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发信人: fzx (化石), 信区: English
标 题: Women In Love 25
发信站: 紫 丁 香 (Thu May 20 15:39:16 1999), 转信
CHAPTER XXV
Marriage or Not
THE BRANGWEN family was going to move from Beldover. It was necessary now
for the father tobe in town.
Birkin had taken out a marriage licence, yet Ursula deferred from day to
day. She would not fix anydefinite time -- she still wavered. Her month's
notice to leave the Grammar School was in its thirdweek. Christmas was
not far off.
Gerald waited for the Ursula-Birkin marriage. It was something crucial
to him.
`Shall we make it a double-barrelled affair?' he said to Birkin one day.
`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 high
moral purpose,' said Birkin.
`Something like that: the length and breadth and height of it,' replied
Gerald, smiling.
`Oh well,' said Birkin,' it's a very admirable step to take, I should say.'
Gerald looked at him closely.
`Why aren't you enthusiastic?' he asked. `I thought you were such dead
nuts 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 my own
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've
got no opinions. I'm notinterested in legal marriage, one way or another.
It's a mere question of convenience.'
Still Gerald watched him closely.
`More than that, I think,' he said seriously. `However you may be bored
by the ethics of marriage,yet really to marry, in one's own personal case,
is something critical, final--'
`You mean there is something final in going to the registrar with a woman?'
`If you're coming back with her, I do,' said Gerald. `It is in some way
irrevocable.'
`Yes, I agree,' said Birkin.
`No matter how one regards legal marriage, yet to enter into the married
state, in one's ownpersonal 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 a lawyer
-- or like Hamlet'sto-be-or-not-to-be. If I were you I would not marry:
but ask Gudrun, not me. You're not marryingme, 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 whereone must take a step in one direction or another.
And marriage is one direction--'
`And what is the other?' asked Birkin quickly.
Gerald looked up at him with hot, strangely-conscious eyes, that the other
man could notunderstand.
`I can't say,' he replied. `If I knew that --' He moved uneasily on his
feet, and did not finish.
`You mean if you knew the alternative?' asked Birkin. `And since you don't
know it, marriage is apis 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 as
I've said before, marriage in theold 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 little privacy -- it's the most
repulsive thing on earth.'
`I quite agree,' said Gerald. `There's something inferior about it. But
as I say, what's the alternative.'
`One should avoid this home instinct. It's not an instinct, it's a habit
of cowardliness. One shouldnever 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 man
and a woman. Choppingabout is merely an exhaustive process. But a
permanent relation between a man and a woman isn'tthe last word -- it
certainly isn't.'
`Quite,' said Gerald.
`In fact,' said Birkin, `because the relation between man and woman is
made the supreme andexclusive relationship, that's where all the
tightness 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 somethingbroader. I believe in the additional perfect
relationship between man and man -- additional tomarriage.'
`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't feel
it, you see.' He put hishand on Birkin's arm, with a sort of deprecating
affection. And he smiled as if triumphantly.
He was ready to be doomed. Marriage was like a doom to him. He was willing
to condemn himselfin marriage, to become like a convict condemned to the
mines of the underworld, living no life in thesun, but having a dreadful
subterranean activity. He was willing to accept this. And marriage wasthe
seal of his condemnation. He was willing to be sealed thus in the
underworld, like a soul damnedbut living forever in damnation. But he
would not make any pure relationship with any other soul.He could not.
Marriage was not the committing of himself into a relationship with Gudrun.
It was acommitting of himself in acceptance of the established world, he
would accept the establishedorder, in which he did not livingly believe,
and then he would retreat to the underworld for his life.This he would
do.
The other way was to accept Rupert's offer of alliance, to enter into the
bond of pure trust and lovewith the other man, and then subsequently with
the woman. If he pledged himself with the man hewould later be able to
pledge himself with the woman: not merely in legal marriage, but in
absolute,mystic marriage.
Yet he could not accept the offer. There was a numbness upon him, a numbness
either of unborn,absent volition, or of atrophy. Perhaps it was the
absence of volition. For he was strangely elated atRupert's offer. Yet
he was still more glad to reject it, not to be committed.
--
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