Women in Love

Meanwhile Gerald sat in his room, reading. When Gudrun was gone, he was

left stupefied with arrested desire. He sat on the side of the bed for

an hour, stupefied, little strands of consciousness appearing and

reappearing. But he did not move, for a long time he remained inert,

his head dropped on his breast.

Then he looked up and realised that he was going to bed. He was cold.

Soon he was lying down in the dark.

But what he could not bear was the darkness. The solid darkness

confronting him drove him mad. So he rose, and made a light. He

remained seated for a while, staring in front. He did not think of

Gudrun, he did not think of anything.

Then suddenly he went downstairs for a book. He had all his life been

in terror of the nights that should come, when he could not sleep. He

knew that this would be too much for him, to have to face nights of

sleeplessness and of horrified watching the hours.

So he sat for hours in bed, like a statue, reading. His mind, hard and

acute, read on rapidly, his body understood nothing. In a state of

rigid unconsciousness, he read on through the night, till morning,

when, weary and disgusted in spirit, disgusted most of all with

himself, he slept for two hours.

Then he got up, hard and full of energy. Gudrun scarcely spoke to him,

except at coffee when she said: 'I shall be leaving tomorrow.' 'We will go together as far as Innsbruck, for appearance's sake?' he

asked.

'Perhaps,' she said.

She said 'Perhaps' between the sips of her coffee. And the sound of her

taking her breath in the word, was nauseous to him. He rose quickly to

be away from her.

He went and made arrangements for the departure on the morrow. Then,

taking some food, he set out for the day on the skis. Perhaps, he said

to the Wirt, he would go up to the Marienhutte, perhaps to the village

below.

To Gudrun this day was full of a promise like spring. She felt an

approaching release, a new fountain of life rising up in her. It gave

her pleasure to dawdle through her packing, it gave her pleasure to dip

into books, to try on her different garments, to look at herself in the

glass. She felt a new lease of life was come upon her, and she was

happy like a child, very attractive and beautiful to everybody, with

her soft, luxuriant figure, and her happiness. Yet underneath was death

itself.

In the afternoon she had to go out with Loerke. Her tomorrow was

perfectly vague before her. This was what gave her pleasure. She might

be going to England with Gerald, she might be going to Dresden with

Loerke, she might be going to Munich, to a girl-friend she had there.

Anything might come to pass on the morrow. And today was the white,

snowy iridescent threshold of all possibility. All possibility--that

was the charm to her, the lovely, iridescent, indefinite charm,--pure

illusion All possibility--because death was inevitable, and NOTHING was

possible but death.