Women in Love

'Don't you know whether you are unwell or not, without thinking about

it?' she persisted.

'Not always,' he said coldly.

'But don't you think that's very wicked?' 'Wicked?' 'Yes. I think it's CRIMINAL to have so little connection with your own

body that you don't even know when you are ill.' He looked at her darkly.

'Yes,' he said.

'Why don't you stay in bed when you are seedy? You look perfectly

ghastly.' 'Offensively so?' he asked ironically.

'Yes, quite offensive. Quite repelling.' 'Ah!! Well that's unfortunate.' 'And it's raining, and it's a horrible night. Really, you shouldn't be

forgiven for treating your body like it--you OUGHT to suffer, a man who

takes as little notice of his body as that.' '--takes as little notice of his body as that,' he echoed mechanically.

This cut her short, and there was silence.

The others came in from church, and the two had the girls to face, then

the mother and Gudrun, and then the father and the boy.

'Good-evening,' said Brangwen, faintly surprised. 'Came to see me, did

you?' 'No,' said Birkin, 'not about anything, in particular, that is. The day

was dismal, and I thought you wouldn't mind if I called in.' 'It HAS been a depressing day,' said Mrs Brangwen sympathetically. At

that moment the voices of the children were heard calling from

upstairs: 'Mother! Mother!' She lifted her face and answered mildly

into the distance: 'I shall come up to you in a minute, Doysie.' Then

to Birkin: 'There is nothing fresh at Shortlands, I suppose? Ah,' she

sighed, 'no, poor things, I should think not.' 'You've been over there today, I suppose?' asked the father.

'Gerald came round to tea with me, and I walked back with him. The

house is overexcited and unwholesome, I thought.' 'I should think they were people who hadn't much restraint,' said

Gudrun.

'Or too much,' Birkin answered.

'Oh yes, I'm sure,' said Gudrun, almost vindictively, 'one or the

other.' 'They all feel they ought to behave in some unnatural fashion,' said

Birkin. 'When people are in grief, they would do better to cover their

faces and keep in retirement, as in the old days.' 'Certainly!' cried Gudrun, flushed and inflammable. 'What can be worse

than this public grief--what is more horrible, more false! If GRIEF is

not private, and hidden, what is?' 'Exactly,' he said. 'I felt ashamed when I was there and they were all

going about in a lugubrious false way, feeling they must not be natural

or ordinary.' 'Well--' said Mrs Brangwen, offended at this criticism, 'it isn't so

easy to bear a trouble like that.' And she went upstairs to the children.