Women in Love

'And one must be willing to suffer--willing to suffer for him hourly,

daily--if you are going to help him, if he is to keep true to anything

at all--' 'And I don't WANT to suffer hourly and daily,' said Ursula. 'I don't, I

should be ashamed. I think it is degrading not to be happy.' Hermione stopped and looked at her a long time.

'Do you?' she said at last. And this utterance seemed to her a mark of

Ursula's far distance from herself. For to Hermione suffering was the

greatest reality, come what might. Yet she too had a creed of

happiness.

'Yes,' she said. 'One SHOULD be happy--' But it was a matter of will.

'Yes,' said Hermione, listlessly now, 'I can only feel that it would be

disastrous, disastrous--at least, to marry in a hurry. Can't you be

together without marriage? Can't you go away and live somewhere without

marriage? I do feel that marriage would be fatal, for both of you. I

think for you even more than for him--and I think of his health--' 'Of course,' said Ursula, 'I don't care about marriage--it isn't really

important to me--it's he who wants it.' 'It is his idea for the moment,' said Hermione, with that weary

finality, and a sort of SI JEUNESSE SAVAIT infallibility.

There was a pause. Then Ursula broke into faltering challenge.

'You think I'm merely a physical woman, don't you?' 'No indeed,' said Hermione. 'No, indeed! But I think you are vital and

young--it isn't a question of years, or even of experience--it is

almost a question of race. Rupert is race-old, he comes of an old

race--and you seem to me so young, you come of a young, inexperienced

race.' 'Do I!' said Ursula. 'But I think he is awfully young, on one side.' 'Yes, perhaps childish in many respects. Nevertheless--' They both lapsed into silence. Ursula was filled with deep resentment

and a touch of hopelessness. 'It isn't true,' she said to herself,

silently addressing her adversary. 'It isn't true. And it is YOU who

want a physically strong, bullying man, not I. It is you who want an

unsensitive man, not I. You DON'T know anything about Rupert, not

really, in spite of the years you have had with him. You don't give him

a woman's love, you give him an ideal love, and that is why he reacts

away from you. You don't know. You only know the dead things. Any

kitchen maid would know something about him, you don't know. What do

you think your knowledge is but dead understanding, that doesn't mean a

thing. You are so false, and untrue, how could you know anything? What

is the good of your talking about love--you untrue spectre of a woman!

How can you know anything, when you don't believe? You don't believe in

yourself and your own womanhood, so what good is your conceited,

shallow cleverness--!' The two women sat on in antagonistic silence. Hermione felt injured,

that all her good intention, all her offering, only left the other

woman in vulgar antagonism. But then, Ursula could not understand,

never would understand, could never be more than the usual jealous and

unreasonable female, with a good deal of powerful female emotion,

female attraction, and a fair amount of female understanding, but no

mind. Hermione had decided long ago that where there was no mind, it

was useless to appeal for reason--one had merely to ignore the

ignorant. And Rupert--he had now reacted towards the strongly female,

healthy, selfish woman--it was his reaction for the time being--there

was no helping it all. It was all a foolish backward and forward, a

violent oscillation that would at length be too violent for his

coherency, and he would smash and be dead. There was no saving him.

This violent and directionless reaction between animalism and spiritual

truth would go on in him till he tore himself in two between the

opposite directions, and disappeared meaninglessly out of life. It was

no good--he too was without unity, without MIND, in the ultimate stages

of living; not quite man enough to make a destiny for a woman.