Women in Love

'Will you take what you want from the sideboard?' said Alexander, in a

voice slightly suggesting disapprobation. 'I hope the things aren't

cold. Oh no! Do you mind putting out the flame under the chafingdish,

Rupert? Thank you.' Even Alexander was rather authoritative where Hermione was cool. He

took his tone from her, inevitably. Birkin sat down and looked at the

table. He was so used to this house, to this room, to this atmosphere,

through years of intimacy, and now he felt in complete opposition to it

all, it had nothing to do with him. How well he knew Hermione, as she

sat there, erect and silent and somewhat bemused, and yet so potent, so

powerful! He knew her statically, so finally, that it was almost like a

madness. It was difficult to believe one was not mad, that one was not

a figure in the hall of kings in some Egyptian tomb, where the dead all

sat immemorial and tremendous. How utterly he knew Joshua Mattheson,

who was talking in his harsh, yet rather mincing voice, endlessly,

endlessly, always with a strong mentality working, always interesting,

and yet always known, everything he said known beforehand, however

novel it was, and clever. Alexander the up-to-date host, so bloodlessly

free-and-easy, Fraulein so prettily chiming in just as she should, the

little Italian Countess taking notice of everybody, only playing her

little game, objective and cold, like a weasel watching everything, and

extracting her own amusement, never giving herself in the slightest;

then Miss Bradley, heavy and rather subservient, treated with cool,

almost amused contempt by Hermione, and therefore slighted by

everybody--how known it all was, like a game with the figures set out,

the same figures, the Queen of chess, the knights, the pawns, the same

now as they were hundreds of years ago, the same figures moving round

in one of the innumerable permutations that make up the game. But the

game is known, its going on is like a madness, it is so exhausted.

There was Gerald, an amused look on his face; the game pleased him.

There was Gudrun, watching with steady, large, hostile eyes; the game

fascinated her, and she loathed it. There was Ursula, with a slightly

startled look on her face, as if she were hurt, and the pain were just

outside her consciousness.

Suddenly Birkin got up and went out.

'That's enough,' he said to himself involuntarily.

Hermione knew his motion, though not in her consciousness. She lifted

her heavy eyes and saw him lapse suddenly away, on a sudden, unknown

tide, and the waves broke over her. Only her indomitable will remained

static and mechanical, she sat at the table making her musing, stray

remarks. But the darkness had covered her, she was like a ship that has

gone down. It was finished for her too, she was wrecked in the

darkness. Yet the unfailing mechanism of her will worked on, she had

that activity.