Women in Love

'How strange they are!' said Ursula.

'Children of men,' he said. 'They remind me of Jesus: "The meek shall

inherit the earth."' 'But they aren't the meek,' said Ursula.

'Yes, I don't know why, but they are,' he replied.

They waited for the tramcar. Ursula sat on top and looked out on the

town. The dusk was just dimming the hollows of crowded houses.

'And are they going to inherit the earth?' she said.

'Yes--they.' 'Then what are we going to do?' she asked. 'We're not like them--are

we? We're not the meek?' 'No. We've got to live in the chinks they leave us.' 'How horrible!' cried Ursula. 'I don't want to live in chinks.' 'Don't worry,' he said. 'They are the children of men, they like

market-places and street-corners best. That leaves plenty of chinks.' 'All the world,' she said.

'Ah no--but some room.' The tramcar mounted slowly up the hill, where the ugly winter-grey

masses of houses looked like a vision of hell that is cold and angular.

They sat and looked. Away in the distance was an angry redness of

sunset. It was all cold, somehow small, crowded, and like the end of

the world.

'I don't mind it even then,' said Ursula, looking at the repulsiveness

of it all. 'It doesn't concern me.' 'No more it does,' he replied, holding her hand. 'One needn't see. One

goes one's way. In my world it is sunny and spacious--' 'It is, my love, isn't it?' she cried, hugging near to him on the top

of the tramcar, so that the other passengers stared at them.

'And we will wander about on the face of the earth,' he said, 'and

we'll look at the world beyond just this bit.' There was a long silence. Her face was radiant like gold, as she sat

thinking.

'I don't want to inherit the earth,' she said. 'I don't want to inherit

anything.' He closed his hand over hers.

'Neither do I. I want to be disinherited.' She clasped his fingers closely.

'We won't care about ANYTHING,' she said.

He sat still, and laughed.

'And we'll be married, and have done with them,' she added.

Again he laughed.

'It's one way of getting rid of everything,' she said, 'to get

married.' 'And one way of accepting the whole world,' he added.

'A whole other world, yes,' she said happily.

'Perhaps there's Gerald--and Gudrun--' he said.

'If there is there is, you see,' she said. 'It's no good our worrying.

We can't really alter them, can we?' 'No,' he said. 'One has no right to try--not with the best intentions

in the world.' 'Do you try to force them?' she asked.