Women in Love

When she recovered, her soul was calm and cold, without feeling. The

trucks were still rumbling by, and the man and the mare were still

fighting. But she herself was cold and separate, she had no more

feeling for them. She was quite hard and cold and indifferent.

They could see the top of the hooded guard's-van approaching, the sound

of the trucks was diminishing, there was hope of relief from the

intolerable noise. The heavy panting of the half-stunned mare sounded

automatically, the man seemed to be relaxing confidently, his will

bright and unstained. The guard's-van came up, and passed slowly, the

guard staring out in his transition on the spectacle in the road. And,

through the man in the closed wagon, Gudrun could see the whole scene

spectacularly, isolated and momentary, like a vision isolated in

eternity.

Lovely, grateful silence seemed to trail behind the receding train. How

sweet the silence is! Ursula looked with hatred on the buffers of the

diminishing wagon. The gatekeeper stood ready at the door of his hut,

to proceed to open the gate. But Gudrun sprang suddenly forward, in

front of the struggling horse, threw off the latch and flung the gates

asunder, throwing one-half to the keeper, and running with the other

half, forwards. Gerald suddenly let go the horse and leaped forwards,

almost on to Gudrun. She was not afraid. As he jerked aside the mare's

head, Gudrun cried, in a strange, high voice, like a gull, or like a

witch screaming out from the side of the road: 'I should think you're proud.' The words were distinct and formed. The man, twisting aside on his

dancing horse, looked at her in some surprise, some wondering interest.

Then the mare's hoofs had danced three times on the drum-like sleepers

of the crossing, and man and horse were bounding springily, unequally

up the road.

The two girls watched them go. The gate-keeper hobbled thudding over

the logs of the crossing, with his wooden leg. He had fastened the

gate. Then he also turned, and called to the girls: 'A masterful young jockey, that; 'll have his own road, if ever anybody

would.' 'Yes,' cried Ursula, in her hot, overbearing voice. 'Why couldn't he

take the horse away, till the trucks had gone by? He's a fool, and a

bully. Does he think it's manly, to torture a horse? It's a living

thing, why should he bully it and torture it?' There was a pause, then the gate-keeper shook his head, and replied: 'Yes, it's as nice a little mare as you could set eyes on--beautiful

little thing, beautiful. Now you couldn't see his father treat any

animal like that--not you. They're as different as they welly can be,

Gerald Crich and his father--two different men, different made.' Then there was a pause.