Women in Love

'A very great doctor taught me,' she said, addressing Ursula and Gerald

vaguely. 'He told me for instance, that to cure oneself of a bad habit,

one should FORCE oneself to do it, when one would not do it--make

oneself do it--and then the habit would disappear.' 'How do you mean?' said Gerald.

'If you bite your nails, for example. Then, when you don't want to bite

your nails, bite them, make yourself bite them. And you would find the

habit was broken.' 'Is that so?' said Gerald.

'Yes. And in so many things, I have MADE myself well. I was a very

queer and nervous girl. And by learning to use my will, simply by using

my will, I MADE myself right.' Ursula looked all the white at Hermione, as she spoke in her slow,

dispassionate, and yet strangely tense voice. A curious thrill went

over the younger woman. Some strange, dark, convulsive power was in

Hermione, fascinating and repelling.

'It is fatal to use the will like that,' cried Birkin harshly,

'disgusting. Such a will is an obscenity.' Hermione looked at him for a long time, with her shadowed, heavy eyes.

Her face was soft and pale and thin, almost phosphorescent, her jaw was

lean.

'I'm sure it isn't,' she said at length. There always seemed an

interval, a strange split between what she seemed to feel and

experience, and what she actually said and thought. She seemed to catch

her thoughts at length from off the surface of a maelstrom of chaotic

black emotions and reactions, and Birkin was always filled with

repulsion, she caught so infallibly, her will never failed her. Her

voice was always dispassionate and tense, and perfectly confident. Yet

she shuddered with a sense of nausea, a sort of seasickness that always

threatened to overwhelm her mind. But her mind remained unbroken, her

will was still perfect. It almost sent Birkin mad. But he would never,

never dare to break her will, and let loose the maelstrom of her

subconsciousness, and see her in her ultimate madness. Yet he was

always striking at her.

'And of course,' he said to Gerald, 'horses HAVEN'T got a complete

will, like human beings. A horse has no ONE will. Every horse,

strictly, has two wills. With one will, it wants to put itself in the

human power completely--and with the other, it wants to be free, wild.

The two wills sometimes lock--you know that, if ever you've felt a

horse bolt, while you've been driving it.' 'I have felt a horse bolt while I was driving it,' said Gerald, 'but it

didn't make me know it had two wills. I only knew it was frightened.' Hermione had ceased to listen. She simply became oblivious when these

subjects were started.