Women in Love

'I don't know a bit what is going to happen,' she said. 'I only know we

are going somewhere.' Gudrun waited.

'And you are glad?' she asked.

Ursula meditated for a moment.

'I believe I am VERY glad,' she replied.

But Gudrun read the unconscious brightness on her sister's face, rather

than the uncertain tones of her speech.

'But don't you think you'll WANT the old connection with the

world--father and the rest of us, and all that it means, England and

the world of thought--don't you think you'll NEED that, really to make

a world?' Ursula was silent, trying to imagine.

'I think,' she said at length, involuntarily, 'that Rupert is

right--one wants a new space to be in, and one falls away from the

old.' Gudrun watched her sister with impassive face and steady eyes.

'One wants a new space to be in, I quite agree,' she said. 'But I think

that a new world is a development from this world, and that to isolate

oneself with one other person, isn't to find a new world at all, but

only to secure oneself in one's illusions.' Ursula looked out of the window. In her soul she began to wrestle, and

she was frightened. She was always frightened of words, because she

knew that mere word-force could always make her believe what she did

not believe.

'Perhaps,' she said, full of mistrust, of herself and everybody. 'But,'

she added, 'I do think that one can't have anything new whilst one

cares for the old--do you know what I mean?--even fighting the old is

belonging to it. I know, one is tempted to stop with the world, just to

fight it. But then it isn't worth it.' Gudrun considered herself.

'Yes,' she said. 'In a way, one is of the world if one lives in it. But

isn't it really an illusion to think you can get out of it? After all,

a cottage in the Abruzzi, or wherever it may be, isn't a new world. No,

the only thing to do with the world, is to see it through.' Ursula looked away. She was so frightened of argument.

'But there CAN be something else, can't there?' she said. 'One can see

it through in one's soul, long enough before it sees itself through in

actuality. And then, when one has seen one's soul, one is something

else.' 'CAN one see it through in one's soul?' asked Gudrun. 'If you mean that

you can see to the end of what will happen, I don't agree. I really

can't agree. And anyhow, you can't suddenly fly off on to a new planet,

because you think you can see to the end of this.' Ursula suddenly straightened herself.