CHAPTER XXX.
SNOWED UP
When Ursula and Birkin were gone, Gudrun felt herself free in hercontest with Gerald. As they grew more used to each other, he seemed topress upon her more and more. At first she could manage him, so thather own will was always left free. But very soon, he began to ignoreher female tactics, he dropped his respect for her whims and herprivacies, he began to exert his own will blindly, without submittingto hers.
Already a vital conflict had set in, which frightened them both. But hewas alone, whilst already she had begun to cast round for externalresource.
When Ursula had gone, Gudrun felt her own existence had become starkand elemental. She went and crouched alone in her bedroom, looking outof the window at the big, flashing stars. In front was the faint shadowof the mountain-knot. That was the pivot. She felt strange andinevitable, as if she were centred upon the pivot of all existence,there was no further reality.
Presently Gerald opened the door. She knew he would not be long beforehe came. She was rarely alone, he pressed upon her like a frost,deadening her.
'Are you alone in the dark?' he said. And she could tell by his tone heresented it, he resented this isolation she had drawn round herself.Yet, feeling static and inevitable, she was kind towards him.
'Would you like to light the candle?' she asked.
He did not answer, but came and stood behind her, in the darkness.
'Look,' she said, 'at that lovely star up there. Do you know its name?'
He crouched beside her, to look through the low window.
'No,' he said. 'It is very fine.'
'ISN'T it beautiful! Do you notice how it darts different colouredfires--it flashes really superbly--'
They remained in silence. With a mute, heavy gesture she put her handon his knee, and took his hand.
'Are you regretting Ursula?' he asked.
'No, not at all,' she said. Then, in a slow mood, she asked:
'How much do you love me?'
He stiffened himself further against her.
'How much do you think I do?' he asked.
'I don't know,' she replied.
'But what is your opinion?' he asked.
There was a pause. At length, in the darkness, came her voice, hard andindifferent:
'Very little indeed,' she said coldly, almost flippant.
His heart went icy at the sound of her voice.
'Why don't I love you?' he asked, as if admitting the truth of heraccusation, yet hating her for it.
'I don't know why you don't--I've been good to you. You were in aFEARFUL state when you came to me.'
Her heart was beating to suffocate her, yet she was strong andunrelenting.
'When was I in a fearful state?' he asked.
'When you first came to me. I HAD to take pity on you. But it was neverlove.'
It was that statement 'It was never love,' which sounded in his earswith madness.
'Why must you repeat it so often, that there is no love?' he said in avoice strangled with rage.
'Well you don't THINK you love, do you?' she asked.
He was silent with cold passion of anger.
'You don't think you CAN love me, do you?' she repeated almost with asneer.
'No,' he said.
'You know you never HAVE loved me, don't you?'
'I don't know what you mean by the word 'love,' he replied.
'Yes, you do. You know all right that you have never loved me. Haveyou, do you think?'
'No,' he said, prompted by some barren spirit of truthfulness andobstinacy.
'And you never WILL love me,' she said finally, 'will you?'
There was a diabolic coldness in her, too much to bear.
'No,' he said.
'Then,' she replied, 'what have you against me!'
He was silent in cold, frightened rage and despair. 'If only I couldkill her,' his heart was whispering repeatedly. 'If only I could killher--I should be free.'
It seemed to him that death was the only severing of this Gordian knot.
'Why do you torture me?' he said.
She flung her arms round his neck.
'Ah, I don't want to torture you,' she said pityingly, as if she werecomforting a child. The impertinence made his veins go cold, he wasinsensible. She held her arms round his neck, in a triumph of pity. Andher pity for him was as cold as stone, its deepest motive was hate ofhim, and fear of his power over her, which she must always counterfoil.
'Say you love me,' she pleaded. 'Say you will love me for ever--won'tyou--won't you?'
But it was her voice only that coaxed him. Her senses were entirelyapart from him, cold and destructive of him. It was her overbearingWILL that insisted.
'Won't you say you'll love me always?' she coaxed. 'Say it, even if itisn't true--say it Gerald, do.'
'I will love you always,' he repeated, in real agony, forcing the wordsout.
She gave him a quick kiss.
'Fancy your actually having said it,' she said with a touch ofraillery.
He stood as if he had been beaten.
'Try to love me a little more, and to want me a little less,' she said,in a half contemptuous, half coaxing tone.
The darkness seemed to be swaying in waves across his mind, great wavesof darkness plunging across his mind. It seemed to him he was degradedat the very quick, made of no account.
'You mean you don't want me?' he said.
'You are so insistent, and there is so little grace in you, so littlefineness. You are so crude. You break me--you only waste me--it ishorrible to me.'
'Horrible to you?' he repeated.
'Yes. Don't you think I might have a room to myself, now Ursula hasgone? You can say you want a dressing room.'
'You do as you like--you can leave altogether if you like,' he managedto articulate.
'Yes, I know that,' she replied. 'So can you. You can leave me wheneveryou like--without notice even.'
The great tides of darkness were swinging across his mind, he couldhardly stand upright. A terrible weariness overcame him, he felt hemust lie on the floor. Dropping off his clothes, he got into bed, andlay like a man suddenly overcome by drunkenness, the darkness liftingand plunging as if he were lying upon a black, giddy sea. He lay stillin this strange, horrific reeling for some time, purely unconscious.
At length she slipped from her own bed and came over to him. Heremained rigid, his back to her. He was all but unconscious.
She put her arms round his terrifying, insentient body, and laid hercheek against his hard shoulder.
'Gerald,' she whispered. 'Gerald.'
There was no change in him. She caught him against her. She pressed herbreasts against his shoulders, she kissed his shoulder, through thesleeping jacket. Her mind wondered, over his rigid, unliving body. Shewas bewildered, and insistent, only her will was set for him to speakto her.
'Gerald, my dear!' she whispered, bending over him, kissing his ear.
Her warm breath playing, flying rhythmically over his ear, seemed torelax the tension. She could feel his body gradually relaxing a little,losing its terrifying, unnatural rigidity. Her hands clutched hislimbs, his muscles, going over him spasmodically.
The hot blood began to flow again through his veins, his limbs relaxed.
'Turn round to me,' she whispered, forlorn with insistence and triumph.
So at last he was given again, warm and flexible. He turned andgathered her in his arms. And feeling her soft against him, soperfectly and wondrously soft and recipient, his arms tightened on her.She was as if crushed, powerless in him. His brain seemed hard andinvincible now like a jewel, there was no resisting him.
His passion was awful to her, tense and ghastly, and impersonal, like adestruction, ultimate. She felt it would kill her. She was beingkilled.
'My God, my God,' she cried, in anguish, in his embrace, feeling herlife being killed within her. And when he was kissing her, soothingher, her breath came slowly, as if she were really spent, dying.
'Shall I die, shall I die?' she repeated to herself.
And in the night, and in him, there was no answer to the question.
And yet, next day, the fragment of her which was not destroyed remainedintact and hostile, she did not go away, she remained to finish theholiday, admitting nothing. He scarcely ever left her alone, butfollowed her like a shadow, he was like a doom upon her, a continual'thou shalt,' 'thou shalt not.' Sometimes it was he who seemedstrongest, whist she was almost gone, creeping near the earth like aspent wind; sometimes it was the reverse. But always it was thiseternal see-saw, one destroyed that the other might exist, one ratifiedbecause the other was nulled.
'In the end,' she said to herself, 'I shall go away from him.'
'I can be free of her,' he said to himself in his paroxysms ofsuffering.
And he set himself to be free. He even prepared to go away, to leaveher in the lurch. But for the first time there was a flaw in his will.
'Where shall I go?' he asked himself.
'Can't you be self-sufficient?' he replied to himself, putting himselfupon his pride.
'Self-sufficient!' he repeated.
It seemed to him that Gudrun was sufficient unto herself, closed roundand completed, like a thing in a case. In the calm, static reason ofhis soul, he recognised this, and admitted it was her right, to beclosed round upon herself, self-complete, without desire. He realisedit, he admitted it, it only needed one last effort on his own part, towin for himself the same completeness. He knew that it only needed oneconvulsion of his will for him to be able to turn upon himself also, toclose upon himself as a stone fixes upon itself, and is impervious,self-completed, a thing isolated.
This knowledge threw him into a terrible chaos. Because, however muchhe might mentally WILL to be immune and self-complete, the desire forthis state was lacking, and he could not create it. He could see that,to exist at all, he must be perfectly free of Gudrun, leave her if shewanted to be left, demand nothing of her, have no claim upon her.
But then, to have no claim upon her, he must stand by himself, in sheernothingness. And his brain turned to nought at the idea. It was a stateof nothingness. On the other hand, he might give in, and fawn to her.Or, finally, he might kill her. Or he might become just indifferent,purposeless, dissipated, momentaneous. But his nature was too serious,not gay enough or subtle enough for mocking licentiousness.
A strange rent had been torn in him; like a victim that is torn openand given to the heavens, so he had been torn apart and given toGudrun. How should he close again? This wound, this strange,infinitely-sensitive opening of his soul, where he was exposed, like anopen flower, to all the universe, and in which he was given to hiscomplement, the other, the unknown, this wound, this disclosure, thisunfolding of his own covering, leaving him incomplete, limited,unfinished, like an open flower under the sky, this was his cruellestjoy. Why then should he forego it? Why should he close up and becomeimpervious, immune, like a partial thing in a sheath, when he hadbroken forth, like a seed that has germinated, to issue forth in being,embracing the unrealised heavens.
He would keep the unfinished bliss of his own yearning even through thetorture she inflicted upon him. A strange obstinacy possessed him. Hewould not go away from her whatever she said or did. A strange, deathlyyearning carried him along with her. She was the determinatinginfluence of his very being, though she treated him with contempt,repeated rebuffs, and denials, still he would never be gone, since inbeing near her, even, he felt the quickening, the going forth in him,the release, the knowledge of his own limitation and the magic of thepromise, as well as the mystery of his own destruction andannihilation.
She tortured the open heart of him even as he turned to her. And shewas tortured herself. It may have been her will was stronger. She felt,with horror, as if he tore at the bud of her heart, tore it open, likean irreverent persistent being. Like a boy who pulls off a fly's wings,or tears open a bud to see what is in the flower, he tore at herprivacy, at her very life, he would destroy her as an immature bud,torn open, is destroyed.
She might open towards him, a long while hence, in her dreams, when shewas a pure spirit. But now she was not to be violated and ruined. Sheclosed against him fiercely.
They climbed together, at evening, up the high slope, to see thesunset. In the finely breathing, keen wind they stood and watched theyellow sun sink in crimson and disappear. Then in the east the peaksand ridges glowed with living rose, incandescent like immortal flowersagainst a brown-purple sky, a miracle, whilst down below the world wasa bluish shadow, and above, like an annunciation, hovered a rosytransport in mid-air.
To her it was so beautiful, it was a delirium, she wanted to gather theglowing, eternal peaks to her breast, and die. He saw them, saw theywere beautiful. But there arose no clamour in his breast, only abitterness that was visionary in itself. He wished the peaks were greyand unbeautiful, so that she should not get her support from them. Whydid she betray the two of them so terribly, in embracing the glow ofthe evening? Why did she leave him standing there, with the ice-windblowing through his heart, like death, to gratify herself among therosy snow-tips?
'What does the twilight matter?' he said. 'Why do you grovel before it?Is it so important to you?'
She winced in violation and in fury.
'Go away,' she cried, 'and leave me to it. It is beautiful, beautiful,'she sang in strange, rhapsodic tones. 'It is the most beautiful thing Ihave ever seen in my life. Don't try to come between it and me. Takeyourself away, you are out of place--'
He stood back a little, and left her standing there, statue-like,transported into the mystic glowing east. Already the rose was fading,large white stars were flashing out. He waited. He would foregoeverything but the yearning.
'That was the most perfect thing I have ever seen,' she said in cold,brutal tones, when at last she turned round to him. 'It amazes me thatyou should want to destroy it. If you can't see it yourself, why try todebar me?' But in reality, he had destroyed it for her, she wasstraining after a dead effect.
'One day,' he said, softly, looking up at her, 'I shall destroy YOU, asyou stand looking at the sunset; because you are such a liar.'
There was a soft, voluptuous promise to himself in the words. She waschilled but arrogant.
'Ha!' she said. 'I am not afraid of your threats!' She denied herselfto him, she kept her room rigidly private to herself. But he waited on,in a curious patience, belonging to his yearning for her.
'In the end,' he said to himself with real voluptuous promise, 'when itreaches that point, I shall do away with her.' And he trembleddelicately in every limb, in anticipation, as he trembled in his mostviolent accesses of passionate approach to her, trembling with too muchdesire.
She had a curious sort of allegiance with Loerke, all the while, now,something insidious and traitorous. Gerald knew of it. But in theunnatural state of patience, and the unwillingness to harden himselfagainst her, in which he found himself, he took no notice, although hersoft kindliness to the other man, whom he hated as a noxious insect,made him shiver again with an access of the strange shuddering thatcame over him repeatedly.
He left her alone only when he went skiing, a sport he loved, and whichshe did not practise. The he seemed to sweep out of life, to be aprojectile into the beyond. And often, when he went away, she talked tothe little German sculptor. They had an invariable topic, in their art.
They were almost of the same ideas. He hated Mestrovic, was notsatisfied with the Futurists, he liked the West African wooden figures,the Aztec art, Mexican and Central American. He saw the grotesque, anda curious sort of mechanical motion intoxicated him, a confusion innature. They had a curious game with each other, Gudrun and Loerke, ofinfinite suggestivity, strange and leering, as if they had someesoteric understanding of life, that they alone were initiated into thefearful central secrets, that the world dared not know. Their wholecorrespondence was in a strange, barely comprehensible suggestivity,they kindled themselves at the subtle lust of the Egyptians or theMexicans. The whole game was one of subtle inter-suggestivity, and theywanted to keep it on the plane of suggestion. From their verbal andphysical nuances they got the highest satisfaction in the nerves, froma queer interchange of half-suggested ideas, looks, expressions andgestures, which were quite intolerable, though incomprehensible, toGerald. He had no terms in which to think of their commerce, his termswere much too gross.
The suggestion of primitive art was their refuge, and the innermysteries of sensation their object of worship. Art and Life were tothem the Reality and the Unreality.
'Of course,' said Gudrun, 'life doesn't REALLY matter--it is one's artwhich is central. What one does in one's life has PEU DE RAPPORT, itdoesn't signify much.'
'Yes, that is so, exactly,' replied the sculptor. 'What one does inone's art, that is the breath of one's being. What one does in one'slife, that is a bagatelle for the outsiders to fuss about.'
It was curious what a sense of elation and freedom Gudrun found in thiscommunication. She felt established for ever. Of course Gerald wasBAGATELLE. Love was one of the temporal things in her life, except inso far as she was an artist. She thought of Cleopatra--Cleopatra musthave been an artist; she reaped the essential from a man, she harvestedthe ultimate sensation, and threw away the husk; and Mary Stuart, andthe great Rachel, panting with her lovers after the theatre, these werethe exoteric exponents of love. After all, what was the lover but fuelfor the transport of this subtle knowledge, for a female art, the artof pure, perfect knowledge in sensuous understanding.
One evening Gerald was arguing with Loerke about Italy and Tripoli. TheEnglishman was in a strange, inflammable state, the German was excited.It was a contest of words, but it meant a conflict of spirit betweenthe two men. And all the while Gudrun could see in Gerald an arrogantEnglish contempt for a foreigner. Although Gerald was quivering, hiseyes flashing, his face flushed, in his argument there was abrusqueness, a savage contempt in his manner, that made Gudrun's bloodflare up, and made Loerke keen and mortified. For Gerald came down likea sledge-hammer with his assertions, anything the little German saidwas merely contemptible rubbish.
At last Loerke turned to Gudrun, raising his hands in helpless irony, ashrug of ironical dismissal, something appealing and child-like.
'Sehen sie, gnadige Frau-' he began.
'Bitte sagen Sie nicht immer, gnadige Frau,' cried Gudrun, her eyesflashing, her cheeks burning. She looked like a vivid Medusa. Her voicewas loud and clamorous, the other people in the room were startled.
'Please don't call me Mrs Crich,' she cried aloud.
The name, in Loerke's mouth particularly, had been an intolerablehumiliation and constraint upon her, these many days.
The two men looked at her in amazement. Gerald went white at thecheek-bones.
'What shall I say, then?' asked Loerke, with soft, mocking insinuation.
'Sagen Sie nur nicht das,' she muttered, her cheeks flushed crimson.'Not that, at least.'
She saw, by the dawning look on Loerke's face, that he had understood.She was NOT Mrs Crich! So-o-, that explained a great deal.
'Soll ich Fraulein sagen?' he asked, malevolently.
'I am not married,' she said, with some hauteur.
Her heart was fluttering now, beating like a bewildered bird. She knewshe had dealt a cruel wound, and she could not bear it.
Gerald sat erect, perfectly still, his face pale and calm, like theface of a statue. He was unaware of her, or of Loerke or anybody. Hesat perfectly still, in an unalterable calm. Loerke, meanwhile, wascrouching and glancing up from under his ducked head.
Gudrun was tortured for something to say, to relieve the suspense. Shetwisted her face in a smile, and glanced knowingly, almost sneering, atGerald.
'Truth is best,' she said to him, with a grimace.
But now again she was under his domination; now, because she had dealthim this blow; because she had destroyed him, and she did not know howhe had taken it. She watched him. He was interesting to her. She hadlost her interest in Loerke.
Gerald rose at length, and went over in a leisurely still movement, tothe Professor. The two began a conversation on Goethe.
She was rather piqued by the simplicity of Gerald's demeanour thisevening. He did not seem angry or disgusted, only he looked curiouslyinnocent and pure, really beautiful. Sometimes it came upon him, thislook of clear distance, and it always fascinated her.
She waited, troubled, throughout the evening. She thought he wouldavoid her, or give some sign. But he spoke to her simply andunemotionally, as he would to anyone else in the room. A certain peace,an abstraction possessed his soul.
She went to his room, hotly, violently in love with him. He was sobeautiful and inaccessible. He kissed her, he was a lover to her. Andshe had extreme pleasure of him. But he did not come to, he remainedremote and candid, unconscious. She wanted to speak to him. But thisinnocent, beautiful state of unconsciousness that had come upon himprevented her. She felt tormented and dark.
In the morning, however, he looked at her with a little aversion, somehorror and some hatred darkening into his eyes. She withdrew on to herold ground. But still he would not gather himself together, againsther.
Loerke was waiting for her now. The little artist, isolated in his owncomplete envelope, felt that here at last was a woman from whom hecould get something. He was uneasy all the while, waiting to talk withher, subtly contriving to be near her. Her presence filled him withkeenness and excitement, he gravitated cunningly towards her, as if shehad some unseen force of attraction.
He was not in the least doubtful of himself, as regards Gerald. Geraldwas one of the outsiders. Loerke only hated him for being rich andproud and of fine appearance. All these things, however, riches, prideof social standing, handsome physique, were externals. When it came tothe relation with a woman such as Gudrun, he, Loerke, had an approachand a power that Gerald never dreamed of.
How should Gerald hope to satisfy a woman of Gudrun's calibre? Did hethink that pride or masterful will or physical strength would help him?Loerke knew a secret beyond these things. The greatest power is the onethat is subtle and adjusts itself, not one which blindly attacks. Andhe, Loerke, had understanding where Gerald was a calf. He, Loerke,could penetrate into depths far out of Gerald's knowledge. Gerald wasleft behind like a postulant in the ante-room of this temple ofmysteries, this woman. But he Loerke, could he not penetrate into theinner darkness, find the spirit of the woman in its inner recess, andwrestle with it there, the central serpent that is coiled at the coreof life.
What was it, after all, that a woman wanted? Was it mere social effect,fulfilment of ambition in the social world, in the community ofmankind? Was it even a union in love and goodness? Did she want'goodness'? Who but a fool would accept this of Gudrun? This was butthe street view of her wants. Cross the threshold, and you found hercompletely, completely cynical about the social world and itsadvantages. Once inside the house of her soul and there was a pungentatmosphere of corrosion, an inflamed darkness of sensation, and avivid, subtle, critical consciousness, that saw the world distorted,horrific.
What then, what next? Was it sheer blind force of passion that wouldsatisfy her now? Not this, but the subtle thrills of extreme sensationin reduction. It was an unbroken will reacting against her unbrokenwill in a myriad subtle thrills of reduction, the last subtleactivities of analysis and breaking down, carried out in the darknessof her, whilst the outside form, the individual, was utterly unchanged,even sentimental in its poses.
But between two particular people, any two people on earth, the rangeof pure sensational experience is limited. The climax of sensualreaction, once reached in any direction, is reached finally, there isno going on. There is only repetition possible, or the going apart ofthe two protagonists, or the subjugating of the one will to the other,or death.
Gerald had penetrated all the outer places of Gudrun's soul. He was toher the most crucial instance of the existing world, the NE PLUS ULTRAof the world of man as it existed for her. In him she knew the world,and had done with it. Knowing him finally she was the Alexander seekingnew worlds. But there WERE no new worlds, there were no more MEN, therewere only creatures, little, ultimate CREATURES like Loerke. The worldwas finished now, for her. There was only the inner, individualdarkness, sensation within the ego, the obscene religious mystery ofultimate reduction, the mystic frictional activities of diabolicreducing down, disintegrating the vital organic body of life.
All this Gudrun knew in her subconsciousness, not in her mind. She knewher next step-she knew what she should move on to, when she leftGerald. She was afraid of Gerald, that he might kill her. But she didnot intend to be killed. A fine thread still united her to him. Itshould not be HER death which broke it. She had further to go, afurther, slow exquisite experience to reap, unthinkable subtleties ofsensation to know, before she was finished.
Of the last series of subtleties, Gerald was not capable. He could nottouch the quick of her. But where his ruder blows could not penetrate,the fine, insinuating blade of Loerke's insect-like comprehensioncould. At least, it was time for her now to pass over to the other, thecreature, the final craftsman. She knew that Loerke, in his innermostsoul, was detached from everything, for him there was neither heavennor earth nor hell. He admitted no allegiance, he gave no adherenceanywhere. He was single and, by abstraction from the rest, absolute inhimself.
Whereas in Gerald's soul there still lingered some attachment to therest, to the whole. And this was his limitation. He was limited, BORNE,subject to his necessity, in the last issue, for goodness, forrighteousness, for oneness with the ultimate purpose. That the ultimatepurpose might be the perfect and subtle experience of the process ofdeath, the will being kept unimpaired, that was not allowed in him. Andthis was his limitation.
There was a hovering triumph in Loerke, since Gudrun had denied hermarriage with Gerald. The artist seemed to hover like a creature on thewing, waiting to settle. He did not approach Gudrun violently, he wasnever ill-timed. But carried on by a sure instinct in the completedarkness of his soul, he corresponded mystically with her,imperceptibly, but palpably.
For two days, he talked to her, continued the discussions of art, oflife, in which they both found such pleasure. They praised the by-gonethings, they took a sentimental, childish delight in the achievedperfections of the past. Particularly they liked the late eighteenthcentury, the period of Goethe and of Shelley, and Mozart.
They played with the past, and with the great figures of the past, asort of little game of chess, or marionettes, all to please themselves.They had all the great men for their marionettes, and they two were theGod of the show, working it all. As for the future, that they nevermentioned except one laughed out some mocking dream of the destructionof the world by a ridiculous catastrophe of man's invention: a maninvented such a perfect explosive that it blew the earth in two, andthe two halves set off in different directions through space, to thedismay of the inhabitants: or else the people of the world divided intotwo halves, and each half decided IT was perfect and right, the otherhalf was wrong and must be destroyed; so another end of the world. Orelse, Loerke's dream of fear, the world went cold, and snow felleverywhere, and only white creatures, polar-bears, white foxes, and menlike awful white snow-birds, persisted in ice cruelty.
Apart from these stories, they never talked of the future. Theydelighted most either in mocking imaginations of destruction, or insentimental, fine marionette-shows of the past. It was a sentimentaldelight to reconstruct the world of Goethe at Weimar, or of Schillerand poverty and faithful love, or to see again Jean Jacques in hisquakings, or Voltaire at Ferney, or Frederick the Great reading his ownpoetry.
They talked together for hours, of literature and sculpture andpainting, amusing themselves with Flaxman and Blake and Fuseli, withtenderness, and with Feuerbach and Bocklin. It would take them alife-time, they felt to live again, IN PETTO, the lives of the greatartists. But they preferred to stay in the eighteenth and thenineteenth centuries.
They talked in a mixture of languages. The ground-work was French, ineither case. But he ended most of his sentences in a stumble of Englishand a conclusion of German, she skilfully wove herself to her end inwhatever phrase came to her. She took a peculiar delight in thisconversation. It was full of odd, fantastic expression, of doublemeanings, of evasions, of suggestive vagueness. It was a real physicalpleasure to her to make this thread of conversation out of thedifferent-coloured stands of three languages.
And all the while they two were hovering, hesitating round the flame ofsome invisible declaration. He wanted it, but was held back by someinevitable reluctance. She wanted it also, but she wanted to put itoff, to put it off indefinitely, she still had some pity for Gerald,some connection with him. And the most fatal of all, she had thereminiscent sentimental compassion for herself in connection with him.Because of what HAD been, she felt herself held to him by immortal,invisible threads-because of what HAD been, because of his coming toher that first night, into her own house, in his extremity, because--
Gerald was gradually overcome with a revulsion of loathing for Loerke.He did not take the man seriously, he despised him merely, except as hefelt in Gudrun's veins the influence of the little creature. It wasthis that drove Gerald wild, the feeling in Gudrun's veins of Loerke'spresence, Loerke's being, flowing dominant through her.
'What makes you so smitten with that little vermin?' he asked, reallypuzzled. For he, man-like, could not see anything attractive orimportant AT ALL in Loerke. Gerald expected to find some handsomenessor nobleness, to account for a woman's subjection. But he saw nonehere, only an insect-like repulsiveness.
Gudrun flushed deeply. It was these attacks she would never forgive.
'What do you mean?' she replied. 'My God, what a mercy I am NOT marriedto you!'
Her voice of flouting and contempt scotched him. He was brought upshort. But he recovered himself.
'Tell me, only tell me,' he reiterated in a dangerous narrowedvoice--'tell me what it is that fascinates you in him.'
'I am not fascinated,' she said, with cold repelling innocence.
'Yes, you are. You are fascinated by that little dry snake, like a birdgaping ready to fall down its throat.'
She looked at him with black fury.
'I don't choose to be discussed by you,' she said.
'It doesn't matter whether you choose or not,' he replied, 'thatdoesn't alter the fact that you are ready to fall down and kiss thefeet of that little insect. And I don't want to prevent you--do it,fall down and kiss his feet. But I want to know, what it is thatfascinates you--what is it?'
She was silent, suffused with black rage.
'How DARE you come brow-beating me,' she cried, 'how dare you, youlittle squire, you bully. What right have you over me, do you think?'
His face was white and gleaming, she knew by the light in his eyes thatshe was in his power--the wolf. And because she was in his power, shehated him with a power that she wondered did not kill him. In her willshe killed him as he stood, effaced him.
'It is not a question of right,' said Gerald, sitting down on a chair.She watched the change in his body. She saw his clenched, mechanicalbody moving there like an obsession. Her hatred of him was tinged withfatal contempt.
'It's not a question of my right over you--though I HAVE some right,remember. I want to know, I only want to know what it is thatsubjugates you to that little scum of a sculptor downstairs, what it isthat brings you down like a humble maggot, in worship of him. I want toknow what you creep after.'
She stood over against the window, listening. Then she turned round.
'Do you?' she said, in her most easy, most cutting voice. 'Do you wantto know what it is in him? It's because he has some understanding of awoman, because he is not stupid. That's why it is.'
A queer, sinister, animal-like smile came over Gerald's face.
'But what understanding is it?' he said. 'The understanding of a flea,a hopping flea with a proboscis. Why should you crawl abject before theunderstanding of a flea?'
There passed through Gudrun's mind Blake's representation of the soulof a flea. She wanted to fit it to Loerke. Blake was a clown too. Butit was necessary to answer Gerald.
'Don't you think the understanding of a flea is more interesting thanthe understanding of a fool?' she asked.
'A fool!' he repeated.
'A fool, a conceited fool--a Dummkopf,' she replied, adding the Germanword.
'Do you call me a fool?' he replied. 'Well, wouldn't I rather be thefool I am, than that flea downstairs?'
She looked at him. A certain blunt, blind stupidity in him palled onher soul, limiting her.
'You give yourself away by that last,' she said.
He sat and wondered.
'I shall go away soon,' he said.
She turned on him.
'Remember,' she said, 'I am completely independent of you--completely.You make your arrangements, I make mine.'
He pondered this.
'You mean we are strangers from this minute?' he asked.
She halted and flushed. He was putting her in a trap, forcing her hand.She turned round on him.
'Strangers,' she said, 'we can never be. But if you WANT to make anymovement apart from me, then I wish you to know you are perfectly freeto do so. Do not consider me in the slightest.'
Even so slight an implication that she needed him and was depending onhim still was sufficient to rouse his passion. As he sat a change cameover his body, the hot, molten stream mounted involuntarily through hisveins. He groaned inwardly, under its bondage, but he loved it. Helooked at her with clear eyes, waiting for her.
She knew at once, and was shaken with cold revulsion. HOW could he lookat her with those clear, warm, waiting eyes, waiting for her, even now?What had been said between them, was it not enough to put them worldsasunder, to freeze them forever apart! And yet he was all transfusedand roused, waiting for her.
It confused her. Turning her head aside, she said:
'I shall always TELL you, whenever I am going to make any change--'
And with this she moved out of the room.
He sat suspended in a fine recoil of disappointment, that seemedgradually to be destroying his understanding. But the unconscious stateof patience persisted in him. He remained motionless, without thoughtor knowledge, for a long time. Then he rose, and went downstairs, toplay at chess with one of the students. His face was open and clear,with a certain innocent LAISSER-ALLER that troubled Gudrun most, madeher almost afraid of him, whilst she disliked him deeply for it.
It was after this that Loerke, who had never yet spoken to herpersonally, began to ask her of her state.
'You are not married at all, are you?' he asked.
She looked full at him.
'Not in the least,' she replied, in her measured way. Loerke laughed,wrinkling up his face oddly. There was a thin wisp of his hair strayingon his forehead, she noticed that his skin was of a clear brown colour,his hands, his wrists. And his hands seemed closely prehensile. Heseemed like topaz, so strangely brownish and pellucid.
'Good,' he said.
Still it needed some courage for him to go on.
'Was Mrs Birkin your sister?' he asked.
'Yes.'
'And was SHE married?'
'She was married.'
'Have you parents, then?'
'Yes,' said Gudrun, 'we have parents.'
And she told him, briefly, laconically, her position. He watched herclosely, curiously all the while.
'So!' he exclaimed, with some surprise. 'And the Herr Crich, is herich?'
'Yes, he is rich, a coal owner.'
'How long has your friendship with him lasted?'
'Some months.'
There was a pause.
'Yes, I am surprised,' he said at length. 'The English, I thought theywere so--cold. And what do you think to do when you leave here?'
'What do I think to do?' she repeated.
'Yes. You cannot go back to the teaching. No--' he shrugged hisshoulders--'that is impossible. Leave that to the CANAILLE who can donothing else. You, for your part--you know, you are a remarkable woman,eine seltsame Frau. Why deny it--why make any question of it? You arean extraordinary woman, why should you follow the ordinary course, theordinary life?'
Gudrun sat looking at her hands, flushed. She was pleased that he said,so simply, that she was a remarkable woman. He would not say that toflatter her--he was far too self-opinionated and objective by nature.He said it as he would say a piece of sculpture was remarkable, becausehe knew it was so.
And it gratified her to hear it from him. Other people had such apassion to make everything of one degree, of one pattern. In England itwas chic to be perfectly ordinary. And it was a relief to her to beacknowledged extraordinary. Then she need not fret about the commonstandards.
'You see,' she said, 'I have no money whatsoever.'
'Ach, money!' he cried, lifting his shoulders. 'When one is grown up,money is lying about at one's service. It is only when one is youngthat it is rare. Take no thought for money--that always lies to hand.'
'Does it?' she said, laughing.
'Always. The Gerald will give you a sum, if you ask him for it--'
She flushed deeply.
'I will ask anybody else,' she said, with some difficulty--'but nothim.'
Loerke looked closely at her.
'Good,' he said. 'Then let it be somebody else. Only don't go back tothat England, that school. No, that is stupid.'
Again there was a pause. He was afraid to ask her outright to go withhim, he was not even quite sure he wanted her; and she was afraid to beasked. He begrudged his own isolation, was VERY chary of sharing hislife, even for a day.
'The only other place I know is Paris,' she said, 'and I can't standthat.'
She looked with her wide, steady eyes full at Loerke. He lowered hishead and averted his face.
'Paris, no!' he said. 'Between the RELIGION D'AMOUR, and the latest'ism, and the new turning to Jesus, one had better ride on a carrouselall day. But come to Dresden. I have a studio there--I can give youwork,--oh, that would be easy enough. I haven't seen any of yourthings, but I believe in you. Come to Dresden--that is a fine town tobe in, and as good a life as you can expect of a town. You haveeverything there, without the foolishness of Paris or the beer ofMunich.'
He sat and looked at her, coldly. What she liked about him was that hespoke to her simple and flat, as to himself. He was a fellow craftsman,a fellow being to her, first.
'No--Paris,' he resumed, 'it makes me sick. Pah--l'amour. I detest it.L'amour, l'amore, die Liebe--I detest it in every language. Women andlove, there is no greater tedium,' he cried.
She was slightly offended. And yet, this was her own basic feeling.Men, and love--there was no greater tedium.
'I think the same,' she said.
'A bore,' he repeated. 'What does it matter whether I wear this hat oranother. So love. I needn't wear a hat at all, only for convenience.Neither need I love except for convenience. I tell you what, gnadigeFrau--' and he leaned towards her--then he made a quick, odd gesture,as of striking something aside--'gnadige Fraulein, never mind--I tellyou what, I would give everything, everything, all your love, for alittle companionship in intelligence--' his eyes flickered darkly,evilly at her. 'You understand?' he asked, with a faint smile. 'Itwouldn't matter if she were a hundred years old, a thousand--it wouldbe all the same to me, so that she can UNDERSTAND.' He shut his eyeswith a little snap.
Again Gudrun was rather offended. Did he not think her good looking,then? Suddenly she laughed.
'I shall have to wait about eighty years to suit you, at that!' shesaid. 'I am ugly enough, aren't I?'
He looked at her with an artist's sudden, critical, estimating eye.
'You are beautiful,' he said, 'and I am glad of it. But it isn'tthat--it isn't that,' he cried, with emphasis that flattered her. 'Itis that you have a certain wit, it is the kind of understanding. Forme, I am little, chetif, insignificant. Good! Do not ask me to bestrong and handsome, then. But it is the ME--' he put his fingers tohis mouth, oddly--'it is the ME that is looking for a mistress, and myME is waiting for the THEE of the mistress, for the match to myparticular intelligence. You understand?'
'Yes,' she said, 'I understand.'
'As for the other, this amour--' he made a gesture, dashing his handaside, as if to dash away something troublesome--'it is unimportant,unimportant. Does it matter, whether I drink white wine this evening,or whether I drink nothing? IT DOES NOT MATTER, it does not matter. Sothis love, this amour, this BAISER. Yes or no, soit ou soit pas, today,tomorrow, or never, it is all the same, it does not matter--no morethan the white wine.'
He ended with an odd dropping of the head in a desperate negation.Gudrun watched him steadily. She had gone pale.
Suddenly she stretched over and seized his hand in her own.
'That is true,' she said, in rather a high, vehement voice, 'that istrue for me too. It is the understanding that matters.'
He looked up at her almost frightened, furtive. Then he nodded, alittle sullenly. She let go his hand: he had made not the lightestresponse. And they sat in silence.
'Do you know,' he said, suddenly looking at her with dark,self-important, prophetic eyes, 'your fate and mine, they will runtogether, till--' and he broke off in a little grimace.
'Till when?' she asked, blanched, her lips going white. She wasterribly susceptible to these evil prognostications, but he only shookhis head.
'I don't know,' he said, 'I don't know.'
Gerald did not come in from his skiing until nightfall, he missed thecoffee and cake that she took at four o'clock. The snow was in perfectcondition, he had travelled a long way, by himself, among the snowridges, on his skis, he had climbed high, so high that he could seeover the top of the pass, five miles distant, could see theMarienhutte, the hostel on the crest of the pass, half buried in snow,and over into the deep valley beyond, to the dusk of the pine trees.One could go that way home; but he shuddered with nausea at the thoughtof home;--one could travel on skis down there, and come to the oldimperial road, below the pass. But why come to any road? He revolted atthe thought of finding himself in the world again. He must stay upthere in the snow forever. He had been happy by himself, high up therealone, travelling swiftly on skis, taking far flights, and skimmingpast the dark rocks veined with brilliant snow.
But he felt something icy gathering at his heart. This strange mood ofpatience and innocence which had persisted in him for some days, waspassing away, he would be left again a prey to the horrible passionsand tortures.
So he came down reluctantly, snow-burned, snow-estranged, to the housein the hollow, between the knuckles of the mountain tops. He saw itslights shining yellow, and he held back, wishing he need not go in, toconfront those people, to hear the turmoil of voices and to feel theconfusion of other presences. He was isolated as if there were a vacuumround his heart, or a sheath of pure ice.
The moment he saw Gudrun something jolted in his soul. She was lookingrather lofty and superb, smiling slowly and graciously to the Germans.A sudden desire leapt in his heart, to kill her. He thought, what aperfect voluptuous fulfilment it would be, to kill her. His mind wasabsent all the evening, estranged by the snow and his passion. But hekept the idea constant within him, what a perfect voluptuousconsummation it would be to strangle her, to strangle every spark oflife out of her, till she lay completely inert, soft, relaxed for ever,a soft heap lying dead between his hands, utterly dead. Then he wouldhave had her finally and for ever; there would be such a perfectvoluptuous finality.
Gudrun was unaware of what he was feeling, he seemed so quiet andamiable, as usual. His amiability even made her feel brutal towardshim.
She went into his room when he was partially undressed. She did notnotice the curious, glad gleam of pure hatred, with which he looked ather. She stood near the door, with her hand behind her.
'I have been thinking, Gerald,' she said, with an insultingnonchalance, 'that I shall not go back to England.'
'Oh,' he said, 'where will you go then?'
But she ignored his question. She had her own logical statement tomake, and it must be made as she had thought it.
'I can't see the use of going back,' she continued. 'It is over betweenme and you--'
She paused for him to speak. But he said nothing. He was only talkingto himself, saying 'Over, is it? I believe it is over. But it isn'tfinished. Remember, it isn't finished. We must put some sort of afinish on it. There must be a conclusion, there must be finality.'
So he talked to himself, but aloud he said nothing whatever.
'What has been, has been,' she continued. 'There is nothing that Iregret. I hope you regret nothing--'
She waited for him to speak.
'Oh, I regret nothing,' he said, accommodatingly.
'Good then,' she answered, 'good then. Then neither of us cherishes anyregrets, which is as it should be.'
'Quite as it should be,' he said aimlessly.
She paused to gather up her thread again.
'Our attempt has been a failure,' she said. 'But we can try again,elsewhere.'
A little flicker of rage ran through his blood. It was as if she wererousing him, goading him. Why must she do it?
'Attempt at what?' he asked.
'At being lovers, I suppose,' she said, a little baffled, yet sotrivial she made it all seem.
'Our attempt at being lovers has been a failure?' he repeated aloud.
To himself he was saying, 'I ought to kill her here. There is only thisleft, for me to kill her.' A heavy, overcharged desire to bring abouther death possessed him. She was unaware.
'Hasn't it?' she asked. 'Do you think it has been a success?'
Again the insult of the flippant question ran through his blood like acurrent of fire.
'It had some of the elements of success, our relationship,' he replied.'It--might have come off.'
But he paused before concluding the last phrase. Even as he began thesentence, he did not believe in what he was going to say. He knew itnever could have been a success.
'No,' she replied. 'You cannot love.'
'And you?' he asked.
Her wide, dark-filled eyes were fixed on him, like two moons ofdarkness.
'I couldn't love YOU,' she said, with stark cold truth.
A blinding flash went over his brain, his body jolted. His heart hadburst into flame. His consciousness was gone into his wrists, into hishands. He was one blind, incontinent desire, to kill her. His wristswere bursting, there would be no satisfaction till his hands had closedon her.
But even before his body swerved forward on her, a sudden, cunningcomprehension was expressed on her face, and in a flash she was out ofthe door. She ran in one flash to her room and locked herself in. Shewas afraid, but confident. She knew her life trembled on the edge of anabyss. But she was curiously sure of her footing. She knew her cunningcould outwit him.
She trembled, as she stood in her room, with excitement and awfulexhilaration. She knew she could outwit him. She could depend on herpresence of mind, and on her wits. But it was a fight to the death, sheknew it now. One slip, and she was lost. She had a strange, tense,exhilarated sickness in her body, as one who is in peril of fallingfrom a great height, but who does not look down, does not admit thefear.
'I will go away the day after tomorrow,' she said.
She only did not want Gerald to think that she was afraid of him, thatshe was running away because she was afraid of him. She was not afraidof him, fundamentally. She knew it was her safeguard to avoid hisphysical violence. But even physically she was not afraid of him. Shewanted to prove it to him. When she had proved it, that, whatever hewas, she was not afraid of him; when she had proved THAT, she couldleave him forever. But meanwhile the fight between them, terrible asshe knew it to be, was inconclusive. And she wanted to be confident inherself. However many terrors she might have, she would be unafraid,uncowed by him. He could never cow her, nor dominate her, nor have anyright over her; this she would maintain until she had proved it. Onceit was proved, she was free of him forever.
But she had not proved it yet, neither to him nor to herself. And thiswas what still bound her to him. She was bound to him, she could notlive beyond him. She sat up in bed, closely wrapped up, for many hours,thinking endlessly to herself. It was as if she would never have doneweaving the great provision of her thoughts.
'It isn't as if he really loved me,' she said to herself. 'He doesn't.Every woman he comes across he wants to make her in love with him. Hedoesn't even know that he is doing it. But there he is, before everywoman he unfurls his male attractiveness, displays his greatdesirability, he tries to make every woman think how wonderful it wouldbe to have him for a lover. His very ignoring of the women is part ofthe game. He is never UNCONSCIOUS of them. He should have been acockerel, so he could strut before fifty females, all his subjects. Butreally, his Don Juan does NOT interest me. I could play Dona Juanita amillion times better than he plays Juan. He bores me, you know. Hismaleness bores me. Nothing is so boring, so inherently stupid andstupidly conceited. Really, the fathomless conceit of these men, it isridiculous--the little strutters.
'They are all alike. Look at Birkin. Built out of the limitation ofconceit they are, and nothing else. Really, nothing but theirridiculous limitation and intrinsic insignificance could make them soconceited.
'As for Loerke, there is a thousand times more in him than in a Gerald.Gerald is so limited, there is a dead end to him. He would grind on atthe old mills forever. And really, there is no corn between themillstones any more. They grind on and on, when there is nothing togrind--saying the same things, believing the same things, acting thesame things. Oh, my God, it would wear out the patience of a stone.
'I don't worship Loerke, but at any rate, he is a free individual. Heis not stiff with conceit of his own maleness. He is not grindingdutifully at the old mills. Oh God, when I think of Gerald, and hiswork--those offices at Beldover, and the mines--it makes my heart sick.What HAVE I to do with it--and him thinking he can be a lover to awoman! One might as well ask it of a self-satisfied lamp-post. Thesemen, with their eternal jobs--and their eternal mills of God that keepon grinding at nothing! It is too boring, just boring. However did Icome to take him seriously at all!
'At least in Dresden, one will have one's back to it all. And therewill be amusing things to do. It will be amusing to go to theseeurythmic displays, and the German opera, the German theatre. It WILLbe amusing to take part in German Bohemian life. And Loerke is anartist, he is a free individual. One will escape from so much, that isthe chief thing, escape so much hideous boring repetition of vulgaractions, vulgar phrases, vulgar postures. I don't delude myself that Ishall find an elixir of life in Dresden. I know I shan't. But I shallget away from people who have their own homes and their own childrenand their own acquaintances and their own this and their own that. Ishall be among people who DON'T own things and who HAVEN'T got a homeand a domestic servant in the background, who haven't got a standingand a status and a degree and a circle of friends of the same. Oh God,the wheels within wheels of people, it makes one's head tick like aclock, with a very madness of dead mechanical monotony andmeaninglessness. How I HATE life, how I hate it. How I hate theGeralds, that they can offer one nothing else.
'Shortlands!--Heavens! Think of living there, one week, then the next,and THEN THE THIRD--'
'No, I won't think of it--it is too much.'
And she broke off, really terrified, really unable to bear any more.
The thought of the mechanical succession of day following day, dayfollowing day, AD INFINITUM, was one of the things that made her heartpalpitate with a real approach of madness. The terrible bondage of thistick-tack of time, this twitching of the hands of the clock, thiseternal repetition of hours and days--oh God, it was too awful tocontemplate. And there was no escape from it, no escape.
She almost wished Gerald were with her to save her from the terror ofher own thoughts. Oh, how she suffered, lying there alone, confrontedby the terrible clock, with its eternal tick-tack. All life, all liferesolved itself into this: tick-tack, tick-tack, tick-tack; then thestriking of the hour; then the tick-tack, tick-tack, and the twitchingof the clock-fingers.
Gerald could not save her from it. He, his body, his motion, hislife--it was the same ticking, the same twitching across the dial, ahorrible mechanical twitching forward over the face of the hours. Whatwere his kisses, his embraces. She could hear their tick-tack,tick-tack.
Ha--ha--she laughed to herself, so frightened that she was trying tolaugh it off--ha--ha, how maddening it was, to be sure, to be sure!
Then, with a fleeting self-conscious motion, she wondered if she wouldbe very much surprised, on rising in the morning, to realise that herhair had turned white. She had FELT it turning white so often, underthe intolerable burden of her thoughts, und her sensations. Yet thereit remained, brown as ever, and there she was herself, looking apicture of health.
Perhaps she was healthy. Perhaps it was only her unabateable healththat left her so exposed to the truth. If she were sickly she wouldhave her illusions, imaginations. As it was, there was no escape. Shemust always see and know and never escape. She could never escape.There she was, placed before the clock-face of life. And if she turnedround as in a railway station, to look at the bookstall, still shecould see, with her very spine, she could see the clock, always thegreat white clock-face. In vain she fluttered the leaves of books, ormade statuettes in clay. She knew she was not REALLY reading. She wasnot REALLY working. She was watching the fingers twitch across theeternal, mechanical, monotonous clock-face of time. She never reallylived, she only watched. Indeed, she was like a little, twelve-hourclock, vis-a-vis with the enormous clock of eternity--there she was,like Dignity and Impudence, or Impudence and Dignity.
The picture pleased her. Didn't her face really look like a clockdial--rather roundish and often pale, and impassive. She would have gotup to look, in the mirror, but the thought of the sight of her ownface, that was like a twelve-hour clock-dial, filled her with such deepterror, that she hastened to think of something else.
Oh, why wasn't somebody kind to her? Why wasn't there somebody whowould take her in their arms, and hold her to their breast, and giveher rest, pure, deep, healing rest. Oh, why wasn't there somebody totake her in their arms and fold her safe and perfect, for sleep. Shewanted so much this perfect enfolded sleep. She lay always sounsheathed in sleep. She would lie always unsheathed in sleep,unrelieved, unsaved. Oh, how could she bear it, this endless unrelief,this eternal unrelief.
Gerald! Could he fold her in his arms and sheathe her in sleep? Ha! Heneeded putting to sleep himself--poor Gerald. That was all he needed.What did he do, he made the burden for her greater, the burden of hersleep was the more intolerable, when he was there. He was an addedweariness upon her unripening nights, her unfruitful slumbers. Perhapshe got some repose from her. Perhaps he did. Perhaps this was what hewas always dogging her for, like a child that is famished, crying forthe breast. Perhaps this was the secret of his passion, his foreverunquenched desire for her--that he needed her to put him to sleep, togive him repose.
What then! Was she his mother? Had she asked for a child, whom she mustnurse through the nights, for her lover. She despised him, she despisedhim, she hardened her heart. An infant crying in the night, this DonJuan.
Ooh, but how she hated the infant crying in the night. She would murderit gladly. She would stifle it and bury it, as Hetty Sorrell did. Nodoubt Hetty Sorrell's infant cried in the night--no doubt ArthurDonnithorne's infant would. Ha--the Arthur Donnithornes, the Geralds ofthis world. So manly by day, yet all the while, such a crying ofinfants in the night. Let them turn into mechanisms, let them. Let thembecome instruments, pure machines, pure wills, that work likeclock-work, in perpetual repetition. Let them be this, let them betaken up entirely in their work, let them be perfect parts of a greatmachine, having a slumber of constant repetition. Let Gerald manage hisfirm. There he would be satisfied, as satisfied as a wheelbarrow thatgoes backwards and forwards along a plank all day--she had seen it.
The wheel-barrow--the one humble wheel--the unit of the firm. Then thecart, with two wheels; then the truck, with four; then thedonkey-engine, with eight, then the winding-engine, with sixteen, andso on, till it came to the miner, with a thousand wheels, and then theelectrician, with three thousand, and the underground manager, withtwenty thousand, and the general manager with a hundred thousand littlewheels working away to complete his make-up, and then Gerald, with amillion wheels and cogs and axles.
Poor Gerald, such a lot of little wheels to his make-up! He was moreintricate than a chronometer-watch. But oh heavens, what weariness!What weariness, God above! A chronometer-watch--a beetle--her soulfainted with utter ennui, from the thought. So many wheels to count andconsider and calculate! Enough, enough--there was an end to man'scapacity for complications, even. Or perhaps there was no end.
Meanwhile Gerald sat in his room, reading. When Gudrun was gone, he wasleft stupefied with arrested desire. He sat on the side of the bed foran hour, stupefied, little strands of consciousness appearing andreappearing. But he did not move, for a long time he remained inert,his head dropped on his breast.
Then he looked up and realised that he was going to bed. He was cold.Soon he was lying down in the dark.
But what he could not bear was the darkness. The solid darknessconfronting him drove him mad. So he rose, and made a light. Heremained seated for a while, staring in front. He did not think ofGudrun, he did not think of anything.
Then suddenly he went downstairs for a book. He had all his life beenin terror of the nights that should come, when he could not sleep. Heknew that this would be too much for him, to have to face nights ofsleeplessness and of horrified watching the hours.
So he sat for hours in bed, like a statue, reading. His mind, hard andacute, read on rapidly, his body understood nothing. In a state ofrigid unconsciousness, he read on through the night, till morning,when, weary and disgusted in spirit, disgusted most of all withhimself, he slept for two hours.
Then he got up, hard and full of energy. Gudrun scarcely spoke to him,except at coffee when she said:
'I shall be leaving tomorrow.'
'We will go together as far as Innsbruck, for appearance's sake?' heasked.
'Perhaps,' she said.
She said 'Perhaps' between the sips of her coffee. And the sound of hertaking her breath in the word, was nauseous to him. He rose quickly tobe away from her.
He went and made arrangements for the departure on the morrow. Then,taking some food, he set out for the day on the skis. Perhaps, he saidto the Wirt, he would go up to the Marienhutte, perhaps to the villagebelow.
To Gudrun this day was full of a promise like spring. She felt anapproaching release, a new fountain of life rising up in her. It gaveher pleasure to dawdle through her packing, it gave her pleasure to dipinto books, to try on her different garments, to look at herself in theglass. She felt a new lease of life was come upon her, and she washappy like a child, very attractive and beautiful to everybody, withher soft, luxuriant figure, and her happiness. Yet underneath was deathitself.
In the afternoon she had to go out with Loerke. Her tomorrow wasperfectly vague before her. This was what gave her pleasure. She mightbe going to England with Gerald, she might be going to Dresden withLoerke, she might be going to Munich, to a girl-friend she had there.Anything might come to pass on the morrow. And today was the white,snowy iridescent threshold of all possibility. All possibility--thatwas the charm to her, the lovely, iridescent, indefinite charm,--pureillusion All possibility--because death was inevitable, and NOTHING waspossible but death.
She did not want things to materialise, to take any definite shape. Shewanted, suddenly, at one moment of the journey tomorrow, to be waftedinto an utterly new course, by some utterly unforeseen event, ormotion. So that, although she wanted to go out with Loerke for the lasttime into the snow, she did not want to be serious or businesslike.
And Loerke was not a serious figure. In his brown velvet cap, that madehis head as round as a chestnut, with the brown-velvet flaps loose andwild over his ears, and a wisp of elf-like, thin black hair blowingabove his full, elf-like dark eyes, the shiny, transparent brown skincrinkling up into odd grimaces on his small-featured face, he looked anodd little boy-man, a bat. But in his figure, in the greeny loden suit,he looked CHETIF and puny, still strangely different from the rest.
He had taken a little toboggan, for the two of them, and they trudgedbetween the blinding slopes of snow, that burned their now hardeningfaces, laughing in an endless sequence of quips and jests and polyglotfancies. The fancies were the reality to both of them, they were bothso happy, tossing about the little coloured balls of verbal humour andwhimsicality. Their natures seemed to sparkle in full interplay, theywere enjoying a pure game. And they wanted to keep it on the level of agame, their relationship: SUCH a fine game.
Loerke did not take the toboganning very seriously. He put no fire andintensity into it, as Gerald did. Which pleased Gudrun. She was weary,oh so weary of Gerald's gripped intensity of physical motion. Loerkelet the sledge go wildly, and gaily, like a flying leaf, and when, at abend, he pitched both her and him out into the snow, he only waited forthem both to pick themselves up unhurt off the keen white ground, to belaughing and pert as a pixie. She knew he would be making ironical,playful remarks as he wandered in hell--if he were in the humour. Andthat pleased her immensely. It seemed like a rising above thedreariness of actuality, the monotony of contingencies.
They played till the sun went down, in pure amusement, careless andtimeless. Then, as the little sledge twirled riskily to rest at thebottom of the slope,
'Wait!' he said suddenly, and he produced from somewhere a largethermos flask, a packet of Keks, and a bottle of Schnapps.
'Oh Loerke,' she cried. 'What an inspiration! What a COMBLE DE JOIEINDEED! What is the Schnapps?'
He looked at it, and laughed.
'Heidelbeer!' he said.
'No! From the bilberries under the snow. Doesn't it look as if it weredistilled from snow. Can you--' she sniffed, and sniffed at thebottle--'can you smell bilberries? Isn't it wonderful? It is exactly asif one could smell them through the snow.'
She stamped her foot lightly on the ground. He kneeled down andwhistled, and put his ear to the snow. As he did so his black eyestwinkled up.
'Ha! Ha!' she laughed, warmed by the whimsical way in which he mockedat her verbal extravagances. He was always teasing her, mocking herways. But as he in his mockery was even more absurd than she in herextravagances, what could one do but laugh and feel liberated.
She could feel their voices, hers and his, ringing silvery like bellsin the frozen, motionless air of the first twilight. How perfect itwas, how VERY perfect it was, this silvery isolation and interplay.
She sipped the hot coffee, whose fragrance flew around them like beesmurmuring around flowers, in the snowy air, she drank tiny sips of theHeidelbeerwasser, she ate the cold, sweet, creamy wafers. How goodeverything was! How perfect everything tasted and smelled and sounded,here in this utter stillness of snow and falling twilight.
'You are going away tomorrow?' his voice came at last.
'Yes.'
There was a pause, when the evening seemed to rise in its silent,ringing pallor infinitely high, to the infinite which was near at hand.
'WOHIN?'
That was the question--WOHIN? Whither? WOHIN? What a lovely word! SheNEVER wanted it answered. Let it chime for ever.
'I don't know,' she said, smiling at him.
He caught the smile from her.
'One never does,' he said.
'One never does,' she repeated.
There was a silence, wherein he ate biscuits rapidly, as a rabbit eatsleaves.
'But,' he laughed, 'where will you take a ticket to?'
'Oh heaven!' she cried. 'One must take a ticket.'
Here was a blow. She saw herself at the wicket, at the railway station.Then a relieving thought came to her. She breathed freely.
'But one needn't go,' she cried.
'Certainly not,' he said.
'I mean one needn't go where one's ticket says.'
That struck him. One might take a ticket, so as not to travel to thedestination it indicated. One might break off, and avoid thedestination. A point located. That was an idea!
'Then take a ticket to London,' he said. 'One should never go there.'
'Right,' she answered.
He poured a little coffee into a tin can.
'You won't tell me where you will go?' he asked.
'Really and truly,' she said, 'I don't know. It depends which way thewind blows.'
He looked at her quizzically, then he pursed up his lips, likeZephyrus, blowing across the snow.
'It goes towards Germany,' he said.
'I believe so,' she laughed.
Suddenly, they were aware of a vague white figure near them. It wasGerald. Gudrun's heart leapt in sudden terror, profound terror. Sherose to her feet.
'They told me where you were,' came Gerald's voice, like a judgment inthe whitish air of twilight.
'MARIA! You come like a ghost,' exclaimed Loerke.
Gerald did not answer. His presence was unnatural and ghostly to them.
Loerke shook the flask--then he held it inverted over the snow. Only afew brown drops trickled out.
'All gone!' he said.
To Gerald, the smallish, odd figure of the German was distinct andobjective, as if seen through field glasses. And he disliked the smallfigure exceedingly, he wanted it removed.
Then Loerke rattled the box which held the biscuits.
'Biscuits there are still,' he said.
And reaching from his seated posture in the sledge, he handed them toGudrun. She fumbled, and took one. He would have held them to Gerald,but Gerald so definitely did not want to be offered a biscuit, thatLoerke, rather vaguely, put the box aside. Then he took up the smallbottle, and held it to the light.
'Also there is some Schnapps,' he said to himself.
Then suddenly, he elevated the battle gallantly in the air, a strange,grotesque figure leaning towards Gudrun, and said:
'Gnadiges Fraulein,' he said, 'wohl--'
There was a crack, the bottle was flying, Loerke had started back, thethree stood quivering in violent emotion.
Loerke turned to Gerald, a devilish leer on his bright-skinned face.
'Well done!' he said, in a satirical demoniac frenzy. 'C'est le sport,sans doute.'
The next instant he was sitting ludicrously in the snow, Gerald's fisthaving rung against the side of his head. But Loerke pulled himselftogether, rose, quivering, looking full at Gerald, his body weak andfurtive, but his eyes demoniacal with satire.
'Vive le heros, vive--'
But he flinched, as, in a black flash Gerald's fist came upon him,banged into the other side of his head, and sent him aside like abroken straw.
But Gudrun moved forward. She raised her clenched hand high, andbrought it down, with a great downward stroke on to the face and on tothe breast of Gerald.
A great astonishment burst upon him, as if the air had broken. Wide,wide his soul opened, in wonder, feeling the pain. Then it laughed,turning, with strong hands outstretched, at last to take the apple ofhis desire. At last he could finish his desire.
He took the throat of Gudrun between his hands, that were hard andindomitably powerful. And her throat was beautifully, so beautifullysoft, save that, within, he could feel the slippery chords of her life.And this he crushed, this he could crush. What bliss! Oh what bliss, atlast, what satisfaction, at last! The pure zest of satisfaction filledhis soul. He was watching the unconsciousness come unto her swollenface, watching the eyes roll back. How ugly she was! What a fulfilment,what a satisfaction! How good this was, oh how good it was, what aGod-given gratification, at last! He was unconscious of her fightingand struggling. The struggling was her reciprocal lustful passion inthis embrace, the more violent it became, the greater the frenzy ofdelight, till the zenith was reached, the crisis, the struggle wasoverborne, her movement became softer, appeased.
Loerke roused himself on the snow, too dazed and hurt to get up. Onlyhis eyes were conscious.
'Monsieur!' he said, in his thin, roused voice: 'Quand vous aurezfini--'
A revulsion of contempt and disgust came over Gerald's soul. Thedisgust went to the very bottom of him, a nausea. Ah, what was hedoing, to what depths was he letting himself go! As if he cared abouther enough to kill her, to have her life on his hands!
A weakness ran over his body, a terrible relaxing, a thaw, a decay ofstrength. Without knowing, he had let go his grip, and Gudrun hadfallen to her knees. Must he see, must he know?
A fearful weakness possessed him, his joints were turned to water. Hedrifted, as on a wind, veered, and went drifting away.
'I didn't want it, really,' was the last confession of disgust in hissoul, as he drifted up the slope, weak, finished, only sheering offunconsciously from any further contact. 'I've had enough--I want to goto sleep. I've had enough.' He was sunk under a sense of nausea.
He was weak, but he did not want to rest, he wanted to go on and on, tothe end. Never again to stay, till he came to the end, that was all thedesire that remained to him. So he drifted on and on, unconscious andweak, not thinking of anything, so long as he could keep in action.
The twilight spread a weird, unearthly light overhead, bluish-rose incolour, the cold blue night sank on the snow. In the valley below,behind, in the great bed of snow, were two small figures: Gudrundropped on her knees, like one executed, and Loerke sitting propped upnear her. That was all.
Gerald stumbled on up the slope of snow, in the bluish darkness, alwaysclimbing, always unconsciously climbing, weary though he was. On hisleft was a steep slope with black rocks and fallen masses of rock andveins of snow slashing in and about the blackness of rock, veins ofsnow slashing vaguely in and about the blackness of rock. Yet there wasno sound, all this made no noise.
To add to his difficulty, a small bright moon shone brilliantly justahead, on the right, a painful brilliant thing that was always there,unremitting, from which there was no escape. He wanted so to come tothe end--he had had enough. Yet he did not sleep.
He surged painfully up, sometimes having to cross a slope of blackrock, that was blown bare of snow. Here he was afraid of falling, verymuch afraid of falling. And high up here, on the crest, moved a windthat almost overpowered him with a sleep-heavy iciness. Only it was nothere, the end, and he must still go on. His indefinite nausea would notlet him stay.
Having gained one ridge, he saw the vague shadow of something higher infront. Always higher, always higher. He knew he was following the tracktowards the summit of the slopes, where was the marienhutte, and thedescent on the other side. But he was not really conscious. He onlywanted to go on, to go on whilst he could, to move, to keep going, thatwas all, to keep going, until it was finished. He had lost all hissense of place. And yet in the remaining instinct of life, his feetsought the track where the skis had gone.
He slithered down a sheer snow slope. That frightened him. He had noalpenstock, nothing. But having come safely to rest, he began to walkon, in the illuminated darkness. It was as cold as sleep. He wasbetween two ridges, in a hollow. So he swerved. Should he climb theother ridge, or wander along the hollow? How frail the thread of hisbeing was stretched! He would perhaps climb the ridge. The snow wasfirm and simple. He went along. There was something standing out of thesnow. He approached, with dimmest curiosity.
It was a half-buried Crucifix, a little Christ under a little slopinghood, at the top of a pole. He sheered away. Somebody was going tomurder him. He had a great dread of being murdered. But it was a dreadwhich stood outside him, like his own ghost.
Yet why be afraid? It was bound to happen. To be murdered! He lookedround in terror at the snow, the rocking, pale, shadowy slopes of theupper world. He was bound to be murdered, he could see it. This was themoment when the death was uplifted, and there was no escape.
Lord Jesus, was it then bound to be--Lord Jesus! He could feel the blowdescending, he knew he was murdered. Vaguely wandering forward, hishands lifted as if to feel what would happen, he was waiting for themoment when he would stop, when it would cease. It was not over yet.
He had come to the hollow basin of snow, surrounded by sheer slopes andprecipices, out of which rose a track that brought one to the top ofthe mountain. But he wandered unconsciously, till he slipped and felldown, and as he fell something broke in his soul, and immediately hewent to sleep.