Women in Love

But then, to have no claim upon her, he must stand by himself, in sheer

nothingness. And his brain turned to nought at the idea. It was a state

of nothingness. On the other hand, he might give in, and fawn to her.

Or, finally, he might kill her. Or he might become just indifferent,

purposeless, dissipated, momentaneous. But his nature was too serious,

not gay enough or subtle enough for mocking licentiousness.

A strange rent had been torn in him; like a victim that is torn open

and given to the heavens, so he had been torn apart and given to

Gudrun. How should he close again? This wound, this strange,

infinitely-sensitive opening of his soul, where he was exposed, like an

open flower, to all the universe, and in which he was given to his

complement, the other, the unknown, this wound, this disclosure, this

unfolding of his own covering, leaving him incomplete, limited,

unfinished, like an open flower under the sky, this was his cruellest

joy. Why then should he forego it? Why should he close up and become

impervious, immune, like a partial thing in a sheath, when he had

broken forth, like a seed that has germinated, to issue forth in being,

embracing the unrealised heavens.

He would keep the unfinished bliss of his own yearning even through the

torture she inflicted upon him. A strange obstinacy possessed him. He

would not go away from her whatever she said or did. A strange, deathly

yearning carried him along with her. She was the determinating

influence of his very being, though she treated him with contempt,

repeated rebuffs, and denials, still he would never be gone, since in

being near her, even, he felt the quickening, the going forth in him,

the release, the knowledge of his own limitation and the magic of the

promise, as well as the mystery of his own destruction and

annihilation.

She tortured the open heart of him even as he turned to her. And she

was tortured herself. It may have been her will was stronger. She felt,

with horror, as if he tore at the bud of her heart, tore it open, like

an irreverent persistent being. Like a boy who pulls off a fly's wings,

or tears open a bud to see what is in the flower, he tore at her

privacy, at her very life, he would destroy her as an immature bud,

torn open, is destroyed.

She might open towards him, a long while hence, in her dreams, when she

was a pure spirit. But now she was not to be violated and ruined. She

closed against him fiercely.