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发信人: fzx (化石), 信区: English
标  题: Women In Love 24
发信站: 紫丁香 (Thu May 20 15:38:33 1999), 转信

                       CHAPTER XXIV

                               Death and Love

THOMAS CRICH died slowly, terribly slowly. It seemed impossible to
everybody that the thread oflife could be drawn out so thin, and yet not
break. The sick man lay unutterably weak and spent,kept alive by morphia
and by drinks, which he sipped slowly. He was only half conscious -- a
thinstrand of consciousness linking the darkness of death with the light
of day. Yet his will wasunbroken, he was integral, complete. Only he must
have perfect stillness about him.

Any presence but that of the nurses was a strain and an effort to him now.
Every morning Geraldwent into the room, hoping to find his father passed
away at last. Yet always he saw the sametransparent face, the same dread
dark hair on the waxen forehead, and the awful, inchoate darkeyes, which
seemed to be decomposing into formless darkness, having only a tiny grain
of visionwithin them.

And always, as the dark, inchoate eyes turned to him, there passed through
Gerald's bowels aburning stroke of revolt, that seemed to resound through
his whole being, threatening to break hismind with its clangour, and
making him mad.

Every morning, the son stood there, erect and taut with life, gleaming
in his blondness. The gleamingblondness of his strange, imminent being
put the father into a fever of fretful irritation. He could notbear to
meet the uncanny, downward look of Gerald's blue eyes. But it was only
for a moment.Each on the brink of departure, the father and son looked
at each other, then parted.

For a long time Gerald preserved a perfect sang froid, he remained quite
collected. But at last, fearundermined him. He was afraid of some horrible
collapse in himself. He had to stay and see thisthing through. Some
perverse will made him watch his father drawn over the borders of life.
Andyet, now, every day, the great red-hot stroke of horrified fear through
the bowels of the son strucka further inflammation. Gerald went about all
day with a tendency to cringe, as if there were thepoint of a sword of
Damocles pricking the nape of his neck.

There was no escape -- he was bound up with his father, he had to see him
through. And thefather's will never relaxed or yielded to death. It would
have to snap when death at last snapped it,-- if it did not persist after
a physical death. In the same way, the will of the son never yielded.
Hestood firm and immune, he was outside this death and this dying.

It was a trial by ordeal. Could he stand and see his father slowly dissolve
and disappear in death,without once yielding his will, without once
relenting before the omnipotence of death. Like a RedIndian undergoing
torture, Gerald would experience the whole process of slow death
withoutwincing or flinching. He even triumphed in it. He somehow wanted
this death, even forced it. It wasas if he himself were dealing the death,
even when he most recoiled in horror. Still, he would deal it,he would
triumph through death.

But in the stress of this ordeal, Gerald too lost his hold on the outer,
daily life. That which was muchto him, came to mean nothing. Work, pleasure
-- it was all left behind. He went on more or lessmechanically with his
business, but this activity was all extraneous. The real activity was this
ghastlywrestling for death in his own soul. And his own will should triumph.
Come what might, he wouldnot bow down or submit or acknowledge a master.
He had no master in death.

But as the fight went on, and all that he had been and was continued to
be destroyed, so that lifewas a hollow shell all round him, roaring and
clattering like the sound of the sea, a noise in which heparticipated
externally, and inside this hollow shell was all the darkness and fearful
space of death,he knew he would have to find reinforcements, otherwise
he would collapse inwards upon the greatdark void which circled at the
centre of his soul. His will held his outer life, his outer mind, his
outerbeing unbroken and unchanged. But the pressure was too great. He
would have to find somethingto make good the equilibrium. Something must
come with him into the hollow void of death in hissoul, fill it up, and
so equalise the pressure within to the pressure without. For day by day
he feltmore and more like a bubble filled with darkness, round which
whirled the iridescence of hisconsciousness, and upon which the pressure
of the outer world, the outer life, roared vastly.

In this extremity his instinct led him to Gudrun. He threw away everything
now -- he only wantedthe relation established with her. He would follow
her to the studio, to be near her, to talk to her.He would stand about
the room, aimlessly picking up the implements, the lumps of clay, the
littlefigures she had cast -- they were whimsical and grotesque -- looking
at them without perceivingthem. And she felt him following her, dogging
her heels like a doom. She held away from him, andyet she knew he drew
always a little nearer, a little nearer.

`I say,' he said to her one evening, in an odd, unthinking, uncertain way,
`won't you stay to dinnertonight? I wish you would.'

She started slightly. He spoke to her like a man making a request of another
man.

`They'll be expecting me at home,' she said.

`Oh, they won't mind, will they?' he said. `I should be awfully glad if
you'd stay.'

Her long silence gave consent at last.

`I'll tell Thomas, shall I?' he said.

`I must go almost immediately after dinner,' she said.

It was a dark, cold evening. There was no fire in the drawing-room, they
sat in the library. He wasmostly silent, absent, and Winifred talked
little. But when Gerald did rouse himself, he smiled andwas pleasant and
ordinary with her. Then there came over him again the long blanks, of which
hewas not aware.

She was very much attracted by him. He looked so preoccupied, and his
strange, blank silences,which she could not read, moved her and made her
wonder over him, made her feel reverentialtowards him.

But he was very kind. He gave her the best things at the table, he had
a bottle of slightly sweet,delicious golden wine brought out for dinner,
knowing she would prefer it to the burgundy. She feltherself esteemed,
needed almost.

As they took coffee in the library, there was a soft, very soft knocking
at the door. He started, andcalled `Come in.' The timbre of his voice,
like something vibrating at high pitch, unnerved Gudrun. Anurse in white
entered, half hovering in the doorway like a shadow. She was very
good-looking, butstrangely enough, shy and self-mistrusting.

`The doctor would like to speak to you, Mr Crich,' she said, in her low,
discreet voice.

`The doctor!' he said, starting up. `Where is he?'

`He is in the dining-room.'

`Tell him I'm coming.'

He drank up his coffee, and followed the nurse, who had dissolved like
a shadow.

`Which nurse was that?' asked Gudrun.

`Miss Inglis -- I like her best,' replied Winifred.

After a while Gerald came back, looking absorbed by his own thoughts, and
having some of thattension and abstraction which is seen in a slightly
drunken man. He did not say what the doctor hadwanted him for, but stood
before the fire, with his hands behind his back, and his face open and
asif rapt. Not that he was really thinking -- he was only arrested in pure
suspense inside himself, andthoughts wafted through his mind without
order.

`I must go now and see Mama,' said Winifred, `and see Dadda before he goes
to sleep.'

She bade them both good-night.

Gudrun also rose to take her leave.

`You needn't go yet, need you?' said Gerald, glancing quickly at the
clock.' It is early yet. I'll walkdown with you when you go. Sit down,
don't hurry away.'

Gudrun sat down, as if, absent as he was, his will had power over her.
She felt almost mesmerised.He was strange to her, something unknown. What
was he thinking, what was he feeling, as he stoodthere so rapt, saying
nothing? He kept her -- she could feel that. He would not let her go.
Shewatched him in humble submissiveness.

`Had the doctor anything new to tell you?' she asked, softly, at length,
with that gentle, timidsympathy which touched a keen fibre in his heart.
He lifted his eyebrows with a negligent, indifferentexpression.

`No -- nothing new,' he replied, as if the question were quite casual,
trivial. `He says the pulse isvery weak indeed, very intermittent -- but
that doesn't necessarily mean much, you know.'

He looked down at her. Her eyes were dark and soft and unfolded, with a
stricken look thatroused him.

`No,' she murmured at length. `I don't understand anything about these
things.'

`Just as well not,' he said. `I say, won't you have a cigarette? -- do!'
He quickly fetched the box,and held her a light. Then he stood before her
on the hearth again.

`No,' he said, `we've never had much illness in the house, either -- not
till father.' He seemed tomeditate a while. Then looking down at her, with
strangely communicative blue eyes, that filled herwith dread, he
continued: `It's something you don't reckon with, you know, till it is
there. And thenyou realise that it was there all the time -- it was always
there -- you understand what I mean? --the possibility of this incurable
illness, this slow death.'

He moved his feet uneasily on the marble hearth, and put his cigarette
to his mouth, looking up atthe ceiling.

`I know,' murmured Gudrun: `it is dreadful.'

He smoked without knowing. Then he took the cigarette from his lips, bared
his teeth, and puttingthe tip of his tongue between his teeth spat off
a grain of tobacco, turning slightly aside, like a manwho is alone, or
who is lost in thought.

`I don't know what the effect actually is, on one,' he said, and again
he looked down at her. Hereyes were dark and stricken with knowledge,
looking into his. He saw her submerged, and heturned aside his face. `But
I absolutely am not the same. There's nothing left, if you understand whatI
mean. You seem to be clutching at the void -- and at the same time you
are void yourself. And soyou don't know what to do.'

`No,' she murmured. A heavy thrill ran down her nerves, heavy, almost
pleasure, almost pain.`What can be done?' she added.

He turned, and flipped the ash from his cigarette on to the great marble
hearth-stones, that lay barein the room, without fender or bar.

`I don't know, I'm sure,' he replied. `But I do think you've got to find
some way of resolving thesituation -- not because you want to, but because
you've got to, otherwise you're done. The wholeof everything, and yourself
included, is just on the point of caving in, and you are just holding it
upwith your hands. Well, it's a situation that obviously can't continue.
You can't stand holding the roofup with your hands, for ever. You know
that sooner or later you'll have to let go. Do youunderstand what I mean?
And so something's got to be done, or there's a universal collapse -- asfar
as you yourself are concerned.'

He shifted slightly on the hearth, crunching a cinder under his heel. He
looked down at it. Gudrunwas aware of the beautiful old marble panels of
the fireplace, swelling softly carved, round him andabove him. She felt
as if she were caught at last by fate, imprisoned in some horrible and
fatal trap.

`But what can be done?' she murmured humbly. `You must use me if I can
be of any help at all --but how can I? I don't see how I can help you.'

He looked down at her critically.

`I don't want you to help,' he said, slightly irritated, `because there's
nothing to be done. I only wantsympathy, do you see: I want somebody I
can talk to sympathetically. That eases the strain. Andthere is nobody
to talk to sympathetically. That's the curious thing. There is nobody.
There's RupertBirkin. But then he isn't sympathetic, he wants to dictate.
And that is no use whatsoever.'

She was caught in a strange snare. She looked down at her hands.

Then there was the sound of the door softly opening. Gerald started. He
was chagrined. It was hisstarting that really startled Gudrun. Then he
went forward, with quick, graceful, intentional courtesy.

`Oh, mother!' he said. `How nice of you to come down. How are you?'

The elderly woman, loosely and bulkily wrapped in a purple gown, came
forward silently, slightlyhulked, as usual. Her son was at her side. He
pushed her up a chair, saying `You know MissBrangwen, don't you?'

The mother glanced at Gudrun indifferently.

`Yes,' she said. Then she turned her wonderful, forget-me-not blue eyes
up to her son, as sheslowly sat down in the chair he had brought her.

`I came to ask you about your father,' she said, in her rapid,
scarcely-audible voice. `I didn't knowyou had company.'

`No? Didn't Winifred tell you? Miss Brangwen stayed to dinner, to make
us a little more lively --'

Mrs Crich turned slowly round to Gudrun, and looked at her, but with
unseeing eyes.

`I'm afraid it would be no treat to her.' Then she turned again to her
son. `Winifred tells me thedoctor had something to say about your father.
What is it?'

`Only that the pulse is very weak -- misses altogether a good many times
-- so that he might not lastthe night out,' Gerald replied.

Mrs Crich sat perfectly impassive, as if she had not heard. Her bulk seemed
hunched in the chair,her fair hair hung slack over her ears. But her skin
was clear and fine, her hands, as she sat withthem forgotten and folded,
were quite beautiful, full of potential energy. A great mass of
energyseemed decaying up in that silent, hulking form.

She looked up at her son, as he stood, keen and soldierly, near to her.
Her eyes were mostwonderfully blue, bluer than forget-me-nots. She seemed
to have a certain confidence in Gerald,and to feel a certain motherly
mistrust of him.

`How are you?' she muttered, in her strangely quiet voice, as if nobody
should hear but him.`You're not getting into a state, are you?

You're not letting it make you hysterical?'

The curious challenge in the last words startled Gudrun.

`I don't think so, mother,' he answered, rather coldly cheery.

`Somebody's got to see it through, you know.'

`Have they? Have they?' answered his mother rapidly. `Why should you take
it on yourself? Whathave you got to do, seeing it through. It will see
itself through. You are not needed.'

`No, I don't suppose I can do any good,' he answered. `It's just how it
affects us, you see.'

`You like to be affected -- don't you? It's quite nuts for you? You would
have to be important. Youhave no need to stop at home. Why don't you go
away!'

These sentences, evidently the ripened grain of many dark hours, took
Gerald by surprise.

`I don't think it's any good going away now, mother, at the last minute,'
he said, coldly.

`You take care,' replied his mother. `You mind yourself -- that's your
business. You take too muchon yourself. You mind yourself, or you'll find
yourself in Queer Street, that's what will happen toyou. You're hysterical,
always were.'

`I'm all right, mother,' he said. `There's no need to worry about me, I
assure you.'

`Let the dead bury their dead -- don't go and bury yourself along with
them -- that's what I tell you.I know you well enough.'

He did not answer this, not knowing what to say. The mother sat bunched
up in silence, herbeautiful white hands, that had no rings whatsoever,
clasping the pommels of her arm-chair.

`You can't do it,' she said, almost bitterly. `You haven't the nerve.
You're as weak as a cat, really --always were. Is this young woman staying
here?'

`No,' said Gerald. `She is going home tonight.'

`Then she'd better have the dog-cart. Does she go far?'

`Only to Beldover.'

`Ah!' The elderly woman never looked at Gudrun, yet she seemed to take
knowledge of herpresence.

`You are inclined to take too much on yourself, Gerald,' said the mother,
pulling herself to her feet,with a little difficulty.

`Will you go, mother?' he asked, politely.

`Yes, I'll go up again,' she replied. Turning to Gudrun, she bade her
`Good-night.' Then she wentslowly to the door, as if she were unaccustomed
to walking. At the door she lifted her face to him,implicitly. He kissed
her.

`Don't come any further with me,' she said, in her barely audible voice.
`I don't want you anyfurther.'

He bade her good-night, watched her across to the stairs and mount slowly.
Then he closed thedoor and came back to Gudrun. Gudrun rose also, to go.

`A queer being, my mother,' he said.

`Yes,' replied Gudrun.

`She has her own thoughts.'

`Yes,' said Gudrun.

Then they were silent.

`You want to go?' he asked. `Half a minute, I'll just have a horse put
in --'

`No,' said Gudrun. `I want to walk.'

He had promised to walk with her down the long, lonely mile of drive, and
she wanted this.

`You might just as well drive,' he said.

`I'd much rather walk,' she asserted, with emphasis.

`You would! Then I will come along with you. You know where your things
are? I'll put boots on.'

He put on a cap, and an overcoat over his evening dress. They went out
into the night.

`Let us light a cigarette,' he said, stopping in a sheltered angle of the
porch. `You have one too.'

So, with the scent of tobacco on the night air, they set off down the dark
drive that ran betweenclose-cut hedges through sloping meadows.

He wanted to put his arm round her. If he could put his arm round her,
and draw her against him asthey walked, he would equilibriate himself.
For now he felt like a pair of scales, the half of whichtips down and down
into an indefinite void. He must recover some sort of balance. And here
wasthe hope and the perfect recovery.

Blind to her, thinking only of himself, he slipped his arm softly round
her waist, and drew her to him.Her heart fainted, feeling herself taken.
But then, his arm was so strong, she quailed under itspowerful close grasp.
She died a little death, and was drawn against him as they walked down
thestormy darkness. He seemed to balance her perfectly in opposition to
himself, in their dual motionof walking. So, suddenly, he was liberated
and perfect, strong, heroic.

He put his hand to his mouth and threw his cigarette away, a gleaming point,
into the unseen hedge.Then he was quite free to balance her.

`That's better,' he said, with exultancy.

The exultation in his voice was like a sweetish, poisonous drug to her.
Did she then mean so muchto him! She sipped the poison.

`Are you happier?' she asked, wistfully.

`Much better,' he said, in the same exultant voice, `and I was rather far
gone.'

She nestled against him. He felt her all soft and warm, she was the rich,
lovely substance of hisbeing. The warmth and motion of her walk suffused
through him wonderfully.

`I'm so glad if I help you,' she said.

`Yes,' he answered. `There's nobody else could do it, if you wouldn't.'

`That is true,' she said to herself, with a thrill of strange, fatal
elation.

As they walked, he seemed to lift her nearer and nearer to himself, till
she moved upon the firmvehicle of his body.

He was so strong, so sustaining, and he could not be opposed. She drifted
along in a wonderfulinterfusion of physical motion, down the dark, blowy
hillside. Far across shone the little yellow lightsof Beldover, many of
them, spread in a thick patch on another dark hill. But he and she
werewalking in perfect, isolated darkness, outside the world.

`But how much do you care for me!' came her voice, almost querulous. `You
see, I don't know, Idon't understand!'

`How much!' His voice rang with a painful elation. `I don't know either
-- but everything.' He wasstartled by his own declaration. It was true.
So he stripped himself of every safeguard, in makingthis admission to her.
He cared everything for her -- she was everything.

`But I can't believe it,' said her low voice, amazed, trembling. She was
trembling with doubt andexultance. This was the thing she wanted to hear,
only this. Yet now she heard it, heard the strangeclapping vibration of
truth in his voice as he said it, she could not believe. She could not
believe --she did not believe. Yet she believed, triumphantly, with fatal
exultance.

`Why not?' he said. `Why don't you believe it? It's true. It is true, as
we stand at this moment --' hestood still with her in the wind; `I care
for nothing on earth, or in heaven, outside this spot where weare. And
it isn't my own presence I care about, it is all yours. I'd sell my soul
a hundred times -- butI couldn't bear not to have you here. I couldn't
bear to be alone. My brain would burst. It is true.'He drew her closer
to him, with definite movement.

`No,' she murmured, afraid. Yet this was what she wanted. Why did she so
lose courage?

They resumed their strange walk. They were such strangers -- and yet they
were so frightfully,unthinkably near. It was like a madness. Yet it was
what she wanted, it was what she wanted. Theyhad descended the hill, and
now they were coming to the square arch where the road passed underthe
colliery railway. The arch, Gudrun knew, had walls of squared stone, mossy
on one side withwater that trickled down, dry on the other side. She had
stood under it to hear the train rumblethundering over the logs overhead.
And she knew that under this dark and lonely bridge the youngcolliers stood
in the darkness with their sweethearts, in rainy weather. And so she wanted
to standunder the bridge with her sweetheart, and be kissed under the
bridge in the invisible darkness. Hersteps dragged as she drew near.

So, under the bridge, they came to a standstill, and he lifted her upon
his breast. His body vibratedtaut and powerful as he closed upon her and
crushed her, breathless and dazed and destroyed,crushed her upon his
breast. Ah, it was terrible, and perfect. Under this bridge, the colliers
pressedtheir lovers to their breast. And now, under the bridge, the master
of them all pressed her tohimself? And how much more powerful and terrible
was his embrace than theirs, how much moreconcentrated and supreme his
love was, than theirs in the same sort! She felt she would swoon, die,under
the vibrating, inhuman tension of his arms and his body -- she would pass
away. Then theunthinkable high vibration slackened and became more
undulating. He slackened and drew her withhim to stand with his back to
the wall.

She was almost unconscious. So the colliers' lovers would stand with their
backs to the walls,holding their sweethearts and kissing them as she was
being kissed. Ah, but would their kisses befine and powerful as the kisses
of the firm-mouthed master? Even the keen, short-cut moustache --the
colliers would not have that.

And the colliers' sweethearts would, like herself, hang their heads back
limp over their shoulder,and look out from the dark archway, at the close
patch of yellow lights on the unseen hill in thedistance, or at the vague
form of trees, and at the buildings of the colliery wood-yard, in the
otherdirection.

His arms were fast around her, he seemed to be gathering her into himself,
her warmth, hersoftness, her adorable weight, drinking in the suffusion
of her physical being, avidly. He lifted her,and seemed to pour her into
himself, like wine into a cup.

`This is worth everything,' he said, in a strange, penetrating voice.

So she relaxed, and seemed to melt, to flow into him, as if she were some
infinitely warm andprecious suffusion filling into his veins, like an
intoxicant. Her arms were round his neck, he kissedher and held her
perfectly suspended, she was all slack and flowing into him, and he was
the firm,strong cup that receives the wine of her life. So she lay cast
upon him, stranded, lifted up againsthim, melting and melting under his
kisses, melting into his limbs and bones, as if he were soft ironbecoming
surcharged with her electric life.

Till she seemed to swoon, gradually her mind went, and she passed away,
everything in her wasmelted down and fluid, and she lay still, become
contained by him, sleeping in him as lightning sleepsin a pure, soft stone.
So she was passed away and gone in him, and he was perfected.

When she opened her eyes again, and saw the patch of lights in the distance,
it seemed to herstrange that the world still existed, that she was standing
under the bridge resting her head onGerald's breast. Gerald -- who was
he? He was the exquisite adventure, the desirable unknown toher.

She looked up, and in the darkness saw his face above her, his shapely,
male face. There seemed afaint, white light emitted from him, a white aura,
as if he were visitor from the unseen. She reachedup, like Eve reaching
to the apples on the tree of knowledge, and she kissed him, though
herpassion was a transcendent fear of the thing he was, touching his face
with her infinitely delicate,encroaching wondering fingers. Her fingers
went over the mould of his face, over his features. Howperfect and foreign
he was -- ah how dangerous! Her soul thrilled with complete knowledge.
Thiswas the glistening, forbidden apple, this face of a man. She kissed
him, putting her fingers over hisface, his eyes, his nostrils, over his
brows and his ears, to his neck, to know him, to gather him in bytouch.
He was so firm, and shapely, with such satisfying, inconceivable
shapeliness, strange, yetunutterably clear. He was such an unutterable
enemy, yet glistening with uncanny white fire. Shewanted to touch him and
touch him and touch him, till she had him all in her hands, till she
hadstrained him into her knowledge. Ah, if she could have the precious
knowledge of him, she wouldbe filled, and nothing could deprive her of
this. For he was so unsure, so risky in the common worldof day.

`You are so beautiful,' she murmured in her throat.

He wondered, and was suspended. But she felt him quiver, and she came down
involuntarily nearerupon him. He could not help himself. Her fingers had
him under their power. The fathomless,fathomless desire they could evoke
in him was deeper than death, where he had no choice.

But she knew now, and it was enough. For the time, her soul was destroyed
with the exquisiteshock of his invisible fluid lightning. She knew. And
this knowledge was a death from which shemust recover. How much more of
him was there to know? Ah much, much, many days harvestingfor her large,
yet perfectly subtle and intelligent hands upon the field of his living,
radio-active body.Ah, her hands were eager, greedy for knowledge. But for
the present it was enough, enough, asmuch as her soul could bear. Too much,
and she would shatter herself, she would fill the fine vial ofher soul
too quickly, and it would break. Enough now -- enough for the time being.
There were allthe after days when her hands, like birds, could feed upon
the fields of him mystical plastic form --till then enough.

And even he was glad to be checked, rebuked, held back. For to desire is
better than to possess,the finality of the end was dreaded as deeply as
it was desired.

They walked on towards the town, towards where the lamps threaded singly,
at long intervals downthe dark high-road of the valley. They came at length
to the gate of the drive.

`Don't come any further,' she said.

`You'd rather I didn't?' he asked, relieved. He did not want to go up the
public streets with her, hissoul all naked and alight as it was.

`Much rather -- good-night.' She held out her hand. He grasped it, then
touched the perilous,potent fingers with his lips.

`Good-night,' he said. `Tomorrow.'

And they parted. He went home full of the strength and the power of living
desire.

But the next day, she did not come, she sent a note that she was kept indoors
by a cold. Here wasa torment! But he possessed his soul in some sort of
patience, writing a brief answer, telling her howsorry he was not to see
her.

The day after this, he stayed at home -- it seemed so futile to go down
to the office. His fathercould not live the week out. And he wanted to
be at home, suspended.

Gerald sat on a chair by the window in his father's room. The landscape
outside was black andwinter-sodden. His father lay grey and ashen on the
bed, a nurse moved silently in her white dress,neat and elegant, even
beautiful. There was a scent of eau-de-cologne in the room. The nurse
wentout of the room, Gerald was alone with death, facing the winter-black
landscape.

`Is there much more water in Denley?' came the faint voice, determined
and querulous, from thebed. The dying man was asking about a leakage from
Willey Water into one of the pits.

`Some more -- we shall have to run off the lake,' said Gerald.

`Will you?' The faint voice filtered to extinction. There was dead
stillness. The grey-faced, sick manlay with eyes closed, more dead than
death. Gerald looked away. He felt his heart was seared, itwould perish
if this went on much longer.

Suddenly he heard a strange noise. Turning round, he saw his father's eyes
wide open, strained androlling in a frenzy of inhuman struggling. Gerald
started to his feet, and stood transfixed in horror.

`Wha-a-ah-h-h-' came a horrible choking rattle from his father's throat,
the fearful, frenzied eye,rolling awfully in its wild fruitless search
for help, passed blindly over Gerald, then up came the darkblood and mess
pumping over the face of the agonised being. The tense body relaxed, the
head fellaside, down the pillow.

Gerald stood transfixed, his soul echoing in horror. He would move, but
he could not. He could notmove his limbs. His brain seemed to re-echo,
like a pulse.

The nurse in white softly entered. She glanced at Gerald, then at the bed.

`Ah!' came her soft whimpering cry, and she hurried forward to the dead
man. `Ah-h!' came theslight sound of her agitated distress, as she stood
bending over the bedside. Then she recovered,turned, and came for towel
and sponge. She was wiping the dead face carefully, and murmuring,almost
whimpering, very softly: `Poor Mr Crich! -- Poor Mr Crich! Poor Mr Crich!'

`Is he dead?' clanged Gerald's sharp voice.

`Oh yes, he's gone,' replied the soft, moaning voice of the nurse, as she
looked up at Gerald's face.She was young and beautiful and quivering. A
strange sort of grin went over Gerald's face, over thehorror. And he walked
out of the room.

He was going to tell his mother. On the landing he met his brother Basil.

`He's gone, Basil,' he said, scarcely able to subdue his voice, not to
let an unconscious, frighteningexultation sound through.

`What?' cried Basil, going pale.

Gerald nodded. Then he went on to his mother's room.

She was sitting in her purple gown, sewing, very slowly sewing, putting
in a stitch then anotherstitch. She looked up at Gerald with her blue
undaunted eyes.

`Father's gone,' he said.

`He's dead? Who says so?'

`Oh, you know, mother, if you see him.'

She put her sewing down, and slowly rose.

`Are you going to see him?' he asked.

`Yes,' she said

By the bedside the children already stood in a weeping group.

`Oh, mother!' cried the daughters, almost in hysterics, weeping loudly.

But the mother went forward. The dead man lay in repose, as if gently asleep,
so gently, sopeacefully, like a young man sleeping in purity. He was still
warm. She stood looking at him ingloomy, heavy silence, for some time.

`Ay,' she said bitterly, at length, speaking as if to the unseen witnesses
of the air. `You're dead.' Shestood for some minutes in silence, looking
down. `Beautiful,' she asserted, `beautiful as if life hadnever touched
you -- never touched you. God send I look different. I hope I shall look
my years,when I am dead. Beautiful, beautiful,' she crooned over him. `You
can see him in his teens, with hisfirst beard on his face. A beautiful
soul, beautiful --' Then there was a tearing in her voice as shecried:
`None of you look like this, when you are dead! Don't let it happen again.'
It was a strange,wild command from out of the unknown. Her children moved
unconsciously together, in a nearergroup, at the dreadful command in her
voice. The colour was flushed bright in her cheek, shelooked awful and
wonderful. `Blame me, blame me if you like, that he lies there like a lad
in histeens, with his first beard on his face. Blame me if you like. But
you none of you know.' She wassilent in intense silence.

Then there came, in a low, tense voice: `If I thought that the children
I bore would lie looking likethat in death, I'd strangle them when they
were infants, yes --'

`No, mother,' came the strange, clarion voice of Gerald from the
background, `we are different, wedon't blame you.'

She turned and looked full in his eyes. Then she lifted her hands in a
strange half-gesture of maddespair.

`Pray!' she said strongly. `Pray for yourselves to God, for there's no
help for you from yourparents.'

`Oh mother!' cried her daughters wildly.

But she had turned and gone, and they all went quickly away from each other.

When Gudrun heard that Mr Crich was dead, she felt rebuked. She had stayed
away lest Geraldshould think her too easy of winning. And now, he was in
the midst of trouble, whilst she was cold.

The following day she went up as usual to Winifred, who was glad to see
her, glad to get away intothe studio. The girl had wept, and then, too
frightened, had turned aside to avoid any more tragiceventuality. She and
Gudrun resumed work as usual, in the isolation of the studio, and this
seemedan immeasurable happiness, a pure world of freedom, after the
aimlessness and misery of the house.Gudrun stayed on till evening. She
and Winifred had dinner brought up to the studio, where they atein freedom,
away from all the people in the house.

After dinner Gerald came up. The great high studio was full of shadow and
a fragrance of coffee.Gudrun and Winifred had a little table near the fire
at the far end, with a white lamp whose light didnot travel far. They were
a tiny world to themselves, the two girls surrounded by lovely shadows,the
beams and rafters shadowy over-head, the benches and implements shadowy
down the studio.

`You are cosy enough here,' said Gerald, going up to them.

There was a low brick fireplace, full of fire, an old blue Turkish rug,
the little oak table with the lampand the white-and-blue cloth and the
dessert, and Gudrun making coffee in an odd brasscoffee-maker, and
Winifred scalding a little milk in a tiny saucepan.

`Have you had coffee?' said Gudrun.

`I have, but I'll have some more with you,' he replied.

`Then you must have it in a glass -- there are only two cups,' said
Winifred.

`It is the same to me,' he said, taking a chair and coming into the charmed
circle of the girls. Howhappy they were, how cosy and glamorous it was
with them, in a world of lofty shadows! Theoutside world, in which he had
been transacting funeral business all the day was completely wipedout.
In an instant he snuffed glamour and magic.

They had all their things very dainty, two odd and lovely little cups,
scarlet and solid gilt, and a littleblack jug with scarlet discs, and the
curious coffee-machine, whose spirit-flame flowed steadily,almost
invisibly. There was the effect of rather sinister richness, in which
Gerald at once escapedhimself.

They all sat down, and Gudrun carefully poured out the coffee.

`Will you have milk?' she asked calmly, yet nervously poising the little
black jug with its big reddots. She was always so completely controlled,
yet so bitterly nervous.

`No, I won't,' he replied.

So, with a curious humility, she placed him the little cup of coffee, and
herself took the awkwardtumbler. She seemed to want to serve him.

`Why don't you give me the glass -- it is so clumsy for you,' he said.
He would much rather havehad it, and seen her daintily served. But she
was silent, pleased with the disparity, with herself-abasement.

`You are quite en menage,' he said.

`Yes. We aren't really at home to visitors,' said Winifred.

`You're not? Then I'm an intruder?'

For once he felt his conventional dress was out of place, he was an
outsider.

Gudrun was very quiet. She did not feel drawn to talk to him. At this stage,
silence was best -- ormere light words. It was best to leave serious things
aside. So they talked gaily and lightly, till theyheard the man below lead
out the horse, and call it to `back-back!' into the dog-cart that was
totake Gudrun home. So she put on her things, and shook hands with Gerald,
without once meetinghis eyes. And she was gone.

The funeral was detestable. Afterwards, at the tea-table, the daughters
kept saying -- `He was agood father to us -- the best father in the world'
-- or else -- `We shan't easily find another man asgood as father was.'

Gerald acquiesced in all this. It was the right conventional attitude,
and, as far as the world went, hebelieved in the conventions. He took it
as a matter of course. But Winifred hated everything, andhid in the studio,
and cried her heart out, and wished Gudrun would come.

Luckily everybody was going away. The Criches never stayed long at home.
By dinner-time,Gerald was left quite alone. Even Winifred was carried off
to London, for a few days with her sisterLaura.

But when Gerald was really left alone, he could not bear it. One day passed
by, and another. Andall the time he was like a man hung in chains over
the edge of an abyss. Struggle as he might, hecould not turn himself to
the solid earth, he could not get footing. He was suspended on the edge
ofa void, writhing. Whatever he thought of, was the abyss -- whether it
were friends or strangers, orwork or play, it all showed him only the same
bottomless void, in which his heart swung perishing.There was no escape,
there was nothing to grasp hold of. He must writhe on the edge of the
chasm,suspended in chains of invisible physical life.

At first he was quiet, he kept still, expecting the extremity to pass away,
expecting to find himselfreleased into the world of the living, after this
extremity of penance. But it did not pass, and a crisisgained upon him.

As the evening of the third day came on, his heart rang with fear. He could
not bear another night.Another night was coming on, for another night he
was to be suspended in chain of physical life,over the bottomless pit of
nothingness. And he could not bear it. He could not bear it. He
wasfrightened deeply, and coldly, frightened in his soul. He did not
believe in his own strength anymore. He could not fall into this infinite
void, and rise again. If he fell, he would be gone for ever. Hemust withdraw,
he must seek reinforcements. He did not believe in his own single self,
any furtherthan this.

After dinner, faced with the ultimate experience of his own nothingness,
he turned aside. He pulledon his boots, put on his coat, and set out to
walk in the night.

It was dark and misty. He went through the wood, stumbling and feeling
his way to the Mill. Birkinwas away. Good -- he was half glad. He turned
up the hill, and stumbled blindly over the wildslopes, having lost the
path in the complete darkness. It was boring. Where was he going? Nomatter.
He stumbled on till he came to a path again. Then he went on through another
wood. Hismind became dark, he went on automatically. Without thought or
sensation, he stumbled unevenlyon, out into the open again, fumbling for
stiles, losing the path, and going along the hedges of thefields till he
came to the outlet.

And at last he came to the high road. It had distracted him to struggle
blindly through the maze ofdarkness. But now, he must take a direction.
And he did not even know where he was. But he musttake a direction now.
Nothing would be resolved by merely walking, walking away. He had to takea
direction.

He stood still on the road, that was high in the utterly dark night, and
he did not know where hewas. It was a strange sensation, his heart beating,
and ringed round with the utterly unknowndarkness. So he stood for some
time.

Then he heard footsteps, and saw a small, swinging light. He immediately
went towards this. It wasa miner.

`Can you tell me,' he said, `where this road goes?'

`Road? Ay, it goes ter Whatmore.'

`Whatmore! Oh thank you, that's right. I thought I was wrong. Good-night.'

`Good-night,' replied the broad voice of the miner.

Gerald guessed where he was. At least, when he came to Whatmore, he would
know. He was gladto be on a high road. He walked forward as in a sleep
of decision.

That was Whatmore Village --? Yes, the King's Head -- and there the hall
gates. He descended thesteep hill almost running. Winding through the
hollow, he passed the Grammar School, and came toWilley Green Church. The
churchyard! He halted.

Then in another moment he had clambered up the wall and was going among
the graves. Even inthis darkness he could see the heaped pallor of old
white flowers at his feet. This then was thegrave. He stooped down. The
flowers were cold and clammy. There was a raw scent ofchrysanthemums and
tube-roses, deadened. He felt the clay beneath, and shrank, it was so
horriblycold and sticky. He stood away in revulsion.

Here was one centre then, here in the complete darkness beside the unseen,
raw grave. But therewas nothing for him here. No, he had nothing to stay
here for. He felt as if some of the clay weresticking cold and unclean,
on his heart. No, enough of this.

Where then? -- home? Never! It was no use going there. That was less than
no use. It could not bedone. There was somewhere else to go. Where?

A dangerous resolve formed in his heart, like a fixed idea. There was
Gudrun -- she would be safein her home. But he could get at her -- he would
get at her. He would not go back tonight till he hadcome to her, if it
cost him his life. He staked his all on this throw.

He set off walking straight across the fields towards Beldover. It was
so dark, nobody could eversee him. His feet were wet and cold, heavy with
clay. But he went on persistently, like a wind,straight forward, as if
to his fate. There were great gaps in his consciousness. He was conscious
thathe was at Winthorpe hamlet, but quite unconscious how he had got there.
And then, as in a dream,he was in the long street of Beldover, with its
street-lamps.

There was a noise of voices, and of a door shutting loudly, and being barred,
and of men talking inthe night. The `Lord Nelson' had just closed, and
the drinkers were going home. He had better askone of these where she lived
-- for he did not know the side streets at all.

`Can you tell me where Somerset Drive is?' he asked of one of the uneven
men.

`Where what?' replied the tipsy miner's voice.

`Somerset Drive.'

`Somerset Drive! -- I've heard o' such a place, but I couldn't for my life
say where it is. Who mightyou be wanting?'

`Mr Brangwen -- William Brangwen.'

`William Brangwen --? --?'

`Who teaches at the Grammar School, at Willey Green -- his daughter teaches
there too.'

`O-o-o-oh, Brangwen! Now I've got you. Of course, William Brangwen! Yes,
yes, he's got twolasses as teachers, aside hisself. Ay, that's him --
that's him! Why certainly I know where he lives,back your life I do! Yi
-- what place do they ca' it?'

`Somerset Drive,' repeated Gerald patiently. He knew his own colliers
fairly well.

`Somerset Drive, for certain!' said the collier, swinging his arm as if
catching something up.`Somerset Drive -- yi! I couldn't for my life lay
hold o' the lercality o' the place. Yis, I know theplace, to be sure I
do --'

He turned unsteadily on his feet, and pointed up the dark, nighdeserted
road.

`You go up theer -- an' you ta'e th' first -- yi, th' first turnin' on
your left -- o' that side -- pastWithamses tuffy shop --'

`I know,' said Gerald.

`Ay! You go down a bit, past wheer th' water-man lives -- and then Somerset
Drive, as they ca' it,branches off on 't right hand side -- an' there's
nowt but three houses in it, no more than three, Ibelieve, -- an' I'm a'most
certain as theirs is th' last -- th' last o' th' three -- you see --'

`Thank you very much,' said Gerald. `Good-night.'

And he started off, leaving the tipsy man there standing rooted.

Gerald went past the dark shops and houses, most of them sleeping now,
and twisted round to thelittle blind road that ended on a field of darkness.
He slowed down, as he neared his goal, notknowing how he should proceed.
What if the house were closed in darkness?

But it was not. He saw a big lighted window, and heard voices, then a gate
banged. His quick earscaught the sound of Birkin's voice, his keen eyes
made out Birkin, with Ursula standing in a paledress on the step of the
garden path. Then Ursula stepped down, and came along the road,
holdingBirkin's arm.

Gerald went across into the darkness and they dawdled past him, talking
happily, Birkin's voicelow, Ursula's high and distinct. Gerald went
quickly to the house.

The blinds were drawn before the big, lighted window of the diningroom.
Looking up the path atthe side he could see the door left open, shedding
a soft, coloured light from the hall lamp. He wentquickly and silently
up the path, and looked up into the hall. There were pictures on the walls,
andthe antlers of a stag -- and the stairs going up on one side -- and
just near the foot of the stairs thehalf opened door of the dining-room.

With heart drawn fine, Gerald stepped into the hall, whose floor was of
coloured tiles, went quicklyand looked into the large, pleasant room. In
a chair by the fire, the father sat asleep, his head tiltedback against
the side of the big oak chimney piece, his ruddy face seen foreshortened,
the nostrilsopen, the mouth fallen a little. It would take the merest sound
to wake him.

Gerald stood a second suspended. He glanced down the passage behind him.
It was all dark.Again he was suspended. Then he went swiftly upstairs.
His senses were so finely, almostsupernaturally keen, that he seemed to
cast his own will over the half-unconscious house.

He came to the first landing. There he stood, scarcely breathing. Again,
corresponding to the doorbelow, there was a door again. That would be the
mother's room. He could hear her moving aboutin the candlelight. She would
be expecting her husband to come up. He looked along the darklanding.

Then, silently, on infinitely careful feet, he went along the passage,
feeling the wall with the extremetips of his fingers. There was a door.
He stood and listened. He could hear two people's breathing.It was not
that. He went stealthily forward. There was another door, slightly open.
The room was indarkness. Empty. Then there was the bathroom, he could smell
the soap and the heat. Then at theend another bedroom -- one soft breathing.
This was she.

With an almost occult carefulness he turned the door handle, and opened
the door an inch. Itcreaked slightly. Then he opened it another inch --
then another. His heart did not beat, he seemedto create a silence about
himself, an obliviousness.

He was in the room. Still the sleeper breathed softly. It was very dark.
He felt his way forward inchby inch, with his feet and hands. He touched
the bed, he could hear the sleeper. He drew nearer,bending close as if
his eyes would disclose whatever there was. And then, very near to his
face, tohis fear, he saw the round, dark head of a boy.

He recovered, turned round, saw the door ajar, a faint light revealed.
And he retreated swiftly,drew the door to without fastening it, and passed
rapidly down the passage. At the head of thestairs he hesitated. There
was still time to flee.

But it was unthinkable. He would maintain his will. He turned past the
door of the parental bedroomlike a shadow, and was climbing the second
flight of stairs. They creaked under his weight -- it wasexasperating.
Ah what disaster, if the mother's door opened just beneath him, and she
saw him! Itwould have to be, if it were so. He held the control still.

He was not quite up these stairs when he heard a quick running of feet
below, the outer door wasclosed and locked, he heard Ursula's voice, then
the father's sleepy exclamation. He pressed onswiftly to the upper
landing.

Again a door was ajar, a room was empty. Feeling his way forward, with
the tips of his fingers,travelling rapidly, like a blind man, anxious lest
Ursula should come upstairs, he found another door.There, with his
preternaturally fine sense alert, he listened. He heard someone moving
in bed. Thiswould be she.

Softly now, like one who has only one sense, the tactile sense, he turned
the latch. It clicked. Heheld still. The bed-clothes rustled. His heart
did not beat. Then again he drew the latch back, andvery gently pushed
the door. It made a sticking noise as it gave.

`Ursula?' said Gudrun's voice, frightened. He quickly opened the door and
pushed it behind him.

`Is it you, Ursula?' came Gudrun's frightened voice. He heard her sitting
up in bed. In anothermoment she would scream.

`No, it's me,' he said, feeling his way towards her. `It is I, Gerald.'

She sat motionless in her bed in sheer astonishment. She was too astonished,
too much taken bysurprise, even to be afraid.

`Gerald!' she echoed, in blank amazement. He had found his way to the bed,
and his outstretchedhand touched her warm breast blindly. She shrank away.

`Let me make a light,' she said, springing out.

He stood perfectly motionless. He heard her touch the match-box, he heard
her fingers in theirmovement. Then he saw her in the light of a match,
which she held to the candle. The light rose inthe room, then sank to a
small dimness, as the flame sank down on the candle, before it
mountedagain.

She looked at him, as he stood near the other side of the bed. His cap
was pulled low over hisbrow, his black overcoat was buttoned close up to
his chin. His face was strange and luminous. Hewas inevitable as a
supernatural being. When she had seen him, she knew. She knew there
wassomething fatal in the situation, and she must accept it. Yet she must
challenge him.

`How did you come up?' she asked.

`I walked up the stairs -- the door was open.'

She looked at him.

`I haven't closed this door, either,' he said. She walked swiftly across
the room, and closed herdoor, softly, and locked it. Then she came back.

She was wonderful, with startled eyes and flushed cheeks, and her plait
of hair rather short andthick down her back, and her long, fine white
night-dress falling to her feet.

She saw that his boots were all clayey, even his trousers were plastered
with clay. And shewondered if he had made footprints all the way up. He
was a very strange figure, standing in herbedroom, near the tossed bed.

`Why have you come?' she asked, almost querulous.

`I wanted to,' he replied.

And this she could see from his face. It was fate.

`You are so muddy,' she said, in distaste, but gently.

He looked down at his feet.

`I was walking in the dark,' he replied. But he felt vividly elated. There
was a pause. He stood onone side of the tumbled bed, she on the other.
He did not even take his cap from his brows.

`And what do you want of me,' she challenged.

He looked aside, and did not answer. Save for the extreme beauty and mystic
attractiveness of thisdistinct, strange face, she would have sent him away.
But his face was too wonderful andundiscovered to her. It fascinated her
with the fascination of pure beauty, cast a spell on her, likenostalgia,
an ache.

`What do you want of me?' she repeated in an estranged voice.

He pulled off his cap, in a movement of dream-liberation, and went across
to her. But he could nottouch her, because she stood barefoot in her
night-dress, and he was muddy and damp. Her eyes,wide and large and
wondering, watched him, and asked him the ultimate question.

`I came -- because I must,' he said. `Why do you ask?'

She looked at him in doubt and wonder.

`I must ask,' she said.

He shook his head slightly.

`There is no answer,' he replied, with strange vacancy.

There was about him a curious, and almost godlike air of simplicity and
native directness. Hereminded her of an apparition, the young Hermes.

`But why did you come to me?' she persisted.

`Because -- it has to be so. If there weren't you in the world, then I
shouldn't be in the world,either.'

She stood looking at him, with large, wide, wondering, stricken eyes. His
eyes were lookingsteadily into hers all the time, and he seemed fixed in
an odd supernatural steadfastness. She sighed.She was lost now. She had
no choice.

`Won't you take off your boots,' she said. `They must be wet.'

He dropped his cap on a chair, unbuttoned his overcoat, lifting up his
chin to unfasten the throatbuttons. His short, keen hair was ruffled. He
was so beautifully blond, like wheat. He pulled off hisovercoat.

Quickly he pulled off his jacket, pulled loose his black tie, and was
unfastening his studs, whichwere headed each with a pearl. She listened,
watching, hoping no one would hear the starched linencrackle. It seemed
to snap like pistol shots.

He had come for vindication. She let him hold her in his arms, clasp her
close against him. He foundin her an infinite relief. Into her he poured
all his pent-up darkness and corrosive death, and he waswhole again. It
was wonderful, marvellous, it was a miracle. This was the everrecurrent
miracle ofhis life, at the knowledge of which he was lost in an ecstasy
of relief and wonder. And she, subject,received him as a vessel filled
with his bitter potion of death. She had no power at this crisis toresist.
The terrible frictional violence of death filled her, and she received
it in an ecstasy ofsubjection, in throes of acute, violent sensation.

As he drew nearer to her, he plunged deeper into her enveloping soft warmth,
a wonderful creativeheat that penetrated his veins and gave him life again.
He felt himself dissolving and sinking to rest inthe bath of her living
strength. It seemed as if her heart in her breast were a second
unconquerablesun, into the glow and creative strength of which he plunged
further and further. All his veins, thatwere murdered and lacerated,
healed softly as life came pulsing in, stealing invisibly in to him as
if itwere the all-powerful effluence of the sun. His blood, which seemed
to have been drawn back intodeath, came ebbing on the return, surely,
beautifully, powerfully.

He felt his limbs growing fuller and flexible with life, his body gained
an unknown strength. He was aman again, strong and rounded. And he was
a child, so soothed and restored and full of gratitude.

And she, she was the great bath of life, he worshipped her. Mother and
substance of all life shewas. And he, child and man, received of her and
was made whole. His pure body was almostkilled. But the miraculous, soft
effluence of her breast suffused over him, over his seared, damagedbrain,
like a healing lymph, like a soft, soothing flow of life itself, perfect
as if he were bathed in thewomb again.

His brain was hurt, seared, the tissue was as if destroyed. He had not
known how hurt he was, howhis tissue, the very tissue of his brain was
damaged by the corrosive flood of death. Now, as thehealing lymph of her
effluence flowed through him, he knew how destroyed he was, like a
plantwhose tissue is burst from inwards by a frost.

He buried his small, hard head between her breasts, and pressed her breasts
against him with hishands. And she with quivering hands pressed his head
against her, as he lay suffused out, and shelay fully conscious. The lovely
creative warmth flooded through him like a sleep of fecundity withinthe
womb. Ah, if only she would grant him the flow of this living effluence,
he would be restored, hewould be complete again. He was afraid she would
deny him before it was finished. Like a child atthe breast, he cleaved
intensely to her, and she could not put him away. And his seared,
ruinedmembrane relaxed, softened, that which was seared and stiff and
blasted yielded again, became softand flexible, palpitating with new life.
He was infinitely grateful, as to God, or as an infant is at itsmother's
breast. He was glad and grateful like a delirium, as he felt his own
wholeness come overhim again, as he felt the full, unutterable sleep
coming over him, the sleep of complete exhaustionand restoration.

But Gudrun lay wide awake, destroyed into perfect consciousness. She lay
motionless, with wideeyes staring motionless into the darkness, whilst
he was sunk away in sleep, his arms round her.

She seemed to be hearing waves break on a hidden shore, long, slow, gloomy
waves, breakingwith the rhythm of fate, so monotonously that it seemed
eternal. This endless breaking of slow,sullen waves of fate held her life
a possession, whilst she lay with dark, wide eyes looking into thedarkness.
She could see so far, as far as eternity -- yet she saw nothing. She was
suspended inperfect consciousness -- and of what was she conscious?

This mood of extremity, when she lay staring into eternity, utterly
suspended, and conscious ofeverything, to the last limits, passed and left
her uneasy. She had lain so long motionless. Shemoved, she became
self-conscious. She wanted to look at him, to see him.

But she dared not make a light, because she knew he would wake, and she
did not want to breakhis perfect sleep, that she knew he had got of her.

She disengaged herself, softly, and rose up a little to look at him. There
was a faint light, it seemedto her, in the room. She could just distinguish
his features, as he slept the perfect sleep. In thisdarkness, she seemed
to see him so distinctly. But he was far off, in another world. Ah, she
couldshriek with torment, he was so far off, and perfected, in another
world. She seemed to look at himas at a pebble far away under clear dark
water. And here was she, left with all the anguish ofconsciousness, whilst
he was sunk deep into the other element of mindless, remote,
livingshadow-gleam. He was beautiful, far-off, and perfected. They would
never be together. Ah, thisawful, inhuman distance which would always be
interposed between her and the other being!

There was nothing to do but to lie still and endure. She felt an
overwhelming tenderness for him, anda dark, under-stirring of jealous
hatred, that he should lie so perfect and immune, in an other-world,whilst
she was tormented with violent wakefulness, cast out in the outer
darkness.

She lay in intense and vivid consciousness, an exhausting
superconsciousness. The church clockstruck the hours, it seemed to her,
in quick succession. She heard them distinctly in the tension ofher vivid
consciousness. And he slept as if time were one moment, unchanging and
unmoving.

She was exhausted, wearied. Yet she must continue in this state of violent
activesuperconsciousness. She was conscious of everything -- her
childhood, her girlhood, all theforgotten incidents, all the unrealised
influences and all the happenings she had not understood,pertaining to
herself, to her family, to her friends, her lovers, her acquaintances,
everybody. It wasas if she drew a glittering rope of knowledge out of the
sea of darkness, drew and drew and drew itout of the fathomless depths
of the past, and still it did not come to an end, there was no end to it,she
must haul and haul at the rope of glittering consciousness, pull it out
phosphorescent from theendless depths of the unconsciousness, till she
was weary, aching, exhausted, and fit to break, andyet she had not done.

Ah, if only she might wake him! She turned uneasily. When could she rouse
him and send himaway? When could she disturb him? And she relapsed into
her activity of automatic consciousness,that would never end.

But the time was drawing near when she could wake him. It was like a release.
The clock hadstruck four, outside in the night. Thank God the night had
passed almost away. At five he must go,and she would be released. Then
she could relax and fill her own place. Now she was driven upagainst his
perfect sleeping motion like a knife white-hot on a grindstone. There was
somethingmonstrous about him, about his juxtaposition against her.

The last hour was the longest. And yet, at last it passed. Her heart leapt
with relief -- yes, there wasthe slow, strong stroke of the church clock
-- at last, after this night of eternity. She waited to catcheach slow,
fatal reverberation. `Three -- four -- five!' There, it was finished. A
weight rolled off her.

She raised herself, leaned over him tenderly, and kissed him. She was sad
to wake him. After a fewmoments, she kissed him again. But he did not stir.
The darling, he was so deep in sleep! What ashame to take him out of it.
She let him lie a little longer. But he must go -- he must really go.

With full over-tenderness she took his face between her hands, and kissed
his eyes. The eyesopened, he remained motionless, looking at her. Her
heart stood still. To hide her face from hisdreadful opened eyes, in the
darkness, she bent down and kissed him, whispering:

`You must go, my love.'

But she was sick with terror, sick.

He put his arms round her. Her heart sank.

`But you must go, my love. It's late.'

`What time is it?' he said.

Strange, his man's voice. She quivered. It was an intolerable oppression
to her.

`Past five o'clock,' she said.

But he only closed his arms round her again. Her heart cried within her
in torture. She disengagedherself firmly.

`You really must go,' she said.

`Not for a minute,' he said.

She lay still, nestling against him, but unyielding.

`Not for a minute,' he repeated, clasping her closer.

`Yes,' she said, unyielding, `I'm afraid if you stay any longer.'

There was a certain coldness in her voice that made him release her, and
she broke away, rose andlit the candle. That then was the end.

He got up. He was warm and full of life and desire. Yet he felt a little
bit ashamed, humiliated,putting on his clothes before her, in the
candle-light. For he felt revealed, exposed to her, at a timewhen she was
in some way against him. It was all very difficult to understand. He
dressed himselfquickly, without collar or tie. Still he felt full and
complete, perfected. She thought it humiliating tosee a man dressing: the
ridiculous shirt, the ridiculous trousers and braces. But again an idea
savedher.

`It is like a workman getting up to go to work,' thought Gudrun. `And I
am like a workman's wife.'But an ache like nausea was upon her: a nausea
of him.

He pushed his collar and tie into his overcoat pocket. Then he sat down
and pulled on his boots.They were sodden, as were his socks and
trouser-bottoms. But he himself was quick and warm.

`Perhaps you ought to have put your boots on downstairs,' she said.

At once, without answering, he pulled them off again, and stood holding
them in his hand. She hadthrust her feet into slippers, and flung a loose
robe round her. She was ready. She looked at him ashe stood waiting, his
black coat buttoned to the chin, his cap pulled down, his boots in his
hand.And the passionate almost hateful fascination revived in her for a
moment. It was not exhausted. Hisface was so warm-looking, wide-eyed and
full of newness, so perfect. She felt old, old. She wentto him heavily,
to be kissed. He kissed her quickly. She wished his warm, expressionless
beauty didnot so fatally put a spell on her, compel her and subjugate her.
It was a burden upon her, that sheresented, but could not escape. Yet when
she looked at his straight man's brows, and at his rathersmall, well-
shaped nose, and at his blue, indifferent eyes, she knew her passion for
him was not yetsatisfied, perhaps never could be satisfied. Only now she
was weary, with an ache like nausea. Shewanted him gone.

They went downstairs quickly. It seemed they made a prodigious noise. He
followed her as,wrapped in her vivid green wrap, she preceded him with
the light. She suffered badly with fear, lesther people should be roused.
He hardly cared. He did not care now who knew. And she hated thisin him.
One must be cautious. One must preserve oneself.

She led the way to the kitchen. It was neat and tidy, as the woman had
left it. He looked up at theclock -- twenty minutes past five Then he sat
down on a chair to put on his boots. She waited,watching his every movement.
She wanted it to be over, it was a great nervous strain on her.

He stood up -- she unbolted the back door, and looked out. A cold, raw
night, not yet dawn, witha piece of a moon in the vague sky. She was glad
she need not go out.

`Good-bye then,' he murmured.

`I'll come to the gate,' she said.

And again she hurried on in front, to warn him of the steps. And at the
gate, once more she stoodon the step whilst he stood below her.

`Good-bye,' she whispered.

He kissed her dutifully, and turned away.

She suffered torments hearing his firm tread going so distinctly down the
road. Ah, theinsensitiveness of that firm tread!

She closed the gate, and crept quickly and noiselessly back to bed. When
she was in her room, andthe door closed, and all safe, she breathed freely,
and a great weight fell off her. She nestled downin bed, in the groove
his body had made, in the warmth he had left. And excited, worn-out, yet
stillsatisfied, she fell soon into a deep, heavy sleep.

Gerald walked quickly through the raw darkness of the coming dawn. He met
nobody. His mindwas beautifully still and thoughtless, like a still pool,
and his body full and warm and rich. He wentquickly along towards
Shortlands, in a grateful self-sufficiency.



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※ 来源:．紫丁香 bbs.hit.edu.cn．[FROM: heart.hit.edu.cn]

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