Women in Love

Whatever life might be, it could not take away death, the inhuman

transcendent death. Oh, let us ask no question of it, what it is or is

not. To know is human, and in death we do not know, we are not human.

And the joy of this compensates for all the bitterness of knowledge and

the sordidness of our humanity. In death we shall not be human, and we

shall not know. The promise of this is our heritage, we look forward

like heirs to their majority.

Ursula sat quite still and quite forgotten, alone by the fire in the

drawing-room. The children were playing in the kitchen, all the others

were gone to church. And she was gone into the ultimate darkness of her

own soul.

She was startled by hearing the bell ring, away in the kitchen, the

children came scudding along the passage in delicious alarm.

'Ursula, there's somebody.' 'I know. Don't be silly,' she replied. She too was startled, almost

frightened. She dared hardly go to the door.

Birkin stood on the threshold, his rain-coat turned up to his ears. He

had come now, now she was gone far away. She was aware of the rainy

night behind him.

'Oh is it you?' she said.

'I am glad you are at home,' he said in a low voice, entering the

house.

'They are all gone to church.' He took off his coat and hung it up. The children were peeping at him

round the corner.

'Go and get undressed now, Billy and Dora,' said Ursula. 'Mother will

be back soon, and she'll be disappointed if you're not in bed.' The children, in a sudden angelic mood, retired without a word. Birkin

and Ursula went into the drawing-room.

The fire burned low. He looked at her and wondered at the luminous

delicacy of her beauty, and the wide shining of her eyes. He watched

from a distance, with wonder in his heart, she seemed transfigured with

light.

'What have you been doing all day?' he asked her.

'Only sitting about,' she said.

He looked at her. There was a change in her. But she was separate from

him. She remained apart, in a kind of brightness. They both sat silent

in the soft light of the lamp. He felt he ought to go away again, he

ought not to have come. Still he did not gather enough resolution to

move. But he was DE TROP, her mood was absent and separate.

Then there came the voices of the two children calling shyly outside

the door, softly, with self-excited timidity: 'Ursula! Ursula!' She rose and opened the door. On the threshold stood the two children

in their long nightgowns, with wide-eyed, angelic faces. They were

being very good for the moment, playing the role perfectly of two

obedient children.