Her heart beat fast, she flew away on wings of elation, imagining a
future. He would be a Napoleon of peace, or a Bismarck--and she the
woman behind him. She had read Bismarck's letters, and had been deeply
moved by them. And Gerald would be freer, more dauntless than Bismarck.
But even as she lay in fictitious transport, bathed in the strange,
false sunshine of hope in life, something seemed to snap in her, and a
terrible cynicism began to gain upon her, blowing in like a wind.
Everything turned to irony with her: the last flavour of everything was
ironical. When she felt her pang of undeniable reality, this was when
she knew the hard irony of hopes and ideas.
She lay and looked at him, as he slept. He was sheerly beautiful, he
was a perfect instrument. To her mind, he was a pure, inhuman, almost
superhuman instrument. His instrumentality appealed so strongly to her,
she wished she were God, to use him as a tool.
And at the same instant, came the ironical question: 'What for?' She
thought of the colliers' wives, with their linoleum and their lace
curtains and their little girls in high-laced boots. She thought of the
wives and daughters of the pit-managers, their tennis-parties, and
their terrible struggles to be superior each to the other, in the
social scale. There was Shortlands with its meaningless distinction,
the meaningless crowd of the Criches. There was London, the House of
Commons, the extant social world. My God!
Young as she was, Gudrun had touched the whole pulse of social England.
She had no ideas of rising in the world. She knew, with the perfect
cynicism of cruel youth, that to rise in the world meant to have one
outside show instead of another, the advance was like having a spurious
half-crown instead of a spurious penny. The whole coinage of valuation
was spurious. Yet of course, her cynicism knew well enough that, in a
world where spurious coin was current, a bad sovereign was better than
a bad farthing. But rich and poor, she despised both alike.
Already she mocked at herself for her dreams. They could be fulfilled
easily enough. But she recognised too well, in her spirit, the mockery
of her own impulses. What did she care, that Gerald had created a
richly-paying industry out of an old worn-out concern? What did she
care? The worn-out concern and the rapid, splendidly organised
industry, they were bad money. Yet of course, she cared a great deal,
outwardly--and outwardly was all that mattered, for inwardly was a bad
joke.
Everything was intrinsically a piece of irony to her. She leaned over
Gerald and said in her heart, with compassion: 'Oh, my dear, my dear, the game isn't worth even you. You are a fine
thing really--why should you be used on such a poor show!' Her heart was breaking with pity and grief for him. And at the same
moment, a grimace came over her mouth, of mocking irony at her own
unspoken tirade. Ah, what a farce it was! She thought of Parnell and
Katherine O'Shea. Parnell! After all, who can take the nationalisation
of Ireland seriously? Who can take political Ireland really seriously,
whatever it does? And who can take political England seriously? Who
can? Who can care a straw, really, how the old patched-up Constitution
is tinkered at any more? Who cares a button for our national ideas, any
more than for our national bowler hat? Aha, it is all old hat, it is
all old bowler hat!