Women in Love

'But,' she objected, 'you'd be dead yourself, so what good would it do

you?' 'I would die like a shot, to know that the earth would really be

cleaned of all the people. It is the most beautiful and freeing

thought. Then there would NEVER be another foul humanity created, for a

universal defilement.' 'No,' said Ursula, 'there would be nothing.' 'What! Nothing? Just because humanity was wiped out? You flatter

yourself. There'd be everything.' 'But how, if there were no people?' 'Do you think that creation depends on MAN! It merely doesn't. There

are the trees and the grass and birds. I much prefer to think of the

lark rising up in the morning upon a human-less world. Man is a

mistake, he must go. There is the grass, and hares and adders, and the

unseen hosts, actual angels that go about freely when a dirty humanity

doesn't interrupt them--and good pure-tissued demons: very nice.' It pleased Ursula, what he said, pleased her very much, as a phantasy.

Of course it was only a pleasant fancy. She herself knew too well the

actuality of humanity, its hideous actuality. She knew it could not

disappear so cleanly and conveniently. It had a long way to go yet, a

long and hideous way. Her subtle, feminine, demoniacal soul knew it

well.

'If only man was swept off the face of the earth, creation would go on

so marvellously, with a new start, non-human. Man is one of the

mistakes of creation--like the ichthyosauri. If only he were gone

again, think what lovely things would come out of the liberated

days;--things straight out of the fire.' 'But man will never be gone,' she said, with insidious, diabolical

knowledge of the horrors of persistence. 'The world will go with him.' 'Ah no,' he answered, 'not so. I believe in the proud angels and the

demons that are our fore-runners. They will destroy us, because we are

not proud enough. The ichthyosauri were not proud: they crawled and

floundered as we do. And besides, look at elder-flowers and

bluebells--they are a sign that pure creation takes place--even the

butterfly. But humanity never gets beyond the caterpillar stage--it

rots in the chrysalis, it never will have wings. It is anti-creation,

like monkeys and baboons.' Ursula watched him as he talked. There seemed a certain impatient fury

in him, all the while, and at the same time a great amusement in

everything, and a final tolerance. And it was this tolerance she

mistrusted, not the fury. She saw that, all the while, in spite of

himself, he would have to be trying to save the world. And this

knowledge, whilst it comforted her heart somewhere with a little

self-satisfaction, stability, yet filled her with a certain sharp

contempt and hate of him. She wanted him to herself, she hated the

Salvator Mundi touch. It was something diffuse and generalised about

him, which she could not stand. He would behave in the same way, say

the same things, give himself as completely to anybody who came along,

anybody and everybody who liked to appeal to him. It was despicable, a

very insidious form of prostitution.