CHAPTER XXVI.
A CHAIR
There was a jumble market every Monday afternoon in the oldmarket-place in town. Ursula and Birkin strayed down there oneafternoon. They had been talking of furniture, and they wanted to seeif there was any fragment they would like to buy, amid the heaps ofrubbish collected on the cobble-stones.
The old market-square was not very large, a mere bare patch of granitesetts, usually with a few fruit-stalls under a wall. It was in a poorquarter of the town. Meagre houses stood down one side, there was ahosiery factory, a great blank with myriad oblong windows, at the end,a street of little shops with flagstone pavement down the other side,and, for a crowning monument, the public baths, of new red brick, witha clock-tower. The people who moved about seemed stumpy and sordid, theair seemed to smell rather dirty, there was a sense of many meanstreets ramifying off into warrens of meanness. Now and again a greatchocolate-and-yellow tramcar ground round a difficult bend under thehosiery factory.
Ursula was superficially thrilled when she found herself out among thecommon people, in the jumbled place piled with old bedding, heaps ofold iron, shabby crockery in pale lots, muffled lots of unthinkableclothing. She and Birkin went unwillingly down the narrow aisle betweenthe rusty wares. He was looking at the goods, she at the people.
She excitedly watched a young woman, who was going to have a baby, andwho was turning over a mattress and making a young man, down-at-heeland dejected, feel it also. So secretive and active and anxious theyoung woman seemed, so reluctant, slinking, the young man. He was goingto marry her because she was having a child.
When they had felt the mattress, the young woman asked the old manseated on a stool among his wares, how much it was. He told her, andshe turned to the young man. The latter was ashamed, and selfconscious.He turned his face away, though he left his body standing there, andmuttered aside. And again the woman anxiously and actively fingered themattress and added up in her mind and bargained with the old, uncleanman. All the while, the young man stood by, shamefaced anddown-at-heel, submitting.
'Look,' said Birkin, 'there is a pretty chair.'
'Charming!' cried Ursula. 'Oh, charming.'
It was an arm-chair of simple wood, probably birch, but of such finedelicacy of grace, standing there on the sordid stones, it almostbrought tears to the eyes. It was square in shape, of the purest,slender lines, and four short lines of wood in the back, that remindedUrsula of harpstrings.
'It was once,' said Birkin, 'gilded--and it had a cane seat. Somebodyhas nailed this wooden seat in. Look, here is a trifle of the red thatunderlay the gilt. The rest is all black, except where the wood is wornpure and glossy. It is the fine unity of the lines that is soattractive. Look, how they run and meet and counteract. But of coursethe wooden seat is wrong--it destroys the perfect lightness and unityin tension the cane gave. I like it though--'
'Ah yes,' said Ursula, 'so do I.'
'How much is it?' Birkin asked the man.
'Ten shillings.'
'And you will send it--?'
It was bought.
'So beautiful, so pure!' Birkin said. 'It almost breaks my heart.' Theywalked along between the heaps of rubbish. 'My beloved country--it hadsomething to express even when it made that chair.'
'And hasn't it now?' asked Ursula. She was always angry when he tookthis tone.
'No, it hasn't. When I see that clear, beautiful chair, and I think ofEngland, even Jane Austen's England--it had living thoughts to unfoldeven then, and pure happiness in unfolding them. And now, we can onlyfish among the rubbish heaps for the remnants of their old expression.There is no production in us now, only sordid and foul mechanicalness.'
'It isn't true,' cried Ursula. 'Why must you always praise the past, atthe expense of the present? REALLY, I don't think so much of JaneAusten's England. It was materialistic enough, if you like--'
'It could afford to be materialistic,' said Birkin, 'because it had thepower to be something other--which we haven't. We are materialisticbecause we haven't the power to be anything else--try as we may, wecan't bring off anything but materialism: mechanism, the very soul ofmaterialism.'
Ursula was subdued into angry silence. She did not heed what he said.She was rebelling against something else.
'And I hate your past. I'm sick of it,' she cried. 'I believe I evenhate that old chair, though it IS beautiful. It isn't MY sort ofbeauty. I wish it had been smashed up when its day was over, not leftto preach the beloved past to us. I'm sick of the beloved past.'
'Not so sick as I am of the accursed present,' he said.
'Yes, just the same. I hate the present--but I don't want the past totake its place--I don't want that old chair.'
He was rather angry for a moment. Then he looked at the sky shiningbeyond the tower of the public baths, and he seemed to get over it all.He laughed.
'All right,' he said, 'then let us not have it. I'm sick of it all,too. At any rate one can't go on living on the old bones of beauty.'
'One can't,' she cried. 'I DON'T want old things.'
'The truth is, we don't want things at all,' he replied. 'The thoughtof a house and furniture of my own is hateful to me.'
This startled her for a moment. Then she replied:
'So it is to me. But one must live somewhere.'
'Not somewhere--anywhere,' he said. 'One should just live anywhere--nothave a definite place. I don't want a definite place. As soon as youget a room, and it is COMPLETE, you want to run from it. Now my roomsat the Mill are quite complete, I want them at the bottom of the sea.It is a horrible tyranny of a fixed milieu, where each piece offurniture is a commandment-stone.'
She clung to his arm as they walked away from the market.
'But what are we going to do?' she said. 'We must live somehow. And Ido want some beauty in my surroundings. I want a sort of naturalGRANDEUR even, SPLENDOUR.'
'You'll never get it in houses and furniture--or even clothes. Housesand furniture and clothes, they are all terms of an old base world, adetestable society of man. And if you have a Tudor house and old,beautiful furniture, it is only the past perpetuated on top of you,horrible. And if you have a perfect modern house done for you byPoiret, it is something else perpetuated on top of you. It is allhorrible. It is all possessions, possessions, bullying you and turningyou into a generalisation. You have to be like Rodin, Michelangelo, andleave a piece of raw rock unfinished to your figure. You must leaveyour surroundings sketchy, unfinished, so that you are never contained,never confined, never dominated from the outside.'
She stood in the street contemplating.
'And we are never to have a complete place of our own--never a home?'she said.
'Pray God, in this world, no,' he answered.
'But there's only this world,' she objected.
He spread out his hands with a gesture of indifference.
'Meanwhile, then, we'll avoid having things of our own,' he said.
'But you've just bought a chair,' she said.
'I can tell the man I don't want it,' he replied.
She pondered again. Then a queer little movement twitched her face.
'No,' she said, 'we don't want it. I'm sick of old things.'
'New ones as well,' he said.
They retraced their steps.
There--in front of some furniture, stood the young couple, the womanwho was going to have a baby, and the narrow-faced youth. She was fair,rather short, stout. He was of medium height, attractively built. Hisdark hair fell sideways over his brow, from under his cap, he stoodstrangely aloof, like one of the damned.
'Let us give it to THEM,' whispered Ursula. 'Look they are getting ahome together.'
'I won't aid abet them in it,' he said petulantly, instantlysympathising with the aloof, furtive youth, against the active,procreant female.
'Oh yes,' cried Ursula. 'It's right for them--there's nothing else forthem.'
'Very well,' said Birkin, 'you offer it to them. I'll watch.'
Ursula went rather nervously to the young couple, who were discussingan iron washstand--or rather, the man was glancing furtively andwonderingly, like a prisoner, at the abominable article, whilst thewoman was arguing.
'We bought a chair,' said Ursula, 'and we don't want it. Would you haveit? We should be glad if you would.'
The young couple looked round at her, not believing that she could beaddressing them.
'Would you care for it?' repeated Ursula. 'It's really VERYpretty--but--but--' she smiled rather dazzlingly.
The young couple only stared at her, and looked significantly at eachother, to know what to do. And the man curiously obliterated himself,as if he could make himself invisible, as a rat can.
'We wanted to GIVE it to you,' explained Ursula, now overcome withconfusion and dread of them. She was attracted by the young man. He wasa still, mindless creature, hardly a man at all, a creature that thetowns have produced, strangely pure-bred and fine in one sense,furtive, quick, subtle. His lashes were dark and long and fine over hiseyes, that had no mind in them, only a dreadful kind of subject, inwardconsciousness, glazed and dark. His dark brows and all his lines, werefinely drawn. He would be a dreadful, but wonderful lover to a woman,so marvellously contributed. His legs would be marvellously subtle andalive, under the shapeless, trousers, he had some of the fineness andstillness and silkiness of a dark-eyed, silent rat.
Ursula had apprehended him with a fine FRISSON of attraction. Thefull-built woman was staring offensively. Again Ursula forgot him.
'Won't you have the chair?' she said.
The man looked at her with a sideways look of appreciation, yet faroff,almost insolent. The woman drew herself up. There was a certaincostermonger richness about her. She did not know what Ursula wasafter, she was on her guard, hostile. Birkin approached, smilingwickedly at seeing Ursula so nonplussed and frightened.
'What's the matter?' he said, smiling. His eyelids had droppedslightly, there was about him the same suggestive, mocking secrecy thatwas in the bearing of the two city creatures. The man jerked his head alittle on one side, indicating Ursula, and said, with curious amiable,jeering warmth:
'What she warnt?--eh?' An odd smile writhed his lips.
Birkin looked at him from under his slack, ironical eyelids.
'To give you a chair--that--with the label on it,' he said, pointing.
The man looked at the object indicated. There was a curious hostilityin male, outlawed understanding between the two men.
'What's she warnt to give it US for, guvnor,' he replied, in a tone offree intimacy that insulted Ursula.
'Thought you'd like it--it's a pretty chair. We bought it and don'twant it. No need for you to have it, don't be frightened,' said Birkin,with a wry smile.
The man glanced up at him, half inimical, half recognising.
'Why don't you want it for yourselves, if you've just bought it?' askedthe woman coolly. ''Taint good enough for you, now you've had a look atit. Frightened it's got something in it, eh?'
She was looking at Ursula, admiringly, but with some resentment.
'I'd never thought of that,' said Birkin. 'But no, the wood's too thineverywhere.'
'You see,' said Ursula, her face luminous and pleased. 'WE are justgoing to get married, and we thought we'd buy things. Then we decided,just now, that we wouldn't have furniture, we'd go abroad.'
The full-built, slightly blowsy city girl looked at the fine face ofthe other woman, with appreciation. They appreciated each other. Theyouth stood aside, his face expressionless and timeless, the thin lineof the black moustache drawn strangely suggestive over his rather wide,closed mouth. He was impassive, abstract, like some dark suggestivepresence, a gutter-presence.
'It's all right to be some folks,' said the city girl, turning to herown young man. He did not look at her, but he smiled with the lowerpart of his face, putting his head aside in an odd gesture of assent.His eyes were unchanging, glazed with darkness.
'Cawsts something to change your mind,' he said, in an incredibly lowaccent.
'Only ten shillings this time,' said Birkin.
The man looked up at him with a grimace of a smile, furtive, unsure.
'Cheap at 'arf a quid, guvnor,' he said. 'Not like getting divawced.'
'We're not married yet,' said Birkin.
'No, no more aren't we,' said the young woman loudly. 'But we shall be,a Saturday.'
Again she looked at the young man with a determined, protective look,at once overbearing and very gentle. He grinned sicklily, turning awayhis head. She had got his manhood, but Lord, what did he care! He had astrange furtive pride and slinking singleness.
'Good luck to you,' said Birkin.
'Same to you,' said the young woman. Then, rather tentatively: 'When'syours coming off, then?'
Birkin looked round at Ursula.
'It's for the lady to say,' he replied. 'We go to the registrar themoment she's ready.'
Ursula laughed, covered with confusion and bewilderment.
'No 'urry,' said the young man, grinning suggestive.
'Oh, don't break your neck to get there,' said the young woman. ''Slikewhen you're dead--you're long time married.'
The young man turned aside as if this hit him.
'The longer the better, let us hope,' said Birkin.
'That's it, guvnor,' said the young man admiringly. 'Enjoy it while itlarsts--niver whip a dead donkey.'
'Only when he's shamming dead,' said the young woman, looking at heryoung man with caressive tenderness of authority.
'Aw, there's a difference,' he said satirically.
'What about the chair?' said Birkin.
'Yes, all right,' said the woman.
They trailed off to the dealer, the handsome but abject young fellowhanging a little aside.
'That's it,' said Birkin. 'Will you take it with you, or have theaddress altered.'
'Oh, Fred can carry it. Make him do what he can for the dear old 'ome.'
'Mike use of'im,' said Fred, grimly humorous, as he took the chair fromthe dealer. His movements were graceful, yet curiously abject,slinking.
''Ere's mother's cosy chair,' he said. 'Warnts a cushion.' And he stoodit down on the market stones.
'Don't you think it's pretty?' laughed Ursula.
'Oh, I do,' said the young woman.
''Ave a sit in it, you'll wish you'd kept it,' said the young man.
Ursula promptly sat down in the middle of the market-place.
'Awfully comfortable,' she said. 'But rather hard. You try it.' Sheinvited the young man to a seat. But he turned uncouthly, awkwardlyaside, glancing up at her with quick bright eyes, oddly suggestive,like a quick, live rat.
'Don't spoil him,' said the young woman. 'He's not used to arm-chairs,'e isn't.
The young man turned away, and said, with averted grin:
'Only warnts legs on 'is.'
The four parted. The young woman thanked them.
'Thank you for the chair--it'll last till it gives way.'
'Keep it for an ornyment,' said the young man.
'Good afternoon--Good afternoon,' said Ursula and Birkin.
'Goo'-luck to you,' said the young man, glancing and avoiding Birkin'seyes, as he turned aside his head.
The two couples went asunder, Ursula clinging to Birkin's arm. Whenthey had gone some distance, she glanced back and saw the young mangoing beside the full, easy young woman. His trousers sank over hisheels, he moved with a sort of slinking evasion, more crushed with oddself-consciousness now he had the slim old arm-chair to carry, his armover the back, the four fine, square tapering legs swaying perilouslynear the granite setts of the pavement. And yet he was somewhereindomitable and separate, like a quick, vital rat. He had a queer,subterranean beauty, repulsive too.
'How strange they are!' said Ursula.
'Children of men,' he said. 'They remind me of Jesus: ”The meek shallinherit the earth.”'
'But they aren't the meek,' said Ursula.
'Yes, I don't know why, but they are,' he replied.
They waited for the tramcar. Ursula sat on top and looked out on thetown. The dusk was just dimming the hollows of crowded houses.
'And are they going to inherit the earth?' she said.
'Yes--they.'
'Then what are we going to do?' she asked. 'We're not like them--arewe? We're not the meek?'
'No. We've got to live in the chinks they leave us.'
'How horrible!' cried Ursula. 'I don't want to live in chinks.'
'Don't worry,' he said. 'They are the children of men, they likemarket-places and street-corners best. That leaves plenty of chinks.'
'All the world,' she said.
'Ah no--but some room.'
The tramcar mounted slowly up the hill, where the ugly winter-greymasses of houses looked like a vision of hell that is cold and angular.They sat and looked. Away in the distance was an angry redness ofsunset. It was all cold, somehow small, crowded, and like the end ofthe world.
'I don't mind it even then,' said Ursula, looking at the repulsivenessof it all. 'It doesn't concern me.'
'No more it does,' he replied, holding her hand. 'One needn't see. Onegoes one's way. In my world it is sunny and spacious--'
'It is, my love, isn't it?' she cried, hugging near to him on the topof the tramcar, so that the other passengers stared at them.
'And we will wander about on the face of the earth,' he said, 'andwe'll look at the world beyond just this bit.'
There was a long silence. Her face was radiant like gold, as she satthinking.
'I don't want to inherit the earth,' she said. 'I don't want to inheritanything.'
He closed his hand over hers.
'Neither do I. I want to be disinherited.'
She clasped his fingers closely.
'We won't care about ANYTHING,' she said.
He sat still, and laughed.
'And we'll be married, and have done with them,' she added.
Again he laughed.
'It's one way of getting rid of everything,' she said, 'to getmarried.'
'And one way of accepting the whole world,' he added.
'A whole other world, yes,' she said happily.
'Perhaps there's Gerald--and Gudrun--' he said.
'If there is there is, you see,' she said. 'It's no good our worrying.We can't really alter them, can we?'
'No,' he said. 'One has no right to try--not with the best intentionsin the world.'
'Do you try to force them?' she asked.
'Perhaps,' he said. 'Why should I want him to be free, if it isn't hisbusiness?'
She paused for a time.
'We can't MAKE him happy, anyhow,' she said. 'He'd have to be it ofhimself.'
'I know,' he said. 'But we want other people with us, don't we?'
'Why should we?' she asked.
'I don't know,' he said uneasily. 'One has a hankering after a sort offurther fellowship.'
'But why?' she insisted. 'Why should you hanker after other people? Whyshould you need them?'
This hit him right on the quick. His brows knitted.
'Does it end with just our two selves?' he asked, tense.
'Yes--what more do you want? If anybody likes to come along, let them.But why must you run after them?'
His face was tense and unsatisfied.
'You see,' he said, 'I always imagine our being really happy with somefew other people--a little freedom with people.'
She pondered for a moment.
'Yes, one does want that. But it must HAPPEN. You can't do anything forit with your will. You always seem to think you can FORCE the flowersto come out. People must love us because they love us--you can't MAKEthem.'
'I know,' he said. 'But must one take no steps at all? Must one just goas if one were alone in the world--the only creature in the world?'
'You've got me,' she said. 'Why should you NEED others? Why must youforce people to agree with you? Why can't you be single by yourself, asyou are always saying? You try to bully Gerald--as you tried to bullyHermione. You must learn to be alone. And it's so horrid of you. You'vegot me. And yet you want to force other people to love you as well. Youdo try to bully them to love you. And even then, you don't want theirlove.'
His face was full of real perplexity.
'Don't I?' he said. 'It's the problem I can't solve. I KNOW I want aperfect and complete relationship with you: and we've nearly got it--wereally have. But beyond that. DO I want a real, ultimate relationshipwith Gerald? Do I want a final, almost extra-human relationship withhim--a relationship in the ultimate of me and him--or don't I?'
She looked at him for a long time, with strange bright eyes, but shedid not answer.