Women in Love

When they arrived back at the house, Hermione stood on the lawn and

sang out, in a strange, small, high voice that carried very far: 'Rupert! Rupert!' The first syllable was high and slow, the second

dropped down. 'Roo-o-opert.' But there was no answer. A maid appeared.

'Where is Mr Birkin, Alice?' asked the mild straying voice of Hermione.

But under the straying voice, what a persistent, almost insane WILL!

'I think he's in his room, madam.' 'Is he?' Hermione went slowly up the stairs, along the corridor, singing out in

her high, small call: 'Ru-oo-pert! Ru-oo pert!' She came to his door, and tapped, still crying: 'Roo-pert.' 'Yes,' sounded his voice at last.

'What are you doing?' The question was mild and curious.

There was no answer. Then he opened the door.

'We've come back,' said Hermione. 'The daffodils are SO beautiful.' 'Yes,' he said, 'I've seen them.' She looked at him with her long, slow, impassive look, along her

cheeks.

'Have you?' she echoed. And she remained looking at him. She was

stimulated above all things by this conflict with him, when he was like

a sulky boy, helpless, and she had him safe at Breadalby. But

underneath she knew the split was coming, and her hatred of him was

subconscious and intense.

'What were you doing?' she reiterated, in her mild, indifferent tone.

He did not answer, and she made her way, almost unconsciously into his

room. He had taken a Chinese drawing of geese from the boudoir, and was

copying it, with much skill and vividness.

'You are copying the drawing,' she said, standing near the table, and

looking down at his work. 'Yes. How beautifully you do it! You like it

very much, don't you?' 'It's a marvellous drawing,' he said.

'Is it? I'm so glad you like it, because I've always been fond of it.

The Chinese Ambassador gave it me.' 'I know,' he said.

'But why do you copy it?' she asked, casual and sing-song. 'Why not do

something original?' 'I want to know it,' he replied. 'One gets more of China, copying this

picture, than reading all the books.' 'And what do you get?' She was at once roused, she laid as it were violent hands on him, to

extract his secrets from him. She MUST know. It was a dreadful tyranny,

an obsession in her, to know all he knew. For some time he was silent,

hating to answer her. Then, compelled, he began: 'I know what centres they live from--what they perceive and feel--the

hot, stinging centrality of a goose in the flux of cold water and

mud--the curious bitter stinging heat of a goose's blood, entering

their own blood like an inoculation of corruptive fire--fire of the

cold-burning mud--the lotus mystery.' Hermione looked at him along her narrow, pallid cheeks. Her eyes were

strange and drugged, heavy under their heavy, drooping lids. Her thin

bosom shrugged convulsively. He stared back at her, devilish and

unchanging. With another strange, sick convulsion, she turned away, as

if she were sick, could feel dissolution setting-in in her body. For

with her mind she was unable to attend to his words, he caught her, as

it were, beneath all her defences, and destroyed her with some

insidious occult potency.