CHAPTER XV.
SUNDAY EVENING
As the day wore on, the life-blood seemed to ebb away from Ursula, andwithin the emptiness a heavy despair gathered. Her passion seemed tobleed to death, and there was nothing. She sat suspended in a state ofcomplete nullity, harder to bear than death.
'Unless something happens,' she said to herself, in the perfectlucidity of final suffering, 'I shall die. I am at the end of my lineof life.'
She sat crushed and obliterated in a darkness that was the border ofdeath. She realised how all her life she had been drawing nearer andnearer to this brink, where there was no beyond, from which one had toleap like Sappho into the unknown. The knowledge of the imminence ofdeath was like a drug. Darkly, without thinking at all, she knew thatshe was near to death. She had travelled all her life along the line offulfilment, and it was nearly concluded. She knew all she had to know,she had experienced all she had to experience, she was fulfilled in akind of bitter ripeness, there remained only to fall from the tree intodeath. And one must fulfil one's development to the end, must carry theadventure to its conclusion. And the next step was over the border intodeath. So it was then! There was a certain peace in the knowledge.
After all, when one was fulfilled, one was happiest in falling intodeath, as a bitter fruit plunges in its ripeness downwards. Death is agreat consummation, a consummating experience. It is a development fromlife. That we know, while we are yet living. What then need we thinkfor further? One can never see beyond the consummation. It is enoughthat death is a great and conclusive experience. Why should we ask whatcomes after the experience, when the experience is still unknown to us?Let us die, since the great experience is the one that follows now uponall the rest, death, which is the next great crisis in front of whichwe have arrived. If we wait, if we baulk the issue, we do but hangabout the gates in undignified uneasiness. There it is, in front of us,as in front of Sappho, the illimitable space. Thereinto goes thejourney. Have we not the courage to go on with our journey, must we cry'I daren't'? On ahead we will go, into death, and whatever death maymean. If a man can see the next step to be taken, why should he fearthe next but one? Why ask about the next but one? Of the next step weare certain. It is the step into death.
'I shall die--I shall quickly die,' said Ursula to herself, clear as ifin a trance, clear, calm, and certain beyond human certainty. Butsomewhere behind, in the twilight, there was a bitter weeping and ahopelessness. That must not be attended to. One must go where theunfaltering spirit goes, there must be no baulking the issue, becauseof fear. No baulking the issue, no listening to the lesser voices. Ifthe deepest desire be now, to go on into the unknown of death, shallone forfeit the deepest truth for one more shallow?
'Then let it end,' she said to herself. It was a decision. It was not aquestion of taking one's life--she would NEVER kill herself, that wasrepulsive and violent. It was a question of KNOWING the next step. Andthe next step led into the space of death. Did it?--or was there--?
Her thoughts drifted into unconsciousness, she sat as if asleep besidethe fire. And then the thought came back. The space o' death! Could shegive herself to it? Ah yes--it was a sleep. She had had enough So longshe had held out; and resisted. Now was the time to relinquish, not toresist any more.
In a kind of spiritual trance, she yielded, she gave way, and all wasdark. She could feel, within the darkness, the terrible assertion ofher body, the unutterable anguish of dissolution, the only anguish thatis too much, the far-off, awful nausea of dissolution set in within thebody.
'Does the body correspond so immediately with the spirit?' she askedherself. And she knew, with the clarity of ultimate knowledge, that thebody is only one of the manifestations of the spirit, the transmutationof the integral spirit is the transmutation of the physical body aswell. Unless I set my will, unless I absolve myself from the rhythm oflife, fix myself and remain static, cut off from living, absolvedwithin my own will. But better die than live mechanically a life thatis a repetition of repetitions. To die is to move on with theinvisible. To die is also a joy, a joy of submitting to that which isgreater than the known, namely, the pure unknown. That is a joy. But tolive mechanised and cut off within the motion of the will, to live asan entity absolved from the unknown, that is shameful and ignominious.There is no ignominy in death. There is complete ignominy in anunreplenished, mechanised life. Life indeed may be ignominious,shameful to the soul. But death is never a shame. Death itself, likethe illimitable space, is beyond our sullying.
Tomorrow was Monday. Monday, the beginning of another school-week!Another shameful, barren school-week, mere routine and mechanicalactivity. Was not the adventure of death infinitely preferable? Was notdeath infinitely more lovely and noble than such a life? A life ofbarren routine, without inner meaning, without any real significance.How sordid life was, how it was a terrible shame to the soul, to livenow! How much cleaner and more dignified to be dead! One could not bearany more of this shame of sordid routine and mechanical nullity. Onemight come to fruit in death. She had had enough. For where was life tobe found? No flowers grow upon busy machinery, there is no sky to aroutine, there is no space to a rotary motion. And all life was arotary motion, mechanised, cut off from reality. There was nothing tolook for from life--it was the same in all countries and all peoples.The only window was death. One could look out on to the great dark skyof death with elation, as one had looked out of the classroom window asa child, and seen perfect freedom in the outside. Now one was not achild, and one knew that the soul was a prisoner within this sordidvast edifice of life, and there was no escape, save in death.
But what a joy! What a gladness to think that whatever humanity did, itcould not seize hold of the kingdom of death, to nullify that. The seathey turned into a murderous alley and a soiled road of commerce,disputed like the dirty land of a city every inch of it. The air theyclaimed too, shared it up, parcelled it out to certain owners, theytrespassed in the air to fight for it. Everything was gone, walled in,with spikes on top of the walls, and one must ignominiously creepbetween the spiky walls through a labyrinth of life.
But the great, dark, illimitable kingdom of death, there humanity wasput to scorn. So much they could do upon earth, the multifarious littlegods that they were. But the kingdom of death put them all to scorn,they dwindled into their true vulgar silliness in face of it.
How beautiful, how grand and perfect death was, how good to lookforward to. There one would wash off all the lies and ignominy and dirtthat had been put upon one here, a perfect bath of cleanness and gladrefreshment, and go unknown, unquestioned, unabased. After all, one wasrich, if only in the promise of perfect death. It was a gladness aboveall, that this remained to look forward to, the pure inhuman othernessof death.
Whatever life might be, it could not take away death, the inhumantranscendent death. Oh, let us ask no question of it, what it is or isnot. To know is human, and in death we do not know, we are not human.And the joy of this compensates for all the bitterness of knowledge andthe sordidness of our humanity. In death we shall not be human, and weshall not know. The promise of this is our heritage, we look forwardlike heirs to their majority.
Ursula sat quite still and quite forgotten, alone by the fire in thedrawing-room. The children were playing in the kitchen, all the otherswere gone to church. And she was gone into the ultimate darkness of herown soul.
She was startled by hearing the bell ring, away in the kitchen, thechildren came scudding along the passage in delicious alarm.
'Ursula, there's somebody.'
'I know. Don't be silly,' she replied. She too was startled, almostfrightened. She dared hardly go to the door.
Birkin stood on the threshold, his rain-coat turned up to his ears. Hehad come now, now she was gone far away. She was aware of the rainynight behind him.
'Oh is it you?' she said.
'I am glad you are at home,' he said in a low voice, entering thehouse.
'They are all gone to church.'
He took off his
coat and hung it up. The children were peeping at himround the corner.
'Go and get undressed now, Billy and Dora,' said Ursula. 'Mother willbe back soon, and she'll be disappointed if you're not in bed.'
The children, in a sudden angelic mood, retired without a word. Birkinand Ursula went into the drawing-room.
The fire burned low. He looked at her and wondered at the luminousdelicacy of her beauty, and the wide shining of her eyes. He watchedfrom a distance, with wonder in his heart, she seemed transfigured withlight.
'What have you been doing all day?' he asked her.
'Only sitting about,' she said.
He looked at her. There was a change in her. But she was separate fromhim. She remained apart, in a kind of brightness. They both sat silentin the soft light of the lamp. He felt he ought to go away again, heought not to have come. Still he did not gather enough resolution tomove. But he was DE TROP, her mood was absent and separate.
Then there came the voices of the two children calling shyly outsidethe door, softly, with self-excited timidity:
'Ursula! Ursula!'
She rose and opened the door. On the threshold stood the two childrenin their long nightgowns, with wide-eyed, angelic faces. They werebeing very good for the moment, playing the role perfectly of twoobedient children.
'Shall you take us to bed!' said Billy, in a loud whisper.
'Why you ARE angels tonight,' she said softly. 'Won't you come and saygood-night to Mr Birkin?'
The children merged shyly into the room, on bare feet. Billy's face waswide and grinning, but there was a great solemnity of being good in hisround blue eyes. Dora, peeping from the floss of her fair hair, hungback like some tiny Dryad, that has no soul.
'Will you say good-night to me?' asked Birkin, in a voice that wasstrangely soft and smooth. Dora drifted away at once, like a leaflifted on a breath of wind. But Billy went softly forward, slow andwilling, lifting his pinched-up mouth implicitly to be kissed. Ursulawatched the full, gathered lips of the man gently touch those of theboy, so gently. Then Birkin lifted his fingers and touched the boy'sround, confiding cheek, with a faint touch of love. Neither spoke.Billy seemed angelic like a cherub boy, or like an acolyte, Birkin wasa tall, grave angel looking down to him.
'Are you going to be kissed?' Ursula broke in, speaking to the littlegirl. But Dora edged away like a tiny Dryad that will not be touched.
'Won't you say good-night to Mr Birkin? Go, he's waiting for you,' saidUrsula. But the girl-child only made a little motion away from him.
'Silly Dora, silly Dora!' said Ursula.
Birkin felt some mistrust and antagonism in the small child. He couldnot understand it.
'Come then,' said Ursula. 'Let us go before mother comes.'
'Who'll hear us say our prayers?' asked Billy anxiously.
'Whom you like.'
'Won't you?'
'Yes, I will.'
'Ursula?'
'Well Billy?'
'Is it WHOM you like?'
'That's it.'
'Well what is WHOM?'
'It's the accusative of who.'
There was a moment's contemplative silence, then the confiding:
'Is it?'
Birkin smiled to himself as he sat by the fire. When Ursula came downhe sat motionless, with his arms on his knees. She saw him, how he wasmotionless and ageless, like some crouching idol, some image of adeathly religion. He looked round at her, and his face, very pale andunreal, seemed to gleam with a whiteness almost phosphorescent.
'Don't you feel well?' she asked, in indefinable repulsion.
'I hadn't thought about it.'
'But don't you know without thinking about it?'
He looked at her, his eyes dark and swift, and he saw her revulsion. Hedid not answer her question.
'Don't you know whether you are unwell or not, without thinking aboutit?' she persisted.
'Not always,' he said coldly.
'But don't you think that's very wicked?'
'Wicked?'
'Yes. I think it's CRIMINAL to have so little connection with your ownbody that you don't even know when you are ill.'
He looked at her darkly.
'Yes,' he said.
'Why don't you stay in bed when you are seedy? You look perfectlyghastly.'
'Offensively so?' he asked ironically.
'Yes, quite offensive. Quite repelling.'
'Ah!! Well that's unfortunate.'
'And it's raining, and it's a horrible night. Really, you shouldn't beforgiven for treating your body like it--you OUGHT to suffer, a man whotakes as little notice of his body as that.'
'--takes as little notice of his body as that,' he echoed mechanically.
This cut her short, and there was silence.
The others came in from church, and the two had the girls to face, thenthe mother and Gudrun, and then the father and the boy.
'Good-evening,' said Brangwen, faintly surprised. 'Came to see me, didyou?'
'No,' said Birkin, 'not about anything, in particular, that is. The daywas dismal, and I thought you wouldn't mind if I called in.'
'It HAS been a depressing day,' said Mrs Brangwen sympathetically. Atthat moment the voices of the children were heard calling fromupstairs: 'Mother! Mother!' She lifted her face and answered mildlyinto the distance: 'I shall come up to you in a minute, Doysie.' Thento Birkin: 'There is nothing fresh at Shortlands, I suppose? Ah,' shesighed, 'no, poor things, I should think not.'
'You've been over there today, I suppose?' asked the father.
'Gerald came round to tea with me, and I walked back with him. Thehouse is overexcited and unwholesome, I thought.'
'I should think they were people who hadn't much restraint,' saidGudrun.
'Or too much,' Birkin answered.
'Oh yes, I'm sure,' said Gudrun, almost vindictively, 'one or theother.'
'They all feel they ought to behave in some unnatural fashion,' saidBirkin. 'When people are in grief, they would do better to cover theirfaces and keep in retirement, as in the old days.'
'Certainly!' cried Gudrun, flushed and inflammable. 'What can be worsethan this public grief--what is more horrible, more false! If GRIEF isnot private, and hidden, what is?'
'Exactly,' he said. 'I felt ashamed when I was there and they were allgoing about in a lugubrious false way, feeling they must not be naturalor ordinary.'
'Well--' said Mrs Brangwen, offended at this criticism, 'it isn't soeasy to bear a trouble like that.'
And she went upstairs to the children.
He remained only a few minutes longer, then took his leave. When he wasgone Ursula felt such a poignant hatred of him, that all her brainseemed turned into a sharp crystal of fine hatred. Her whole natureseemed sharpened and intensified into a pure dart of hate. She couldnot imagine what it was. It merely took hold of her, the most poignantand ultimate hatred, pure and clear and beyond thought. She could notthink of it at all, she was translated beyond herself. It was like apossession. She felt she was possessed. And for several days she wentabout possessed by this exquisite force of hatred against him. Itsurpassed anything she had ever known before, it seemed to throw herout of the world into some terrible region where nothing of her oldlife held good. She was quite lost and dazed, really dead to her ownlife.
It was so completely incomprehensible and irrational. She did not knowWHY she hated him, her hate was quite abstract. She had only realisedwith a shock that stunned her, that she was overcome by this puretransportation. He was the enemy, fine as a diamond, and as hard andjewel-like, the quintessence of all that was inimical.
She thought of his face, white and purely wrought, and of his eyes thathad such a dark, constant will of assertion, and she touched her ownforehead, to feel if she were mad, she was so transfigured in whiteflame of essential hate.
It was not temporal, her hatred, she did not hate him for this or forthat; she did not want to do anything to him, to have any connectionwith him. Her relation was ultimate and utterly
beyond words, the hatewas so pure and gemlike. It was as if he were a beam of essentialenmity, a beam of light that did not only destroy her, but denied heraltogether, revoked her whole world. She saw him as a clear stroke ofuttermost contradiction, a strange gem-like being whose existencedefined her own non-existence. When she heard he was ill again, herhatred only intensified itself a few degrees, if that were possible. Itstunned her and annihilated her, but she could not escape it. She couldnot escape this transfiguration of hatred that had come upon her.