almost like a criminal. And the women rush towards that, like\na current of air towards a vacuum.'\n\n'Funny they should rush to that,' said Gerald.\n\n'Makes one mad, too,' said Birkin. 'But he has the fascination of pity\nand repulsion for them, a little obscene monster of the darkness that\nhe is.'\n\nGerald stood still, suspended in thought.\n\n'What DO women want, at the bottom?' he asked.\n\nBirkin shrugged his shoulders.\n\n'God knows,' he said. 'Some satisfaction in basic repulsion, it seems\nto me. They seem to creep down some ghastly tunnel of darkness, and\nwill never be satisfied till they've come to the end.'\n\nGerald looked out into the mist of fine snow that was blowing by.\nEverywhere was blind today, horribly blind.\n\n'And what is the end?' he asked.\n\nBirkin shook his head.\n\n'I've not got there yet, so I don't know. Ask Loerke, he's pretty near.\nHe is a good many stages further than either you or I can go.'\n\n'Yes, but stages further in what?' cried Gerald, irritated.\n\nBirkin sighed, and gathered his brows into a knot of anger.\n\n'Stages further in social hatred,' he said. 'He lives like a rat, in\nthe river of corruption, just where it falls over into the bottomless\npit. He's further on than we are. He hates the ideal more acutely. He\nHATES the ideal utterly, yet it still dominates him. I expect he is a\nJew--or part Jewish.'\n\n'Probably,' said Gerald.\n\n'He is a gnawing little negation, gnawing at the roots of life.'\n\n'But why does anybody care about him?' cried Gerald.\n\n'Because they hate the ideal also, in their souls. They want to explore\nthe sewers, and he's the wizard rat that swims ahead.'\n\nStill Gerald stood and stared at the blind haze of snow outside.\n\n'I don't understand your terms, really,' he said, in a flat, doomed\nvoice. 'But it sounds a rum sort of desire.'\n\n'I suppose we want the same,' said Birkin. 'Only we want to take a\nquick jump downwards, in a sort of ecstasy--and he ebbs with the\nstream, the sewer stream.'\n\nMeanwhile Gudrun and Ursula waited for the next opportunity to talk to\nLoerke. It was no use beginning when the men were there. Then they\ncould get into no touch with the isolated little sculptor. He had to be\nalone with them. And he preferred Ursula to be there, as a sort of\ntransmitter to Gudrun.\n\n'Do you do nothing but architectural sculpture?' Gudrun asked him one\nevening.\n\n'Not now,' he replied. 'I have done all sorts--except portraits--I\nnever did portraits. But other things--'\n\n'What kind of things?' asked Gudrun.\n\nHe paused a moment, then rose, and went out of the room. He returned\nalmost immediately with a little roll of paper, which he handed to her.\nShe unrolled it. It was a photogravure reproduction of a statuette,\nsigned F. Loerke.\n\n'That is quite an early thing--NOT mechanical,' he said, 'more\npopular.'\n\nThe statuette was of a naked girl, small, finely made, sitting on a\ngreat naked horse. The girl was young and tender, a mere bud. She was\nsitting sideways on the horse, her face in her hands, as if in shame\nand grief, in a little abandon. Her hair, which was short and must be\nflaxen, fell forward, divided, half covering her hands.\n\nHer limbs were young and tender. Her legs, scarcely formed yet, the\nlegs of a maiden just passing towards cruel womanhood, dangled\nchildishly over the side of the powerful horse, pathetically, the small\nfeet folded one over the other, as if to hide. But there was no hiding.\nThere she was exposed naked on the naked flank of the horse.\n\nThe horse stood stock still, stretched in a kind of start. It was a\nmassive, magnificent stallion, rigid with pent-up power. Its neck was\narched and terrible, like a sickle, its flanks were pressed back, rigid\nwith power.\n\nGudrun went pale, and a darkness came over her eyes, like shame, she\nlooked up with a certain supplication, almost slave-like. He glanced at\nher, and jerked his head a little.\n\n'How big is it?' she asked, in a toneless voice, persisting in\nappearing casual and unaffected.\n\n'How big?' he replied, glancing again at her. 'Without pedestal--so\nhigh--' he measured with his hand--'with pedestal, so--'\n\nHe looked at her steadily. There was a little brusque, turgid contempt\nfor her in his swift gesture, and she seemed to cringe a little.\n\n'And what is it done in?' she asked, throwing back her head and looking\nat him with affected coldness.\n\nHe still gazed at her steadily, and his dominance was not shaken.\n\n'Bronze--green bronze.'\n\n'Green bronze!' repeated Gudrun, coldly accepting his challenge. She\nwas thinking of the slender, immature, tender limbs of the girl, smooth\nand cold in green bronze.\n\n'Yes, beautiful,' she murmured, looking up at him with a certain dark\nhomage.\n\nHe closed his eyes and looked aside, triumphant.\n\n'Why,' said Ursula, 'did you make the horse so stiff? It is as stiff as\na block.'\n\n'Stiff?' he repeated, in arms at once.\n\n'Yes. LOOK how stock and stupid and brutal it is. Horses are sensitive,\nquite delicate and sensitive, really.'\n\nHe raised his shoulders, spread his hands in a shrug of slow\nindifference, as much as to inform her she was an amateur and an\nimpertinent nobody.\n\n'Wissen Sie,' he said, with an insulting patience and condescension in\nhis voice, 'that horse is a certain FORM, part of a whole form. It is\npart of a work of art, a piece of form. It is not a picture of a\nfriendly horse to which you give a lump of sugar, do you see--it is\npart of a work of art, it has no relation to anything outside that work\nof art.'\n\nUrsula, angry at being treated quite so insultingly DE HAUT EN BAS,\nfrom the height of esoteric art to the depth of general exoteric\namateurism, replied, hotly, flushing and lifting her face.\n\n'But it IS a picture of a horse, nevertheless.'\n\nHe lifted his shoulders in another shrug.\n\n'As you like--it is not a picture of a cow, certainly.'\n\nHere Gudrun broke in, flushed and brilliant, anxious to avoid any more\nof this, any more of Ursula's foolish persistence in giving herself\naway.\n\n'What do you mean by \"it is a picture of a horse?\"' she cried at her\nsister. 'What do you mean by a horse? You mean an idea you have in YOUR\nhead, and which you want to see represented. There is another idea\naltogether, quite another idea. Call it a horse if you like, or say it\nis not a horse. I have just as much right to say that YOUR horse isn't\na horse, that it is a falsity of your own make-up.'\n\nUrsula wavered, baffled. Then her words came.\n\n'But why does he have this idea of a horse?' she said. 'I know it is\nhis idea. I know it is a picture of himself, really--'\n\nLoerke snorted with rage.\n\n'A picture of myself!' he repeated, in derision. 'Wissen sie, gnadige\nFrau, that is a Kunstwerk, a work of art. It is a work of art, it is a\npicture of nothing, of absolutely nothing. It has nothing to do with\nanything but itself, it has no relation with the everyday world of this\nand other, there is no connection between them, absolutely none, they\nare two different and distinct planes of existence, and to translate\none into the other is worse than foolish, it is a darkening of all\ncounsel, a making confusion everywhere. Do you see, you MUST NOT\nconfuse the relative work of action, with the absolute world of art.\nThat you MUST NOT DO.'\n\n'That is quite true,' cried Gudrun, let loose in a sort of rhapsody.\n'The two things are quite and permanently apart, they have NOTHING to\ndo with one another. I and my art, they have nothing to do with each\nother. My art stands in another world, I am in this world.'\n\nHer face was flushed and transfigured. Loerke who was sitting with his\nhead ducked, like some creature at bay, looked up at her, swiftly,\nalmost furtively, and murmured,\n\n'Ja--so ist es, so ist es.'\n\nUrsula was silent after this outburst. She was furious. She wanted to\npoke a hole into them both.\n\n'It isn't a word of it true, of all this harangue you have made me,'\nshe replied flatly. 'The horse is a picture of your own stock, stupid\nbrutality, and the girl was a girl you loved and tortured and then\nignored.'\n\nHe looked up at her with a small smile of contempt in his eyes. He\nwould not trouble to answer this last charge.\n\nGudrun too was silent in exasperated contempt. Ursula WAS such an\ninsufferable outsider, rushing in where angels would fear to tread. But\nthen--fools must be suffered, if not gladly.\n\nBut Ursula was persistent too.\n\n'As for your world of art and your world of reality,' she replied, 'you\nhave to separate the two, because you can't bear to know what you are.\nYou can't bear to realise what a stock, stiff, hide-bound brutality you\nARE really, so you say \"it's the world of art.\" The world of art is\nonly the truth about the real world, that's all--but you are too far\ngone to see it.'\n\nShe was white and trembling, intent. Gudrun and Loerke sat in stiff\ndislike of her. Gerald too, who had come up in the beginning of the\nspeech, stood looking at her in complete disapproval and opposition. He\nfelt she was undignified, she put a sort of vulgarity over the\nesotericism which gave man his last distinction. He joined his forces\nwith the other two. They all three wanted her to go away. But she sat\non in silence, her soul weeping, throbbing violently, her fingers\ntwisting her handkerchief.\n\nThe others maintained a dead silence, letting the display of Ursula's\nobtrusiveness pass by. Then Gudrun asked, in a voice that was quite\ncool and casual, as if resuming a casual conversation:\n\n'Was the girl a model?'\n\n'Nein, sie war kein Modell. Sie war eine kleine Malschulerin.'\n\n'An art-student!' replied Gudrun.\n\nAnd how the situation revealed itself to her! She saw the girl\nart-student, unformed and of pernicious recklessness, too young, her\nstraight flaxen hair cut short, hanging just into her neck, curving\ninwards slightly, because it was rather thick; and Loerke, the\nwell-known master-sculptor, and the girl, probably well-brought-up, and\nof good family, thinking herself so great to be his mistress. Oh how\nwell she knew the common callousness of it all. Dresden, Paris, or\nLondon, what did it matter? She knew it.\n\n'Where is she now?' Ursula asked.\n\nLoerke raised his shoulders, to convey his complete ignorance and\nindifference.\n\n'That is already six years ago,' he said; 'she will be twenty-three\nyears old, no more good.'\n\nGerald had picked up the picture and was looking at it. It attracted\nhim also. He saw on the pedestal, that the piece was called 'Lady\nGodiva.'\n\n'But this isn't Lady Godiva,' he said, smiling good-humouredly. 'She\nwas the middle-aged wife of some Earl or other, who covered herself\nwith her long hair.'\n\n'A la Maud Allan,' said Gudrun with a mocking grimace.\n\n'Why Maud Allan?' he replied. 'Isn't it so? I always thought the legend\nwas that.'\n\n'Yes, Gerald dear, I'm quite SURE you've got the legend perfectly.'\n\nShe was laughing at him, with a little, mock-caressive contempt.\n\n'To be sure, I'd rather see the woman than the hair,' he laughed in\nreturn.\n\n'Wouldn't you just!' mocked Gudrun.\n\nUrsula rose and went away, leaving the three together.\n\nGudrun took the picture again from Gerald, and sat looking at it\nclosely.\n\n'Of course,' she said, turning to tease Loerke now, 'you UNDERSTOOD\nyour little Malschulerin.'\n\nHe raised his eyebrows and his shoulders in a complacent shrug.\n\n'The little girl?' asked Gerald, pointing to the figure.\n\nGudrun was sitting with the picture in her lap. She looked up at\nGerald, full into his eyes, so that he seemed to be blinded.\n\n'DIDN'T he understand her!' she said to Gerald, in a slightly mocking,\nhumorous playfulness. 'You've only to look at the feet--AREN'T they\ndarling, so pretty and tender--oh, they're really wonderful, they are\nreally--'\n\nShe lifted her eyes slowly, with a hot, flaming look into Loerke's\neyes. His soul was filled with her burning recognition, he seemed to\ngrow more uppish and lordly.\n\nGerald looked at the small, sculptured feet. They were turned together,\nhalf covering each other in pathetic shyness and fear. He looked at\nthem a long time, fascinated. Then, in some pain, he put the picture\naway from him. He felt full of barrenness.\n\n'What was her name?' Gudrun asked Loerke.\n\n'Annette von Weck,' Loerke replied reminiscent. 'Ja, sie war hubsch.\nShe was pretty--but she was tiresome. She was a nuisance,--not for a\nminute would she keep still--not until I'd slapped her hard and made\nher cry--then she'd sit for five minutes.'\n\nHe was thinking over the work, his work, the all important to him.\n\n'Did you really slap her?' asked Gudrun, coolly.\n\nHe glanced back at her, reading her challenge.\n\n'Yes, I did,' he said, nonchalant, 'harder than I have ever beat\nanything in my life. I had to, I had to. It was the only way I got the\nwork done.'\n\nGudrun watched him with large, dark-filled eyes, for some moments. She\nseemed to be considering his very soul. Then she looked down, in\nsilence.\n\n'Why did you have such a young Godiva then?' asked Gerald. 'She is so\nsmall, besides, on the horse--not big enough for it--such a child.'\n\nA queer spasm went over Loerke's face.\n\n'Yes,' he said. 'I don't like them any bigger, any older. Then they are\nbeautiful, at sixteen, seventeen, eighteen--after that, they are no use\nto me.'\n\nThere was a moment's pause.\n\n'Why not?' asked Gerald.\n\nLoerke shrugged his shoulders.\n\n'I don't find them interesting--or beautiful--they are no good to me,\nfor my work.'\n\n'Do you mean to say a woman isn't beautiful after she is twenty?' asked\nGerald.\n\n'For me, no. Before twenty, she is small and fresh and tender and\nslight. After that--let her be what she likes, she has nothing for me.\nThe Venus of Milo is a bourgeoise--so are they all.'\n\n'And you don't care for women at all after twenty?' asked Gerald.\n\n'They are no good to me, they are of no use in my art,' Loerke repeated\nimpatiently. 'I don't find them beautiful.'\n\n'You are an epicure,' said Gerald, with a slight sarcastic laugh.\n\n'And what about men?' asked Gudrun suddenly.\n\n'Yes, they are good at all ages,' replied Loerke. 'A man should be big\nand powerful--whether he is old or young is of no account, so he has\nthe size, something of massiveness and--and stupid form.'\n\nUrsula went out alone into the world of pure, new snow. But the\ndazzling whiteness seemed to beat upon her till it hurt her, she felt\nthe cold was slowly strangling her soul. Her head felt dazed and numb.\n\nSuddenly she wanted to go away. It occurred to her, like a miracle,\nthat she might go away into another world. She had felt so doomed up\nhere in the eternal snow, as if there were no beyond.\n\nNow suddenly, as by a miracle she remembered that away beyond, below\nher, lay the dark fruitful earth, that towards the south there were\nstretches of land dark with orange trees and cypress, grey with olives,\nthat ilex trees lifted wonderful plumy tufts in shadow against a blue\nsky. Miracle of miracles!--this utterly silent, frozen world of the\nmountain-tops was not universal! One might leave it and have done with\nit. One might go away.\n\nShe wanted to realise the miracle at once. She wanted at this instant\nto have done with the snow-world, the terrible, static ice-built\nmountain tops. She wanted to see the dark earth, to smell its earthy\nfecundity, to see the patient wintry vegetation, to feel the sunshine\ntouch a response in the buds.\n\nShe went back gladly to the house, full of hope. Birkin was reading,\nlying in bed.\n\n'Rupert,' she said, bursting in on him. 'I want to go away.'\n\nHe looked up at her slowly.\n\n'Do you?' he replied mildly.\n\nShe sat by him und put her arms round his neck. It surprised her that\nhe was so little surprised.\n\n'Don't YOU?' she asked troubled.\n\n'I hadn't thought about it,' he said. 'But I'm sure I do.'\n\nShe sat up, suddenly erect.\n\n'I hate it,' she said. 'I hate the snow, and the unnaturalness of it,\nthe unnatural light it throws on everybody, the ghastly glamour, the\nunnatural feelings it makes everybody have.'\n\nHe lay still and laughed, meditating.\n\n'Well,' he said, 'we can go away--we can go tomorrow. We'll go tomorrow\nto Verona, and find Romeo and Juliet, and sit in the\namphitheatre--shall we?'\n\nSuddenly she hid her face against his shoulder with perplexity and\nshyness. He lay so untrammelled.\n\n'Yes,' she said softly, filled with relief. She felt her soul had new\nwings, now he was so uncaring. 'I shall love to be Romeo and Juliet,'\nshe said. 'My love!'\n\n'Though a fearfully cold wind blows in Verona,' he said, 'from out of\nthe Alps. We shall have the smell of the snow in our noses.'\n\nShe sat up and looked at him.\n\n'Are you glad to go?' she asked, troubled.\n\nHis eyes were inscrutable and laughing. She hid her face against his\nneck, clinging close to him, pleading:\n\n'Don't laugh at me--don't laugh at me.'\n\n'Why how's that?' he laughed, putting his arms round her.\n\n'Because I don't want to be laughed at,' she whispered.\n\nHe laughed more, as he kissed her delicate, finely perfumed hair.\n\n'Do you love me?' she whispered, in wild seriousness.\n\n'Yes,' he answered, laughing.\n\nSuddenly she lifted her mouth to be kissed. Her lips were taut and\nquivering and strenuous, his were soft, deep and delicate. He waited a\nfew moments in the kiss. Then a shade of sadness went over his soul.\n\n'Your mouth is so hard,' he said, in faint reproach.\n\n'And yours is so soft and nice,' she said gladly.\n\n'But why do you always grip your lips?' he asked, regretful.\n\n'Never mind,' she said swiftly. 'It is my way.'\n\nShe knew he loved her; she was sure of him. Yet she could not let go a\ncertain hold over herself, she could not bear him to question her. She\ngave herself up in delight to being loved by him. She knew that, in\nspite of his joy when she abandoned herself, he was a little bit\nsaddened too. She could give herself up to his activity. But she could\nnot be herself, she DARED not come forth quite nakedly to his\nnakedness, abandoning all adjustment, lapsing in pure faith with him.\nShe abandoned herself to HIM, or she took hold of him and gathered her\njoy of him. And she enjoyed him fully. But they were never QUITE\ntogether, at the same moment, one was always a little left out.\nNevertheless she was glad in hope, glorious and free, full of life and\nliberty. And he was still and soft and patient, for the time.\n\nThey made their preparations to leave the next day. First they went to\nGudrun's room, where she and Gerald were just dressed ready for the\nevening indoors.\n\n'Prune,' said Ursula, 'I think we shall go away tomorrow. I can't stand\nthe snow any more. It hurts my skin and my soul.'\n\n'Does it really hurt your soul, Ursula?' asked Gudrun, in some\nsurprise. 'I can believe quite it hurts your skin--it is TERRIBLE. But\nI thought it was ADMIRABLE for the soul.'\n\n'No, not for mine. It just injures it,' said Ursula.\n\n'Really!' cried Gudrun.\n\nThere was a silence in the room. And Ursula and Birkin could feel that\nGudrun and Gerald were relieved by their going.\n\n'You will go south?' said Gerald, a little ring of uneasiness in his\nvoice.\n\n'Yes,' said Birkin, turning away. There was a queer, indefinable\nhostility between the two men, lately. Birkin was on the whole dim and\nindifferent, drifting along in a dim, easy flow, unnoticing and\npatient, since he came abroad, whilst Gerald on the other hand, was\nintense and gripped into white light, agonistes. The two men revoked\none another.\n\nGerald and Gudrun were very kind to the two who were departing,\nsolicitous for their welfare as if they were two children. Gudrun came\nto Ursula's bedroom with three pairs of the coloured stockings for\nwhich she was notorious, and she threw them on the bed. But these were\nthick silk stockings, vermilion, cornflower blue, and grey, bought in\nParis. The grey ones were knitted, seamless and heavy. Ursula was in\nraptures. She knew Gudrun must be feeling VERY loving, to give away\nsuch treasures.\n\n'I can't take them from you, Prune,' she cried. 'I can't possibly\ndeprive you of them--the jewels.'\n\n'AREN'T they jewels!' cried Gudrun, eyeing her gifts with an envious\neye. 'AREN'T they real lambs!'\n\n'Yes, you MUST keep them,' said Ursula.\n\n'I don't WANT them, I've got three more pairs. I WANT you to keep\nthem--I want you to have them. They're yours, there--'\n\nAnd with trembling, excited hands she put the coveted stockings under\nUrsula's pillow.\n\n'One gets the greatest joy of all out of really lovely stockings,' said\nUrsula.\n\n'One does,' replied Gudrun; 'the greatest joy of all.'\n\nAnd she sat down in the chair. It was evident she had come for a last\ntalk. Ursula, not knowing what she wanted, waited in silence.\n\n'Do you FEEL, Ursula,' Gudrun began, rather sceptically, that you are\ngoing-away-for-ever, never-to-return, sort of thing?'\n\n'Oh, we shall come back,' said Ursula. 'It isn't a question of\ntrain-journeys.'\n\n'Yes, I know. But spiritually, so to speak, you are going away from us\nall?'\n\nUrsula quivered.\n\n'I don't know a bit what is going to happen,' she said. 'I only know we\nare going somewhere.'\n\nGudrun waited.\n\n'And you are glad?' she asked.\n\nUrsula meditated for a moment.\n\n'I believe I am VERY glad,' she replied.\n\nBut Gudrun read the unconscious brightness on her sister's face, rather\nthan the uncertain tones of her speech.\n\n'But don't you think you'll WANT the old connection with the\nworld--father and the rest of us, and all that it means, England and\nthe world of thought--don't you think you'll NEED that, really to make\na world?'\n\nUrsula was silent, trying to imagine.\n\n'I think,' she said at length, involuntarily, 'that Rupert is\nright--one wants a new space to be in, and one falls away from the\nold.'\n\nGudrun watched her sister with impassive face and steady eyes.\n\n'One wants a new space to be in, I quite agree,' she said. 'But I think\nthat a new world is a development from this world, and that to isolate\noneself with one other person, isn't to find a new world at all, but\nonly to secure oneself in one's illusions.'\n\nUrsula looked out of the window. In her soul she began to wrestle, and\nshe was frightened. She was always frightened of words, because she\nknew that mere word-force could always make her believe what she did\nnot believe.\n\n'Perhaps,' she said, full of mistrust, of herself and everybody. 'But,'\nshe added, 'I do think that one can't have anything new whilst one\ncares for the old--do you know what I mean?--even fighting the old is\nbelonging to it. I know, one is tempted to stop with the world, just to\nfight it. But then it isn't worth it.'\n\nGudrun considered herself.\n\n'Yes,' she said. 'In a way, one is of the world if one lives in it. But\nisn't it really an illusion to think you can get out of it? After all,\na cottage in the Abruzzi, or wherever it may be, isn't a new world. No,\nthe only thing to do with the world, is to see it through.'\n\nUrsula looked away. She was so frightened of argument.\n\n'But there CAN be something else, can't there?' she said. 'One can see\nit through in one's soul, long enough before it sees itself through in\nactuality. And then, when one has seen one's soul, one is something\nelse.'\n\n'CAN one see it through in one's soul?' asked Gudrun. 'If you mean that\nyou can see to the end of what will happen, I don't agree. I really\ncan't agree. And anyhow, you can't suddenly fly off on to a new planet,\nbecause you think you can see to the end of this.'\n\nUrsula suddenly straightened herself.\n\n'Yes,' she said. 'Yes--one knows. One has no more connections here. One\nhas a sort of other self, that belongs to a new planet, not to this.\nYou've got to hop off.'\n\nGudrun reflected for a few moments. Then a smile of ridicule, almost of\ncontempt, came over her face.\n\n'And what will happen when you find yourself in space?' she cried in\nderision. 'After all, the great ideas of the world are the same there.\nYou above everybody can't get away from the fact that love, for\ninstance, is the supreme thing, in space as well as on earth.'\n\n'No,' said Ursula, 'it isn't. Love is too human and little. I believe\nin something inhuman, of which love is only a little part. I believe\nwhat we must fulfil comes out of the unknown to us, and it is something\ninfinitely more than love. It isn't so merely HUMAN.'\n\nGudrun looked at Ursula with steady, balancing eyes. She admired and\ndespised her sister so much, both! Then, suddenly she averted her face,\nsaying coldly, uglily:\n\n'Well, I've got no further than love, yet.'\n\nOver Ursula's mind flashed the thought: 'Because you never HAVE loved,\nyou can't get beyond it.'\n\nGudrun rose, came over to Ursula and put her arm round her neck.\n\n'Go and find your new world, dear,' she said, her voice clanging with\nfalse benignity. 'After all, the happiest voyage is the quest of\nRupert's Blessed Isles.'\n\nHer arm rested round Ursula's neck, her fingers on Ursula's cheek for a\nfew moments. Ursula was supremely uncomfortable meanwhile. There was an\ninsult in Gudrun's protective patronage that was really too hurting.\nFeeling her sister's resistance, Gudrun drew awkwardly away, turned\nover the pillow, and disclosed the stockings again.\n\n'Ha--ha!' she laughed, rather hollowly. 'How we do talk indeed--new\nworlds and old--!'\n\nAnd they passed to the familiar worldly subjects.\n\nGerald and Birkin had walked on ahead, waiting for the sledge to\novertake them, conveying the departing guests.\n\n'How much longer will you stay here?' asked Birkin, glancing up at\nGerald's very red, almost blank face.\n\n'Oh, I can't say,' Gerald replied. 'Till we get tired of it.'\n\n'You're not afraid of the snow melting first?' asked Birkin.\n\nGerald laughed.\n\n'Does it melt?' he said.\n\n'Things are all right with you then?' said Birkin.\n\nGerald screwed up his eyes a little.\n\n'All right?' he said. 'I never know what those common words mean. All\nright and all wrong, don't they become synonymous, somewhere?'\n\n'Yes, I suppose. How about going back?' asked Birkin.\n\n'Oh, I don't know. We may never get back. I don't look before and\nafter,' said Gerald.\n\n'NOR pine for what is not,' said Birkin.\n\nGerald looked into the distance, with the small-pupilled, abstract eyes\nof a hawk.\n\n'No. There's something final about this. And Gudrun seems like the end,\nto me. I don't know--but she seems so soft, her skin like silk, her\narms heavy and soft. And it withers my consciousness, somehow, it burns\nthe pith of my mind.' He went on a few paces, staring ahead, his eyes\nfixed, looking like a mask used in ghastly religions of the barbarians.\n'It blasts your soul's eye,' he said, 'and leaves you sightless. Yet\nyou WANT to be sightless, you WANT to be blasted, you don't want it any\ndifferent.'\n\nHe was speaking as if in a trance, verbal and blank. Then suddenly he\nbraced himself up with a kind of rhapsody, and looked at Birkin with\nvindictive, cowed eyes, saying:\n\n'Do you know what it is to suffer when you are with a woman? She's so\nbeautiful, so perfect, you find her SO GOOD, it tears you like a silk,\nand every stroke and bit cuts hot--ha, that perfection, when you blast\nyourself, you blast yourself! And then--' he stopped on the snow and\nsuddenly opened his clenched hands--'it's nothing--your brain might\nhave gone charred as rags--and--' he looked round into the air with a\nqueer histrionic movement 'it's blasting--you understand what I\nmean--it is a great experience, something final--and then--you're\nshrivelled as if struck by electricity.' He walked on in silence. It\nseemed like bragging, but like a man in extremity bragging truthfully.\n\n'Of course,' he resumed, 'I wouldn't NOT have had it! It's a complete\nexperience. And she's a wonderful woman. But--how I hate her somewhere!\nIt's curious--'\n\nBirkin looked at him, at his strange, scarcely conscious face. Gerald\nseemed blank before his own words.\n\n'But you've had enough now?' said Birkin. 'You have had your\nexperience. Why work on an old wound?'\n\n'Oh,' said Gerald, 'I don't know. It's not finished--'\n\nAnd the two walked on.\n\n'I've loved you, as well as Gudrun, don't forget,' said Birkin\nbitterly. Gerald looked at him strangely, abstractedly.\n\n'Have you?' he said, with icy scepticism. 'Or do you think you have?'\nHe was hardly responsible for what he said.\n\nThe sledge came. Gudrun dismounted and they all made their farewell.\nThey wanted to go apart, all of them. Birkin took his place, and the\nsledge drove away leaving Gudrun and Gerald standing on the snow,\nwaving. Something froze Birkin's heart, seeing them standing there in\nthe isolation of the snow, growing smaller and more isolated.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXX.\n\nSNOWED UP\n\n\nWhen Ursula and Birkin were gone, Gudrun felt herself free in her\ncontest with Gerald. As they grew more used to each other, he seemed to\npress upon her more and more. At first she could manage him, so that\nher own will was always left free. But very soon, he began to ignore\nher female tactics, he dropped his respect for her whims and her\nprivacies, he began to exert his own will blindly, without submitting\nto hers.\n\nAlready a vital conflict had set in, which frightened them both. But he\nwas alone, whilst already she had begun to cast round for external\nresource.\n\nWhen Ursula had gone, Gudrun felt her own existence had become stark\nand elemental. She went and crouched alone in her bedroom, looking out\nof the window at the big, flashing stars. In front was the faint shadow\nof the mountain-knot. That was the pivot. She felt strange and\ninevitable, as if she were centred upon the pivot of all existence,\nthere was no further reality.\n\nPresently Gerald opened the door. She knew he would not be long before\nhe came. She was rarely alone, he pressed upon her like a frost,\ndeadening her.\n\n'Are you alone in the dark?' he said. And she could tell by his tone he\nresented it, he resented this isolation she had drawn round herself.\nYet, feeling static and inevitable, she was kind towards him.\n\n'Would you like to light the candle?' she asked.\n\nHe did not answer, but came and stood behind her, in the darkness.\n\n'Look,' she said, 'at that lovely star up there. Do you know its name?'\n\nHe crouched beside her, to look through the low window.\n\n'No,' he said. 'It is very fine.'\n\n'ISN'T it beautiful! Do you notice how it darts different coloured\nfires--it flashes really superbly--'\n\nThey remained in silence. With a mute, heavy gesture she put her hand\non his knee, and took his hand.\n\n'Are you regretting Ursula?' he asked.\n\n'No, not at all,' she said. Then, in a slow mood, she asked:\n\n'How much do you love me?'\n\nHe stiffened himself further against her.\n\n'How much do you think I do?' he asked.\n\n'I don't know,' she replied.\n\n'But what is your opinion?' he asked.\n\nThere was a pause. At length, in the darkness, came her voice, hard and\nindifferent:\n\n'Very little indeed,' she said coldly, almost flippant.\n\nHis heart went icy at the sound of her voice.\n\n'Why don't I love you?' he asked, as if admitting the truth of her\naccusation, yet hating her for it.\n\n'I don't know why you don't--I've been good to you. You were in a\nFEARFUL state when you came to me.'\n\nHer heart was beating to suffocate her, yet she was strong and\nunrelenting.\n\n'When was I in a fearful state?' he asked.\n\n'When you first came to me. I HAD to take pity on you. But it was never\nlove.'\n\nIt was that statement 'It was never love,' which sounded in his ears\nwith madness.\n\n'Why must you repeat it so often, that there is no love?' he said in a\nvoice strangled with rage.\n\n'Well you don't THINK you love, do you?' she asked.\n\nHe was silent with cold passion of anger.\n\n'You don't think you CAN love me, do you?' she repeated almost with a\nsneer.\n\n'No,' he said.\n\n'You know you never HAVE loved me, don't you?'\n\n'I don't know what you mean by the word 'love,' he replied.\n\n'Yes, you do. You know all right that you have never loved me. Have\nyou, do you think?'\n\n'No,' he said, prompted by some barren spirit of truthfulness and\nobstinacy.\n\n'And you never WILL love me,' she said finally, 'will you?'\n\nThere was a diabolic coldness in her, too much to bear.\n\n'No,' he said.\n\n'Then,' she replied, 'what have you against me!'\n\nHe was silent in cold, frightened rage and despair. 'If only I could\nkill her,' his heart was whispering repeatedly. 'If only I could kill\nher--I should be free.'\n\nIt seemed to him that death was the only severing of this Gordian knot.\n\n'Why do you torture me?' he said.\n\nShe flung her arms round his neck.\n\n'Ah, I don't want to torture you,' she said pityingly, as if she were\ncomforting a child. The impertinence made his veins go cold, he was\ninsensible. She held her arms round his neck, in a triumph of pity. And\nher pity for him was as cold as stone, its deepest motive was hate of\nhim, and fear of his power over her, which she must always counterfoil.\n\n'Say you love me,' she pleaded. 'Say you will love me for ever--won't\nyou--won't you?'\n\nBut it was her voice only that coaxed him. Her senses were entirely\napart from him, cold and destructive of him. It was her overbearing\nWILL that insisted.\n\n'Won't you say you'll love me always?' she coaxed. 'Say it, even if it\nisn't true--say it Gerald, do.'\n\n'I will love you always,' he repeated, in real agony, forcing the words\nout.\n\nShe gave him a quick kiss.\n\n'Fancy your actually having said it,' she said with a touch of\nraillery.\n\nHe stood as if he had been beaten.\n\n'Try to love me a little more, and to want me a little less,' she said,\nin a half contemptuous, half coaxing tone.\n\nThe darkness seemed to be swaying in waves across his mind, great waves\nof darkness plunging across his mind. It seemed to him he was degraded\nat the very quick, made of no account.\n\n'You mean you don't want me?' he said.\n\n'You are so insistent, and there is so little grace in you, so little\nfineness. You are so crude. You break me--you only waste me--it is\nhorrible to me.'\n\n'Horrible to you?' he repeated.\n\n'Yes. Don't you think I might have a room to myself, now Ursula has\ngone? You can say you want a dressing room.'\n\n'You do as you like--you can leave altogether if you like,' he managed\nto articulate.\n\n'Yes, I know that,' she replied. 'So can you. You can leave me whenever\nyou like--without notice even.'\n\nThe great tides of darkness were swinging across his mind, he could\nhardly stand upright. A terrible weariness overcame him, he felt he\nmust lie on the floor. Dropping off his clothes, he got into bed, and\nlay like a man suddenly overcome by drunkenness, the darkness lifting\nand plunging as if he were lying upon a black, giddy sea. He lay still\nin this strange, horrific reeling for some time, purely unconscious.\n\nAt length she slipped from her own bed and came over to him. He\nremained rigid, his back to her. He was all but unconscious.\n\nShe put her arms round his terrifying, insentient body, and laid her\ncheek against his hard shoulder.\n\n'Gerald,' she whispered. 'Gerald.'\n\nThere was no change in him. She caught him against her. She pressed her\nbreasts against his shoulders, she kissed his shoulder, through the\nsleeping jacket. Her mind wondered, over his rigid, unliving body. She\nwas bewildered, and insistent, only her will was set for him to speak\nto her.\n\n'Gerald, my dear!' she whispered, bending over him, kissing his ear.\n\nHer warm breath playing, flying rhythmically over his ear, seemed to\nrelax the tension. She could feel his body gradually relaxing a little,\nlosing its terrifying, unnatural rigidity. Her hands clutched his\nlimbs, his muscles, going over him spasmodically.\n\nThe hot blood began to flow again through his veins, his limbs relaxed.\n\n'Turn round to me,' she whispered, forlorn with insistence and triumph.\n\nSo at last he was given again, warm and flexible. He turned and\ngathered her in his arms. And feeling her soft against him, so\nperfectly and wondrously soft and recipient, his arms tightened on her.\nShe was as if crushed, powerless in him. His brain seemed hard and\ninvincible now like a jewel, there was no resisting him.\n\nHis passion was awful to her, tense and ghastly, and impersonal, like a\ndestruction, ultimate. She felt it would kill her. She was being\nkilled.\n\n'My God, my God,' she cried, in anguish, in his embrace, feeling her\nlife being killed within her. And when he was kissing her, soothing\nher, her breath came slowly, as if she were really spent, dying.\n\n'Shall I die, shall I die?' she repeated to herself.\n\nAnd in the night, and in him, there was no answer to the question.\n\nAnd yet, next day, the fragment of her which was not destroyed remained\nintact and hostile, she did not go away, she remained to finish the\nholiday, admitting nothing. He scarcely ever left her alone, but\nfollowed her like a shadow, he was like a doom upon her, a continual\n'thou shalt,' 'thou shalt not.' Sometimes it was he who seemed\nstrongest, whist she was almost gone, creeping near the earth like a\nspent wind; sometimes it was the reverse. But always it was this\neternal see-saw, one destroyed that the other might exist, one ratified\nbecause the other was nulled.\n\n'In the end,' she said to herself, 'I shall go away from him.'\n\n'I can be free of her,' he said to himself in his paroxysms of\nsuffering.\n\nAnd he set himself to be free. He even prepared to go away, to leave\nher in the lurch. But for the first time there was a flaw in his will.\n\n'Where shall I go?' he asked himself.\n\n'Can't you be self-sufficient?' he replied to himself, putting himself\nupon his pride.\n\n'Self-sufficient!' he repeated.\n\nIt seemed to him that Gudrun was sufficient unto herself, closed round\nand completed, like a thing in a case. In the calm, static reason of\nhis soul, he recognised this, and admitted it was her right, to be\nclosed round upon herself, self-complete, without desire. He realised\nit, he admitted it, it only needed one last effort on his own part, to\nwin for himself the same completeness. He knew that it only needed one\nconvulsion of his will for him to be able to turn upon himself also, to\nclose upon himself as a stone fixes upon itself, and is impervious,\nself-completed, a thing isolated.\n\nThis knowledge threw him into a terrible chaos. Because, however much\nhe might mentally WILL to be immune and self-complete, the desire for\nthis state was lacking, and he could not create it. He could see that,\nto exist at all, he must be perfectly free of Gudrun, leave her if she\nwanted to be left, demand nothing of her, have no claim upon her.\n\nBut then, to have no claim upon her, he must stand by himself, in sheer\nnothingness. And his brain turned to nought at the idea. It was a state\nof nothingness. On the other hand, he might give in, and fawn to her.\nOr, finally, he might kill her. Or he might become just indifferent,\npurposeless, dissipated, momentaneous. But his nature was too serious,\nnot gay enough or subtle enough for mocking licentiousness.\n\nA strange rent had been torn in him; like a victim that is torn open\nand given to the heavens, so he had been torn apart and given to\nGudrun. How should he close again? This wound, this strange,\ninfinitely-sensitive opening of his soul, where he was exposed, like an\nopen flower, to all the universe, and in which he was given to his\ncomplement, the other, the unknown, this wound, this disclosure, this\nunfolding of his own covering, leaving him incomplete, limited,\nunfinished, like an open flower under the sky, this was his cruellest\njoy. Why then should he forego it? Why should he close up and become\nimpervious, immune, like a partial thing in a sheath, when he had\nbroken forth, like a seed that has germinated, to issue forth in being,\nembracing the unrealised heavens.\n\nHe would keep the unfinished bliss of his own yearning even through the\ntorture she inflicted upon him. A strange obstinacy possessed him. He\nwould not go away from her whatever she said or did. A strange, deathly\nyearning carried him along with her. She was the determinating\ninfluence of his very being, though she treated him with contempt,\nrepeated rebuffs, and denials, still he would never be gone, since in\nbeing near her, even, he felt the quickening, the going forth in him,\nthe release, the knowledge of his own limitation and the magic of the\npromise, as well as the mystery of his own destruction and\nannihilation.\n\nShe tortured the open heart of him even as he turned to her. And she\nwas tortured herself. It may have been her will was stronger. She felt,\nwith horror, as if he tore at the bud of her heart, tore it open, like\nan irreverent persistent being. Like a boy who pulls off a fly's wings,\nor tears open a bud to see what is in the flower, he tore at her\nprivacy, at her very life, he would destroy her as an immature bud,\ntorn open, is destroyed.\n\nShe might open towards him, a long while hence, in her dreams, when she\nwas a pure spirit. But now she was not to be violated and ruined. She\nclosed against him fiercely.\n\nThey climbed together, at evening, up the high slope, to see the\nsunset. In the finely breathing, keen wind they stood and watched the\nyellow sun sink in crimson and disappear. Then in the east the peaks\nand ridges glowed with living rose, incandescent like immortal flowers\nagainst a brown-purple sky, a miracle, whilst down below the world was\na bluish shadow, and above, like an annunciation, hovered a rosy\ntransport in mid-air.\n\nTo her it was so beautiful, it was a delirium, she wanted to gather the\nglowing, eternal peaks to her breast, and die. He saw them, saw they\nwere beautiful. But there arose no clamour in his breast, only a\nbitterness that was visionary in itself. He wished the peaks were grey\nand unbeautiful, so that she should not get her support from them. Why\ndid she betray the two of them so terribly, in embracing the glow of\nthe evening? Why did she leave him standing there, with the ice-wind\nblowing through his heart, like death, to gratify herself among the\nrosy snow-tips?\n\n'What does the twilight matter?' he said. 'Why do you grovel before it?\nIs it so important to you?'\n\nShe winced in violation and in fury.\n\n'Go away,' she cried, 'and leave me to it. It is beautiful, beautiful,'\nshe sang in strange, rhapsodic tones. 'It is the most beautiful thing I\nhave ever seen in my life. Don't try to come between it and me. Take\nyourself away, you are out of place--'\n\nHe stood back a little, and left her standing there, statue-like,\ntransported into the mystic glowing east. Already the rose was fading,\nlarge white stars were flashing out. He waited. He would forego\neverything but the yearning.\n\n'That was the most perfect thing I have ever seen,' she said in cold,\nbrutal tones, when at last she turned round to him. 'It amazes me that\nyou should want to destroy it. If you can't see it yourself, why try to\ndebar me?' But in reality, he had destroyed it for her, she was\nstraining after a dead effect.\n\n'One day,' he said, softly, looking up at her, 'I shall destroy YOU, as\nyou stand looking at the sunset; because you are such a liar.'\n\nThere was a soft, voluptuous promise to himself in the words. She was\nchilled but arrogant.\n\n'Ha!' she said. 'I am not afraid of your threats!' She denied herself\nto him, she kept her room rigidly private to herself. But he waited on,\nin a curious patience, belonging to his yearning for her.\n\n'In the end,' he said to himself with real voluptuous promise, 'when it\nreaches that point, I shall do away with her.' And he trembled\ndelicately in every limb, in anticipation, as he trembled in his most\nviolent accesses of passionate approach to her, trembling with too much\ndesire.\n\nShe had a curious sort of allegiance with Loerke, all the while, now,\nsomething insidious and traitorous. Gerald knew of it. But in the\nunnatural state of patience, and the unwillingness to harden himself\nagainst her, in which he found himself, he took no notice, although her\nsoft kindliness to the other man, whom he hated as a noxious insect,\nmade him shiver again with an access of the strange shuddering that\ncame over him repeatedly.\n\nHe left her alone only when he went skiing, a sport he loved, and which\nshe did not practise. The he seemed to sweep out of life, to be a\nprojectile into the beyond. And often, when he went away, she talked to\nthe little German sculptor. They had an invariable topic, in their art.\n\nThey were almost of the same ideas. He hated Mestrovic, was not\nsatisfied with the Futurists, he liked the West African wooden figures,\nthe Aztec art, Mexican and Central American. He saw the grotesque, and\na curious sort of mechanical motion intoxicated him, a confusion in\nnature. They had a curious game with each other, Gudrun and Loerke, of\ninfinite suggestivity, strange and leering, as if they had some\nesoteric understanding of life, that they alone were initiated into the\nfearful central secrets, that the world dared not know. Their whole\ncorrespondence was in a strange, barely comprehensible suggestivity,\nthey kindled themselves at the subtle lust of the Egyptians or the\nMexicans. The whole game was one of subtle inter-suggestivity, and they\nwanted to keep it on the plane of suggestion. From their verbal and\nphysical nuances they got the highest satisfaction in the nerves, from\na queer interchange of half-suggested ideas, looks, expressions and\ngestures, which were quite intolerable, though incomprehensible, to\nGerald. He had no terms in which to think of their commerce, his terms\nwere much too gross.\n\nThe suggestion of primitive art was their refuge, and the inner\nmysteries of sensation their object of worship. Art and Life were to\nthem the Reality and the Unreality.\n\n'Of course,' said Gudrun, 'life doesn't REALLY matter--it is one's art\nwhich is central. What one does in one's life has PEU DE RAPPORT, it\ndoesn't signify much.'\n\n'Yes, that is so, exactly,' replied the sculptor. 'What one does in\none's art, that is the breath of one's being. What one does in one's\nlife, that is a bagatelle for the outsiders to fuss about.'\n\nIt was curious what a sense of elation and freedom Gudrun found in this\ncommunication. She felt established for ever. Of course Gerald was\nBAGATELLE. Love was one of the temporal things in her life, except in\nso far as she was an artist. She thought of Cleopatra--Cleopatra must\nhave been an artist; she reaped the essential from a man, she harvested\nthe ultimate sensation, and threw away the husk; and Mary Stuart, and\nthe great Rachel, panting with her lovers after the theatre, these were\nthe exoteric exponents of love. After all, what was the lover but fuel\nfor the transport of this subtle knowledge, for a female art, the art\nof pure, perfect knowledge in sensuous understanding.\n\nOne evening Gerald was arguing with Loerke about Italy and Tripoli. The\nEnglishman was in a strange, inflammable state, the German was excited.\nIt was a contest of words, but it meant a conflict of spirit between\nthe two men. And all the while Gudrun could see in Gerald an arrogant\nEnglish contempt for a foreigner. Although Gerald was quivering, his\neyes flashing, his face flushed, in his argument there was a\nbrusqueness, a savage contempt in his manner, that made Gudrun's blood\nflare up, and made Loerke keen and mortified. For Gerald came down like\na sledge-hammer with his assertions, anything the little German said\nwas merely contemptible rubbish.\n\nAt last Loerke turned to Gudrun, raising his hands in helpless irony, a\nshrug of ironical dismissal, something appealing and child-like.\n\n'Sehen sie, gnadige Frau-' he began.\n\n'Bitte sagen Sie nicht immer, gnadige Frau,' cried Gudrun, her eyes\nflashing, her cheeks burning. She looked like a vivid Medusa. Her voice\nwas loud and clamorous, the other people in the room were startled.\n\n'Please don't call me Mrs Crich,' she cried aloud.\n\nThe name, in Loerke's mouth particularly, had been an intolerable\nhumiliation and constraint upon her, these many days.\n\nThe two men looked at her in amazement. Gerald went white at the\ncheek-bones.\n\n'What shall I say, then?' asked Loerke, with soft, mocking insinuation.\n\n'Sagen Sie nur nicht das,' she muttered, her cheeks flushed crimson.\n'Not that, at least.'\n\nShe saw, by the dawning look on Loerke's face, that he had understood.\nShe was NOT Mrs Crich! So-o-, that explained a great deal.\n\n'Soll ich Fraulein sagen?' he asked, malevolently.\n\n'I am not married,' she said, with some hauteur.\n\nHer heart was fluttering now, beating like a bewildered bird. She knew\nshe had dealt a cruel wound, and she could not bear it.\n\nGerald sat erect, perfectly still, his face pale and calm, like the\nface of a statue. He was unaware of her, or of Loerke or anybody. He\nsat perfectly still, in an unalterable calm. Loerke, meanwhile, was\ncrouching and glancing up from under his ducked head.\n\nGudrun was tortured for something to say, to relieve the suspense. She\ntwisted her face in a smile, and glanced knowingly, almost sneering, at\nGerald.\n\n'Truth is best,' she said to him, with a grimace.\n\nBut now again she was under his domination; now, because she had dealt\nhim this blow; because she had destroyed him, and she did not know how\nhe had taken it. She watched him. He was interesting to her. She had\nlost her interest in Loerke.\n\nGerald rose at length, and went over in a leisurely still movement, to\nthe Professor. The two began a conversation on Goethe.\n\nShe was rather piqued by the simplicity of Gerald's demeanour this\nevening. He did not seem angry or disgusted, only he looked curiously\ninnocent and pure, really beautiful. Sometimes it came upon him, this\nlook of clear distance, and it always fascinated her.\n\nShe waited, troubled, throughout the evening. She thought he would\navoid her, or give some sign. But he spoke to her simply and\nunemotionally, as he would to anyone else in the room. A certain peace,\nan abstraction possessed his soul.\n\nShe went to his room, hotly, violently in love with him. He was so\nbeautiful and inaccessible. He kissed her, he was a lover to her. And\nshe had extreme pleasure of him. But he did not come to, he remained\nremote and candid, unconscious. She wanted to speak to him. But this\ninnocent, beautiful state of unconsciousness that had come upon him\nprevented her. She felt tormented and dark.\n\nIn the morning, however, he looked at her with a little aversion, some\nhorror and some hatred darkening into his eyes. She withdrew on to her\nold ground. But still he would not gather himself together, against\nher.\n\nLoerke was waiting for her now. The little artist, isolated in his own\ncomplete envelope, felt that here at last was a woman from whom he\ncould get something. He was uneasy all the while, waiting to talk with\nher, subtly contriving to be near her. Her presence filled him with\nkeenness and excitement, he gravitated cunningly towards her, as if she\nhad some unseen force of attraction.\n\nHe was not in the least doubtful of himself, as regards Gerald. Gerald\nwas one of the outsiders. Loerke only hated him for being rich and\nproud and of fine appearance. All these things, however, riches, pride\nof social standing, handsome physique, were externals. When it came to\nthe relation with a woman such as Gudrun, he, Loerke, had an approach\nand a power that Gerald never dreamed of.\n\nHow should Gerald hope to satisfy a woman of Gudrun's calibre? Did he\nthink that pride or masterful will or physical strength would help him?\nLoerke knew a secret beyond these things. The greatest power is the one\nthat is subtle and adjusts itself, not one which blindly attacks. And\nhe, Loerke, had understanding where Gerald was a calf. He, Loerke,\ncould penetrate into depths far out of Gerald's knowledge. Gerald was\nleft behind like a postulant in the ante-room of this temple of\nmysteries, this woman. But he Loerke, could he not penetrate into the\ninner darkness, find the spirit of the woman in its inner recess, and\nwrestle with it there, the central serpent that is coiled at the core\nof life.\n\nWhat was it, after all, that a woman wanted? Was it mere social effect,\nfulfilment of ambition in the social world, in the community of\nmankind? Was it even a union in love and goodness? Did she want\n'goodness'? Who but a fool would accept this of Gudrun? This was but\nthe street view of her wants. Cross the threshold, and you found her\ncompletely, completely cynical about the social world and its\nadvantages. Once inside the house of her soul and there was a pungent\natmosphere of corrosion, an inflamed darkness of sensation, and a\nvivid, subtle, critical consciousness, that saw the world distorted,\nhorrific.\n\nWhat then, what next? Was it sheer blind force of passion that would\nsatisfy her now? Not this, but the subtle thrills of extreme sensation\nin reduction. It was an unbroken will reacting against her unbroken\nwill in a myriad subtle thrills of reduction, the last subtle\nactivities of analysis and breaking down, carried out in the darkness\nof her, whilst the outside form, the individual, was utterly unchanged,\neven sentimental in its poses.\n\nBut between two particular people, any two people on earth, the range\nof pure sensational experience is limited. The climax of sensual\nreaction, once reached in any direction, is reached finally, there is\nno going on. There is only repetition possible, or the going apart of\nthe two protagonists, or the subjugating of the one will to the other,\nor death.\n\nGerald had penetrated all the outer places of Gudrun's soul. He was to\nher the most crucial instance of the existing world, the NE PLUS ULTRA\nof the world of man as it existed for her. In him she knew the world,\nand had done with it. Knowing him finally she was the Alexander seeking\nnew worlds. But there WERE no new worlds, there were no more MEN, there\nwere only creatures, little, ultimate CREATURES like Loerke. The world\nwas finished now, for her. There was only the inner, individual\ndarkness, sensation within the ego, the obscene religious mystery of\nultimate reduction, the mystic frictional activities of diabolic\nreducing down, disintegrating the vital organic body of life.\n\nAll this Gudrun knew in her subconsciousness, not in her mind. She knew\nher next step-she knew what she should move on to, when she left\nGerald. She was afraid of Gerald, that he might kill her. But she did\nnot intend to be killed. A fine thread still united her to him. It\nshould not be HER death which broke it. She had further to go, a\nfurther, slow exquisite experience to reap, unthinkable subtleties of\nsensation to know, before she was finished.\n\nOf the last series of subtleties, Gerald was not capable. He could not\ntouch the quick of her. But where his ruder blows could not penetrate,\nthe fine, insinuating blade of Loerke's insect-like comprehension\ncould. At least, it was time for her now to pass over to the other, the\ncreature, the final craftsman. She knew that Loerke, in his innermost\nsoul, was detached from everything, for him there was neither heaven\nnor earth nor hell. He admitted no allegiance, he gave no adherence\nanywhere. He was single and, by abstraction from the rest, absolute in\nhimself.\n\nWhereas in Gerald's soul there still lingered some attachment to the\nrest, to the whole. And this was his limitation. He was limited, BORNE,\nsubject to his necessity, in the last issue, for goodness, for\nrighteousness, for oneness with the ultimate purpose. That the ultimate\npurpose might be the perfect and subtle experience of the process of\ndeath, the will being kept unimpaired, that was not allowed in him. And\nthis was his limitation.\n\nThere was a hovering triumph in Loerke, since Gudrun had denied her\nmarriage with Gerald. The artist seemed to hover like a creature on the\nwing, waiting to settle. He did not approach Gudrun violently, he was\nnever ill-timed. But carried on by a sure instinct in the complete\ndarkness of his soul, he corresponded mystically with her,\nimperceptibly, but palpably.\n\nFor two days, he talked to her, continued the discussions of art, of\nlife, in which they both found such pleasure. They praised the by-gone\nthings, they took a sentimental, childish delight in the achieved\nperfections of the past. Particularly they liked the late eighteenth\ncentury, the period of Goethe and of Shelley, and Mozart.\n\nThey played with the past, and with the great figures of the past, a\nsort of little game of chess, or marionettes, all to please themselves.\nThey had all the great men for their marionettes, and they two were the\nGod of the show, working it all. As for the future, that they never\nmentioned except one laughed out some mocking dream of the destruction\nof the world by a ridiculous catastrophe of man's invention: a man\ninvented such a perfect explosive that it blew the earth in two, and\nthe two halves set off in different directions through space, to the\ndismay of the inhabitants: or else the people of the world divided into\ntwo halves, and each half decided IT was perfect and right, the other\nhalf was wrong and must be destroyed; so another end of the world. Or\nelse, Loerke's dream of fear, the world went cold, and snow fell\neverywhere, and only white creatures, polar-bears, white foxes, and men\nlike awful white snow-birds, persisted in ice cruelty.\n\nApart from these stories, they never talked of the future. They\ndelighted most either in mocking imaginations of destruction, or in\nsentimental, fine marionette-shows of the past. It was a sentimental\ndelight to reconstruct the world of Goethe at Weimar, or of Schiller\nand poverty and faithful love, or to see again Jean Jacques in his\nquakings, or Voltaire at Ferney, or Frederick the Great reading his own\npoetry.\n\nThey talked together for hours, of literature and sculpture and\npainting, amusing themselves with Flaxman and Blake and Fuseli, with\ntenderness, and with Feuerbach and Bocklin. It would take them a\nlife-time, they felt to live again, IN PETTO, the lives of the great\nartists. But they preferred to stay in the eighteenth and the\nnineteenth centuries.\n\nThey talked in a mixture of languages. The ground-work was French, in\neither case. But he ended most of his sentences in a stumble of English\nand a conclusion of German, she skilfully wove herself to her end in\nwhatever phrase came to her. She took a peculiar delight in this\nconversation. It was full of odd, fantastic expression, of double\nmeanings, of evasions, of suggestive vagueness. It was a real physical\npleasure to her to make this thread of conversation out of the\ndifferent-coloured stands of three languages.\n\nAnd all the while they two were hovering, hesitating round the flame of\nsome invisible declaration. He wanted it, but was held back by some\ninevitable reluctance. She wanted it also, but she wanted to put it\noff, to put it off indefinitely, she still had some pity for Gerald,\nsome connection with him. And the most fatal of all, she had the\nreminiscent sentimental compassion for herself in connection with him.\nBecause of what HAD been, she felt herself held to him by immortal,\ninvisible threads-because of what HAD been, because of his coming to\nher that first night, into her own house, in his extremity, because--\n\nGerald was gradually overcome with a revulsion of loathing for Loerke.\nHe did not take the man seriously, he despised him merely, except as he\nfelt in Gudrun's veins the influence of the little creature. It was\nthis that drove Gerald wild, the feeling in Gudrun's veins of Loerke's\npresence, Loerke's being, flowing dominant through her.\n\n'What makes you so smitten with that little vermin?' he asked, really\npuzzled. For he, man-like, could not see anything attractive or\nimportant AT ALL in Loerke. Gerald expected to find some handsomeness\nor nobleness, to account for a woman's subjection. But he saw none\nhere, only an insect-like repulsiveness.\n\nGudrun flushed deeply. It was these attacks she would never forgive.\n\n'What do you mean?' she replied. 'My God, what a mercy I am NOT married\nto you!'\n\nHer voice of flouting and contempt scotched him. He was brought up\nshort. But he recovered himself.\n\n'Tell me, only tell me,' he reiterated in a dangerous narrowed\nvoice--'tell me what it is that fascinates you in him.'\n\n'I am not fascinated,' she said, with cold repelling innocence.\n\n'Yes, you are. You are fascinated by that little dry snake, like a bird\ngaping ready to fall down its throat.'\n\nShe looked at him with black fury.\n\n'I don't choose to be discussed by you,' she said.\n\n'It doesn't matter whether you choose or not,' he replied, 'that\ndoesn't alter the fact that you are ready to fall down and kiss the\nfeet of that little insect. And I don't want to prevent you--do it,\nfall down and kiss his feet. But I want to know, what it is that\nfascinates you--what is it?'\n\nShe was silent, suffused with black rage.\n\n'How DARE you come brow-beating me,' she cried, 'how dare you, you\nlittle squire, you bully. What right have you over me, do you think?'\n\nHis face was white and gleaming, she knew by the light in his eyes that\nshe was in his power--the wolf. And because she was in his power, she\nhated him with a power that she wondered did not kill him. In her will\nshe killed him as he stood, effaced him.\n\n'It is not a question of right,' said Gerald, sitting down on a chair.\nShe watched the change in his body. She saw his clenched, mechanical\nbody moving there like an obsession. Her hatred of him was tinged with\nfatal contempt.\n\n'It's not a question of my right over you--though I HAVE some right,\nremember. I want to know, I only want to know what it is that\nsubjugates you to that little scum of a sculptor downstairs, what it is\nthat brings you down like a humble maggot, in worship of him. I want to\nknow what you creep after.'\n\nShe stood over against the window, listening. Then she turned round.\n\n'Do you?' she said, in her most easy, most cutting voice. 'Do you want\nto know what it is in him? It's because he has some understanding of a\nwoman, because he is not stupid. That's why it is.'\n\nA queer, sinister, animal-like smile came over Gerald's face.\n\n'But what understanding is it?' he said. 'The understanding of a flea,\na hopping flea with a proboscis. Why should you crawl abject before the\nunderstanding of a flea?'\n\nThere passed through Gudrun's mind Blake's representation of the soul\nof a flea. She wanted to fit it to Loerke. Blake was a clown too. But\nit was necessary to answer Gerald.\n\n'Don't you think the understanding of a flea is more interesting than\nthe understanding of a fool?' she asked.\n\n'A fool!' he repeated.\n\n'A fool, a conceited fool--a Dummkopf,' she replied, adding the German\nword.\n\n'Do you call me a fool?' he replied. 'Well, wouldn't I rather be the\nfool I am, than that flea downstairs?'\n\nShe looked at him. A certain blunt, blind stupidity in him palled on\nher soul, limiting her.\n\n'You give yourself away by that last,' she said.\n\nHe sat and wondered.\n\n'I shall go away soon,' he said.\n\nShe turned on him.\n\n'Remember,' she said, 'I am completely independent of you--completely.\nYou make your arrangements, I make mine.'\n\nHe pondered this.\n\n'You mean we are strangers from this minute?' he asked.\n\nShe halted and flushed. He was putting her in a trap, forcing her hand.\nShe turned round on him.\n\n'Strangers,' she said, 'we can never be. But if you WANT to make any\nmovement apart from me, then I wish you to know you are perfectly free\nto do so. Do not consider me in the slightest.'\n\nEven so slight an implication that she needed him and was depending on\nhim still was sufficient to rouse his passion. As he sat a change came\nover his body, the hot, molten stream mounted involuntarily through his\nveins. He groaned inwardly, under its bondage, but he loved it. He\nlooked at her with clear eyes, waiting for her.\n\nShe knew at once, and was shaken with cold revulsion. HOW could he look\nat her with those clear, warm, waiting eyes, waiting for her, even now?\nWhat had been said between them, was it not enough to put them worlds\nasunder, to freeze them forever apart! And yet he was all transfused\nand roused, waiting for her.\n\nIt confused her. Turning her head aside, she said:\n\n'I shall always TELL you, whenever I am going to make any change--'\n\nAnd with this she moved out of the room.\n\nHe sat suspended in a fine recoil of disappointment, that seemed\ngradually to be destroying his understanding. But the unconscious state\nof patience persisted in him. He remained motionless, without thought\nor knowledge, for a long time. Then he rose, and went downstairs, to\nplay at chess with one of the students. His face was open and clear,\nwith a certain innocent LAISSER-ALLER that troubled Gudrun most, made\nher almost afraid of him, whilst she disliked him deeply for it.\n\nIt was after this that Loerke, who had never yet spoken to her\npersonally, began to ask her of her state.\n\n'You are not married at all, are you?' he asked.\n\nShe looked full at him.\n\n'Not in the least,' she replied, in her measured way. Loerke laughed,\nwrinkling up his face oddly. There was a thin wisp of his hair straying\non his forehead, she noticed that his skin was of a clear brown colour,\nhis hands, his wrists. And his hands seemed closely prehensile. He\nseemed like topaz, so strangely brownish and pellucid.\n\n'Good,' he said.\n\nStill it needed some courage for him to go on.\n\n'Was Mrs Birkin your sister?' he asked.\n\n'Yes.'\n\n'And was SHE married?'\n\n'She was married.'\n\n'Have you parents, then?'\n\n'Yes,' said Gudrun, 'we have parents.'\n\nAnd she told him, briefly, laconically, her position. He watched her\nclosely, curiously all the while.\n\n'So!' he exclaimed, with some surprise. 'And the Herr Crich, is he\nrich?'\n\n'Yes, he is rich, a coal owner.'\n\n'How long has your friendship with him lasted?'\n\n'Some months.'\n\nThere was a pause.\n\n'Yes, I am surprised,' he said at length. 'The English, I thought they\nwere so--cold. And what do you think to do when you leave here?'\n\n'What do I think to do?' she repeated.\n\n'Yes. You cannot go back to the teaching. No--' he shrugged his\nshoulders--'that is impossible. Leave that to the CANAILLE who can do\nnothing else. You, for your part--you know, you are a remarkable woman,\neine seltsame Frau. Why deny it--why make any question of it? You are\nan extraordinary woman, why should you follow the ordinary course, the\nordinary life?'\n\nGudrun sat looking at her hands, flushed. She was pleased that he said,\nso simply, that she was a remarkable woman. He would not say that to\nflatter her--he was far too self-opinionated and objective by nature.\nHe said it as he would say a piece of sculpture was remarkable, because\nhe knew it was so.\n\nAnd it gratified her to hear it from him. Other people had such a\npassion to make everything of one degree, of one pattern. In England it\nwas chic to be perfectly ordinary. And it was a relief to her to be\nacknowledged extraordinary. Then she need not fret about the common\nstandards.\n\n'You see,' she said, 'I have no money whatsoever.'\n\n'Ach, money!' he cried, lifting his shoulders. 'When one is grown up,\nmoney is lying about at one's service. It is only when one is young\nthat it is rare. Take no thought for money--that always lies to hand.'\n\n'Does it?' she said, laughing.\n\n'Always. The Gerald will give you a sum, if you ask him for it--'\n\nShe flushed deeply.\n\n'I will ask anybody else,' she said, with some difficulty--'but not\nhim.'\n\nLoerke looked closely at her.\n\n'Good,' he said. 'Then let it be somebody else. Only don't go back to\nthat England, that school. No, that is stupid.'\n\nAgain there was a pause. He was afraid to ask her outright to go with\nhim, he was not even quite sure he wanted her; and she was afraid to be\nasked. He begrudged his own isolation, was VERY chary of sharing his\nlife, even for a day.\n\n'The only other place I know is Paris,' she said, 'and I can't stand\nthat.'\n\nShe looked with her wide, steady eyes full at Loerke. He lowered his\nhead and averted his face.\n\n'Paris, no!' he said. 'Between the RELIGION D'AMOUR, and the latest\n'ism, and the new turning to Jesus, one had better ride on a carrousel\nall day. But come to Dresden. I have a studio there--I can give you\nwork,--oh, that would be easy enough. I haven't seen any of your\nthings, but I believe in you. Come to Dresden--that is a fine town to\nbe in, and as good a life as you can expect of a town. You have\neverything there, without the foolishness of Paris or the beer of\nMunich.'\n\nHe sat and looked at her, coldly. What she liked about him was that he\nspoke to her simple and flat, as to himself. He was a fellow craftsman,\na fellow being to her, first.\n\n'No--Paris,' he resumed, 'it makes me sick. Pah--l'amour. I detest it.\nL'amour, l'amore, die Liebe--I detest it in every language. Women and\nlove, there is no greater tedium,' he cried.\n\nShe was slightly offended. And yet, this was her own basic feeling.\nMen, and love--there was no greater tedium.\n\n'I think the same,' she said.\n\n'A bore,' he repeated. 'What does it matter whether I wear this hat or\nanother. So love. I needn't wear a hat at all, only for convenience.\nNeither need I love except for convenience. I tell you what, gnadige\nFrau--' and he leaned towards her--then he made a quick, odd gesture,\nas of striking something aside--'gnadige Fraulein, never mind--I tell\nyou what, I would give everything, everything, all your love, for a\nlittle companionship in intelligence--' his eyes flickered darkly,\nevilly at her. 'You understand?' he asked, with a faint smile. 'It\nwouldn't matter if she were a hundred years old, a thousand--it would\nbe all the same to me, so that she can UNDERSTAND.' He shut his eyes\nwith a little snap.\n\nAgain Gudrun was rather offended. Did he not think her good looking,\nthen? Suddenly she laughed.\n\n'I shall have to wait about eighty years to suit you, at that!' she\nsaid. 'I am ugly enough, aren't I?'\n\nHe looked at her with an artist's sudden, critical, estimating eye.\n\n'You are beautiful,' he said, 'and I am glad of it. But it isn't\nthat--it isn't that,' he cried, with emphasis that flattered her. 'It\nis that you have a certain wit, it is the kind of understanding. For\nme, I am little, chetif, insignificant. Good! Do not ask me to be\nstrong and handsome, then. But it is the ME--' he put his fingers to\nhis mouth, oddly--'it is the ME that is looking for a mistress, and my\nME is waiting for the THEE of the mistress, for the match to my\nparticular intelligence. You understand?'\n\n'Yes,' she said, 'I understand.'\n\n'As for the other, this amour--' he made a gesture, dashing his hand\naside, as if to dash away something troublesome--'it is unimportant,\nunimportant. Does it matter, whether I drink white wine this evening,\nor whether I drink nothing? IT DOES NOT MATTER, it does not matter. So\nthis love, this amour, this BAISER. Yes or no, soit ou soit pas, today,\ntomorrow, or never, it is all the same, it does not matter--no more\nthan the white wine.'\n\nHe ended with an odd dropping of the head in a desperate negation.\nGudrun watched him steadily. She had gone pale.\n\nSuddenly she stretched over and seized his hand in her own.\n\n'That is true,' she said, in rather a high, vehement voice, 'that is\ntrue for me too. It is the understanding that matters.'\n\nHe looked up at her almost frightened, furtive. Then he nodded, a\nlittle sullenly. She let go his hand: he had made not the lightest\nresponse. And they sat in silence.\n\n'Do you know,' he said, suddenly looking at her with dark,\nself-important, prophetic eyes, 'your fate and mine, they will run\ntogether, till--' and he broke off in a little grimace.\n\n'Till when?' she asked, blanched, her lips going white. She was\nterribly susceptible to these evil prognostications, but he only shook\nhis head.\n\n'I don't know,' he said, 'I don't know.'\n\nGerald did not come in from his skiing until nightfall, he missed the\ncoffee and cake that she took at four o'clock. The snow was in perfect\ncondition, he had travelled a long way, by himself, among the snow\nridges, on his skis, he had climbed high, so high that he could see\nover the top of the pass, five miles distant, could see the\nMarienhutte, the hostel on the crest of the pass, half buried in snow,\nand over into the deep valley beyond, to the dusk of the pine trees.\nOne could go that way home; but he shuddered with nausea at the thought\nof home;--one could travel on skis down there, and come to the old\nimperial road, below the pass. But why come to any road? He revolted at\nthe thought of finding himself in the world again. He must stay up\nthere in the snow forever. He had been happy by himself, high up there\nalone, travelling swiftly on skis, taking far flights, and skimming\npast the dark rocks veined with brilliant snow.\n\nBut he felt something icy gathering at his heart. This strange mood of\npatience and innocence which had persisted in him for some days, was\npassing away, he would be left again a prey to the horrible passions\nand tortures.\n\nSo he came down reluctantly, snow-burned, snow-estranged, to the house\nin the hollow, between the knuckles of the mountain tops. He saw its\nlights shining yellow, and he held back, wishing he need not go in, to\nconfront those people, to hear the turmoil of voices and to feel the\nconfusion of other presences. He was isolated as if there were a vacuum\nround his heart, or a sheath of pure ice.\n\nThe moment he saw Gudrun something jolted in his soul. She was looking\nrather lofty and superb, smiling slowly and graciously to the Germans.\nA sudden desire leapt in his heart, to kill her. He thought, what a\nperfect voluptuous fulfilment it would be, to kill her. His mind was\nabsent all the evening, estranged by the snow and his passion. But he\nkept the idea constant within him, what a perfect voluptuous\nconsummation it would be to strangle her, to strangle every spark of\nlife out of her, till she lay completely inert, soft, relaxed for ever,\na soft heap lying dead between his hands, utterly dead. Then he would\nhave had her finally and for ever; there would be such a perfect\nvoluptuous finality.\n\nGudrun was unaware of what he was feeling, he seemed so quiet and\namiable, as usual. His amiability even made her feel brutal towards\nhim.\n\nShe went into his room when he was partially undressed. She did not\nnotice the curious, glad gleam of pure hatred, with which he looked at\nher. She stood near the door, with her hand behind her.\n\n'I have been thinking, Gerald,' she said, with an insulting\nnonchalance, 'that I shall not go back to England.'\n\n'Oh,' he said, 'where will you go then?'\n\nBut she ignored his question. She had her own logical statement to\nmake, and it must be made as she had thought it.\n\n'I can't see the use of going back,' she continued. 'It is over between\nme and you--'\n\nShe paused for him to speak. But he said nothing. He was only talking\nto himself, saying 'Over, is it? I believe it is over. But it isn't\nfinished. Remember, it isn't finished. We must put some sort of a\nfinish on it. There must be a conclusion, there must be finality.'\n\nSo he talked to himself, but aloud he said nothing whatever.\n\n'What has been, has been,' she continued. 'There is nothing that I\nregret. I hope you regret nothing--'\n\nShe waited for him to speak.\n\n'Oh, I regret nothing,' he said, accommodatingly.\n\n'Good then,' she answered, 'good then. Then neither of us cherishes any\nregrets, which is as it should be.'\n\n'Quite as it should be,' he said aimlessly.\n\nShe paused to gather up her thread again.\n\n'Our attempt has been a failure,' she said. 'But we can try again,\nelsewhere.'\n\nA little flicker of rage ran through his blood. It was as if she were\nrousing him, goading him. Why must she do it?\n\n'Attempt at what?' he asked.\n\n'At being lovers, I suppose,' she said, a little baffled, yet so\ntrivial she made it all seem.\n\n'Our attempt at being lovers has been a failure?' he repeated aloud.\n\nTo himself he was saying, 'I ought to kill her here. There is only this\nleft, for me to kill her.' A heavy, overcharged desire to bring about\nher death possessed him. She was unaware.\n\n'Hasn't it?' she asked. 'Do you think it has been a success?'\n\nAgain the insult of the flippant question ran through his blood like a\ncurrent of fire.\n\n'It had some of the elements of success, our relationship,' he replied.\n'It--might have come off.'\n\nBut he paused before concluding the last phrase. Even as he began the\nsentence, he did not believe in what he was going to say. He knew it\nnever could have been a success.\n\n'No,' she replied. 'You cannot love.'\n\n'And you?' he asked.\n\nHer wide, dark-filled eyes were fixed on him, like two moons of\ndarkness.\n\n'I couldn't love YOU,' she said, with stark cold truth.\n\nA blinding flash went over his brain, his body jolted. His heart had\nburst into flame. His consciousness was gone into his wrists, into his\nhands. He was one blind, incontinent desire, to kill her. His wrists\nwere bursting, there would be no satisfaction till his hands had closed\non her.\n\nBut even before his body swerved forward on her, a sudden, cunning\ncomprehension was expressed on her face, and in a flash she was out of\nthe door. She ran in one flash to her room and locked herself in. She\nwas afraid, but confident. She knew her life trembled on the edge of an\nabyss. But she was curiously sure of her footing. She knew her cunning\ncould outwit him.\n\nShe trembled, as she stood in her room, with excitement and awful\nexhilaration. She knew she could outwit him. She could depend on her\npresence of mind, and on her wits. But it was a fight to the death, she\nknew it now. One slip, and she was lost. She had a strange, tense,\nexhilarated sickness in her body, as one who is in peril of falling\nfrom a great height, but who does not look down, does not admit the\nfear.\n\n'I will go away the day after tomorrow,' she said.\n\nShe only did not want Gerald to think that she was afraid of him, that\nshe was running away because she was afraid of him. She was not afraid\nof him, fundamentally. She knew it was her safeguard to avoid his\nphysical violence. But even physically she was not afraid of him. She\nwanted to prove it to him. When she had proved it, that, whatever he\nwas, she was not afraid of him; when she had proved THAT, she could\nleave him forever. But meanwhile the fight between them, terrible as\nshe knew it to be, was inconclusive. And she wanted to be confident in\nherself. However many terrors she might have, she would be unafraid,\nuncowed by him. He could never cow her, nor dominate her, nor have any\nright over her; this she would maintain until she had proved it. Once\nit was proved, she was free of him forever.\n\nBut she had not proved it yet, neither to him nor to herself. And this\nwas what still bound her to him. She was bound to him, she could not\nlive beyond him. She sat up in bed, closely wrapped up, for many hours,\nthinking endlessly to herself. It was as if she would never have done\nweaving the great provision of her thoughts.\n\n'It isn't as if he really loved me,' she said to herself. 'He doesn't.\nEvery woman he comes across he wants to make her in love with him. He\ndoesn't even know that he is doing it. But there he is, before every\nwoman he unfurls his male attractiveness, displays his great\ndesirability, he tries to make every woman think how wonderful it would\nbe to have him for a lover. His very ignoring of the women is part of\nthe game. He is never UNCONSCIOUS of them. He should have been a\ncockerel, so he could strut before fifty females, all his subjects. But\nreally, his Don Juan does NOT interest me. I could play Dona Juanita a\nmillion times better than he plays Juan. He bores me, you know. His\nmaleness bores me. Nothing is so boring, so inherently stupid and\nstupidly conceited. Really, the fathomless conceit of these men, it is\nridiculous--the little strutters.\n\n'They are all alike. Look at Birkin. Built out of the limitation of\nconceit they are, and nothing else. Really, nothing but their\nridiculous limitation and intrinsic insignificance could make them so\nconceited.\n\n'As for Loerke, there is a thousand times more in him than in a Gerald.\nGerald is so limited, there is a dead end to him. He would grind on at\nthe old mills forever. And really, there is no corn between the\nmillstones any more. They grind on and on, when there is nothing to\ngrind--saying the same things, believing the same things, acting the\nsame things. Oh, my God, it would wear out the patience of a stone.\n\n'I don't worship Loerke, but at any rate, he is a free individual. He\nis not stiff with conceit of his own maleness. He is not grinding\ndutifully at the old mills. Oh God, when I think of Gerald, and his\nwork--those offices at Beldover, and the mines--it makes my heart sick.\nWhat HAVE I to do with it--and him thinking he can be a lover to a\nwoman! One might as well ask it of a self-satisfied lamp-post. These\nmen, with their eternal jobs--and their eternal mills of God that keep\non grinding at nothing! It is too boring, just boring. However did I\ncome to take him seriously at all!\n\n'At least in Dresden, one will have one's back to it all. And there\nwill be amusing things to do. It will be amusing to go to these\neurythmic displays, and the German opera, the German theatre. It WILL\nbe amusing to take part in German Bohemian life. And Loerke is an\nartist, he is a free individual. One will escape from so much, that is\nthe chief thing, escape so much hideous boring repetition of vulgar\nactions, vulgar phrases, vulgar postures. I don't delude myself that I\nshall find an elixir of life in Dresden. I know I shan't. But I shall\nget away from people who have their own homes and their own children\nand their own acquaintances and their own this and their own that. I\nshall be among people who DON'T own things and who HAVEN'T got a home\nand a domestic servant in the background, who haven't got a standing\nand a status and a degree and a circle of friends of the same. Oh God,\nthe wheels within wheels of people, it makes one's head tick like a\nclock, with a very madness of dead mechanical monotony and\nmeaninglessness. How I HATE life, how I hate it. How I hate the\nGeralds, that they can offer one nothing else.\n\n'Shortlands!--Heavens! Think of living there, one week, then the next,\nand THEN THE THIRD--'\n\n'No, I won't think of it--it is too much.'\n\nAnd she broke off, really terrified, really unable to bear any more.\n\nThe thought of the mechanical succession of day following day, day\nfollowing day, AD INFINITUM, was one of the things that made her heart\npalpitate with a real approach of madness. The terrible bondage of this\ntick-tack of time, this twitching of the hands of the clock, this\neternal repetition of hours and days--oh God, it was too awful to\ncontemplate. And there was no escape from it, no escape.\n\nShe almost wished Gerald were with her to save her from the terror of\nher own thoughts. Oh, how she suffered, lying there alone, confronted\nby the terrible clock, with its eternal tick-tack. All life, all life\nresolved itself into this: tick-tack, tick-tack, tick-tack; then the\nstriking of the hour; then the tick-tack, tick-tack, and the twitching\nof the clock-fingers.\n\nGerald could not save her from it. He, his body, his motion, his\nlife--it was the same ticking, the same twitching across the dial, a\nhorrible mechanical twitching forward over the face of the hours. What\nwere his kisses, his embraces. She could hear their tick-tack,\ntick-tack.\n\nHa--ha--she laughed to herself, so frightened that she was trying to\nlaugh it off--ha--ha, how maddening it was, to be sure, to be sure!\n\nThen, with a fleeting self-conscious motion, she wondered if she would\nbe very much surprised, on rising in the morning, to realise that her\nhair had turned white. She had FELT it turning white so often, under\nthe intolerable burden of her thoughts, und her sensations. Yet there\nit remained, brown as ever, and there she was herself, looking a\npicture of health.\n\nPerhaps she was healthy. Perhaps it was only her unabateable health\nthat left her so exposed to the truth. If she were sickly she would\nhave her illusions, imaginations. As it was, there was no escape. She\nmust always see and know and never escape. She could never escape.\nThere she was, placed before the clock-face of life. And if she turned\nround as in a railway station, to look at the bookstall, still she\ncould see, with her very spine, she could see the clock, always the\ngreat white clock-face. In vain she fluttered the leaves of books, or\nmade statuettes in clay. She knew she was not REALLY reading. She was\nnot REALLY working. She was watching the fingers twitch across the\neternal, mechanical, monotonous clock-face of time. She never really\nlived, she only watched. Indeed, she was like a little, twelve-hour\nclock, vis-a-vis with the enormous clock of eternity--there she was,\nlike Dignity and Impudence, or Impudence and Dignity.\n\nThe picture pleased her. Didn't her face really look like a clock\ndial--rather roundish and often pale, and impassive. She would have got\nup to look, in the mirror, but the thought of the sight of her own\nface, that was like a twelve-hour clock-dial, filled her with such deep\nterror, that she hastened to think of something else.\n\nOh, why wasn't somebody kind to her? Why wasn't there somebody who\nwould take her in their arms, and hold her to their breast, and give\nher rest, pure, deep, healing rest. Oh, why wasn't there somebody to\ntake her in their arms and fold her safe and perfect, for sleep. She\nwanted so much this perfect enfolded sleep. She lay always so\nunsheathed in sleep. She would lie always unsheathed in sleep,\nunrelieved, unsaved. Oh, how could she bear it, this endless unrelief,\nthis eternal unrelief.\n\nGerald! Could he fold her in his arms and sheathe her in sleep? Ha! He\nneeded putting to sleep himself--poor Gerald. That was all he needed.\nWhat did he do, he made the burden for her greater, the burden of her\nsleep was the more intolerable, when he was there. He was an added\nweariness upon her unripening nights, her unfruitful slumbers. Perhaps\nhe got some repose from her. Perhaps he did. Perhaps this was what he\nwas always dogging her for, like a child that is famished, crying for\nthe breast. Perhaps this was the secret of his passion, his forever\nunquenched desire for her--that he needed her to put him to sleep, to\ngive him repose.\n\nWhat then! Was she his mother? Had she asked for a child, whom she must\nnurse through the nights, for her lover. She despised him, she despised\nhim, she hardened her heart. An infant crying in the night, this Don\nJuan.\n\nOoh, but how she hated the infant crying in the night. She would murder\nit gladly. She would stifle it and bury it, as Hetty Sorrell did. No\ndoubt Hetty Sorrell's infant cried in the night--no doubt Arthur\nDonnithorne's infant would. Ha--the Arthur Donnithornes, the Geralds of\nthis world. So manly by day, yet all the while, such a crying of\ninfants in the night. Let them turn into mechanisms, let them. Let them\nbecome instruments, pure machines, pure wills, that work like\nclock-work, in perpetual repetition. Let them be this, let them be\ntaken up entirely in their work, let them be perfect parts of a great\nmachine, having a slumber of constant repetition. Let Gerald manage his\nfirm. There he would be satisfied, as satisfied as a wheelbarrow that\ngoes backwards and forwards along a plank all day--she had seen it.\n\nThe wheel-barrow--the one humble wheel--the unit of the firm. Then the\ncart, with two wheels; then the truck, with four; then the\ndonkey-engine, with eight, then the winding-engine, with sixteen, and\nso on, till it came to the miner, with a thousand wheels, and then the\nelectrician, with three thousand, and the underground manager, with\ntwenty thousand, and the general manager with a hundred thousand little\nwheels working away to complete his make-up, and then Gerald, with a\nmillion wheels and cogs and axles.\n\nPoor Gerald, such a lot of little wheels to his make-up! He was more\nintricate than a chronometer-watch. But oh heavens, what weariness!\nWhat weariness, God above! A chronometer-watch--a beetle--her soul\nfainted with utter ennui, from the thought. So many wheels to count and\nconsider and calculate! Enough, enough--there was an end to man's\ncapacity for complications, even. Or perhaps there was no end.\n\nMeanwhile Gerald sat in his room, reading. When Gudrun was gone, he was\nleft stupefied with arrested desire. He sat on the side of the bed for\nan hour, stupefied, little strands of consciousness appearing and\nreappearing. But he did not move, for a long time he remained inert,\nhis head dropped on his breast.\n\nThen he looked up and realised that he was going to bed. He was cold.\nSoon he was lying down in the dark.\n\nBut what he could not bear was the darkness. The solid darkness\nconfronting him drove him mad. So he rose, and made a light. He\nremained seated for a while, staring in front. He did not think of\nGudrun, he did not think of anything.\n\nThen suddenly he went downstairs for a book. He had all his life been\nin terror of the nights that should come, when he could not sleep. He\nknew that this would be too much for him, to have to face nights of\nsleeplessness and of horrified watching the hours.\n\nSo he sat for hours in bed, like a statue, reading. His mind, hard and\nacute, read on rapidly, his body understood nothing. In a state of\nrigid unconsciousness, he read on through the night, till morning,\nwhen, weary and disgusted in spirit, disgusted most of all with\nhimself, he slept for two hours.\n\nThen he got up, hard and full of energy. Gudrun scarcely spoke to him,\nexcept at coffee when she said:\n\n'I shall be leaving tomorrow.'\n\n'We will go together as far as Innsbruck, for appearance's sake?' he\nasked.\n\n'Perhaps,' she said.\n\nShe said 'Perhaps' between the sips of her coffee. And the sound of her\ntaking her breath in the word, was nauseous to him. He rose quickly to\nbe away from her.\n\nHe went and made arrangements for the departure on the morrow. Then,\ntaking some food, he set out for the day on the skis. Perhaps, he said\nto the Wirt, he would go up to the Marienhutte, perhaps to the village\nbelow.\n\nTo Gudrun this day was full of a promise like spring. She felt an\napproaching release, a new fountain of life rising up in her. It gave\nher pleasure to dawdle through her packing, it gave her pleasure to dip\ninto books, to try on her different garments, to look at herself in the\nglass. She felt a new lease of life was come upon her, and she was\nhappy like a child, very attractive and beautiful to everybody, with\nher soft, luxuriant figure, and her happiness. Yet underneath was death\nitself.\n\nIn the afternoon she had to go out with Loerke. Her tomorrow was\nperfectly vague before her. This was what gave her pleasure. She might\nbe going to England with Gerald, she might be going to Dresden with\nLoerke, she might be going to Munich, to a girl-friend she had there.\nAnything might come to pass on the morrow. And today was the white,\nsnowy iridescent threshold of all possibility. All possibility--that\nwas the charm to her, the lovely, iridescent, indefinite charm,--pure\nillusion All possibility--because death was inevitable, and NOTHING was\npossible but death.\n\nShe did not want things to materialise, to take any definite shape. She\nwanted, suddenly, at one moment of the journey tomorrow, to be wafted\ninto an utterly new course, by some utterly unforeseen event, or\nmotion. So that, although she wanted to go out with Loerke for the last\ntime into the snow, she did not want to be serious or businesslike.\n\nAnd Loerke was not a serious figure. In his brown velvet cap, that made\nhis head as round as a chestnut, with the brown-velvet flaps loose and\nwild over his ears, and a wisp of elf-like, thin black hair blowing\nabove his full, elf-like dark eyes, the shiny, transparent brown skin\ncrinkling up into odd grimaces on his small-featured face, he looked an\nodd little boy-man, a bat. But in his figure, in the greeny loden suit,\nhe looked CHETIF and puny, still strangely different from the rest.\n\nHe had taken a little toboggan, for the two of them, and they trudged\nbetween the blinding slopes of snow, that burned their now hardening\nfaces, laughing in an endless sequence of quips and jests and polyglot\nfancies. The fancies were the reality to both of them, they were both\nso happy, tossing about the little coloured balls of verbal humour and\nwhimsicality. Their natures seemed to sparkle in full interplay, they\nwere enjoying a pure game. And they wanted to keep it on the level of a\ngame, their relationship: SUCH a fine game.\n\nLoerke did not take the toboganning very seriously. He put no fire and\nintensity into it, as Gerald did. Which pleased Gudrun. She was weary,\noh so weary of Gerald's gripped intensity of physical motion. Loerke\nlet the sledge go wildly, and gaily, like a flying leaf, and when, at a\nbend, he pitched both her and him out into the snow, he only waited for\nthem both to pick themselves up unhurt off the keen white ground, to be\nlaughing and pert as a pixie. She knew he would be making ironical,\nplayful remarks as he wandered in hell--if he were in the humour. And\nthat pleased her immensely. It seemed like a rising above the\ndreariness of actuality, the monotony of contingencies.\n\nThey played till the sun went down, in pure amusement, careless and\ntimeless. Then, as the little sledge twirled riskily to rest at the\nbottom of the slope,\n\n'Wait!' he said suddenly, and he produced from somewhere a large\nthermos flask, a packet of Keks, and a bottle of Schnapps.\n\n'Oh Loerke,' she cried. 'What an inspiration! What a COMBLE DE JOIE\nINDEED! What is the Schnapps?'\n\nHe looked at it, and laughed.\n\n'Heidelbeer!' he said.\n\n'No! From the bilberries under the snow. Doesn't it look as if it were\ndistilled from snow. Can you--' she sniffed, and sniffed at the\nbottle--'can you smell bilberries? Isn't it wonderful? It is exactly as\nif one could smell them through the snow.'\n\nShe stamped her foot lightly on the ground. He kneeled down and\nwhistled, and put his ear to the snow. As he did so his black eyes\ntwinkled up.\n\n'Ha! Ha!' she laughed, warmed by the whimsical way in which he mocked\nat her verbal extravagances. He was always teasing her, mocking her\nways. But as he in his mockery was even more absurd than she in her\nextravagances, what could one do but laugh and feel liberated.\n\nShe could feel their voices, hers and his, ringing silvery like bells\nin the frozen, motionless air of the first twilight. How perfect it\nwas, how VERY perfect it was, this silvery isolation and interplay.\n\nShe sipped the hot coffee, whose fragrance flew around them like bees\nmurmuring around flowers, in the snowy air, she drank tiny sips of the\nHeidelbeerwasser, she ate the cold, sweet, creamy wafers. How good\neverything was! How perfect everything tasted and smelled and sounded,\nhere in this utter stillness of snow and falling twilight.\n\n'You are going away tomorrow?' his voice came at last.\n\n'Yes.'\n\nThere was a pause, when the evening seemed to rise in its silent,\nringing pallor infinitely high, to the infinite which was near at hand.\n\n'WOHIN?'\n\nThat was the question--WOHIN? Whither? WOHIN? What a lovely word! She\nNEVER wanted it answered. Let it chime for ever.\n\n'I don't know,' she said, smiling at him.\n\nHe caught the smile from her.\n\n'One never does,' he said.\n\n'One never does,' she repeated.\n\nThere was a silence, wherein he ate biscuits rapidly, as a rabbit eats\nleaves.\n\n'But,' he laughed, 'where will you take a ticket to?'\n\n'Oh heaven!' she cried. 'One must take a ticket.'\n\nHere was a blow. She saw herself at the wicket, at the railway station.\nThen a relieving thought came to her. She breathed freely.\n\n'But one needn't go,' she cried.\n\n'Certainly not,' he said.\n\n'I mean one needn't go where one's ticket says.'\n\nThat struck him. One might take a ticket, so as not to travel to the\ndestination it indicated. One might break off, and avoid the\ndestination. A point located. That was an idea!\n\n'Then take a ticket to London,' he said. 'One should never go there.'\n\n'Right,' she answered.\n\nHe poured a little coffee into a tin can.\n\n'You won't tell me where you will go?' he asked.\n\n'Really and truly,' she said, 'I don't know. It depends which way the\nwind blows.'\n\nHe looked at her quizzically, then he pursed up his lips, like\nZephyrus, blowing across the snow.\n\n'It goes towards Germany,' he said.\n\n'I believe so,' she laughed.\n\nSuddenly, they were aware of a vague white figure near them. It was\nGerald. Gudrun's heart leapt in sudden terror, profound terror. She\nrose to her feet.\n\n'They told me where you were,' came Gerald's voice, like a judgment in\nthe whitish air of twilight.\n\n'MARIA! You come like a ghost,' exclaimed Loerke.\n\nGerald did not answer. His presence was unnatural and ghostly to them.\n\nLoerke shook the flask--then he held it inverted over the snow. Only a\nfew brown drops trickled out.\n\n'All gone!' he said.\n\nTo Gerald, the smallish, odd figure of the German was distinct and\nobjective, as if seen through field glasses. And he disliked the small\nfigure exceedingly, he wanted it removed.\n\nThen Loerke rattled the box which held the biscuits.\n\n'Biscuits there are still,' he said.\n\nAnd reaching from his seated posture in the sledge, he handed them to\nGudrun. She fumbled, and took one. He would have held them to Gerald,\nbut Gerald so definitely did not want to be offered a biscuit, that\nLoerke, rather vaguely, put the box aside. Then he took up the small\nbottle, and held it to the light.\n\n'Also there is some Schnapps,' he said to himself.\n\nThen suddenly, he elevated the battle gallantly in the air, a strange,\ngrotesque figure leaning towards Gudrun, and said:\n\n'Gnadiges Fraulein,' he said, 'wohl--'\n\nThere was a crack, the bottle was flying, Loerke had started back, the\nthree stood quivering in violent emotion.\n\nLoerke turned to Gerald, a devilish leer on his bright-skinned face.\n\n'Well done!' he said, in a satirical demoniac frenzy. 'C'est le sport,\nsans doute.'\n\nThe next instant he was sitting ludicrously in the snow, Gerald's fist\nhaving rung against the side of his head. But Loerke pulled himself\ntogether, rose, quivering, looking full at Gerald, his body weak and\nfurtive, but his eyes demoniacal with satire.\n\n'Vive le heros, vive--'\n\nBut he flinched, as, in a black flash Gerald's fist came upon him,\nbanged into the other side of his head, and sent him aside like a\nbroken straw.\n\nBut Gudrun moved forward. She raised her clenched hand high, and\nbrought it down, with a great downward stroke on to the face and on to\nthe breast of Gerald.\n\nA great astonishment burst upon him, as if the air had broken. Wide,\nwide his soul opened, in wonder, feeling the pain. Then it laughed,\nturning, with strong hands outstretched, at last to take the apple of\nhis desire. At last he could finish his desire.\n\nHe took the throat of Gudrun between his hands, that were hard and\nindomitably powerful. And her throat was beautifully, so beautifully\nsoft, save that, within, he could feel the slippery chords of her life.\nAnd this he crushed, this he could crush. What bliss! Oh what bliss, at\nlast, what satisfaction, at last! The pure zest of satisfaction filled\nhis soul. He was watching the unconsciousness come unto her swollen\nface, watching the eyes roll back. How ugly she was! What a fulfilment,\nwhat a satisfaction! How good this was, oh how good it was, what a\nGod-given gratification, at last! He was unconscious of her fighting\nand struggling. The struggling was her reciprocal lustful passion in\nthis embrace, the more violent it became, the greater the frenzy of\ndelight, till the zenith was reached, the crisis, the struggle was\noverborne, her movement became softer, appeased.\n\nLoerke roused himself on the snow, too dazed and hurt to get up. Only\nhis eyes were conscious.\n\n'Monsieur!' he said, in his thin, roused voice: 'Quand vous aurez\nfini--'\n\nA revulsion of contempt and disgust came over Gerald's soul. The\ndisgust went to the very bottom of him, a nausea. Ah, what was he\ndoing, to what depths was he letting himself go! As if he cared about\nher enough to kill her, to have her life on his hands!\n\nA weakness ran over his body, a terrible relaxing, a thaw, a decay of\nstrength. Without knowing, he had let go his grip, and Gudrun had\nfallen to her knees. Must he see, must he know?\n\nA fearful weakness possessed him, his joints were turned to water. He\ndrifted, as on a wind, veered, and went drifting away.\n\n'I didn't want it, really,' was the last confession of disgust in his\nsoul, as he drifted up the slope, weak, finished, only sheering off\nunconsciously from any further contact. 'I've had enough--I want to go\nto sleep. I've had enough.' He was sunk under a sense of nausea.\n\nHe was weak, but he did not want to rest, he wanted to go on and on, to\nthe end. Never again to stay, till he came to the end, that was all the\ndesire that remained to him. So he drifted on and on, unconscious and\nweak, not thinking of anything, so long as he could keep in action.\n\nThe twilight spread a weird, unearthly light overhead, bluish-rose in\ncolour, the cold blue night sank on the snow. In the valley below,\nbehind, in the great bed of snow, were two small figures: Gudrun\ndropped on her knees, like one executed, and Loerke sitting propped up\nnear her. That was all.\n\nGerald stumbled on up the slope of snow, in the bluish darkness, always\nclimbing, always unconsciously climbing, weary though he was. On his\nleft was a steep slope with black rocks and fallen masses of rock and\nveins of snow slashing in and about the blackness of rock, veins of\nsnow slashing vaguely in and about the blackness of rock. Yet there was\nno sound, all this made no noise.\n\nTo add to his difficulty, a small bright moon shone brilliantly just\nahead, on the right, a painful brilliant thing that was always there,\nunremitting, from which there was no escape. He wanted so to come to\nthe end--he had had enough. Yet he did not sleep.\n\nHe surged painfully up, sometimes having to cross a slope of black\nrock, that was blown bare of snow. Here he was afraid of falling, very\nmuch afraid of falling. And high up here, on the crest, moved a wind\nthat almost overpowered him with a sleep-heavy iciness. Only it was not\nhere, the end, and he must still go on. His indefinite nausea would not\nlet him stay.\n\nHaving gained one ridge, he saw the vague shadow of something higher in\nfront. Always higher, always higher. He knew he was following the track\ntowards the summit of the slopes, where was the marienhutte, and the\ndescent on the other side. But he was not really conscious. He only\nwanted to go on, to go on whilst he could, to move, to keep going, that\nwas all, to keep going, until it was finished. He had lost all his\nsense of place. And yet in the remaining instinct of life, his feet\nsought the track where the skis had gone.\n\nHe slithered down a sheer snow slope. That frightened him. He had no\nalpenstock, nothing. But having come safely to rest, he began to walk\non, in the illuminated darkness. It was as cold as sleep. He was\nbetween two ridges, in a hollow. So he swerved. Should he climb the\nother ridge, or wander along the hollow? How frail the thread of his\nbeing was stretched! He would perhaps climb the ridge. The snow was\nfirm and simple. He went along. There was something standing out of the\nsnow. He approached, with dimmest curiosity.\n\nIt was a half-buried Crucifix, a little Christ under a little sloping\nhood, at the top of a pole. He sheered away. Somebody was going to\nmurder him. He had a great dread of being murdered. But it was a dread\nwhich stood outside him, like his own ghost.\n\nYet why be afraid? It was bound to happen. To be murdered! He looked\nround in terror at the snow, the rocking, pale, shadowy slopes of the\nupper world. He was bound to be murdered, he could see it. This was the\nmoment when the death was uplifted, and there was no escape.\n\nLord Jesus, was it then bound to be--Lord Jesus! He could feel the blow\ndescending, he knew he was murdered. Vaguely wandering forward, his\nhands lifted as if to feel what would happen, he was waiting for the\nmoment when he would stop, when it would cease. It was not over yet.\n\nHe had come to the hollow basin of snow, surrounded by sheer slopes and\nprecipices, out of which rose a track that brought one to the top of\nthe mountain. But he wandered unconsciously, till he slipped and fell\ndown, and as he fell something broke in his soul, and immediately he\nwent to sleep.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXI.\n\nEXEUNT\n\n\nWhen they brought the body home, the next morning, Gudrun was shut up\nin her room. From her window she saw men coming along with a burden,\nover the snow. She sat still and let the minutes go by.\n\nThere came a tap at her door. She opened. There stood a woman, saying\nsoftly, oh, far too reverently:\n\n'They have found him, madam!'\n\n'Il est mort?'\n\n'Yes--hours ago.'\n\nGudrun did not know what to say. What should she say? What should she\nfeel? What should she do? What did they expect of her? She was coldly\nat a loss.\n\n'Thank you,' she said, and she shut the door of her room. The woman\nwent away mortified. Not a word, not a tear--ha! Gudrun was cold, a\ncold woman.\n\nGudrun sat on in her room, her face pale and impassive. What was she to\ndo? She could not weep and make a scene. She could not alter herself.\nShe sat motionless, hiding from people. Her one motive was to avoid\nactual contact with events. She only wrote out a long telegram to\nUrsula and Birkin.\n\nIn the afternoon, however, she rose suddenly to look for Loerke. She\nglanced with apprehension at the door of the room that had been\nGerald's. Not for worlds would she enter there.\n\nShe found Loerke sitting alone in the lounge. She went straight up to\nhim.\n\n'It isn't true, is it?' she said.\n\nHe looked up at her. A small smile of misery twisted his face. He\nshrugged his shoulders.\n\n'True?' he echoed.\n\n'We haven't killed him?' she asked.\n\nHe disliked her coming to him in such a manner. He raised his shoulders\nwearily.\n\n'It has happened,' he said.\n\nShe looked at him. He sat crushed and frustrated for the time being,\nquite as emotionless and barren as herself. My God! this was a barren\ntragedy, barren, barren.\n\nShe returned to her room to wait for Ursula and Birkin. She wanted to\nget away, only to get away. She could not think or feel until she had\ngot away, till she was loosed from this position.\n\nThe day passed, the next day came. She heard the sledge, saw Ursula and\nBirkin alight, and she shrank from these also.\n\nUrsula came straight up to her.\n\n'Gudrun!' she cried, the tears running down her cheeks. And she took\nher sister in her arms. Gudrun hid her face on Ursula's shoulder, but\nstill she could not escape the cold devil of irony that froze her soul.\n\n'Ha, ha!' she thought, 'this is the right behaviour.'\n\nBut she could not weep, and the sight of her cold, pale, impassive face\nsoon stopped the fountain of Ursula's tears. In a few moments, the\nsisters had nothing to say to each other.\n\n'Was it very vile to be dragged back here again?' Gudrun asked at\nlength.\n\nUrsula looked up in some bewilderment.\n\n'I never thought of it,' she said.\n\n'I felt a beast, fetching you,' said Gudrun. 'But I simply couldn't see\npeople. That is too much for me.'\n\n'Yes,' said Ursula, chilled.\n\nBirkin tapped and entered. His face was white and expressionless. She\nknew he knew. He gave her his hand, saying:\n\n'The end of THIS trip, at any rate.'\n\nGudrun glanced at him, afraid.\n\nThere was silence between the three of them, nothing to be said. At\nlength Ursula asked in a small voice:\n\n'Have you seen him?'\n\nHe looked back at Ursula with a hard, cold look, and did not trouble to\nanswer.\n\n'Have you seen him?' she repeated.\n\n'I have,' he said, coldly.\n\nThen he looked at Gudrun.\n\n'Have you done anything?' he said.\n\n'Nothing,' she replied, 'nothing.'\n\nShe shrank in cold disgust from making any statement.\n\n'Loerke says that Gerald came to you, when you were sitting on the\nsledge at the bottom of the Rudelbahn, that you had words, and Gerald\nwalked away. What were the words about? I had better know, so that I\ncan satisfy the authorities, if necessary.'\n\nGudrun looked up at him, white, childlike, mute with trouble.\n\n'There weren't even any words,' she said. 'He knocked Loerke down and\nstunned him, he half strangled me, then he went away.'\n\nTo herself she was saying:\n\n'A pretty little sample of the eternal triangle!' And she turned\nironically away, because she knew that the fight had been between\nGerald and herself and that the presence of the third party was a mere\ncontingency--an inevitable contingency perhaps, but a contingency none\nthe less. But let them have it as an example of the eternal triangle,\nthe trinity of hate. It would be simpler for them.\n\nBirkin went away, his manner cold and abstracted. But she knew he would\ndo things for her, nevertheless, he would see her through. She smiled\nslightly to herself, with contempt. Let him do the work, since he was\nso extremely GOOD at looking after other people.\n\nBirkin went again to Gerald. He had loved him. And yet he felt chiefly\ndisgust at the inert body lying there. It was so inert, so coldly dead,\na carcase, Birkin's bowels seemed to turn to ice. He had to stand and\nlook at the frozen dead body that had been Gerald.\n\nIt was the frozen carcase of a dead male. Birkin remembered a rabbit\nwhich he had once found frozen like a board on the snow. It had been\nrigid like a dried board when he picked it up. And now this was Gerald,\nstiff as a board, curled up as if for sleep, yet with the horrible\nhardness somehow evident. It filled him with horror. The room must be\nmade warm, the body must be thawed. The limbs would break like glass or\nlike wood if they had to be straightened.\n\nHe reached and touched the dead face. And the sharp, heavy bruise of\nice bruised his living bowels. He wondered if he himself were freezing\ntoo, freezing from the inside. In the short blond moustache the\nlife-breath was frozen into a block of ice, beneath the silent\nnostrils. And this was Gerald!\n\nAgain he touched the sharp, almost glittering fair hair of the frozen\nbody. It was icy-cold, hair icy-cold, almost venomous. Birkin's heart\nbegan to freeze. He had loved Gerald. Now he looked at the shapely,\nstrange-coloured face, with the small, fine, pinched nose and the manly\ncheeks, saw it frozen like an ice-pebble--yet he had loved it. What was\none to think or feel? His brain was beginning to freeze, his blood was\nturning to ice-water. So cold, so cold, a heavy, bruising cold pressing\non his arms from outside, and a heavier cold congealing within him, in\nhis heart and in his bowels.\n\nHe went over the snow slopes, to see where the death had been. At last\nhe came to the great shallow among the precipices and slopes, near the\nsummit of the pass. It was a grey day, the third day of greyness and\nstillness. All was white, icy, pallid, save for the scoring of black\nrocks that jutted like roots sometimes, and sometimes were in naked\nfaces. In the distance a slope sheered down from a peak, with many\nblack rock-slides.\n\nIt was like a shallow pot lying among the stone and snow of the upper\nworld. In this pot Gerald had gone to sleep. At the far end, the guides\nhad driven iron stakes deep into the snow-wall, so that, by means of\nthe great rope attached, they could haul themselves up the massive\nsnow-front, out on to the jagged summit of the pass, naked to heaven,\nwhere the Marienhutte hid among the naked rocks. Round about, spiked,\nslashed snow-peaks pricked the heaven.\n\nGerald might have found this rope. He might have hauled himself up to\nthe crest. He might have heard the dogs in the Marienhutte, and found\nshelter. He might have gone on, down the steep, steep fall of the\nsouth-side, down into the dark valley with its pines, on to the great\nImperial road leading south to Italy.\n\nHe might! And what then? The Imperial road! The south? Italy? What\nthen? Was it a way out? It was only a way in again. Birkin stood high\nin the painful air, looking at the peaks, and the way south. Was it any\ngood going south, to Italy? Down the old, old Imperial road?\n\nHe turned away. Either the heart would break, or cease to care. Best\ncease to care. Whatever the mystery which has brought forth man and the\nuniverse, it is a non-human mystery, it has its own great ends, man is\nnot the criterion. Best leave it all to the vast, creative, non-human\nmystery. Best strive with oneself only, not with the universe.\n\n'God cannot do without man.' It was a saying of some great French\nreligious teacher. But surely this is false. God can do without man.\nGod could do without the ichthyosauri and the mastodon. These monsters\nfailed creatively to develop, so God, the creative mystery, dispensed\nwith them. In the same way the mystery could dispense with man, should\nhe too fail creatively to change and develop. The eternal creative\nmystery could dispose of man, and replace him with a finer created\nbeing. Just as the horse has taken the place of the mastodon.\n\nIt was very consoling to Birkin, to think this. If humanity ran into a\nCUL DE SAC and expended itself, the timeless creative mystery would\nbring forth some other being, finer, more wonderful, some new, more\nlovely race, to carry on the embodiment of creation. The game was never\nup. The mystery of creation was fathomless, infallible, inexhaustible,\nforever. Races came and went, species passed away, but ever new species\narose, more lovely, or equally lovely, always surpassing wonder. The\nfountain-head was incorruptible and unsearchable. It had no limits. It\ncould bring forth miracles, create utter new races and new species, in\nits own hour, new forms of consciousness, new forms of body, new units\nof being. To be man was as nothing compared to the possibilities of the\ncreative mystery. To have one's pulse beating direct from the mystery,\nthis was perfection, unutterable satisfaction. Human or inhuman\nmattered nothing. The perfect pulse throbbed with indescribable being,\nmiraculous unborn species.\n\nBirkin went home again to Gerald. He went into the room, and sat down\non the bed. Dead, dead and cold!\n\n  Imperial Caesar dead, and turned to clay\n  Would stop a hole to keep the wind away.\n\n\nThere was no response from that which had been Gerald. Strange,\ncongealed, icy substance--no more. No more!\n\nTerribly weary, Birkin went away, about the day's business. He did it\nall quietly, without bother. To rant, to rave, to be tragic, to make\nsituations--it was all too late. Best be quiet, and bear one's soul in\npatience and in fullness.\n\nBut when he went in again, at evening, to look at Gerald between the\ncandles, because of his heart's hunger, suddenly his heart contracted,\nhis own candle all but fell from his hand, as, with a strange\nwhimpering cry, the tears broke out. He sat down in a chair, shaken by\na sudden access. Ursula who had followed him, recoiled aghast from him,\nas he sat with sunken head and body convulsively shaken, making a\nstrange, horrible sound of tears.\n\n'I didn't want it to be like this--I didn't want it to be like this,'\nhe cried to himself. Ursula could but think of the Kaiser's: 'Ich habe\nas nicht gewollt.' She looked almost with horror on Birkin.\n\nSuddenly he was silent. But he sat with his head dropped, to hide his\nface. Then furtively he wiped his face with his fingers. Then suddenly\nhe lifted his head, and looked straight at Ursula, with dark, almost\nvengeful eyes.\n\n'He should have loved me,' he said. 'I offered him.'\n\nShe, afraid, white, with mute lips answered:\n\n'What difference would it have made!'\n\n'It would!' he said. 'It would.'\n\nHe forgot her, and turned to look at Gerald. With head oddly lifted,\nlike a man who draws his head back from an insult, half haughtily, he\nwatched the cold, mute, material face. It had a bluish cast. It sent a\nshaft like ice through the heart of the living man. Cold, mute,\nmaterial! Birkin remembered how once Gerald had clutched his hand, with\na warm, momentaneous grip of final love. For one second--then let go\nagain, let go for ever. If he had kept true to that clasp, death would\nnot have mattered. Those who die, and dying still can love, still\nbelieve, do not die. They live still in the beloved. Gerald might still\nhave been living in the spirit with Birkin, even after death. He might\nhave lived with his friend, a further life.\n\nBut now he was dead, like clay, like bluish, corruptible ice. Birkin\nlooked at the pale fingers, the inert mass. He remembered a dead\nstallion he had seen: a dead mass of maleness, repugnant. He remembered\nalso the beautiful face of one whom he had loved, and who had died\nstill having the faith to yield to the mystery. That dead face was\nbeautiful, no one could call it cold, mute, material. No one could\nremember it without gaining faith in the mystery, without the soul's\nwarming with new, deep life-trust.\n\nAnd Gerald! The denier! He left the heart cold, frozen, hardly able to\nbeat. Gerald's father had looked wistful, to break the heart: but not\nthis last terrible look of cold, mute Matter. Birkin watched and\nwatched.\n\nUrsula stood aside watching the living man stare at the frozen face of\nthe dead man. Both faces were unmoved and unmoving. The candle-flames\nflickered in the frozen air, in the intense silence.\n\n'Haven't you seen enough?' she said.\n\nHe got up.\n\n'It's a bitter thing to me,' he said.\n\n'What--that he's dead?' she said.\n\nHis eyes just met hers. He did not answer.\n\n'You've got me,' she said.\n\nHe smiled and kissed her.\n\n'If I die,' he said, 'you'll know I haven't left you.'\n\n'And me?' she cried.\n\n'And you won't have left me,' he said. 'We shan't have any need to\ndespair, in death.'\n\nShe took hold of his hand.\n\n'But need you despair over Gerald?' she said.\n\n'Yes,' he answered.\n\nThey went away. Gerald was taken to England, to be buried. Birkin and\nUrsula accompanied the body, along with one of Gerald's brothers. It\nwas the Crich brothers and sisters who insisted on the burial in\nEngland. Birkin wanted to leave the dead man in the Alps, near the\nsnow. But the family was strident, loudly insistent.\n\nGudrun went to Dresden. She wrote no particulars of herself. Ursula\nstayed at the Mill with Birkin for a week or two. They were both very\nquiet.\n\n'Did you need Gerald?' she asked one evening.\n\n'Yes,' he said.\n\n'Aren't I enough for you?' she asked.\n\n'No,' he said. 'You are enough for me, as far as a woman is concerned.\nYou are all women to me. But I wanted a man friend, as eternal as you\nand I are eternal.'\n\n'Why aren't I enough?' she said. 'You are enough for me. I don't want\nanybody else but you. Why isn't it the same with you?'\n\n'Having you, I can live all my life without anybody else, any other\nsheer intimacy. But to make it complete, really happy, I wanted eternal\nunion with a man too: another kind of love,' he said.\n\n'I don't believe it,' she said. 'It's an obstinacy, a theory, a\nperversity.'\n\n'Well--' he said.\n\n'You can't have two kinds of love. Why should you!'\n\nIt seems as if I can't,' he said. 'Yet I wanted it.'\n\n'You can't have it, because it's false, impossible,' she said.\n\n'I don't believe that,' he answered."