CHAPTER XIX.
MOONY
After his illness Birkin went to the south of France for a time. He didnot write, nobody heard anything of him. Ursula, left alone, felt as ifeverything were lapsing out. There seemed to be no hope in the world.One was a tiny little rock with the tide of nothingness rising higherand higher She herself was real, and only herself--just like a rock ina wash of flood-water. The rest was all nothingness. She was hard andindifferent, isolated in herself.
There was nothing for it now, but contemptuous, resistant indifference.All the world was lapsing into a grey wish-wash of nothingness, she hadno contact and no connection anywhere. She despised and detested thewhole show. From the bottom of her heart, from the bottom of her soul,she despised and detested people, adult people. She loved only childrenand animals: children she loved passionately, but coldly. They made herwant to hug them, to protect them, to give them life. But this verylove, based on pity and despair, was only a bondage and a pain to her.She loved best of all the animals, that were single and unsocial as sheherself was. She loved the horses and cows in the field. Each wassingle and to itself, magical. It was not referred away to somedetestable social principle. It was incapable of soulfulness andtragedy, which she detested so profoundly.
She could be very pleasant and flattering, almost subservient, topeople she met. But no one was taken in. Instinctively each felt hercontemptuous mockery of the human being in himself, or herself. She hada profound grudge against the human being. That which the word 'human'stood for was despicable and repugnant to her.
Mostly her heart was closed in this hidden, unconscious strain ofcontemptuous ridicule. She thought she loved, she thought she was fullof love. This was her idea of herself. But the strange brightness ofher presence, a marvellous radiance of intrinsic vitality, was aluminousness of supreme repudiation, nothing but repudiation.
Yet, at moments, she yielded and softened, she wanted pure love, onlypure love. This other, this state of constant unfailing repudiation,was a strain, a suffering also. A terrible desire for pure loveovercame her again.
She went out one evening, numbed by this constant essential suffering.Those who are timed for destruction must die now. The knowledge of thisreached a finality, a finishing in her. And the finality released her.If fate would carry off in death or downfall all those who were timedto go, why need she trouble, why repudiate any further. She was free ofit all, she could seek a new union elsewhere.
Ursula set off to Willey Green, towards the mill. She came to WilleyWater. It was almost full again, after its period of emptiness. Thenshe turned off through the woods. The night had fallen, it was dark.But she forgot to be afraid, she who had such great sources of fear.Among the trees, far from any human beings, there was a sort of magicpeace. The more one could find a pure loneliness, with no taint ofpeople, the better one felt. She was in reality terrified, horrified inher apprehension of people.
She started, noticing something on her right hand, between the treetrunks. It was like a great presence, watching her, dodging her. Shestarted violently. It was only the moon, risen through the thin trees.But it seemed so mysterious, with its white and deathly smile. Andthere was no avoiding it. Night or day, one could not escape thesinister face, triumphant and radiant like this moon, with a highsmile. She hurried on, cowering from the white planet. She would justsee the pond at the mill before she went home.
Not wanting to go through the yard, because of the dogs, she turned offalong the hill-side to descend on the pond from above. The moon wastranscendent over the bare, open space, she suffered from being exposedto it. There was a glimmer of nightly rabbits across the ground. Thenight was as clear as crystal, and very still. She could hear a distantcoughing of a sheep.
So she swerved down to the steep, tree-hidden bank above the pond,where the alders twisted their roots. She was glad to pass into theshade out of the moon. There she stood, at the top of the fallen-awaybank, her hand on the rough trunk of a tree, looking at the water, thatwas perfect in its stillness, floating the moon upon it. But for somereason she disliked it. It did not give her anything. She listened forthe hoarse rustle of the sluice. And she wished for something else outof the night, she wanted another night, not this moon-brillianthardness. She could feel her soul crying out in her, lamentingdesolately.
She saw a shadow moving by the water. It would be Birkin. He had comeback then, unawares. She accepted it without remark, nothing matteredto her. She sat down among the roots of the alder tree, dim and veiled,hearing the sound of the sluice like dew distilling audibly into thenight. The islands were dark and half revealed, the reeds were darkalso, only some of them had a little frail fire of reflection. A fishleaped secretly, revealing the light in the pond. This fire of thechill night breaking constantly on to the pure darkness, repelled her.She wished it were perfectly dark, perfectly, and noiseless and withoutmotion. Birkin, small and dark also, his hair tinged with moonlight,wandered nearer. He was quite near, and yet he did not exist in her. Hedid not know she was there. Supposing he did something he would notwish to be seen doing, thinking he was quite private? But there, whatdid it matter? What did the small priyacies matter? How could itmatter, what he did? How can there be any secrets, we are all the sameorganisms? How can there be any secrecy, when everything is known toall of us?
He was touching unconsciously the dead husks of flowers as he passedby, and talking disconnectedly to himself.
'You can't go away,' he was saying. 'There IS no away. You onlywithdraw upon yourself.'
He threw a dead flower-husk on to the water.
'An antiphony--they lie, and you sing back to them. There wouldn't haveto be any truth, if there weren't any lies. Then one needn't assertanything--'
He stood still, looking at the water, and throwing upon it the husks ofthe flowers.
'Cybele--curse her! The accursed Syria Dea! Does one begrudge it her?What else is there--?'
Ursula wanted to laugh loudly and hysterically, hearing his isolatedvoice speaking out. It was so ridiculous.
He stood staring at the water. Then he stooped and picked up a stone,which he threw sharply at the pond. Ursula was aware of the bright moonleaping and swaying, all distorted, in her eyes. It seemed to shoot outarms of fire like a cuttle-fish, like a luminous polyp, palpitatingstrongly before her.
And his shadow on the border of the pond, was watching for a fewmoments, then he stooped and groped on the ground. Then again there wasa burst of sound, and a burst of brilliant light, the moon had explodedon the water, and was flying asunder in flakes of white and dangerousfire. Rapidly, like white birds, the fires all broken rose across thepond, fleeing in clamorous confusion, battling with the flock of darkwaves that were forcing their way in. The furthest waves of light,fleeing out, seemed to be clamouring against the shore for escape, thewaves of darkness came in heavily, running under towards the centre.But at the centre, the heart of all, was still a vivid, incandescentquivering of a white moon not quite destroyed, a white body of firewrithing and striving and not even now broken open, not yet violated.It seemed to be drawing itself together with strange, violent pangs, inblind effort. It was getting stronger, it was re-asserting itself, theinviolable moon. And the rays were hastening in in thin lines of light,to return to the strengthened moon, that shook upon the water intriumphant reassumption.
Birkin stood and watched, motionless, till the pond was almost calm,the moon was almost serene. Then, satisfied of so much, he looked formore stones. She felt his invisible tenacity. And in a moment again,the broken lights scattered in explosion over her face, dazzling her;and then, almost immediately, came the second shot. The moon leapt upwhite and burst through the air. Darts of bright light shot asunder,darkness swept over the centre. There was no moon, only a battlefieldof broken lights and shadows, running close together. Shadows, dark andheavy, struck again and again across the place where the heart of themoon had been, obliterating it altogether. The white fragments pulsedup and down, and could not find where to go, apart and brilliant on thewater like the petals of a rose that a wind has blown far and wide.
Yet again, they were flickering their way to the centre, finding thepath blindly, enviously. And again, all was still, as Birkin and Ursulawatched. The waters were loud on the shore. He saw the moon regatheringitself insidiously, saw the heart of the rose intertwining vigorouslyand blindly, calling back the scattered fragments, winning home thefragments, in a pulse and in effort of return.
And he was not satisfied. Like a madness, he must go on. He got largestones, and threw them, one after the other, at the white-burningcentre of the moon, till there was nothing but a rocking of hollownoise, and a pond surged up, no moon any more, only a few broken flakestangled and glittering broadcast in the darkness, without aim ormeaning, a darkened confusion, like a black and white kaleidoscopetossed at random. The hollow night was rocking and crashing with noise,and from the sluice came sharp, regular flashes of sound. Flakes oflight appeared here and there, glittering tormented among the shadows,far off, in strange places; among the dripping shadow of the willow onthe island. Birkin stood and listened and was satisfied.
Ursula was dazed, her mind was all gone. She felt she had fallen to theground and was spilled out, like water on the earth. Motionless andspent she remained in the gloom. Though even now she was aware,unseeing, that in the darkness was a little tumult of ebbing flakes oflight, a cluster dancing secretly in a round, twining and comingsteadily together. They were gathering a heart again, they were comingonce more into being. Gradually the fragments caught togetherre-united, heaving, rocking, dancing, falling back as in panic, butworking their way home again persistently, making semblance of fleeingaway when they had advanced, but always flickering nearer, a littlecloser to the mark, the cluster growing mysteriously larger andbrighter, as gleam after gleam fell in with the whole, until a raggedrose, a distorted, frayed moon was shaking upon the waters again,re-asserted, renewed, trying to recover from its convulsion, to getover the disfigurement and the agitation, to be whole and composed, atpeace.
Birkin lingered vaguely by the water. Ursula was afraid that he wouldstone the moon again. She slipped from her seat and went down to him,saying:
'You won't throw stones at it any more, will you?'
'How long have you been there?'
'All the time. You won't throw any more stones, will you?'
'I wanted to see if I could make it be quite gone off the pond,' hesaid.
'Yes, it was horrible, really. Why should you hate the moon? It hasn'tdone you any harm, has it?'
'Was it hate?' he said.
And they were silent for a few minutes.
'When did you come back?' she said.
'Today.'
'Why did you never write?'
'I could find nothing to say.'
'Why was there nothing to say?'
'I don't know. Why are there no daffodils now?'
'No.'
Again there was a space of silence. Ursula looked at the moon. It hadgathered itself together, and was quivering slightly.
'Was it good for you, to be alone?' she asked.
'Perhaps. Not that I know much. But I got over a good deal. Did you doanything important?'
'No. I looked at England, and thought I'd done with it.'
'Why England?' he asked in surprise.
'I don't know, it came like that.'
'It isn't a question of nations,' he said. 'France is far worse.'
'Yes, I know. I felt I'd done with it all.'
They went and sat down on the roots of the trees, in the shadow. Andbeing silent, he remembered the beauty of her eyes, which weresometimes filled with light, like spring, suffused with wonderfulpromise. So he said to her, slowly, with difficulty:
'There is a golden light in you, which I wish you would give me.' Itwas as if he had been thinking of this for some time.
She was startled, she seemed to leap clear of him. Yet also she waspleased.
'What kind of a light,' she asked.
But he was shy, and did not say any more. So the moment passed for thistime. And gradually a feeling of sorrow came over her.
'My life is unfulfilled,' she said.
'Yes,' he answered briefly, not wanting to hear this.
'And I feel as if nobody could ever really love me,' she said.
But he did not answer.
'You think, don't you,' she said slowly, 'that I only want physicalthings? It isn't true. I want you to serve my spirit.'
'I know you do. I know you don't want physical things by themselves.But, I want you to give me--to give your spirit to me--that goldenlight which is you--which you don't know--give it me--'
After a moment's silence she replied:
'But how can I, you don't love me! You only want your own ends. Youdon't want to serve ME, and yet you want me to serve you. It is soone-sided!'
It was a great effort to him to maintain this conversation, and topress for the thing he wanted from her, the surrender of her spirit.
'It is different,' he said. 'The two kinds of service are so different.I serve you in another way--not through YOURSELF--somewhere else. But Iwant us to be together without bothering about ourselves--to be reallytogether because we ARE together, as if it were a phenomenon, not a nota thing we have to maintain by our own effort.'
'No,' she said, pondering. 'You are just egocentric. You never have anyenthusiasm, you never come out with any spark towards me. You wantyourself, really, and your own affairs. And you want me just to bethere, to serve you.'
But this only made him shut off from her.
'Ah well,' he said, 'words make no matter, any way. The thing ISbetween us, or it isn't.'
'You don't even love me,' she cried.
'I do,' he said angrily. 'But I want--' His mind saw again the lovelygolden light of spring transfused through her eyes, as through somewonderful window. And he wanted her to be with him there, in this worldof proud indifference. But what was the good of telling her he wantedthis company in proud indifference. What was the good of talking, anyway? It must happen beyond the sound of words. It was merely ruinous totry to work her by conviction. This was a paradisal bird that couldnever be netted, it must fly by itself to the heart.
'I always think I am going to be loved--and then I am let down. YouDON'T love me, you know. You don't want to serve me. You only wantyourself.'
A shiver of rage went over his veins, at this repeated: 'You don't wantto serve me.' All the paradisal disappeared from him.
'No,' he said, irritated, 'I don't want to serve you, because there isnothing there to serve. What you want me to serve, is nothing, merenothing. It isn't even you, it is your mere female quality. And Iwouldn't give a straw for your female ego--it's a rag doll.'
'Ha!' she laughed in mockery. 'That's all you think of me, is it? Andthen you have the impudence to say you love me.'
She rose in anger, to go home.
You want the paradisal unknowing,' she said, turning round on him as hestill sat half-visible in the shadow. 'I know what that means, thankyou. You want me to be your thing, never to criticise you or to haveanything to say for myself. You want me to be a mere THING for you! Nothank you! IF you want that, there are plenty of women who will give itto you. There are plenty of women who will lie down for you to walkover them--GO to them then, if that's what you want--go to them.'
'No,' he said, outspoken with anger. 'I want you to drop your assertiveWILL, your frightened apprehensive self-insistence, that is what Iwant. I want you to trust yourself so implicitly, that you can letyourself go.'
'Let myself go!' she re-echoed in mockery. 'I can let myself go, easilyenough. It is you who can't let yourself go, it is you who hang on toyourself as if it were your only treasure. YOU--YOU are the Sundayschool teacher--YOU--you preacher.'
The amount of truth that was in this made him stiff and unheeding ofher.
'I don't mean let yourself go in the Dionysic ecstatic way,' he said.'I know you can do that. But I hate ecstasy, Dionysic or any other.It's like going round in a squirrel cage. I want you not to care aboutyourself, just to be there and not to care about yourself, not toinsist--be glad and sure and indifferent.'
'Who insists?' she mocked. 'Who is it that keeps on insisting? It isn'tME!'
There was a weary, mocking bitterness in her voice. He was silent forsome time.
'I know,' he said. 'While ever either of us insists to the other, weare all wrong. But there we are, the accord doesn't come.'
They sat in stillness under the shadow of the trees by the bank. Thenight was white around them, they were in the darkness, barelyconscious.
Gradually, the stillness and peace came over them. She put her handtentatively on his. Their hands clasped softly and silently, in peace.
'Do you really love me?' she said.
He laughed.
'I call that your war-cry,' he replied, amused.
'Why!' she cried, amused and really wondering.
'Your insistence--Your war-cry--A Brangwen, A Brangwen--an oldbattle-cry. Yours is, Do you love me? Yield knave, or die.'
'No,' she said, pleading, 'not like that. Not like that. But I mustknow that you love me, mustn't I?'
'Well then, know it and have done with it.'
'But do you?'
'Yes, I do. I love you, and I know it's final. It is final, so why sayany more about it.'
She was silent for some moments, in delight and doubt.
'Are you sure?' she said, nestling happily near to him.
'Quite sure--so now have done--accept it and have done.'
She was nestled quite close to him.
'Have done with what?' she murmured, happily.
'With bothering,' he said.
She clung nearer to him. He held her close, and kissed her softly,gently. It was such peace and heavenly freedom, just to fold her andkiss her gently, and not to have any thoughts or any desires or anywill, just to be still with her, to be perfectly still and together, ina peace that was not sleep, but content in bliss. To be content inbliss, without desire or insistence anywhere, this was heaven: to betogether in happy stillness.
For a long time she nestled to him, and he kissed her softly, her hair,her face, her ears, gently, softly, like dew falling. But this warmbreath on her ears disturbed her again, kindled the old destructivefires. She cleaved to him, and he could feel his blood changing likequicksilver.
'But we'll be still, shall we?' he said.
'Yes,' she said, as if submissively.
And she continued to nestle against him.
But in a little while she drew away and looked at him.
'I must be going home,' she said.
'Must you--how sad,' he replied.
She leaned forward and put up her mouth to be kissed.
'Are you really sad?' she murmured, smiling.
'Yes,' he said, 'I wish we could stay as we were, always.'
'Always! Do you?' she murmured, as he kissed her. And then, out of afull throat, she crooned 'Kiss me! Kiss me!' And she cleaved close tohim. He kissed her many times. But he too had his idea and his will. Hewanted only gentle communion, no other, no passion now. So that soonshe drew away, put on her hat and went home.
The next day however, he felt wistful and yearning. He thought he hadbeen wrong, perhaps. Perhaps he had been wrong to go to her with anidea of what he wanted. Was it really only an idea, or was it theinterpretation of a profound yearning? If the latter, how was it he wasalways talking about sensual fulfilment? The two did not agree verywell.
Suddenly he found himself face to face with a situation. It was assimple as this: fatally simple. On the one hand, he knew he did notwant a further sensual experience--something deeper, darker, thanordinary life could give. He remembered the African fetishes he hadseen at Halliday's so often. There came back to him one, a statuetteabout two feet high, a tall, slim, elegant figure from West Africa, indark wood, glossy and suave. It was a woman, with hair dressed high,like a melon-shaped dome. He remembered her vividly: she was one of hissoul's intimates. Her body was long and elegant, her face was crushedtiny like a beetle's, she had rows of round heavy collars, like acolumn of quoits, on her neck. He remembered her: her astonishingcultured elegance, her diminished, beetle face, the astounding longelegant body, on short, ugly legs, with such protuberant buttocks, soweighty and unexpected below her slim long loins. She knew what hehimself did not know. She had thousands of years of purely sensual,purely unspiritual knowledge behind her. It must have been thousands ofyears since her race had died, mystically: that is, since the relationbetween the senses and the outspoken mind had broken, leaving theexperience all in one sort, mystically sensual. Thousands of years ago,that which was imminent in himself must have taken place in theseAfricans: the goodness, the holiness, the desire for creation andproductive happiness must have lapsed, leaving the single impulse forknowledge in one sort, mindless progressive knowledge through thesenses, knowledge arrested and ending in the senses, mystic knowledgein disintegration and dissolution, knowledge such as the beetles have,which live purely within the world of corruption and cold dissolution.This was why her face looked like a beetle's: this was why theEgyptians worshipped the ball-rolling scarab: because of the principleof knowledge in dissolution and corruption.
There is a long way we can travel, after the death-break: after thatpoint when the soul in intense suffering breaks, breaks away from itsorganic hold like a leaf that falls. We fall from the connection withlife and hope, we lapse from pure integral being, from creation andliberty, and we fall into the long, long African process of purelysensual understanding, knowledge in the mystery of dissolution.
He realised now that this is a long process--thousands of years ittakes, after the death of the creative spirit. He realised that therewere great mysteries to be unsealed, sensual, mindless, dreadfulmysteries, far beyond the phallic cult. How far, in their invertedculture, had these West Africans gone beyond phallic knowledge? Very,very far. Birkin recalled again the female figure: the elongated, long,long body, the curious unexpected heavy buttocks, he long, imprisonedneck, the face with tiny features like a beetle's. This was far beyondany phallic knowledge, sensual subtle realities far beyond the scope ofphallic investigation.
There remained this way, this awful African process, to be fulfilled.It would be done differently by the white races. The white races,having the arctic north behind them, the vast abstraction of ice andsnow, would fulfil a mystery of ice-destructive knowledge,snow-abstract annihilation. Whereas the West Africans, controlled bythe burning death-abstraction of the Sahara, had been fulfilled insun-destruction, the putrescent mystery of sun-rays.
Was this then all that remained? Was there left now nothing but tobreak off from the happy creative being, was the time up? Is our day ofcreative life finished? Does there remain to us only the strange, awfulafterwards of the knowledge in dissolution, the African knowledge, butdifferent in us, who are blond and blue-eyed from the north?
Birkin thought of Gerald. He was one of these strange white wonderfuldemons from the north, fulfilled in the destructive frost mystery. Andwas he fated to pass away in this knowledge, this one process offrost-knowledge, death by perfect cold? Was he a messenger, an omen ofthe universal dissolution into whiteness and snow?
Birkin was frightened. He was tired too, when he had reached thislength of speculation. Suddenly his strange, strained attention gaveway, he could not attend to these mysteries any more. There was anotherway, the way of freedom. There was the paradisal entry into pure,single being, the individual soul taking precedence over love anddesire for union, stronger than any pangs of emotion, a lovely state offree proud singleness, which accepted the obligation of the permanentconnection with others, and with the other, submits to the yoke andleash of love, but never forfeits its own proud individual singleness,even while it loves and yields.
There was the other way, the remaining way. And he must run to followit. He thought of Ursula, how sensitive and delicate she really was,her skin so over-fine, as if one skin were wanting. She was really somarvellously gentle and sensitive. Why did he ever forget it? He mustgo to her at once. He must ask her to marry him. They must marry atonce, and so make a definite pledge, enter into a definite communion.He must set out at once and ask her, this moment. There was no momentto spare.
He drifted on swiftly to Beldover, half-unconscious of his ownmovement. He saw the town on the slope of the hill, not straggling, butas if walled-in with the straight, final streets of miners' dwellings,making a great square, and it looked like Jerusalem to his fancy. Theworld was all strange and transcendent.
Rosalind opened the door to him. She started slightly, as a young girlwill, and said:
'Oh, I'll tell father.'
With which she disappeared, leaving Birkin in the hall, looking at somereproductions from Picasso, lately introduced by Gudrun. He wasadmiring the almost wizard, sensuous apprehension of the earth, whenWill Brangwen appeared, rolling down his shirt sleeves.
'Well,' said Brangwen, 'I'll get a coat.' And he too disappeared for amoment. Then he returned, and opened the door of the drawing-room,saying:
'You must excuse me, I was just doing a bit of work in the shed. Comeinside, will you.'
Birkin entered and sat down. He looked at the bright, reddish face ofthe other man, at the narrow brow and the very bright eyes, and at therather sensual lips that unrolled wide and expansive under the blackcropped moustache. How curious it was that this was a human being! WhatBrangwen thought himself to be, how meaningless it was, confronted withthe reality of him. Birkin could see only a strange, inexplicable,almost patternless collection of passions and desires and suppressionsand traditions and mechanical ideas, all cast unfused and disunitedinto this slender, bright-faced man of nearly fifty, who was asunresolved now as he was at twenty, and as uncreated. How could he bethe parent of Ursula, when he was not created himself. He was not aparent. A slip of living flesh had been transmitted through him, butthe spirit had not come from him. The spirit had not come from anyancestor, it had come out of the unknown. A child is the child of themystery, or it is uncreated.
'The weather's not so bad as it has been,' said Brangwen, after waitinga moment. There was no connection between the two men.
'No,' said Birkin. 'It was full moon two days ago.'
'Oh! You believe in the moon then, affecting the weather?'
'No, I don't think I do. I don't really know enough about it.'
'You know what they say? The moon and the weather may change together,but the change of the moon won't change the weather.'
'Is that it?' said Birkin. 'I hadn't heard it.'
There was a pause. Then Birkin said:
'Am I hindering you? I called to see Ursula, really. Is she at home?'
'I don't believe she is. I believe she's gone to the library. I'll justsee.'
Birkin could hear him enquiring in the dining-room.
'No,' he said, coming back. 'But she won't be long. You wanted to speakto her?'
Birkin looked across at the other man with curious calm, clear eyes.
'As a matter of fact,' he said, 'I wanted to ask her to marry me.'
A point of light came on the golden-brown eyes of the elder man.
'O-oh?' he said, looking at Birkin, then dropping his eyes before thecalm, steadily watching look of the other: 'Was she expecting youthen?'
'No,' said Birkin.
'No? I didn't know anything of this sort was on foot--' Brangwen smiledawkwardly.
Birkin looked back at him, and said to himself: 'I wonder why it shouldbe on foot!' Aloud he said:
'No, it's perhaps rather sudden.' At which, thinking of hisrelationship with Ursula, he added--'but I don't know--'
'Quite sudden, is it? Oh!' said Brangwen, rather baffled and annoyed.
'In one way,' replied Birkin, '--not in another.'
There was a moment's pause, after which Brangwen said:
'Well, she pleases herself--'
'Oh yes!' said Birkin, calmly.
A vibration came into Brangwen's strong voice, as he replied:
'Though I shouldn't want her to be in too big a hurry, either. It's nogood looking round afterwards, when it's too late.'
'Oh, it need never be too late,' said Birkin, 'as far as that goes.'
'How do you mean?' asked the father.
'If one repents being married, the marriage is at an end,' said Birkin.
'You think so?'
'Yes.'
'Ay, well that may be your way of looking at it.'
Birkin, in silence, thought to himself: 'So it may. As for YOUR way oflooking at it, William Brangwen, it needs a little explaining.'
'I suppose,' said Brangwen, 'you know what sort of people we are? Whatsort of a bringing-up she's had?'
'She,' thought Birkin to himself, remembering his childhood'scorrections, 'is the cat's mother.'
'Do I know what sort of a bringing-up she's had?' he said aloud.
He seemed to annoy Brangwen intentionally.
'Well,' he said, 'she's had everything that's right for a girl tohave--as far as possible, as far as we could give it her.'
'I'm sure she has,' said Birkin, which caused a perilous full-stop. Thefather was becoming exasperated. There was something naturally irritantto him in Birkin's mere presence.
'And I don't want to see her going back on it all,' he said, in aclanging voice.
'Why?' said Birkin.
This monosyllable exploded in Brangwen's brain like a shot.
'Why! I don't believe in your new-fangled ways and new-fangledideas--in and out like a frog in a gallipot. It would never do for me.'
Birkin watched him with steady emotionless eyes. The radical antagnoismin the two men was rousing.
'Yes, but are my ways and ideas new-fangled?' asked Birkin.
'Are they?' Brangwen caught himself up. 'I'm not speaking of you inparticular,' he said. 'What I mean is that my children have beenbrought up to think and do according to the religion I was brought upin myself, and I don't want to see them going away from THAT.'
There was a dangerous pause.
'And beyond that--?' asked Birkin.
The father hesitated, he was in a nasty position.
'Eh? What do you mean? All I want to say is that my daughter'--hetailed off into silence, overcome by futility. He knew that in some wayhe was off the track.
'Of course,' said Birkin, 'I don't want to hurt anybody or influenceanybody. Ursula does exactly as she pleases.'
There was a complete silence, because of the utter failure in mutualunderstanding. Birkin felt bored. Her father was not a coherent humanbeing, he was a roomful of old echoes. The eyes of the younger manrested on the face of the elder. Brangwen looked up, and saw Birkinlooking at him. His face was covered with inarticulate anger andhumiliation and sense of inferiority in strength.
'And as for beliefs, that's one thing,' he said. 'But I'd rather see mydaughters dead tomorrow than that they should be at the beck and callof the first man that likes to come and whistle for them.'
A queer painful light came into Birkin's eyes.
'As to that,' he said, 'I only know that it's much more likely thatit's I who am at the beck and call of the woman, than she at mine.'
Again there was a pause. The father was somewhat bewildered.
'I know,' he said, 'she'll please herself--she always has done. I'vedone my best for them, but that doesn't matter. They've got themselvesto please, and if they can help it they'll please nobody BUTthemselves. But she's a right to consider her mother, and me as well--'
Brangwen was thinking his own thoughts.
'And I tell you this much, I would rather bury them, than see themgetting into a lot of loose ways such as you see everywhere nowadays.I'd rather bury them--'
'Yes but, you see,' said Birkin slowly, rather wearily, bored again bythis new turn, 'they won't give either you or me the chance to burythem, because they're not to be buried.'
Brangwen looked at him in a sudden flare of impotent anger.
'Now, Mr Birkin,' he said, 'I don't know what you've come here for, andI don't know what you're asking for. But my daughters are mydaughters--and it's my business to look after them while I can.'
Birkin's brows knitted suddenly, his eyes concentrated in mockery. Buthe remained perfectly stiff and still. There was a pause.
'I've nothing against your marrying Ursula,' Brangwen began at length.'It's got nothing to do with me, she'll do as she likes, me or no me.'
Birkin turned away, looking out of the window and letting go hisconsciousness. After all, what good was this? It was hopeless to keepit up. He would sit on till Ursula came home, then speak to her, thengo away. He would not accept trouble at the hands of her father. It wasall unnecessary, and he himself need not have provoked it.
The two men sat in complete silence, Birkin almost unconscious of hisown whereabouts. He had come to ask her to marry him--well then, hewould wait on, and ask her. As for what she said, whether she acceptedor not, he did not think about it. He would say what he had come tosay, and that was all he was conscious of. He accepted the completeinsignificance of this household, for him. But everything now was as iffated. He could see one thing ahead, and no more. From the rest, he wasabsolved entirely for the time being. It had to be left to fate andchance to resolve the issues.
At length they heard the gate. They saw her coming up the steps with abundle of books under her arm. Her face was bright and abstracted asusual, with the abstraction, that look of being not quite THERE, notquite present to the facts of reality, that galled her father so much.She had a maddening faculty of assuming a light of her own, whichexcluded the reality, and within which she looked radiant as if insunshine.
They heard her go into the dining-room, and drop her armful of books onthe table.
'Did you bring me that Girl's Own?' cried Rosalind.
'Yes, I brought it. But I forgot which one it was you wanted.'
'You would,' cried Rosalind angrily. 'It's right for a wonder.'
Then they heard her say something in a lowered tone.
'Where?' cried Ursula.
Again her sister's voice was muffled.
Brangwen opened the door, and called, in his strong, brazen voice:
'Ursula.'
She appeared in a moment, wearing her hat.
'Oh how do you do!' she cried, seeing Birkin, and all dazzled as iftaken by surprise. He wondered at her, knowing she was aware of hispresence. She had her queer, radiant, breathless manner, as if confusedby the actual world, unreal to it, having a complete bright world ofher self alone.
'Have I interrupted a conversation?' she asked.
'No, only a complete silence,' said Birkin.
'Oh,' said Ursula, vaguely, absent. Their presence was not vital toher, she was withheld, she did not take them in. It was a subtle insultthat never failed to exasperate her father.
'Mr Birkin came to speak to YOU, not to me,' said her father.
'Oh, did he!' she exclaimed vaguely, as if it did not concern her.Then, recollecting herself, she turned to him rather radiantly, butstill quite superficially, and said: 'Was it anything special?'
'I hope so,' he said, ironically.
'--To propose to you, according to all accounts,' said her father.
'Oh,' said Ursula.
'Oh,' mocked her father, imitating her. 'Have you nothing more to say?'
She winced as if violated.
'Did you really come to propose to me?' she asked of Birkin, as if itwere a joke.
'Yes,' he said. 'I suppose I came to propose.' He seemed to fight shyof the last word.
'Did you?' she cried, with her vague radiance. He might have beensaying anything whatsoever. She seemed pleased.
'Yes,' he answered. 'I wanted to--I wanted you to agree to marry me.'
She looked at him. His eyes were flickering with mixed lights, wantingsomething of her, yet not wanting it. She shrank a little, as if shewere exposed to his eyes, and as if it were a pain to her. Shedarkened, her soul clouded over, she turned aside. She had been drivenout of her own radiant, single world. And she dreaded contact, it wasalmost unnatural to her at these times.
'Yes,' she said vaguely, in a doubting, absent voice.
Birkin's heart contracted swiftly, in a sudden fire of bitterness. Itall meant nothing to her. He had been mistaken again. She was in someself-satisfied world of her own. He and his hopes were accidentals,violations to her. It drove her father to a pitch of mad exasperation.He had had to put up with this all his life, from her.
'Well, what do you say?' he cried.
She winced. Then she glanced down at her father, half-frightened, andshe said:
'I didn't speak, did I?' as if she were afraid she might have committedherself.
'No,' said her father, exasperated. 'But you needn't look like anidiot. You've got your wits, haven't you?'
She ebbed away in silent hostility.
'I've got my wits, what does that mean?' she repeated, in a sullenvoice of antagonism.
'You heard what was asked you, didn't you?' cried her father in anger.
'Of course I heard.'
'Well then, can't you answer?' thundered her father.
'Why should I?'
At the impertinence of this retort, he went stiff. But he said nothing.
'No,' said Birkin, to help out the occasion, 'there's no need to answerat once. You can say when you like.'
Her eyes flashed with a powerful light.
'Why should I say anything?' she cried. 'You do this off your OWN bat,it has nothing to do with me. Why do you both want to bully me?'
'Bully you! Bully you!' cried her father, in bitter, rancorous anger.'Bully you! Why, it's a pity you can't be bullied into some sense anddecency. Bully you! YOU'LL see to that, you self-willed creature.'
She stood suspended in the middle of the room, her face glimmering anddangerous. She was set in satisfied defiance. Birkin looked up at her.He too was angry.
'But none is bullying you,' he said, in a very soft dangerous voicealso.
'Oh yes,' she cried. 'You both want to force me into something.'
'That is an illusion of yours,' he said ironically.
'Illusion!' cried her father. 'A self-opinionated fool, that's what sheis.'
Birkin rose, saying:
'However, we'll leave it for the time being.'
And without another word, he walked out of the house.
'You fool! You fool!' her father cried to her, with extreme bitterness.She left the room, and went upstairs, singing to herself. But she wasterribly fluttered, as after some dreadful fight. From her window, shecould see Birkin going up the road. He went in such a blithe drift ofrage, that her mind wondered over him. He was ridiculous, but she wasafraid of him. She was as if escaped from some danger.
Her father sat below, powerless in humiliation and chagrin. It was asif he were possessed with all the devils, after one of theseunaccountable conflicts with Ursula. He hated her as if his onlyreality were in hating her to the last degree. He had all hell in hisheart. But he went away, to escape himself. He knew he must despair,yield, give in to despair, and have done.
Ursula's face closed, she completed herself against them all. Recoilingupon herself, she became hard and self-completed, like a jewel. She wasbright and invulnerable, quite free and happy, perfectly liberated inher self-possession. Her father had to learn not to see her blitheobliviousness, or it would have sent him mad. She was so radiant withall things, in her possession of perfect hostility.
She would go on now for days like this, in this bright frank state ofseemingly pure spontaneity, so essentially oblivious of the existenceof anything but herself, but so ready and facile in her interest. Ah itwas a bitter thing for a man to be near her, and her father cursed hisfatherhood. But he must learn not to see her, not to know.
She was perfectly stable in resistance when she was in this state: sobright and radiant and attractive in her pure opposition, so very pure,and yet mistrusted by everybody, disliked on every hand. It was hervoice, curiously clear and repellent, that gave her away. Only Gudrunwas in accord with her. It was at these times that the intimacy betweenthe two sisters was most complete, as if their intelligence were one.They felt a strong, bright bond of understanding between them,surpassing everything else. And during all these days of blind brightabstraction and intimacy of his two daughters, the father seemed tobreathe an air of death, as if he were destroyed in his very being. Hewas irritable to madness, he could not rest, his daughters seemed to bedestroying him. But he was inarticulate and helpless against them. Hewas forced to breathe the air of his own death. He cursed them in hissoul, and only wanted, that they should be removed from him.
They continued radiant in their easy female transcendancy, beautiful tolook at. They exchanged confidences, they were intimate in theirrevelations to the last degree, giving each other at last every secret.They withheld nothing, they told everything, till they were over theborder of evil. And they armed each other with knowledge, theyextracted the subtlest flavours from the apple of knowledge. It wascurious how their knowledge was complementary, that of each to that ofthe other.
Ursula saw her men as sons, pitied their yearning and admired theircourage, and wondered over them as a mother wonders over her child,with a certain delight in their novelty. But to Gudrun, they were theopposite camp. She feared them and despised them, and respected theiractivities even overmuch.
'Of course,' she said easily, 'there is a quality of life in Birkinwhich is quite remarkable. There is an extraordinary rich spring oflife in him, really amazing, the way he can give himself to things. Butthere are so many things in life that he simply doesn't know. Either heis not aware of their existence at all, or he dismisses them as merelynegligible--things which are vital to the other person. In a way, he isnot clever enough, he is too intense in spots.'
'Yes,' cried Ursula, 'too much of a preacher. He is really a priest.'
'Exactly! He can't hear what anybody else has to say--he simply cannothear. His own voice is so loud.'
'Yes. He cries you down.'
'He cries you down,' repeated Gudrun. 'And by mere force of violence.And of course it is hopeless. Nobody is convinced by violence. It makestalking to him impossible--and living with him I should think would bemore than impossible.'
'You don't think one could live with him' asked Ursula.
'I think it would be too wearing, too exhausting. One would be shouteddown every time, and rushed into his way without any choice. He wouldwant to control you entirely. He cannot allow that there is any othermind than his own. And then the real clumsiness of his mind is its lackof self-criticism. No, I think it would be perfectly intolerable.'
'Yes,' assented Ursula vaguely. She only half agreed with Gudrun. 'Thenuisance is,' she said, 'that one would find almost any man intolerableafter a fortnight.'
'It's perfectly dreadful,' said Gudrun. 'But Birkin--he is toopositive. He couldn't bear it if you called your soul your own. Of himthat is strictly true.'
'Yes,' said Ursula. 'You must have HIS soul.'
'Exactly! And what can you conceive more deadly?' This was all so true,that Ursula felt jarred to the bottom of her soul with ugly distaste.
She went on, with the discord jarring and jolting through her, in themost barren of misery.
Then there started a revulsion from Gudrun. She finished life off sothoroughly, she made things so ugly and so final. As a matter of fact,even if it were as Gudrun said, about Birkin, other things were true aswell. But Gudrun would draw two lines under him and cross him out likean account that is settled. There he was, summed up, paid for, settled,done with. And it was such a lie. This finality of Gudrun's, thisdispatching of people and things in a sentence, it was all such a lie.Ursula began to revolt from her sister.
One day as they were walking along the lane, they saw a robin sittingon the top twig of a bush, singing shrilly. The sisters stood to lookat him. An ironical smile flickered on Gudrun's face.
'Doesn't he feel important?' smiled Gudrun.
'Doesn't he!' exclaimed Ursula, with a little ironical grimace. 'Isn'the a little Lloyd George of the air!'
'Isn't he! Little Lloyd George of the air! That's just what they are,'cried Gudrun in delight. Then for days, Ursula saw the persistent,obtrusive birds as stout, short politicians lifting up their voicesfrom the platform, little men who must make themselves heard at anycost.
But even from this there came the revulsion. Some yellowhammerssuddenly shot along the road in front of her. And they looked to her souncanny and inhuman, like flaring yellow barbs shooting through the airon some weird, living errand, that she said to herself: 'After all, itis impudence to call them little Lloyd Georges. They are really unknownto us, they are the unknown forces. It is impudence to look at them asif they were the same as human beings. They are of another world. Howstupid anthropomorphism is! Gudrun is really impudent, insolent, makingherself the measure of everything, making everything come down to humanstandards. Rupert is quite right, human beings are boring, painting theuniverse with their own image. The universe is non-human, thank God.'It seemed to her irreverence, destructive of all true life, to makelittle Lloyd Georges of the birds. It was such a lie towards therobins, and such a defamation. Yet she had done it herself. But underGudrun's influence: so she exonerated herself.
So she withdrew away from Gudrun and from that which she stood for, sheturned in spirit towards Birkin again. She had not seen him since thefiasco of his proposal. She did not want to, because she did not wantthe question of her acceptance thrust upon her. She knew what Birkinmeant when he asked her to marry him; vaguely, without putting it intospeech, she knew. She knew what kind of love, what kind of surrender hewanted. And she was not at all sure that this was the kind of love thatshe herself wanted. She was not at all sure that it was this mutualunison in separateness that she wanted. She wanted unspeakableintimacies. She wanted to have him, utterly, finally to have him as herown, oh, so unspeakably, in intimacy. To drink him down--ah, like alife-draught. She made great professions, to herself, of herwillingness to warm his foot-soles between her breasts, after thefashion of the nauseous Meredith poem. But only on condition that he,her lover, loved her absolutely, with complete self-abandon. And subtlyenough, she knew he would never abandon himself FINALLY to her. He didnot believe in final self-abandonment. He said it openly. It was hischallenge. She was prepared to fight him for it. For she believed in anabsolute surrender to love. She believed that love far surpassed theindividual. He said the individual was MORE than love, or than anyrelationship. For him, the bright, single soul accepted love as one ofits conditions, a condition of its own equilibrium. She believed thatlove was EVERYTHING. Man must render himself up to her. He must bequaffed to the dregs by her. Let him be HER MAN utterly, and she inreturn would be his humble slave--whether she wanted it or not.