Women in Love

Ursula's face closed, she completed herself against them all. Recoiling

upon herself, she became hard and self-completed, like a jewel. She was

bright and invulnerable, quite free and happy, perfectly liberated in

her self-possession. Her father had to learn not to see her blithe

obliviousness, or it would have sent him mad. She was so radiant with

all things, in her possession of perfect hostility.

She would go on now for days like this, in this bright frank state of

seemingly pure spontaneity, so essentially oblivious of the existence

of anything but herself, but so ready and facile in her interest. Ah it

was a bitter thing for a man to be near her, and her father cursed his

fatherhood. But he must learn not to see her, not to know.

She was perfectly stable in resistance when she was in this state: so

bright and radiant and attractive in her pure opposition, so very pure,

and yet mistrusted by everybody, disliked on every hand. It was her

voice, curiously clear and repellent, that gave her away. Only Gudrun

was in accord with her. It was at these times that the intimacy between

the two sisters was most complete, as if their intelligence were one.

They felt a strong, bright bond of understanding between them,

surpassing everything else. And during all these days of blind bright

abstraction and intimacy of his two daughters, the father seemed to

breathe an air of death, as if he were destroyed in his very being. He

was irritable to madness, he could not rest, his daughters seemed to be

destroying him. But he was inarticulate and helpless against them. He

was forced to breathe the air of his own death. He cursed them in his

soul, and only wanted, that they should be removed from him.

They continued radiant in their easy female transcendancy, beautiful to

look at. They exchanged confidences, they were intimate in their

revelations to the last degree, giving each other at last every secret.

They withheld nothing, they told everything, till they were over the

border of evil. And they armed each other with knowledge, they

extracted the subtlest flavours from the apple of knowledge. It was

curious how their knowledge was complementary, that of each to that of

the other.

Ursula saw her men as sons, pitied their yearning and admired their

courage, and wondered over them as a mother wonders over her child,

with a certain delight in their novelty. But to Gudrun, they were the

opposite camp. She feared them and despised them, and respected their

activities even overmuch.

'Of course,' she said easily, 'there is a quality of life in Birkin

which is quite remarkable. There is an extraordinary rich spring of

life in him, really amazing, the way he can give himself to things. But

there are so many things in life that he simply doesn't know. Either he

is not aware of their existence at all, or he dismisses them as merely

negligible--things which are vital to the other person. In a way, he is

not clever enough, he is too intense in spots.' 'Yes,' cried Ursula, 'too much of a preacher. He is really a priest.' 'Exactly! He can't hear what anybody else has to say--he simply cannot

hear. His own voice is so loud.' 'Yes. He cries you down.' 'He cries you down,' repeated Gudrun. 'And by mere force of violence.

And of course it is hopeless. Nobody is convinced by violence. It makes

talking to him impossible--and living with him I should think would be

more than impossible.' 'You don't think one could live with him' asked Ursula.