Women in Love

In Beldover, there was both for Ursula and for Gudrun an interval. It

seemed to Ursula as if Birkin had gone out of her for the time, he had

lost his significance, he scarcely mattered in her world. She had her

own friends, her own activities, her own life. She turned back to the

old ways with zest, away from him.

And Gudrun, after feeling every moment in all her veins conscious of

Gerald Crich, connected even physically with him, was now almost

indifferent to the thought of him. She was nursing new schemes for

going away and trying a new form of life. All the time, there was

something in her urging her to avoid the final establishing of a

relationship with Gerald. She felt it would be wiser and better to have

no more than a casual acquaintance with him.

She had a scheme for going to St Petersburg, where she had a friend who

was a sculptor like herself, and who lived with a wealthy Russian whose

hobby was jewel-making. The emotional, rather rootless life of the

Russians appealed to her. She did not want to go to Paris. Paris was

dry, and essentially boring. She would like to go to Rome, Munich,

Vienna, or to St Petersburg or Moscow. She had a friend in St

Petersburg and a friend in Munich. To each of these she wrote, asking

about rooms.

She had a certain amount of money. She had come home partly to save,

and now she had sold several pieces of work, she had been praised in

various shows. She knew she could become quite the 'go' if she went to

London. But she knew London, she wanted something else. She had seventy

pounds, of which nobody knew anything. She would move soon, as soon as

she heard from her friends. Her nature, in spite of her apparent

placidity and calm, was profoundly restless.

The sisters happened to call in a cottage in Willey Green to buy honey.

Mrs Kirk, a stout, pale, sharp-nosed woman, sly, honied, with something

shrewish and cat-like beneath, asked the girls into her toocosy, too

tidy kitchen. There was a cat-like comfort and cleanliness everywhere.

'Yes, Miss Brangwen,' she said, in her slightly whining, insinuating

voice, 'and how do you like being back in the old place, then?' Gudrun, whom she addressed, hated her at once.

'I don't care for it,' she replied abruptly.

'You don't? Ay, well, I suppose you found a difference from London. You

like life, and big, grand places. Some of us has to be content with

Willey Green and Beldover. And what do you think of our Grammar School,

as there's so much talk about?' 'What do I think of it?' Gudrun looked round at her slowly. 'Do you

mean, do I think it's a good school?' 'Yes. What is your opinion of it?' 'I DO think it's a good school.' Gudrun was very cold and repelling. She knew the common people hated

the school.