 CHAPTER IV. Diver. The week passed away. On the Saturday it rained, a soft drizzling rain that held off at times. In one of the intervals Gudrun and Ursula set out for a walk, going towards Willy-Water. The atmosphere was grey and translucent. The birds sang sharply on the young twigs. The earth would be quickening and hastening in growth. The two girls walked swiftly, gladly, because of the soft, subtle rush of morning that filled the wet haze. By the road the black thorn was in blossom, white and wet, its tiny amber grains burning faintly in the white smoke of blossom. Purple twigs were darkly luminous in the grey air. High hedges glowed like living shadows, hovering nearer, coming into creation. The morning was full of a new creation. When the sisters came to Willy-Water, the lake lay all grey and visionary, stretching into the moist, translucent vista of trees and meadow. Fine electric activity and sound came from the dumbbells below the road. The birds piping one against the other, and water mysteriously plashing, issuing from the lake. The two girls drifted swiftly along. In front of them, at the corner of the lake, near the road, was a mossy boat-house under a walnut tree, and a little landing-stage where a boat was moored, wavering like a shadow on the still grey water, below the green decayed poles. All was shadowy with coming summer. From the boat-house, a white figure ran out, frightening in its swift, sharp transit across the old landing-stage. It launched in a white arc through the air. There was a bursting of the water, and among the smooth ripples a swimmer was making out to space in a centre of faintly heaving motion. The whole other world, wet and remote, he had to himself. He could move into the pure translucency of the grey, uncreated water. Gudrun stood by the stone wall, watching. How I envy him, she said in low, desirous tones. Ugh! shivered Ursula. So cold! Yes, but how good, how really fine to swim out there. The sisters stood watching the swimmer move further into the grey, moist, full space of the water, pulsing with his own small, invading motion, and arched over with mist and dim woods. Don't you wish it to a you? asked Gudrun, looking at Ursula. I do, said Ursula, but I'm not sure. It's so wet. No, said Gudrun reluctantly. She stood watching the motion on the bosom of the water, as if fascinated. He, having swum a certain distance, turned round and was swimming on his back, looking along the water at the two girls by the wall. In the faint wash of motion they could see his ruddy face, and could feel him watching them. It is Gerald cry, said Ursula. I know, replied Gudrun. And she stood motionless, gazing over the water at the face which washed up and down on the flood, as he swam steadily. From his separate element he saw them, and he exalted to himself because of his own advantage, his possession of a world to himself. He was immune and perfect. He loved his own vigorous, thrusting motion, and the violent impulse of the very cold water against his limbs, buoying him up. He could see the girls watching him away off, outside, and that pleased him. He lifted his arm from the water in a sign to them. He is waving, said Ursula. Yes, replied Gudrun. They watched him. He waved again with a strange movement of recognition across the difference. Like a nevelung, laughed Ursula. Gudrun said nothing, only stood, still looking over the water. Gerald suddenly turned, and was swimming away swiftly with a side stroke. He was alone now, alone and immune in the middle of the waters, which he had all to himself. He exalted in his isolation in the new element, unquestioned and unconditioned. He was happy, thrusting with his legs and all his body, without bond or connection anywhere, just himself in the watery world. Gudrun envied him almost painfully. Even this momentary possession of pure isolation and fluidity seemed to her so terribly desirable that she felt herself as a damned out there on the high road. God, what it is to be a man, she cried. What? exclaimed Ursula in surprise. The freedom, the liberty, the mobility, cried Gudrun, strangely flushed and brilliant. You're a man, you want to do a thing, you do it. You haven't the thousand obstacles a woman has in front of her. Ursula wondered what was in Gudrun's mind to occasion this outburst. She could not understand. What do you want to do? she asked. Nothing cried Gudrun in swift refutation. But supposing I did. Supposing I want to swim up that water, it's impossible. It's one of the impossibilities of life for me to take my clothes off now and jump in. But isn't it ridiculous? Doesn't it simply prevent our living? She was so hot, so flushed, so furious that Ursula was puzzled. The two sisters went on up the road. They were passing between the trees just below Shortlands. They looked up at the long, low house, dim and glamorous in the wet morning. Its cedar trees slanting before the windows. Gudrun seemed to be studying it closely. Don't you think it's attractive, Ursula? asked Gudrun. Very, said Ursula, very peaceful and charming. It has form too. It has a period. What period? Oh, eighteenth century for certain. Dorothy Wordsworth and Jane Austen, don't you think? Ursula laughed. Don't you think so? repeated Gudrun. Perhaps, but I don't think the cries fit the period. I know Gerald is putting in a private electric plant for lighting the house and is making all kinds of latest improvements. Gudrun shrugged her shoulders swiftly. Of course, she said, that's quite inevitable. Quite, laughed Ursula. He is several generations of youngness at one go. They hate him for it. He takes them all by the scruff of the neck and fairly flings them along. He'll have to die soon when he's made every possible improvement and there will be nothing more to improve. He's got go anyhow. Certainly he's got go, said Gudrun. In fact, I've never seen a man that showed signs of so much. The unfortunate thing is, where does he go, go to? What becomes of it? Oh, I know, said Ursula. It goes in applying the latest appliances. Exactly, said Gudrun. You know, he shot his brother, said Ursula. Shot his brother? cried Gudrun, frowning as if in disapprobation. Didn't you know? Oh yes, I thought you knew. He and his brother were playing together with a gun. He told his brother to look down the gun and it was loaded and blew the top of his head off. Isn't it a horrible story? How fearful! cried Gudrun. But it is long ago. Oh yes, they were quite boys, said Ursula. I think it is one of the most horrible stories I know. And he, of course, did not know that the gun was loaded. Yes. You see, it was an old thing that had been lying in the stable for years. Nobody dreamed it would ever go off. And of course no one imagined it was loaded. But isn't it dreadful that it should happen? Frightful! cried Gudrun. And isn't it horrible, too, to think of such a thing happening to one when one was a child? And having to carry the responsibility of it all through one's life? Imagine it. Two boys playing together. Then this comes upon them for no reason whatever out of the air. Ursula, it's very frightening. Oh, it's one of the things I can't bear. Murder that is thinkable because there's a will behind it. But a thing like that happened to one. Perhaps there was an unconscious will behind it, said Ursula. This playing at killing has some primitive desire for killing in it, don't you think? Desire, said Gudrun coldly, stiffening a little. I can't see that they were even playing at killing. I suppose one boy said to the other, you look down the barrel while I pull the trigger and see what happens. It seems to me the purest form of accident. No, said Ursula. I couldn't pull the trigger of the emptiest gun in the world, not if someone were looking down the barrel. One instinctively doesn't do it, one can't. Gudrun was silent for some moments, in sharp disagreement. Of course, she said coldly, if one is a woman and grown up, one's instinct prevents one. But I cannot see how that applies to a couple of boys playing together. Her voice was cold and angry. Yes, persisted Ursula. At that moment they heard a woman's voice a few yards off, say loudly, Oh, damn the thing! They went forward and saw Laura cry and Hermione rodded in the field on the other side of the hedge, and Laura cried struggling with the gate to get out. Ursula at once hurried up and helped to lift the gate. Thanks so much! said Laura, looking up flushed and Amazon-like, yet rather confused. It isn't right on the hinges. No, said Ursula, and they're so heavy. Surprising! cried Laura. How do you do? sang Hermione from out of the field the moment she could make her voice heard. It's nice now, you're going for a walk. Yes, isn't the young green beautiful, so beautiful, quite burning. Good morning, good morning. You'll come and see me. Thank you so much. Next week, yes, goodbye, goodbye. Gudrun and Ursula stood and watched her slowly waving her head up and down, and waving her hand slowly in dismissal, smiling a strange affected smile, making a tall, queer, frightening figure with her heavy, fair hair slipping to her eyes. Then they moved off, as if they had been dismissed like in theories. The four women parted. As soon as they had gone far enough, Ursula said, her cheeks burning, I do think she's impudent. Oh, Hermione Roddis, asked Gudrun, why? The way she treats one, impudence. Why, Ursula, what did you notice that was so impudent? asked Gudrun rather coldly. Her whole manner. Oh, it's impossible. The way she tries to bully one. Pure bullying. She's an impudent woman. You'll come and see me, as if we should be falling over ourselves for the privilege. I can't understand, Ursula, what you have so much put out about, said Gudrun in some exasperation. One knows these women are impudent. These free women who have emancipated themselves from the aristocracy. But it is so unnecessary. So vulgar, cried Ursula. No, I don't see it. And if I did, pour moi elle n'existe pas. I don't grant her the power to be impudent to me. Do you think she likes you? asked Ursula. Well, no, I shouldn't think she did. Then why does she ask you to go to Bredelby and stay with her? Gudrun lifted her shoulders in a low shrug. After all, she's got the sense to know we're not just the ordinary run, said Gudrun. Whatever she is, she's not a fool. And I'd rather have somebody I detested than the ordinary woman who keeps to her own set. Hermione Roddis does risk herself in some respects. Ursula pondered this for a time. I doubt it, she replied. Really, she risks nothing. I suppose we ought to admire her for knowing she can invite us schoolteachers and risk nothing. Precisely, said Gudrun. She's the myriads of women that don't do it. She makes the most of her privileges, that's something. I suppose really we should do the same in her place. No, said Ursula. No, it would bore me. I couldn't spend my time playing her games. It's infra-dig. The two sisters were like a pair of scissors, snipping off everything that came a-thwart them. Or like a knife and a whetstone, the one sharpened against the other. She cried Ursula suddenly. She ought to thank her stars if we will go and see her. You are perfectly beautiful, a thousand times more beautiful than ever she is or was, and to my thinking a thousand times more beautifully dressed, for she never looks fresh and natural, like a flower, always old, thought out. And we are more intelligent than most people. Undoubtedly, said Gudrun. And it ought to be admitted simply, said Ursula. Certainly it ought, said Gudrun, but you'll find that the really chic thing is to be so absolutely ordinary, so perfectly commonplace and like the person in the street, that you really are a masterpiece of humanity. Not the person in the street, actually, but the artistic creation of her. How awful! cried Ursula. Yes Ursula, it is awful in most respects. You daren't be anything that isn't amazingly a-tear, so much a-tear, that it is the artistic creation of ordinariness. He is very dull to create one that selfies with nothing better, laughed Ursula. Very dull, retorted Gudrun. Really, Ursula, it is dull, that's just the word. One longs to be high-flown and makes speeches like cornet after it. Gudrun was becoming flushed and excited over her own cleverness. Strut, said Ursula, one wants to strut to be a swan among geese. Exactly! cried Gudrun, a swan among geese. They're all so busy playing the ugly duckling, cried Ursula, with mocking laughter. And I don't feel a bit like a humble and pathetic ugly duckling. I do feel like a swan among geese, I can't help it. They make one feel so. And I don't care what they think of me. Je m'en fiche! Gudrun looked up at Ursula with a queer, uncertain envy and dislike. Of course, the only thing to do is to despise them all, just all, she said. The sisters went home again to read and talk and work, and wait for Monday for school. Ursula often wondered what else she waited for, besides the beginning and end of the school week and the beginning and end of the holidays. This was a whole life. Sometimes she had periods of tight horror, when it seemed to her that her life would pass away and be gone, without having been more than this. But she never really accepted it. Her spirit was active, her life like a chute that is growing steadily, but which has not yet come above ground. End of chapter four, recording by Ruth Golding. Chapter five of Women in Love. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Ruth Golding. Women in Love by D. H. Lawrence. Chapter five. In the train. One day at this time Birkin was called to London. He was not very fixed in his abode. He had rooms in Nottingham, because his work lay chiefly in that town, but often he was in London or in Oxford. He moved about a great deal. His life seemed uncertain, without any definite rhythm, any organic meaning. On the platform of the railway station he saw Gerald Crye reading a newspaper and evidently waiting for the train. Birkin stood some distance off among the people. It was against his instinct to approach anybody. From time to time, in a manner characteristic of him, Gerald lifted his head and looked round. Even though he was reading the newspaper closely, he must keep a watchful eye on his external surroundings. There seemed to be a dual consciousness running in him. He was thinking vigorously of something he read in the newspaper. And at the same time his eye ran over the surfaces of the life round him and he missed nothing. Birkin, who was watching him, was irritated by his duality. He noticed too that Gerald seemed always to be at bay against everybody in spite of his queer, genial social manner when roused. Now Birkin started violently at seeing this genial look flash onto Gerald's face, at seeing Gerald approaching with hand outstretched. Hello, Rupert. Where are you going? London. So are you, I suppose. Yes. Gerald's eyes went over Birkin's face in curiosity. We'll travel together if you like, he said. Don't you usually go first? asked Birkin. I can't stand the crowd, replied Gerald, but third will be all right. There's a restaurant car, we can have some tea. The two men looked at the station clock having nothing further to say. What were you reading in the paper? Birkin asked. Gerald looked at him quickly. Isn't it funny what they do put in the newspapers? he said. Here are two leaders. He held out his daily telegraph. Full of the ordinary newspaper can't. He scanned the columns down. And then there's his little, I don't know what you'd call it, essay almost, appearing with the leaders and saying there must arise a man who'll give new values to things, give us new truths, a new attitude to life, or else we shall be a crumbling nothingness in a few years, a country in ruin. I suppose that's a bit of newspaper can't as well, said Birkin. It sounds as if the man meant it and quite genuinely, said Gerald. Give it to me, said Birkin, holding out his hand for the paper. The train came and they went on board, sitting on either side a little table by the window in the restaurant car. Birkin glanced over his paper, then looked up at Gerald, who was waiting for him. I believe the man means it, he said, as far as he means anything. And do you think it's true? Do you think they really want a new gospel? asked Gerald. Birkin shrugged his shoulders. I think the people who say they want a new religion are the last to accept anything new. They want novelty, right enough, but to stare straight at this life that we've brought upon ourselves and reject it, absolutely smash up the old idols of ourselves that we shall never do. You've got very badly to want to get rid of the old before anything new will appear. Even in the self, Gerald watched him closely. You think we ought to break up this life, just start and let fly? he asked. This life, yes I do. We've got to bust it completely or shrivel inside it, as in a tight skin, for it won't expand any more. There was a queer little smile in Gerald's eyes, a look of amusement, calm and curious. And how do you propose to begin? I suppose you mean reform the whole order of society? he asked. Birkin had a slight tense frown between the brows. He too was impatient of the conversation. I don't propose at all, he replied. When we really want to go for something better, we shall smash the old. Until then, any sort of proposal or making proposals is no more than a tiresome game for self-important people. The little smile began to die out of Gerald's eyes, and he said, looking with a cool stare at Birkin, Say you really think things are very bad? Completely bad. The smile appeared again. In what way? Every way, said Birkin. Such dreary liars. Our one idea is to lie to ourselves. We have an ideal of a perfect world, clean and straight and sufficient, so we cover the earth with foulness. Life is a block of labour, like insects scurrying in filth, so that your collier can have a piano forte in his parlour, and you can have a butler and a motor-car in your up-to-date house, and as a nation we can sport the rits or the empire, Gabby De Lee and the Sunday newspapers. It's very dreary. Gerald took a little time to readjust himself after this tirade. Would you have us live without houses, return to nature? he asked. I would have nothing at all. People only do what they want to do, and what they are capable of doing. If they were capable of anything else, there would be something else. Again Gerald pondered. He was not going to take offence at Birkin. Don't you think the collier's piano forte, as you call it, is a symbol for something very real? A real desire for something higher in the collier's life? Higher? Hire? cried Birkin. Yes, amazing heights of upright grandeur. It makes him so much higher in his neighbouring collier's eyes. He sees himself reflected in the neighbouring opinion, like in a brocken mist, several feet taller on the strengths of the piano forte, and he is satisfied. He lives for the sake of that brocken spectre, the reflection of himself in the human opinion. You do the same. If you are of high importance to humanity, you are of high importance to yourself. That is why you work so hard at the mines. If you can produce coal to cook five thousand dinners a day, you are five thousand times more important than if you cooked only your own dinner. I suppose I am, laughed Gerald. Can't you see, said Birkin, that to help my neighbour to eat is no more than eating myself. I eat, thou eatest, he eats, we eat, you eat, they eat. And what then? Why should every man decline the whole verb? First person singular is enough for me. You've got to start with material things, said Gerald. Which statement Birkin ignored? And we've got to live for something. We're not just cattle that can graze and have done with it, said Gerald. Tell me, said Birkin, what do you live for? Gerald's face went baffled. What do I live for? he repeated. I suppose I live to work, to produce something, insofar as I'm a purpose of being. Apart from that I live because I am living. And what's your work? Getting so many more thousands of tons of coal out of the earth every day? And when we've got all the coal we want, and all the plush furniture and piano fortes, and the rabbits are all stewed and eaten, and we're all warm and our bellies are filled, and we're listening to the young lady performing on the piano forte. What then? What then? When you've made a real fair start with your material things. Gerald sat, laughing at the words and the mocking humour of the other man. But he was cogitating too. We haven't got there yet, he replied. A good many people are still waiting for the rabbit in the fire to cook it. So while you get the coal, I must chase the rabbit, said Birkin, mocking at Gerald. Something like that, said Gerald. Birkin watched him narrowly. He saw the perfect good-humoured callousness, even strange glistening malice in Gerald. Glistening through the plausible ethics of productivity. Gerald, he said, I rather hate you. I know you do, said Gerald. Why do you? Birkin mused inscrutably for some minutes. I should like to know if you're conscious of hating me, he said at last. Do you ever consciously detest me, hate me with mystic hate? There are odd moments when I hate you starily. Gerald was rather taken aback, even a little disconcerted. He did not quite know what to say. I may, of course, hate you sometimes, he said. But I'm not aware of it, never acutely aware of it, that is. So much the worse, said Birkin. Gerald watched him with curious eyes. He could not quite make him out. So much the worse, is it? he repeated. There was a silence between the two men for some time as the train ran on. In Birkin's face was a little irritable tension, a sharp knitting of the brows, keen and difficult. Gerald watched him wearily, carefully, rather calculatingly, for he could not decide what he was after. Suddenly Birkin's eyes looked straight and overpowering into those of the other man. What do you think is the aim and object of your life, Gerald? he asked. Again Gerald was taken aback. He could not think what his friend was getting at. Was he poking fun or not? At this moment I couldn't say offhand. He replied with faintly ironic humour. Do you think love is the be-all and the end-all of life? Birkin asked with direct attentive seriousness. Of my own life, said Gerald. Yes, there was a really puzzled pause. I can't say, said Gerald, it hasn't been so far. What has your life been so far? Oh, finding out things for myself and getting experiences and making things go. Birkin knitted his brows like sharply moulded steel. I find, he said, that one needs some one really pure single activity. I should call love a single pure activity, but I don't really love anybody, not now. Have you ever really loved anybody? asked Gerald. Yes and no, replied Birkin. Not finally, said Gerald. Finally, finally no, said Birkin. Nor I, said Gerald. And do you want to, said Birkin? Gerald looked with a long, twinkling, almost sardonic look into the eyes of the other man. I don't know, he said. I do, I want to love, said Birkin. You do? Yes, I want the finality of love. The finality of love, repeated Gerald, and he waited for a moment. Just one woman, he added. The evening light, flooding yellow along the fields, lit up Birkin's face with a tense, abstract steadfastness. Gerald still could not make it out. Yes, one woman, said Birkin. But to Gerald it sounded as if he were insistent rather than confident. I don't believe a woman and nothing but a woman will ever make my life, said Gerald. Not the centre and core of it, the love between you and a woman, asked Birkin. Gerald's eyes narrowed with a queer, dangerous smile as he watched the other man. I never quite feel it that way, he said. You don't. Then where in does life centre for you? I don't know, that's what I want somebody to tell me. As far as I can make out it doesn't centre at all. It's artificially held together by the social mechanism. Birkin pondered as if he would crack something. I know, he said. It just doesn't centre. The old ideals are dead as nails, nothing there. It seems to me there remains only this perfect union with a woman, sort of ultimate marriage. And there isn't anything else. And you mean if there isn't a woman, there's nothing, said Gerald. Pretty well that, seeing there's no God. Then we're hard put to it, said Gerald. And he turned to look out of the window at the flying golden landscape. Birkin could not help seeing how beautiful and soldierly his face was, with a certain courage to be indifferent. You'd think it's heavy odds against us, said Birkin. If we've got to make our life out of a woman, one woman, woman only, yes I do, said Gerald. I don't believe I shall ever make up my life at that rate. Birkin watched him almost angrily. You were a born unbeliever, he said. I only feel what I feel, said Gerald. And he looked again at Birkin almost sardonically, with his blue manly, sharp-lighted eyes. Birkin's eyes were at the moment full of anger, but swiftly they became troubled, doubtful. Then full of a warm, rich affectionate-ness and laughter. It troubles me very much, Gerald, he said, wrinkling his brows. I can see it does, said Gerald, uncovering his mouth in a manly, quick, soldierly laugh. Gerald was held unconsciously by the other man. He wanted to be near him, he wanted to be within his sphere of influence. There was something very congenial to him in Birkin. But yet, beyond this, he did not take much notice. He felt that he himself, Gerald, had harder and more durable truths than any the other man knew. He felt himself older, more knowing. It was the quick-changing warmth and venality and brilliant warm utterance he loved in his friend. It was the rich play of words and quick interchange of feelings he enjoyed. The real content of the words he never really considered. He himself knew better. Birkin knew that he had never really considered. He knew better. Birkin knew this. He knew that Gerald wanted to be fond of him, without taking him seriously. And this made him go hard and cold. As the train ran on, he sat looking at the land, and Gerald fell away, became as nothing to him. Birkin looked at the land, at the evening, and was thinking, Well, if mankind is destroyed, if our race is destroyed like Sodom, and there is this beautiful evening with the luminous land and trees, I am satisfied. That which informs it all is there, and can never be lost. After all, what is mankind, but just one expression of the incomprehensible? And if mankind passes away, it will only mean that this particular expression is completed and done. That which is expressed, and that which is to be expressed, cannot be diminished. There it is, in the shining evening. Let mankind pass away. Time it did. The creative utterances will not cease, they will only be there. Humanity doesn't embody the utterance of the incomprehensible any more. Humanity is a dead letter. There will be a new embodiment, in a new way. Let humanity disappear, as quick as possible. Gerald interrupted him by asking, Where are you staying in London? Birkin looked up. With a man in Soho, I paid part of the rent of a flat, and stopped there when I like. Good idea, have a place more or less your own, said Gerald. Yes, but I don't care for it much. I'm tired of the people I'm bound to find there. What kind of people? Arts, music, London Bohemia. The most petty-fogging, calculating Bohemia that ever reckoned its pennies. But there are a few decent people, decent in some respects. They are really very thorough rejecters of the world. Perhaps they live only in the gesture of rejection and negation, but negatively something at any rate. What are they? Painters, musicians? Painters, musicians, writers, hangers on, models, advanced young people. Anybody who is openly at outs with the conventions, and belongs to nowhere particularly. They are often young fellows down from the university, and girls who are living their own lives, as they say. All loosed, said Gerald. Birkin could see his curiosity roused. In one way, most bound in another. For all their shockingness, all on one note. He looked at Gerald, and saw how his blue eyes were lit up with a little flame of curious desire. He saw too how good-looking he was. Gerald was attractive. His blood seemed fluid and electric. His blue eyes burned with a keen yet cold light. There was a certain beauty, a beautiful passivity in all his body, his moulding. We might see something of each other. I'm in London for two or three days, said Gerald. Yes, said Birkin. I don't want to go to the theatre or the music hall. You'd better come round to the flat, and see what you can make of Halliday and his crowd. Thanks. I should like to, laughed Gerald. What are you doing tonight? I promised to meet Halliday at the pompadour. It's a bad place, but there's nowhere else. Where is it? asked Gerald. Piccadilly Circus. Oh, yes. Well, shall I come round there? By all means, it might amuse you. The evening was falling. They had passed Bedford. Birkin watched the country, and was filled with a sort of hopelessness. He always felt this on approaching London. His dislike of mankind, of the mass of mankind, amounted almost to an illness. Where the quiet-coloured end of evening smiles miles and miles, he was murmuring to himself, like a man condemned to death. Gerald, who was very subtly alert, wary in all his senses, leaned forward and asked smilingly, What were you saying? Birkin glanced at him, laughed, and repeated, Where the quiet-coloured end of evening smiles miles and miles, over pastures where the something-something sheep half asleep. Gerald also looked now at the country, and Birkin, who for some reason was now tired and dispirited, said to him, I always feel doomed when the train is running into London. I feel such a despair, so hopeless, as if it were the end of the world. Really, said Gerald, and does the end of the world frighten you? Birkin lifted his shoulders in a slow shrug. I don't know, he said. It does, while it hangs imminent and doesn't fall. But people give me a bad feeling. Very bad. There was a roused, glad smile in Gerald's eyes. Do they? he said, and he watched the other man critically. In a few minutes the train was running through the disgrace of outspread London. Everybody in the carriage was on the alert, waiting to escape. At last they were under the huge arch of the station, in the tremendous shadow of the town. Birkin shot himself together. He was in now. The two men went together in a taxi cab. Don't you feel like one of the damned, asked Birkin, as they sat in a little swift-running enclosure, and watched the hideous, great street. No, loved Gerald. It is real death, said Birkin. End of Chapter 5 Recording by Ruth Golding Chapter 6 of Women in Love This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Ruth Golding Women in Love by D. H. Lawrence Chapter 6 They met again in the café several hours later. Gerald went through the pushed doors into the large lofty room, where the faces and heads of the drinkers showed dimly through the haze of smoke. Reflected more dimly, and repeated, add in fornitum in the great mirrors on the walls, so that one seemed to enter a vague, dim world of shadowy drinkers, humming within an atmosphere of blue tobacco smoke. There was, however, the red plush of the seats, to give substance within the bubble of pleasure. Gerald moved in his slow, observant, glistening, attentive motion, down between the tables and the people, whose shadowy faces looked up as he passed. He seemed to be entering in some strange element, passing into an illuminated new region, among a host of licentious souls. He was pleased and entertained. He looked over all the dim, evanescent, strangely illuminated faces that bent across the tables. Then he saw Birkin rise and signal to him. At Birkin's table with a girl with dark, soft, fluffy hair, cut short in the artist fashion, hanging level and full, almost like the Egyptian princesses. She was small and delicately made with warm colouring and large, dark, hostile eyes. There was a delicacy, almost a beauty in all her form, and at the same time a certain attractive grossness of spirit that made a little spark leap instantly alight in Gerald's eyes. Birkin, who looked muted, unreal, his presence left out, introduced her as Miss Darrington. She gave her hand with a sudden, unwilling movement, looking all the while at Gerald with a dark, exposed stare. A glow came over him as he sat down. The waiter appeared. Gerald glanced at the glasses of the other two. Birkin was drinking something green. Miss Darrington had a small liqueur glass that was empty, save for a tiny drop. Won't you have some more? Wandy, she said, sipping her last drop and putting down the glass. The waiter disappeared. No, she said to Birkin. He doesn't know I'm back. He'll be terrified when he sees me here. She spoke her arse like W's, lisping with a slightly babyish pronunciation, which was at once affected and true to her character. Her voice was dull and toneless. Where is he then? asked Birkin. He's doing a private show at Lady Thalgrove, said the girl. Warren's is there too. There was a pause. Well then, said Birkin, in a dispassionate, protective manner, what do you intend to do? The girl paused sullenly. She hated the question. I don't intend to do anything, she replied. I shall look for some sittings tomorrow. Who shall you go to? asked Birkin. I shall go to Bentley first. But I believe he's angry with me for running away. That is, from the Madonna? Yes. And then if he doesn't want me, I know I can get work with Kamarthen. Kamarthen? Lord Kamarthen. He does photographs. Chiffon and shoulders? Yes, but he's awfully decent. There was a pause. And what are you going to do about Julius? he asked. Nothing, she said. I shall just ignore him. You've done with him altogether? But she turned aside her face sullenly and did not answer the question. Another young man came hurrying up to the table. Hello Birkin, hello Pusson, when did you come back? He said eagerly. Today. Does Halliday know? I don't know. I don't care either. Ha ha, the wind still sits in that quarter, does it? Do you mind if I come over to this table? I'm talking to Rupert, do you mind? She replied coolly and yet appealingly like a child. Open confession, good for the soul, eh? said the young man. Well, so long. And giving a sharp look at Birkin and at Gerald, the young man moved off with a swing of his coat skirts. All this time Gerald had been completely ignored and yet he felt that the girl was physically aware of his proximity. He waited, listened and tried to piece together the conversation. Are you staying at the flat? the girl asked of Birkin. For three days, replied Birkin, and you? I don't know yet. I can always go to Berthes. There was a silence. Suddenly the girl turned to Gerald and said in a rather formal, polite voice with the distant manner of a woman who accepts her position as a social inferior yet assumes intimate camaraderie with the mail she addresses. Do you know London well? I can hardly say. He laughed. I've been up a good many times, but I was never in this place before. You're not an artist, then. She said in a tone that placed him an outsider. No, he replied. He's a soldier and an explorer and a Napoleon of industry, said Birkin, giving Gerald his credentials for Bohemia. Are you a soldier? asked the girl with a cold yet lively curiosity. No, I resigned my commission, said Gerald, some years ago. He was in the last war, said Birkin. Were you really? said the girl. And then he explored the Amazon, Birkin, and now he is ruling over coal mines. The girl looked at Gerald with steady calm curiosity. He laughed, hearing himself described. He felt proud, too, full of male strength. His blue keen eyes were lit up with laughter. His ruddy face with its sharp, fair hair was full of satisfaction and glowing with life. He peaked her. How long are you staying? she asked him. A day or two, he replied, but there is no particular hurry. Still she stared into his face with that slow, full gaze which was so curious and so exciting to him. He was acutely and delightfully conscious of himself, of his own attractiveness. He felt full of strength, able to give off a sort of electric power. And he was aware of her dark, hot-looking eyes upon him. She had beautiful eyes, dark, fully opened, hot, naked in their looking at him. And on them there seemed to float a film of disintegration, a sort of misery and sullenness like oil on water. She wore no hat in the heated cafe, her loose, silky, white dress. She wore no hat in the heated cafe. She wore no hat in the heated cafe, her loose, simple jumper was strung on a string round her neck. But it was made of rich, peach-coloured crepe de sheen, that hung heavily and softly from her young throat and her slender wrists. Her appearance was simple and complete, really beautiful, because of her regularity and form, her soft, dark hair falling full and level on either side of her head. Her straight, soft, dark hair with great small, softened features, Egyptian in the slight fullness of their curves, her slender neck and the simple, rich-coloured smock hanging on her slender shoulders. She was very still, almost null in her manner, apart and watchful. She appealed to Gerald strongly. He felt an awful, enjoyable power over her, an instinctive cherishing, very near to cruelty. For she was a victim. He felt that she was in his power and he was generous. The electricity was turgid and voluptuously rich in his limbs. He would be able to destroy her utterly in the strength of his discharge. But she was waiting in her separation, given. They talked banalities for some time. Suddenly Birkin said, there's Julius and he half-rose to his feet, motioning to the newcomer. The girl, with a curious, almost evil motion, looked round over her shoulder without moving her body. Gerald watched her dark, soft hair swing over her ears. He felt her watching intensely the man who was approaching, so he looked too. He saw a pale, full-built young man with rather long, solid, fair hair hanging from under his black hat, moving cumbersly down the room. His face lit up with a smile at once naïve and warm and vapid. He approached towards Birkin with a haste of welcome. It was not till he was quite close that he perceived the girl. He recoiled, went pale, and said in a high, squealing voice, Pozum, what are you doing here? The cafe looked up like animals when they hear a cry. Halliday hung motionless, an almost imbecile smile flickering palely on his face. The girl only stared at him with a black look in which flared an unfathomable hell of knowledge and a certain impotence. She was limited by him. Why have you come back? repeated Halliday in the same high hysterical voice. I told you not to come back! The girl did not answer, only stared in the same viscous, heavy fashion straight at him as he stood recoiled as if for safety. Against the next table. You know you wanted her to come back. Come and sit down, said Birkin to him. No, I didn't want her to come back, and I told her not to come back. What have you come for, Pozum? For nothing from you, she said in a heavy voice of resentment. Then why have you come back at all? cried Halliday, his voice rising to a kind of squeal. She comes as she likes. said Birkin. Are you going to sit down or are you not? No, I won't sit down with Pozum. cried Halliday. I won't hurt you, you needn't be afraid. She said to him, very curtly, and yet with a sort of protectiveness towards him in her voice. Halliday came and sat at the table, putting his hand on his heart and crying. Oh, it's given me such a turn! Pozum, I wish you wouldn't do these things. Why did you come back? Not for anything from you. She repeated. You said that before. He cried in a high voice. She turned completely away from him to Gerald Crye, whose eyes were shining with a subtle amusement. Were you ever very much afraid of the savagery? She asked in her calm, dull, childish voice. No, never very much afraid. Never very much afraid. On the whole they're harmless. They're not born yet. You can't feel really afraid of them. You know you can manage them. Do you really? Aren't they very fierce? Not very. There aren't many fierce things as a matter of fact. There aren't many things, neither people nor animals, that have it in them to be really dangerous. Except in herds, interrupted Birkin. Aren't they really? She said. Oh, I thought savages were all so dangerous. They'd have your life before you could look round. Did you? He laughed. They are overrated savages. They're too much like other people, not exciting after the first acquaintance. Oh, he's not so very wonderfully brave, then, to be an explorer. No, it's more a question of hardships than of terrors. Oh! And weren't you ever afraid? In my life, I don't know. Yes, I'm afraid of some things, of being shut up, locked up anywhere, or being fastened. I'm afraid of being bound hand and foot. She looked at him steadily with her dark eyes, that rested on him and roused him so deeply that it left his upper self quite calm. It was rather delicious to feel her drawing of revelations from him, as from the very innermost dark marrow of his body. She wanted to know and her dark eyes seemed to be looking through into his naked organism. He felt she was compelled to him, she was fated to come into contact with him, must have the seeing him and knowing him. And this roused a curious exultant. Also he felt she must relinquish herself into his hands and be subject to him. She was so profane, slave-like, watching him, absorbed by him. It was not that she was interested in what he said. She was absorbed by his self-revelation, by him. She wanted the secret of him, the experience of his male being. Gerald's face was lit up with an uncanny smile full of light and rouseness, yet unconscious. He sat with his arms on the table, his sun-browned, rather sinister hands that were animal and yet very shapely and attractive, pushed forward towards her. And they fascinated her. And she knew she watched her own fascination. Other men had come to the table to talk with Birkin and Halliday. Gerald said in a low voice, apart to Pussum, where have you come back from? From the country, replied Pussum in a very low, yet fully resonant voice. Her face closed hard. Continually she glanced at Halliday and then a black flare came over her eyes. The heavy, fair young man ignored her completely. He was really afraid of her. For some moments she would be unaware of Gerald. He had not conquered her yet and what has Halliday to do with it? He asked, his voice still muted. She would not answer for some seconds. Then she said unwillingly, He made me go and live with him. And now he wants to swoe me over. And yet he won't let me go to anybody else. He wants me to live hidden in the country. And then he says I persecute him that he can't get rid of me. Doesn't know his own mind, said Gerald. He hasn't any mind, so he can't know it. She said, He waits for what somebody tells him to do. He never does anything he wants to do. Because he doesn't know what he wants. He's a perfect baby. Gerald looked at Halliday for some moments, watching the soft, rather degenerate face of the young man. It's very softness was an attraction. It was a soft, warm, corrupt nature into which one might plunge with gratification. But he has no hold over her, not a shield or a shield, not a shield or a shield, not a shield, not a shield, You see, he made me go and live with him when I didn't want to," she replied. He came and cried to me, tears you never saw so many, saying he couldn't bear it unless I went back to him, and he wouldn't go away, he would have stayed forever. He made me go back, then every time he behaves in this fashion. And now I'm going to have a baby, he wants to give me a hundred pounds, and send me into the country, so that he would never see me, nor hear of me again, but I'm not going to do it after it. A queer look came over Gerald's face. Are you going to have a child? he asked incredulous. It seemed to look at her impossible. She was so young and so far in spirit from any childbearing. She looked full into his face, and her dark, incoate eyes had now a furtive look, and a look of a knowledge of evil, dark and indomitable. A flame ran secretly to his heart. Yes, she said, isn't it beastly? Don't you want it? he asked. I don't, she replied emphatically. But he said, how long have you known? Ten weeks, she said. All the time she kept her dark, incoate eyes full upon him. He remained silent, thinking. Then, switching off and becoming cold, he asked in a voice full of considerate kindness. Is there anything we can eat here? Is there anything you would like? Yeah, she said, I should door some oysters. All right, he said, we'll have oysters. And he beckoned to the waiter. Halliday took no notice until the little plate was set before her. Then suddenly he cried, Pussum, you can't eat oysters when you're drinking brandy. What have you got to do with you? She asked. Nothing, nothing, he cried, but you can't eat oysters when you're drinking brandy. I'm not drinking brandy, she replied, and she sprinkled the last drop of her liqueur over his face. He gave an odd squeal. She sat looking at him as if indifferent. Pussum, why do you do that? He cried in panic. He gave Gerald the impression that he was terrified of her and that he loved his terror. He seemed to relish his own horror and hatred of her, turn it over and extract every flavour from it in real panic. Gerald thought him a strange fool, and yet he peaked on. But Pussum, said another man, in a very small, quick-eaten voice, you promised not to hurt him. I haven't hurt him, she answered. What will you drink? The young man asked. He was dark and smooth-skinned and full of a stealthy vigor. I don't like porter, Maxine, she replied. You must ask for champagne! came the whispering, gentlemanly voice of the other. Gerald suddenly realised that this was a hint to him. Shall we have champagne? he asked, laughing. Yes, please, why? she lisped childishly. Gerald watched her eating the oysters. She was delicate and finicky in her eating. Her fingers were fine and seemed very sensitive in the tips. So she put her food apart with fine small motions. She ate carefully, delicately. It pleased him very much to see her, and it irritated Birkin. They were all drinking champagne. Maxine, the prim-young Russian with the smooth, warm-coloured face and black-oiled hair, was the only one who seemed to be perfectly calm and sober. Birkin was white and abstract, unnatural. Gerald was smiling with a constant bright, amused, cold light in his eyes, leaning a little protectively towards the pussum, who was very handsome and soft, unfolded like some red lotus in dreadful flowering nakedness, vain glorious now, flushed with wine and with the excitement of men. Hanaday looked foolish. One glass of wine was enough to make him drunk and giggling, yet there was always a pleasant warm naivety about him that made him attractive. I am not afraid of anything except black beetles," said the pussum, looking up suddenly and staring with her black eyes, on which there seemed an unseeing film of flame fully upon Gerald. He laughed dangerously from the blood. Her childish speech caressed his nerves, and her burning, filmed eyes turned now full upon him, oblivious of all her antecedents, gave him a sort of license. What! She protested, I am not afraid of other things, but black beetles, urgh! She shuddered convulsively, as if the very thought were too much to bear. Do you mean, said Gerald, with the punctiliousness of a man who has been drinking, that you are afraid of the sight of a black beetle, or you are afraid of a black beetle biting you or doing you some harm? Do they bite? cried the girl. How perfectly loathsome! exclaimed Halliday. I don't know, replied Gerald, looking round the table. Do black beetles bite? But that isn't the point. Are you afraid of their biting, or is it a metaphysical antipathy? The girl was looking full upon him all the time, with incoate eyes. Oh, I think they're beastly, they're horrid! she cried. If I see one, it gives me the creeps all over. If one were to crawl on me, I'm sure I should die, I'm sure I should. I hope not, whispered the young Russian. I'm sure I should, Maxine. She asseverated. Then one won't crawl on you, said Gerald, smiling and knowing. In some strange way he understood her. It's metaphysical, as Gerald says, Birkin stated. There was a little pause of uneasiness. And are you afraid of nothing else, pussum? asked the young Russian, in his quick, hushed, elegant manner. Not really, she said. I'm afraid of something. But not really the same. I'm not afraid of blood. Exclaimed a young man with a thick, pale, jeering face, who had just come to the table and was drinking whiskey. The pussum turned on him a sulky look of dislike, low and ugly. Aren't you really afraid of blood? The other persisted, a sneer all over his face. No, I'm not, she retorted. Why, have you ever seen blood except in a dentist's betune? jeered the young man. I wasn't speaking to you, she replied rather superbly. You can answer me, can't you? For reply she suddenly jabbed a knife across his thick, pale hand. He started up with a vulgar curse. Shows what you are, said the pussum, in contempt. Curse you! Said the young man, standing by the table and looking down at her with acrid malevolence. Stop that! said Gerald, in quick, instinctive command. The young man stood looking down at her, with sardonic contempt, a cowed, self-conscious look on his thick, pale face. The blood began to flow from his hand. Oh, horrible! Take it away! Squealed Halliday, turning green and averting his face. Do you feel ill? asked the sardonic young man, in some concern. Do you feel ill, Julius? Garn it's nothing, man, don't give her the pleasure of letting her think she's performed a feat. Don't give her the satisfaction, man, it's just what she wants. Oh! Squealed Halliday. He's going to cat, Maxim, said the pussum, warningly. The suave young Russian rose and took Halliday by the arm, leading him away. Birkin, quiet and diminished, looked on as if he were displeased. The wounded, sardonic young man moved away, ignoring his bleeding hand in the most conspicuous fashion. He's an awful coward, really, said the pussum to Gerald. He's got such an influence over Julius. Who is he? asked Gerald. He's a Jew, really. I can't bear him. Well, he's quite unimportant. But what's wrong with Halliday? Julius is the most awful coward you've ever seen, she cried. Always thinks, if I lift a knife, he's terrified of me. Ha! said Gerald. They're all afraid of me, she said. Only the Jew thinks he's going to show his courage. But he's the biggest coward of them all, really. Because he's afraid what people will think about him. And Julius doesn't care about that. There's a lot of valor between them, said Gerald, good-humidly. The pussum looked at him with a slow, slow smile. She was very handsome, flushed and confident in dreadful knowledge. Two little points of light glinted on Gerald's eyes. Why do they call you pussum? Because you're like a cat, he asked her. I expect so, she said. The smile grew more intense on his face. You are a robber, or a young female panther. Oh, God, Gerald, said Birkin in some disgust. They both looked uneasily at Birkin. You're silent tonight, Wilpert. She said to him with a slight insolence, being safe with the other man. Halliday was coming back, looking for lawn and sick. Pussum, he said, I wish you wouldn't do these things. He sank in his chair with a groan. You'd better go home, she said to him. I will, though, home, he said. But won't you all come along? Won't you come round to the flat? He said to Gerald, I should be so glad if you would. Do, that'll be splendid. I say, he looked round for a waiter. Get me a taxi. Then he groaned again. Oh, I do feel perfectly ghastly. Pussum, you see what you do to me. Then why are you such an idiot? She said with solemn calm. But I'm not an idiot. Oh, how awful. Do come, everybody, it'll be so splendid. Pussum, you're coming. What? But you must come. Yes, you must. What? Oh, my dear girl, don't make a fuss now. I feel perfectly, oh, it's so ghastly. Oh, oh, oh. You know you can't drink. She said to him coldly. I tell you, it isn't drink. It's your disgusting behaviour, Pussum. It's nothing else. Oh, how awful. Lebednikov, do let us go. He's only drunk one glass, any one glass, came the rapid, hushed voice of the young Russian. They all moved off to the door. The girl kept near to Gerald and seemed to be at one in her motion with him. He was aware of this and filled with demon satisfaction that his motion held good for two. He held her in the hollow of his will and she was soft, secret, invisible in her stirring there. They crowded five of them into the taxi cab. Halliday lurched in first and dropped into his seat against the other window. Then the Pussum took her place and Gerald sat next to her. They heard the young Russian giving orders to the driver. Then they were all seated in the dark, crowded close together, Halliday groaning and leaning out of the window. They felt the swift, muffled motion of the car. The Pussum sat near to Gerald and she seemed to become soft, subtly to infuse herself into his bones as she were passing into him in a black electric flow. Her being suffused into his veins like a magnetic darkness and concentrated at the base of his spine like a fearful source of power. Meanwhile her voice sounded out reedy and nonchalant as she talked indifferently with Birkin and with Maxine. Seeing her and Gerald was this silence and this black electric comprehension in the darkness, then she found his hand and grasped it in her own firm small clasp. It was so utterly dark and yet such a naked statement that rapid vibrations ran through his blood and over his brain he was no longer responsible. Still her voice rang on like a bell tinged with a tone of mockery and as she swung her head her fine mane of hair just swept his face and all his nerves were on fire as with a subtle friction of electricity. But the great centre of his force held steady a magnificent pride to him at the base of his spine. They arrived at a large block of buildings went up in a lift and presently a door was being opened for them by a Hindu. Gerald looked in surprise wondering if he were a gentleman one of the Hindus down from Oxford perhaps. But no, he was the man-servant. Make tea, Hassan! said Halliday. There is a room for me, said Birkin. To both of which questions the man grinned and murmured. He made Gerald uncertain because being tall and slender and reticent he looked like a gentleman. Who is your servant? he asked of Halliday. He looks as well. Oh yes, that's because he's dressed in another man's clothes. He's anything but a swell, really. We found him in the road starving so I took him here and another man gave him clothes. He's anything but what he seems to be. His only advantage is that he can't speak English and can't understand it so he's perfectly safe. He's very dirty, said the young Russian swiftly and silently. Directly the man appeared in the doorway. What is it? said Halliday. The Hindu grinned and murmured shyly wanting to speak to Master. Gerald watched curiously. The fellow in the doorway was good-looking and clean-limbed. His bearing was calm. He looked elegant, aristocratic. Yet he was half a savage, grinning foolishly. Halliday went out into the corridor to speak with him. What? they heard his voice. What? What do you say? Tell me again. What? What money? What more money? What do you want money for? There was the confused sound of the Hindus talking. Then Halliday appeared in the room smiling also foolishly and saying He says he wants money to buy under-clothing. Can anybody lend me a shilling? Oh, thanks. A shilling will do to buy all the under-clothes he wants. He took the money from Gerald and went out into the passage again where they heard him saying You can't want more money. You had three and six yesterday. You mustn't ask for any more. Bring the tea in quickly. Gerald looked round the room. It was an ordinary London sitting-room in a flat, evidently taken furnished, rather common and ugly. But there were several Negroes statues, wood carvings from West Africa, strange and disturbing. The carved Negroes looked almost like the fetus of a human being. One was a woman sitting naked in a strange posture and looking tortured. Her abdomen stuck out. The young Russian explained that she was sitting in childbirth clutching the ends of the band that hung from her neck, one in each hand, so that she could bear down and help labour. The strange trance fixed rudimentary face of the woman again reminded Gerald of a fetus. It was also rather wonderful conveying the suggestion of the extreme of physical sensation beyond the limits of mental consciousness. Aren't they rather obscene? He asked, disapproving. I don't know, replied the other rapidly. I have never defined the obscene. I think they are very good. Gerald turned away. There were one or two new pictures in the room in the futurist manner. There was a large piano and these with some ordinary London lodging-house furniture of the better sort completed the whole. The pussum had taken off her hat and coat and was seated on the sofa. She was evidently quite at home in the house, but uncertain, suspended. She did not quite know her position. Her reliance for the time being was with Gerald and she did not know how far this was admitted by any of the men. She was considering how she should carry off the situation. She was determined to have her experience. Now at this eleventh hour she was not to be balked. Her face was flushed as with battle. Her eye was brooding, but inevitable. The man came in with tea and a bottle of cummel. He set the tray on a little table before the couch. Pussum, said Halliday, pour out the tea. She did not move. Won't you do it? Halliday repeated in a state of nervous apprehension. I've not come back here as it was before, she said. I only came because the others wanted me to, not for your sake. My dear Pussum, you know you're your own mistress. I don't want you to do anything but use the flat for your own convenience. You know it, I've told you so many times. She did not reply, but silently, reservedly reached for the teapot. They all sat round and drank tea. Gerald could feel the electric connection between him and her so strongly as she sat there quiet and withheld that another set of conditions altogether had come to pass. Her silence and her immutability perplexed him. How was he going to come to her? And yet he felt it quite inevitable. He trusted completely to the current that held them. His perplexity was only superficial. New conditions reigned. The old was surpassed. One did as one was possessed to do, no matter what it was. Birkin rose. It was nearly one o'clock. I'm going to bed, he said. Gerald, I'll ring you up in the morning at your place, or you ring me up here. Right! said Gerald, and Birkin went out. When he was well gone, Halliday said in a stimulated voice to Gerald, I say, won't you stay here? Oh, do. You can't put everybody up, said Gerald. Oh, but I can, perfectly. There are three more beds besides mine. Do stay, won't you? Everything is quite ready. There is always somebody here. I always put people up. I love having the house crowded. But there are only two wounds said to put them in a cold, hostile voice. Now who puts here? I know there are only two rooms, said Halliday, in his odd highway of speaking. But what does that matter? He was smiling rather foolishly, and he spoke eagerly with an insinuating determination. Julius and I will share one room, said the Russian, in his discreet, precise voice. Halliday and he were friends since Eaton. It's very simple, said Gerald, rising and pressing back his arms, stretching himself. Then he went again to look at one of the pictures. Every one of his limbs was turgid with electric force, and his back was tense like a tiger's with slumbering fire. He was very proud. The pussum rose. She gave a black look at Halliday, black and deadly, which brought the rather foolishly pleased smile to that young man's face. Then she went out of the room with a cold good night to them all generally. There was a brief interval. They heard a door close. Then Maxim said in his refined voice, That's all right. He looked significantly at Gerald, and said again with a silent nod, That's all right, you're all right. Gerald looked at the smooth, ruddy, comely face, and at the strange, significant eyes, and it seemed as if the voice of the young Russian, so small and perfect, sounded in the blood rather than in the air. I'm all right then, said Gerald. Yes, yes, you're all right, said the Russian. Halliday continued to smile, and to say nothing. Suddenly the pussum appeared again in the door, her small childish face looking sullen and vindictive. I know you want to catch me out, came her cold rather resonant voice. But I don't care. I don't care how much you catch me out. She turned and was gone again. She had been wearing a loose dressing-gown of purple silk tied round her waist. She looked so small and childish and vulnerable, almost pitiful, and yet the black looks of her eyes made Gerald feel drowned in some potent darkness that almost frightened him. The men lit another cigarette and talked casually. End of Chapter 6. Recording by Ruth Golding Chapter 7 of Women in Love This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Ruth Golding Women in Love by D. H. Lawrence Chapter 7. Fetish In the morning Gerald woke late. He had slept heavily. Button was still asleep, sleeping childishly and pathetically. There was something small and curled up and defenseless about her that roused an unsatisfied flame of passion in the young man's blood, a devouring avid pity. He looked at her again. But it would be too cruel to wake her. He subdued himself and went away. Hearing voices coming from the sitting-room, Halliday talking to Libidnikov, he went to the door and glanced in. He had on a silk wrap of a beautiful bluish colour with an amethyst hem. To his surprise he saw the two young men by the fire stark naked. Halliday looked up, rather pleased. Good morning! he said. Oh! did you want towels? And stark naked he went out into the hall, striding a strange white figure between the unliving furniture. He came back with the towels and took his former position, crouching seated before the fire on the fender. Don't you love to feel the fire on your skin? he said. It is rather pleasant! said Gerald. How perfectly splendid it must be to be in a climate where one could do without clothing altogether! said Halliday. Yes, said Gerald. If there weren't so many things that sting and bite, that's a disadvantage! murmured Maxine. Gerald looked at him, and with a slight revulsion saw the human animal, golden skinned and bare, somehow humiliating. Halliday was different. He had a rather heavy, slack, broken beauty, white and firm. He was like a Christ in a pieta. The animal was not there at all, only the heavy, broken beauty. And Gerald realised how Halliday's eyes were beautiful too, so blue and warm and confused, broken also in their expression. The fire-glow fell on his heavy, rather bowed shoulders. He sat slackly crouched on the fender. His face was uplifted, weak, perhaps slightly disintegrate, and yet with a moving beauty of its own. Of course, said Maxine, you've been in hot countries where the people go about naked. Oh, really? exclaimed Halliday. Where? South America, Amazon, said Gerald. Oh, but how perfectly splendid! It's one of the things I want most to do, to live from day to day without ever putting on any sort of clothes in whatever. If I could do that, I should feel I had lived. But why, said Gerald, I can't see that it makes so much difference. Oh, I think it would be perfectly splendid. I'm sure life would be entirely another thing, entirely different and perfectly wonderful. But why, asked Gerald, why should it? Oh, one would feel things instead of merely looking at them. I should feel the air move against me, feel the things I touched instead of having only to look at them. I'm sure life is all wrong, because it has become much too visual. We can neither hear nor feel nor understand. We can only see. I'm sure that is entirely wrong. Yes, that is true, that is true, said the Russian. Gerald glanced at him and saw him, his suave, golden-coloured body with the black hair growing fine and freely like tendrils and his limbs like smooth plant stems. He was so healthy and well-made, why did he make one ashamed? Why did one feel repelled? Why should Gerald even dislike it? Why did it seem to him to detract from his own dignity? Was that all a human being amounted to? So uninspired, thought Gerald. Birkin suddenly appeared in the doorway in white pajamas and wet hair and a towel over his arm. He was aloof and white and somehow evanescent. There's the bathroom now, if you want it, he said generally, and was going away again when Gerald called. I say, Rupert. What? The single white figure appeared again a presence in the room. What do you think of that figure there? I want to know, Gerald asked. Birkin, white and strangely ghostly, went over to the carved figure of the negro woman in labour. Her nude, protuberant body crouched in a strange, clutching posture, her hands gripping the end of the band above her breast. It is art, said Birkin. Very beautiful, it's very beautiful, said the Russian. They all drew near to look. Gerald looked at the group of men, the Russian golden and like a water-plant, hallowed day tall and heavily, brokenly beautiful. Birkin very white and indefinite, not to be assigned. As he looked closely at the caravan woman. Strangely elated, Gerald also lifted his eyes to the face of the wooden figure, and his heart contracted. He saw vividly with his spirit the grey, forward-stretching face of the negro woman, African and tense, abstracted in utter physical stress. It was a terrible face, void, peaked, abstracted, almost into meaninglessness by the weight of sensation beneath. He saw the pussum in it. As in a dream, he knew her. Why is it art? Gerald asked, shocked, resentful. It conveys a complete truth, said Birkin. It contains the whole truth of that state, whatever you feel about it. But you can't call it high art, said Gerald. High? There are centuries and hundreds of centuries of development in a straight line behind that carving. It is an awful picture of culture of a definite sort. What culture? Gerald asked in opposition. He hated the sheer African thing. Pure culture in sensation. Culture in the physical consciousness. Really ultimate physical consciousness, mindless, utterly sensual. It is so sensual as to be final, supreme. But Gerald resented it. He wanted to keep certain illusions, certain ideas like clothing. You like the wrong things, Rupert, he said. Things against yourself. Oh, I know, this isn't everything, Birkin replied, moving away. When Gerald went back to his room from the bath, he also carried his clothes. He was so conventional at home that when he was really away and on the loose as now, he enjoyed nothing so much as full-out ragesness. So he strode with his blue silk wrap over his arm and felt defiant. The pussum lay in her bed motionless, her round dark eyes like black unhappy pools. He could only see the black bottomless pools of her eyes. Perhaps she suffered. The sensation of her inchoate suffering roused the old sharp flame in him, a mordant pity, a passion almost of cruelty. You are awake now, he said to her. What time is it, came her muted voice. She seemed to flow back almost like liquid from his approach, to sink helplessly away from him. Her inchoate look of a violated slave, whose fulfilment lies in her further and further violation, made his nerves quiver with acutely desirable sensation. After all, his was the only will. She was the passive substance of his will. He tingled with the subtle biting sensation. And then he knew he must go away from her, there must be pure separation between them. It was a quiet and ordinary breakfast, the four men all looking very clean and bathed. Gerald and the Russian were both correct and comule-full in appearance and manner. Birkin was gaunt and sick, and looked a failure in his attempt to be a properly dressed man, like Gerald and Maxine. Halliday wore tweeds and a green flannel shirt, and a rag of a tie, which was just right for him. The Hindu brought in a great deal of soft toast, and looked exactly the same as he had looked the night before, statically the same. At the end of the breakfast the pussum appeared in a purple silk wrap with a shimmering sash. She had recovered herself somewhat, but was mute and lifeless still. It was a torment to her when anybody spoke to her. Her face was like a small fine mask, sinister too, masked with unwilling suffering. It was almost mid-day. Gerald rose and went away to his business, glad to get out. But he had not finished. He was coming back again at evening. They were all dining together, and he had booked seats for the party, excepting Birkin, at a music-hall. At night they came back to the flat very late again, again flushed with drink. Again the man-servant, who invariably disappeared between the hours of ten and twelve at night, came in silently and inscrutably with tea, bending in a slow, strange, leopard-like fashion to put the tray softly on the table. His face was immutable, aristocratic looking, tinned slightly with grey under the skin. He was young and good-looking, but Birkin felt a slight sickness looking at him, and feeling the slight greyness as an ash or a corruption, in the aristocratic inscrutability of expression, a nauseating, bestial stupidity. Again they talked cordially and rousedly together, but already a certain friability was coming over the party. Birkin was mad with irritation. Halliday was turning in an insane hatred against Gerald. The pussum was becoming hard and cold, like a flint-knife, and Halliday was laying himself out to her. And her intention ultimately was to capture Halliday, to have complete power over him. In the morning they all stalked and lounged about again, but Gerald could feel a strange hostility to himself in the air. It roused his obstinacy, and he stood up against it. He hung on for two more days. The result was a nasty and insane scene with Halliday on the fourth evening. Halliday turned with absurd animosity upon Gerald in the cafe. There was a row. Gerald was on the point of knocking in Halliday's face when he was filled with sudden disgust and indifference, and he went away, leaving Halliday in a foolish state of gloating triumph, the pussum hard and established, and Maxim standing clear. Birkin was absent. He had gone out of town again. Gerald was peaked, because he had left without giving the pussum money. It was true she did not care whether he gave her money or not, and he knew it. But she would have been glad of ten pounds, and he would have been very glad to give them to her. Now he felt in a false position. He went away chewing his lips to get at the ends of his short-clipped moustache. He knew the pussum was merely glad to be rid of him. She had got her Halliday whom she wanted. She wanted him completely in her power. Then she would marry him. She wanted to marry him. She had set her will on marrying Halliday. She never wanted to hear of Gerald again, unless perhaps she were in difficulty, because after all Gerald was what she called a man, and these others, Halliday, Libidnikov, Birkin, the whole Bohemian set, they were only half-men. But it was half-men she could deal with. She felt sure of herself with them. The real men, like Gerald, put her in her place too much. Still she respected Gerald. She really respected him. She had managed to get his address, so that she could appeal to him in time of distress. She knew he wanted to give her money. She would perhaps write to him on that inevitable rainy day.