CHAPTER XXV.
MARRIAGE OR NOT
The Brangwen family was going to move from Beldover. It was necessarynow for the father to be in town.
Birkin had taken out a marriage licence, yet Ursula deferred from dayto day. She would not fix any definite time--she still wavered. Hermonth's notice to leave the Grammar School was in its third week.Christmas was not far off.
Gerald waited for the Ursula-Birkin marriage. It was something crucialto him.
'Shall we make it a double-barrelled affair?' he said to Birkin oneday.
'Who for the second shot?' asked Birkin.
'Gudrun and me,' said Gerald, the venturesome twinkle in his eyes.
Birkin looked at him steadily, as if somewhat taken aback.
'Serious--or joking?' he asked.
'Oh, serious. Shall I? Shall Gudrun and I rush in along with you?'
'Do by all means,' said Birkin. 'I didn't know you'd got that length.'
'What length?' said Gerald, looking at the other man, and laughing.
'Oh yes, we've gone all the lengths.'
'There remains to put it on a broad social basis, and to achieve a highmoral purpose,' said Birkin.
'Something like that: the length and breadth and height of it,' repliedGerald, smiling.
'Oh well,' said Birkin,' it's a very admirable step to take, I shouldsay.'
Gerald looked at him closely.
'Why aren't you enthusiastic?' he asked. 'I thought you were such deadnuts on marriage.'
Birkin lifted his shoulders.
'One might as well be dead nuts on noses. There are all sorts of noses,snub and otherwise-'
Gerald laughed.
'And all sorts of marriage, also snub and otherwise?' he said.
'That's it.'
'And you think if I marry, it will be snub?' asked Gerald quizzically,his head a little on one side.
Birkin laughed quickly.
'How do I know what it will be!' he said. 'Don't lambaste me with myown parallels-'
Gerald pondered a while.
'But I should like to know your opinion, exactly,' he said.
'On your marriage?--or marrying? Why should you want my opinion? I'vegot no opinions. I'm not interested in legal marriage, one way oranother. It's a mere question of convenience.'
Still Gerald watched him closely.
'More than that, I think,' he said seriously. 'However you may be boredby the ethics of marriage, yet really to marry, in one's own personalcase, is something critical, final-'
'You mean there is something final in going to the registrar with awoman?'
'If you're coming back with her, I do,' said Gerald. 'It is in some wayirrevocable.'
'Yes, I agree,' said Birkin.
'No matter how one regards legal marriage, yet to enter into themarried state, in one's own personal instance, is final-'
'I believe it is,' said Birkin, 'somewhere.'
'The question remains then, should one do it,' said Gerald.
Birkin watched him narrowly, with amused eyes.
'You are like Lord Bacon, Gerald,' he said. 'You argue it like alawyer--or like Hamlet's to-be-or-not-to-be. If I were you I would NOTmarry: but ask Gudrun, not me. You're not marrying me, are you?'
Gerald did not heed the latter part of this speech.
'Yes,' he said, 'one must consider it coldly. It is something critical.One comes to the point where one must take a step in one direction oranother. And marriage is one direction-'
'And what is the other?' asked Birkin quickly.
Gerald looked up at him with hot, strangely-conscious eyes, that theother man could not understand.
'I can't say,' he replied. 'If I knew THAT--' He moved uneasily on hisfeet, and did not finish.
'You mean if you knew the alternative?' asked Birkin. 'And since youdon't know it, marriage is a PIS ALLER.'
Gerald looked up at Birkin with the same hot, constrained eyes.
'One does have the feeling that marriage is a PIS ALLER,' he admitted.
'Then don't do it,' said Birkin. 'I tell you,' he went on, 'the same asI've said before, marriage in the old sense seems to me repulsive.EGOISME A DEUX is nothing to it. It's a sort of tacit hunting incouples: the world all in couples, each couple in its own little house,watching its own little interests, and stewing in its own littleprivacy--it's the most repulsive thing on earth.'
'I quite agree,' said Gerald. 'There's something inferior about it. Butas I say, what's the alternative.'
'One should avoid this HOME instinct. It's not an instinct, it's ahabit of cowardliness. One should never have a HOME.'
'I agree really,' said Gerald. 'But there's no alternative.'
'We've got to find one. I do believe in a permanent union between a manand a woman. Chopping about is merely an exhaustive process. But apermanent relation between a man and a woman isn't the last word--itcertainly isn't.'
'Quite,' said Gerald.
'In fact,' said Birkin, 'because the relation between man and woman ismade the supreme and exclusive relationship, that's where all thetightness and meanness and insufficiency comes in.'
'Yes, I believe you,' said Gerald.
'You've got to take down the love-and-marriage ideal from its pedestal.We want something broader. I believe in the ADDITIONAL perfectrelationship between man and man--additional to marriage.'
'I can never see how they can be the same,' said Gerald.
'Not the same--but equally important, equally creative, equally sacred,if you like.'
'I know,' said Gerald, 'you believe something like that. Only I can'tFEEL it, you see.' He put his hand on Birkin's arm, with a sort ofdeprecating affection. And he smiled as if triumphantly.
He was ready to be doomed. Marriage was like a doom to him. He waswilling to condemn himself in marriage, to become like a convictcondemned to the mines of the underworld, living no life in the sun,but having a dreadful subterranean activity. He was willing to acceptthis. And marriage was the seal of his condemnation. He was willing tobe sealed thus in the underworld, like a soul damned but living foreverin damnation. But he would not make any pure relationship with anyother soul. He could not. Marriage was not the committing of himselfinto a relationship with Gudrun. It was a committing of himself inacceptance of the established world, he would accept the establishedorder, in which he did not livingly believe, and then he would retreatto the underworld for his life. This he would do.
The other way was to accept Rupert's offer of alliance, to enter intothe bond of pure trust and love with the other man, and thensubsequently with the woman. If he pledged himself with the man hewould later be able to pledge himself with the woman: not merely inlegal marriage, but in absolute, mystic marriage.
Yet he could not accept the offer. There was a numbness upon him, anumbness either of unborn, absent volition, or of atrophy. Perhaps itwas the absence of volition. For he was strangely elated at Rupert'soffer. Yet he was still more glad to reject it, not to be committed.