 Chapter 29 of Women in Love Ursula went on in an unreal suspense the last weeks before going away. She was not herself, she was not anything, she was something that is going to be soon, soon, very soon. But as yet, she was only imminent. She went to see her parents. It was a rather stiff, sad meeting, more like a verification of separateness than a reunion. But they were all vague and indefinite with one another, stiffened in the fate that moved them apart. She did not really come to until she was on the ship crossing from Dover to Arstend. Dimly she had come down to London with Birkin. London had been a vagueness, so had the train journey to Dover. It was all like a sleep. And now at last, as she stood in the stern of the ship, in a pitch dark rather blowy night, feeling the motion of the sea, and watching the small rather desolate little light that twinkled on the shores of England as on the shores of nowhere, watched them sinking smaller and smaller on the profound and living darkness, she felt her soul stirring to awake from its anaesthetic sleep. Let us go forward, shall we? said Birkin. He wanted to be at the tip of their projection. So they left off looking at the faint sparks that glimmered out of nowhere in the far distance called England, and turned their faces to the unfathomed night in front. They went right to the bowels of the softly plunging vessel. In the complete obscurity Birkin found a comparatively sheltered nook where a great rope was coiled up. It was quite near the very point of the ship, near the black unpierced space ahead. There they sat down, folded together, folded round with the same rug, creeping in nearer and ever nearer to one another, till it seemed they had crept right into each other and become one substance. It was very cold, and the darkness was palpable. One of the ship's crew came along the deck, dark as the darkness, not really visible. They then made out the faintest pallor of his face. He felt their presence and stopped unsure, then bent forward. When his face was near them, he saw the faint pallor of their faces. Then he withdrew like a phantom, and they watched him without making any sound. They seemed to fall away into the profound darkness. There was no sky, no earth, only one unbroken darkness, into which, with a soft sleeping motion, they seemed to fall, like one closed seed of life, falling through dark, fathomless space. They had forgotten where they were, forgotten all that was and all that had been, conscious only in their heart, and there conscious only of this pure trajectory through the surpassing darkness. The ship's prow cleaved on with a faint noise of cleavage into the complete night, without knowing, without seeing, only surging on. In Ursula, the sense of the unrealised world ahead triumphed over everything. In the midst of this profound darkness, there seemed to glow on her heart the effulgence of a paradise unknown and unrealised. Her heart was full of the most wonderful light, golden like honey of darkness, sweet like the warmth of day. A light which was not shed on the world, only on the unknown paradise towards which she was going. A sweetness of habitation, a delight of living quite unknown, but hers infallibly. In her transport she lifted her face suddenly to him, and he touched it with his lips. So cold, so fresh, so sea-clear her face was, it was like kissing a flower that grows near the surf. But he did not know the ecstasy of bliss in foreknowledge that she knew. To him, the wonder of this chance it was overwhelming. He was falling through a gulf of infinite darkness, like a meteorite plunging across the chasm between the worlds. The world was torn in two, and he was plunging like an unlit star through the ineffable rift. What was beyond was not yet for him. He was overcome by the trajectory. In a trance he lay enfolding Ursula round about. His face was against her fine, fragile hair. He breathed its fragrance with the sea and the profound night, and his soul was at peace, yielded as he fell into the unknown. This was the first time that an utter and absolute peace had entered his heart. Now in this final trance it out of life. When there came some stir on the deck they roused, they stood up, how stiff and cramped they were in the night-time. And yet the paradisal glow on her heart, and the unutterable peace of darkness in his. This was the all-in-all. They stood up and looked ahead. Low lights were seen down the darkness. This was the world again. It was not the bliss of her heart, nor the peace of his. It was the superficial, unreal world of fact. Yet not quite the old world, for the peace and the bliss in their hearts was enduring. Strange and desolate above all things, like disembarking from the sticks into the desolated underworld, was this landing at night. There was the raw half-lighted, covered in vastness of the dark place, bordered and hollow underfoot, with only desolation everywhere. Ursula had caught sight of the big, pallid, mystic letters or stend standing in the darkness. Everybody was hurrying with a blind, insect-like intentness through the dark gray air. Portards were calling in un-English English, then trotting with heavy bags, their colorless blouses looking ghostly as they disappeared. Ursula stood at a long, low, zinc-covered barrier, along with hundreds of other spectral people. And all the way down, the vast, raw darkness, was this low stretch of open bags and spectral people. Whilst on the other side of the barrier, pallid officials in peaked caps and moustaches were turning the under-clothing in the bags, then scrolling a chalkmark. It was done. Birkin snapped the handbags, off they went, the porter coming behind. They were through a great doorway and in the open night again. Ah! a railway platform. Voices were still calling in in human agitation through the dark gray air. Spectres were running along the darkness between the train. Cologne, Berlin, Ursula made out on the boards hung on the high train on one side. Here we are, said Birkin. And on her side she saw Elzas, Lothringen, Luxembourg, Metz, Barl. That was it, Barl. The porter came up. And he clambered into the high train. They followed. The compartments were already some of them taken, but many were dim and empty. The luggage was stowed, the porter was tipped. —Nous avons encore, said Birkin, looking at his watch and at the porter. Encore une demi-heure, with which in his blue blouse he disappeared. He was ugly and infallent. —Come, said Birkin, it is cold, let us eat. There was a coffee-wagon on the platform. They drank hot, watery coffee, and ate the long rolls split with hand between, which was such a wide bite that it almost dislocated Ursula's jaw. And they walked beside the high trains. It was also strange, so extremely desolate, like the underworld, gray, gray, dirt gray, desolate for lawn nowhere, gray dreary nowhere. At last they were moving through the night. In the darkness Ursula made out the flat fields, the wet, flat, dreary darkness of the continent. They pulled up surprisingly soon, bruge, then on through the level darkness, with glimpses of sleeping farms and thin poplar trees and deserted high roads. She sat dismayed, hand in hand with Birkin. He, pale, immobile, like a raven or himself, looked sometimes out of the window, sometimes closed his eyes. Then his eyes opened again, dark as the darkness outside. A flash of a few lights on the darkness, against station. A few more spectres moving outside on the platform, then the bell, then motion again through the level darkness. Ursula saw a man with a lantern come out of a farm by the railway, and crossed to the dark farm buildings. She thought of the marsh, the old, intimate farm life at Cosset Hay. My God, how far was she projected from her childhood? How far was she still to go? In one lifetime, one travelled through eons. The great chasm of memory from her childhood in the intimate country surroundings of Cosset Hay and the marsh farm. She remembered the servant Tillie, who used to give her bread and butter sprinkled with brown sugar, in the old living room where the grandfather clock had two pink roses in a basket, painted above the figures on the face. And now, when she was travelling into the unknown with Birkin, an utter stranger, was so great that it seemed she had no identity, that the child she had been playing in Cosset Hay Churchyard was a little creature of history, not really herself. They were at Brussels, half an hour for breakfast. They got done. On the great station-clock it said six o'clock. They had coffee and rolls and honey in the vast desert refreshment room, so dreary, always so dreary, dirty, so spacious, such desolation of space. But she washed her face and hands in hot water, and combed her hair. That was a blessing. Soon they were in the train again and moving on. The grayness of dawn began. There were several people in the compartment, large, florid, Belgian businessmen with long, brown beards, talking incessantly in an ugly French she was too tired to follow. It seemed the train ran by degrees out of the darkness into a faint light, then beat after beat into the day. Oh, how weary it was! Faintly the trees showed like shadows. Then a house, white, had a curious distinctness. How was it? Then she saw a village. They were always howling, then she saw a village. They were always houses passing. This was an old world she was still journeying through, winter heavy and dreary. There was plowland and pasture, and copses of bare trees, copses of bushes, and homesteads naked and work-bare. No new earth had come to pass. She looked at Birkin's face. It was white and still and eternal, too eternal. She linked her fingers imploringly in his, under the cover of her rug. His fingers responded, his eyes looked back at her. How dark, like a night his eyes were, like another world beyond. Oh, if he were the world as well, if only the world were he. If only he could call a world into being, that should be their own world. The Belgians left. The train ran on, through Luxembourg, through Alsace-Lohan, through Metz. But she was blind. She could see no more. Her soul did not look out. They came at last to Baal, to the hotel. It was all a drifting trance from which she never came to. They went out in the morning before the train departed. She saw the street, the river. She stood on the bridge. But it all meant nothing. She remembered some shops, one full of pictures, one with orange velvet and ermine. But what did these signify? Nothing. She was not at ease till they were in the train again. Then she was relieved. So long as they were moving onwards, she was satisfied. They came to Zurich, then, before very long, ran under the mountains that were deep in snow. At last she was drawing near. This was the other world now. Innsbruck was wonderful, deep in snow and evening. They drove in an open sledge over the snow. The train had been so hot and stifling. And the hotel, with the golden light glowing under the porch, seemed like a home. They laughed with pleasure when they were in the hall. The place seemed full and busy. Do you know if Mr. and Mrs. Crye, English from Paris, have arrived? Birkin asked in German. The porter reflected a moment and was just going to answer when Ursula caught sight of Gudrun sauntering down the stairs wearing her dark glossy coat with grey fur. Gudrun! Gudrun! she called, waving up the well of the staircase. Gudrun looked over the rail and immediately lost her sauntering, diffident air. Her eyes flashed. Really! Ursula! she cried. And she began to move downstairs as Ursula ran up. They met at a turn and kissed with laughter and exclamations inarticulate and stirring. But cried Gudrun, mortified. We thought it was tomorrow you were coming. I wanted to come to the station. No, we've come to-day! cried Ursula. Isn't it lovely here? Adorable! said Gudrun. Gerald's just gone out to get something. Ursula, aren't you fearfully tired? No, not so very. But I look a filthy sight, don't I? No, you don't. You look almost perfectly fresh. I like that fur cap immensely. She glanced over Ursula who wore a big soft coat with a collar of deep soft blonde fur and a soft blonde cap of fur. And you, cried Ursula, what do you think you look like? Gudrun assumed an unconcerned, expressionless face. Do you like it? she said. It's very fine! cried Ursula, perhaps with a touch of satire. Go up or come down, said Birkin. For there the sisters stood, Gudrun with her hand on Ursula's arm, on the turn of the stairs, halfway to the first landing, blocking the way and affording full entertainment to the whole of the hall below, from the door porter to the plump Jew in black clothes. The two young women slowly mounted, followed by Birkin and the waiter. First floor, asked Gudrun, looking back over her shoulder. Second, Madame, ze lived, the waiter replied, and he darted to the elevator to forestall the two women, but they ignored him as, chattering without heed, they set to mount the second flight. Rather, chagrin'd the waiter followed. It was curious the delight of the sisters in each other at this meeting. It was as if they met in exile and united their solitary forces against all the world. Birkin looked on with some mistrust and wonder. When they had bathed and chained to Gerald came in. He looked shining like the sun on frost. Go with Gerald in smoke, said Ursula to Birkin. Gudrun and I want to talk. Then the sisters sat in Gudrun's bedroom and talked clothes and experiences. Gudrun told Ursula the experience of the Birkin letter in the cafe. Ursula was shocked and frightened. Where is the letter? she asked. I kept it, said Gudrun. You'll give it me, won't you? she said. But Gudrun was silent for some moments before she replied. Do you really want it, Ursula? I want to read it, said Ursula. Certainly, said Gudrun. Even now she could not admit to Ursula that she wanted to keep it, as a memento or a symbol. But Ursula knew and was not pleased, so the subject was switched off. What did you do in Paris? asked Ursula. Oh! said Gudrun laconically. The usual things. We had a fine party one night in Fanny Bath's studio. Did you? and you and Gerald were there? Who else? tell me about it. Well, said Gudrun, there's nothing particular to tell. You know Fanny is frightfully in love with that painter Billy McFarlane. He was there, so Fanny spared nothing. She spent very freely. It was really remarkable. Of course, everybody got fearfully drunk. But in an interesting way, not like that filthy London crowd. The fact is these were all people that matter, which makes all the difference. There was a Romanian, a fine chap. He got completely drunk and climbed to the top of a high studio ladder and gave the most marvellous address. Really, Ursula, it was wonderful. He began in French. L'avis said une affaire d'arm imperiale. In a most beautiful voice. He was a fine-looking chap. But he'd got into Romanian before he'd finished and not as soul understood. But Donald Gilchrist was worked to a frenzy. He dashed his glass to the ground and declared by God he was glad he had been born. By God, it was a miracle to be alive! And you know, Ursula, so it was. Gudrun laughed rather hollily. But how was Gerald among them all? asked Ursula. Gerald! Oh, my word! He came out like a dandelion in the sun. He's a whole satin nailier in himself once he has roused. I shouldn't like to say whose waist his arm did not go round. Really, Ursula, he seems to reap the women like a harvest. There wasn't one that would have resisted him. It was too amazing. Can you understand it? Ursula reflected and a dancing light came into her eyes. Yes, she said, I can. He is such a whole hogger. Whole hogger, I should think so, exclaimed Gudrun. But it is true, Ursula, every woman in the room was ready to surrender to him. Chanticleer isn't in it. Even Fanny Barth, who is genuinely in love with Billy McFarlane, I never was more amazed in my life. And you know, afterwards, I felt I was a whole room full of women. I was no more myself to him than I was Queen Victoria. I was a whole room full of women at once. It was most astounding. But my eye, I'd got a sultan that time. Gudrun's eyes were flashing, her cheek was hot. She looked strange, exotic, satiric. Ursula was fascinated at once, and yet uneasy. They had to get ready for dinner. Gudrun came down in a daring gown of vivid green silk and tissue of gold with green velvet bodies, and a strange black and white band round her hair. She was really brilliantly beautiful, and everybody noticed her. Gerald was in that full-blooded gleaming state when he was most handsome. Birkin watched them with quick, laughing, half-sinister eyes. Ursula quite lost her head. There seemed a spell, almost a blinding spell, cast round their table, as if they were lighted up more strongly than the rest of the dining-room. Don't you love to be in this place? cried Gudrun. Isn't the snow wonderful? Do you notice how it exalts everything? It is simply marvellous. One really does feel übermenschlich, more than human. One does, cried Ursula, but isn't that partly the being out of England? Oh, of course, cried Gudrun, one could never feel like this in England, for the simple reason that the damper is never lifted off one there. It is quite impossible really to let go in England, of that I am assured. And she turned again to the food she was eating. She was fluttering with vivid intensity. It's quite true, said Gerald. It never is quite the same in England, but perhaps we don't want it to be. Perhaps it's like bringing the light a little too near the powder magazine to let go altogether in England. One is afraid what might happen if everybody else let go. My God! cried Gudrun. But wouldn't it be wonderful if all England did suddenly go off like a display of fireworks? It couldn't, said Ursula. They are all too damp. The powder is damp in them. I'm not so sure of that, said Gerald. Nor I, said Birkin. When the English really begin to go off or mass, it'll be time to shut your ears and run. They never will, said Ursula. We'll see, he replied. Isn't it marvellous, said Gudrun, how thankful one can be to be out of one's own country. I cannot believe myself I'm so transported the moment I set foot on a foreign shore. I say to myself, here steps a new creature into life. Don't be too hard on poor old England, said Gerald. Though we curse it, we love it really. To Ursula there seemed a fond of cynicism in these words. We may, said Birkin, but it's a damnably uncomfortable love. Like a love for an aged parent who suffers horribly from a complication of diseases for which there is no hope. Gudrun looked at him with dilated dark eyes. You think there is no hope? she asked in her pertinent fashion. But Birkin backed away. He would not answer such a question. Any hope of England becoming real? God knows. It's a great actual unreality now, an aggregation into unreality. It might be real if there were no Englishmen. You think the English will have to disappear? persisted Gudrun. It was strange her pointed interest in his answer. It might have been her own fate she was inquiring after. Her dark, dilated eyes rested on Birkin, as if she could conjure the truth of the future out of him, as out of some instrument of divination. He was pale. Then reluctantly he answered, Well, what else is in front of them but disappearance? They've got to disappear from their own special brand of Englishness anyhow. Gudrun watched him as if in a hypnotic state, her eyes wide and fixed on him. But in what way do you mean disappear? she persisted. Yes, do you mean a change of heart? put in Gerald. I don't mean anything. Why should I? said Birkin. I'm an Englishman, and I have paid the price of it. I can't talk about England. I can only speak for myself. Yes, said Gudrun slowly. You love England immensely, immensely, Rupert. And leave her, he replied. No, not for good. You'll come back, said Gerald nodding sagely. They say the lice crawl off a dying body, said Birkin, with a glare of bitterness. So I leave England. Ah, but you'll come back, said Gudrun, with a sardonic smile. Tant pis pour moi, he replied. Isn't he angry with his mother-country? laughed Gerald, amused. Ah, a patriot, said Gudrun, with something like a sneer. Birkin refused to answer any more. Gudrun watched him still for a few seconds, then she turned away. It was finished, her spell of divination in him. She felt already purely cynical. She looked at Gerald. He was wonderful, like a piece of radium to her. She felt she could consume herself and know all by means of this fatal living metal. She smiled to herself at her fancy. And what would she do with herself when she had destroyed herself? For if spirit, if integral being is destructible, matter is indestructible. He was looking bright and abstracted, puzzled for the moment. She stretched out her beautiful arm with its fluff of green tulle, and touched his chin with her subtle artist's fingers. What are they, then? she asked, with a strange, knowing smile. What? he replied, his eyes suddenly dilating with wonder. Your thoughts. Gerald looked like a man coming awake. I think I had none, he said. Really, she said, with grave laughter in her voice. And to Birkin, it was as if she killed Gerald with that touch. Ah, but cried Gudrun, let us drink to Britannia, let us drink to Britannia. It seemed there was wild despair in her voice. Gerald laughed and filled the glasses. I think Rupert means, he said, that nationally all Englishmen must die so that they can exist individually and super-nationally put in Gudrun with a slight ironic grimace raising her glass. End of the first part of Chapter 29. Recording by Ruth Golding. The second part of Chapter 29 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. The second part of Chapter 29. Continental. The next day they descended at the tiny railway station of Hornhausen at the end of the tiny valley railway. It was snow everywhere, a white, perfect cradle of snow, new and frozen, sweeping up on either side black crags and white sweeps of silver towards the blue pale heavens. As they stepped out on the naked platform with only snow around and above, Gudrun shrank as if it chilled her heart. My God, Jerry, she said, turning to Gerald with sudden intimacy. You've done it now. What? She made a faint gesture indicating the world on either hand. Look at it! She seemed afraid to go on. He laughed. They were in the heart of the mountains, from high above on either side swept down the white fold of snow, so that one seemed small and tiny in a valley of pure concrete heaven, all strangely radiant and changeless and silent. It makes one feel so small and alone, said Ursula, turning to Birkin and laying her hand on his arm. You're not sorry of Karm, are you? said Gerald to Gudrun. She looked doubtful. They went out of the station between banks of snow, said Gerald, sniffing the air in elation. This is perfect! There's our sledge. We'll walk a bit. We'll run up the road. Gudrun, always doubtful, dropped her heavy coat on the sledge as he did his, and they set off. Suddenly she threw up her head and set off, scutting along the road of snow, pulling her cap down over her ears. Her blue bright dress fluttered in the wind. Her thick scarlet stockings were brilliant above the whiteness. Gerald watched her. She seemed to be rushing towards her fate and leaving him behind. He let her get some distance. Then, loosening his limbs, he went after her. Everywhere was deep and silent snow. Great snow-eaves weighed down the broad-roofed Tyrellese houses that were sunk to the window-saches in snow. Peasant women, full-skirted, wearing each a crossover shawl and thick snow-boots, turned in the way to look at the soft, determined girl running with such heavy fleetness from the man who was overtaking her, but not gaining any power over her. They passed the inn with its painted shutters and balcony, a few cottages half buried in the snow. Then the snow-buried silent sawmill by the roofed bridge, which crossed the hidden stream over which they ran into the very depths of the untouched sheets of snow. It was a silence and a sheer whiteness exhilarating to madness, but the perfect silence was most terrifying, isolating the soul, surrounding the heart with frozen air. It's a marvellous place for all that, said Gudrun, looking into his eyes with a strange meaning look. His soul leapt. God! he said. A fierce electric energy seemed to flow over all his limbs, his muscles were surcharged, his hands felt hard with strength. They walked along rapidly up the snow-road that was marked by withered branches of trees stuck in at intervals. He and she were separate, like opposite poles of one fierce energy. But they felt powerful enough to leap over the confines of life into the forbidden places and back again. Birkin and Ursula were running along also over the snow. He had disposed of the luggage and they had a little start of the sledges. Ursula was excited and happy, but she kept turning suddenly to catch hold of Birkin's arm to make sure of him. This is something I never expected, she said. It is a different world here. They went on into a snow meadow. There they were overtaken by the sledge that came tinkling through the silence. It was another mile before they came upon Goodrun and Gerald on the steep up-climb beside the pink half-buried shrine. Then they passed into a gully, where were walls of black rock and a river filled with snow and a still blue sky above. Through a covered bridge they went, drumming roughly over the boards, crossing the snow-bed once more, then slowly up and up, the horses walking swiftly, the driver cracking his long whip as he walked beside, and calling his strange wild, Hugh, Hugh, the walls of rock passing slowly by till they emerged again between slopes and masses of snow. Up and up gradually they went through the cold shadow radiance of the afternoon, silenced by the imminence of the mountains, the luminous, dazing sides of snow that rose above them and fell away beneath. They came forth at last in a little high table-land of snow, where stood the last peaks of snow, like the heart petals of an open rose. In the midst of the last deserted valleys of heaven stood a lonely building with brown wooden walls and white heavy roof, deep and deserted in the waste of snow, like a dream. It stood like a rock that had rolled down from the last steep slopes, a rock that had taken the form of a house and was now half-buried. It was unbelievable that one could live there uncrushed by all this terrible waste of whiteness and silence and clear, upper, ringing cold. Yet the sledges ran up in fine style. People came to the door, laughing and excited. The floor of the hostel rang hollow. The passage was wet with snow. It was a real warm interior. The newcomers tramped up the bare wooden stairs following the serving woman. Gudrun and Gerald took the first bedroom. In a moment they found themselves alone in a bare, smallish, clothes-shut room, that was all of golden-coloured wood, floor, walls, ceiling, door, all of the same warm gold panelling of oiled pine. There was a window opposite the door, but low down because the roof sloped. Under the slope of the ceiling was a table with wash-hand bowl and jug, and across another table with mirror. On either side the door were two beds piled high with an enormous blue-checked overbolster, enormous. This was all, no cupboard, none of the amenities of life. Here they were shut up together in this cell of golden-coloured wood with two blue-checked beds. They looked at each other and laughed, frightened by this naked nearness of isolation. A man knocked and came in with the luggage. He was a sturdy fellow with flat-ish cheekbones, rather pale, and with coarse, firm stash. Gudrun watched him put down the bags in silence, then tramp heavily out. It isn't too rough, is it? Gerald asked. The bedroom was not very warm, and she shivered slightly. It is wonderful, she equivocated. Look at the colour of this panelling. It's wonderful, like being inside a nut. He was standing, watching her, feeling his short-cut moustache, leaning back slightly and watching her with his keen, undaunted eyes, dominated by the constant passion that was like a doom upon him. She went and crouched down in front of the window, curious. Oh, but this! She cried involuntarily, almost in pain. In front was a valley shut in under the sky, the last huge slopes of snow and black rock, and at the end, like the navel of the earth, a white-folded wall and two peaks glimmering in the late light. Straight in front ran the cradle of silent snow, between the great slopes that were fringed with a little roughness of pine trees, like hair round the base. But the cradle of snow ran on to the eternal closing in, where the walls of snow and rock rose impenetrable, and the mountain peaks above were in heaven immediate. This was the centre, the knot, the navel of the world, where the earth belonged to the skies, pure, unapproachable, impassable. It filled Gudrun with a strange rapture. She crouched in front of the window, clenching her face in her hands in a sort of trance. At last she had arrived, she had reached her place. Here, at last, she folded her venture and settled down like a crystal in the navel of snow, and was gone. Gerald bent over her and was looking out over her shoulder. Already he felt he was alone, she was gone, she was completely gone, and there was icy vapour round his heart. He saw the blind valley, the great cul-de-sac of snow and mountain peaks under the heaven, and there was no way out. The terrible silence and cold and the glamorous whiteness of the dusk wrapped him round, and she remained crouching before the window as at a shrine, a shadow. Do you like it? he asked, in a voice that sounded detached and foreign. At least she might acknowledge he was with her, but she only averted her soft, mute face a little from his gaze, and he knew that there were tears in her eyes, her own tears. Tears of her strange religion that put him to naught. Quite suddenly he put his hand under her chin and lifted up her face to him. Her dark blue eyes in their wetness of tears dilated as if she was startled in her very soul. They looked at him through their tears in terror and a little horror. His light blue eyes were keen, small pupiled, and unnatural in their vision. Her lips parted as she breathed with difficulty. The passion came up in him stroke after stroke, like the ringing of a bronze bell, so strong and unflored and indomitable. His knees tightened to bronze as he hung above her soft face, whose lips parted and whose eyes dilated in a strange violation. In the grasp of his hand her chin was unutterably soft and silken. He felt strong as winter. His hands were living metal, invincible and not to be turned aside. His heart rang like a bell clanging inside him. He took her up in his arms. She was soft and inert, motionless. All the while her eyes, in which the tears had not yet dried, were dilated as if in a kind of swoon of fascination and helplessness. He was superhumanly strong and unflored, as if invested with supernatural force. He lifted her close and folded her against him. Her softness, her inert relaxed weight, lay against his own surcharged bronze-like limbs, in a heaviness of desirability that would destroy him if he were not fulfilled. She moved convulsively, recoiling away from him. His heart went up like a flame of ice. He closed over her like steel. He would destroy her rather than be denied. But the overweening power of his body was too much for her. She relaxed again and lay loose and soft, panting in a little delirium. And to him she was so sweet. She was such bliss of release that he would have suffered a whole eternity of torture rather than forego one second of this pang of unsurpassable bliss. My God! he said to her, his face drawn and strange, transfigured. What next? She lay perfectly still, with a still childlike face and dark eyes looking at him. She was lost, fallen right away. I shall always love you, he said, looking at her. But she did not hear. She lay, looking at him as at something she could never understand, never. As a child looks at a grown-up person, without hope of understanding, only submitting. He kissed her, kissed her eyes shut, so that she could not look any more. He wanted something now, some recognition, some sign, some admission. But she only lay silent and childlike and remote. Like a child that is overcome and cannot understand, only feels lost. He kissed her again, giving up. Shall we go down and have coffee and kuchen? he asked. The twilight was falling slate blue at the window. She closed her eyes, closed away the monotonous level of dead wonder, and opened them again to the everyday world. Yes, she said briefly, regaining her will with a click. She went again to the window. Blue evening had fallen over the cradle of snow and over the great pallid slopes. But in the heaven the peaks of snow were rosy, glistening like transcendent, radiant spikes of blossom in the heavenly upper world. So lovely and beyond. Gudrun saw all their loveliness. She knew how immortally beautiful they were. Great pistils of rose-coloured, snow-fed fire in the blue twilight of the heaven. She could see it. She knew it. But she was not of it. She was divorced, debarred, a soul shut out. With the last look of remorse she turned away and was doing her hair. He had unstrapped the luggage and was waiting, watching her. She knew he was watching her. It made her a little hasty and feverish in her precipitation. They went downstairs, both with a strange other-world look on their faces and with a glow in their eyes. They saw Birkin and Ursula sitting at the long table in a corner waiting for them. How good and simple they looked together, Gudrun thought, jealously. She envied them some spontaneity, a childish sufficiency to which she herself could never approach. They seemed such children to her. Such good, Hans Korken! cried Ursula greedily. So good! Right, said Gudrun. Can we have café mit Hans Korken? She added to the waiter. And she seated herself on the bench beside Gerald. Birkin, looking at them, felt a pain of tenderness for them. I think the place is really wonderful, Gerald, he said. Pacht voll und wunderbar und wunderschön und unbeschreiblich and all the other German adjectives. Gerald broke into a slight smile. I like it, he said. The tables of white scrubbed wood were placed round three sides of the room as in a gasthouse. Birkin and Ursula sat with their backs to the wall which was of oiled wood, and Gerald and Gudrun sat in the corner next to them near to the stove. It was a fairly large place, with a tiny bar, just like a country inn, but quite simple and bare. And all of oiled wood, ceilings and walls and floor, the only furniture being the tables and benches going round three sides. The great green stove and the bar and the doors on the fourth side. The windows were double and quite uncurtained. It was early evening. The coffee came hot and good, and a whole ring of cake. A whole kuchen! cried Ursula. They give you more than us, I want some of yours. There were other people in the place, ten altogether, so Birkin had found out. Two artists, three students, a man and wife, and a professor and two daughters, all Germans. The four English people being newcomers sat in their coin advantage to watch. The Germans peaked in at the door, called a word to the waiter, and went away again. It was not mealtime, so they did not come into this dining-room, but betook themselves when their boots were changed to the Réunion Sahar. The English visitors could hear the occasional twanging of a zither, the strumming of a piano, snatches of laughter and shouting and singing, a faint vibration of voices. The whole building, being of wood, it seemed to carry every sound like a drum, but instead of increasing each particular noise, it decreased it, so that the sound of the zither seemed tiny, as if a diminutive zither were playing somewhere, and it seemed the piano must be a small one, like a little spinet. The host came when the coffee was finished. He was a Tyrellese, broad rather flat cheeked, with a pale, pockmarked skin and flourishing moustaches. Would you like to go to the Réunion Sahar, to be introduced to the other ladies and gentlemen? He asked, bending forward and smiling, showing his large, strong teeth. His blue eyes went quickly from one to the other. He was not quite sure of his ground with these English people. He was unhappy, too, because he spoke no English, and he was not sure whether to try his French. Shall we go to the Réunion Sahar and be introduced to the other people? repeated Gerald, laughing. There was a moment's hesitation. I suppose we'd better. Better break the ice, said Birkin. The women rose rather flushed, and the viert black, beetle-like, broad-shouldered figure went on ignominiously in front towards the noise. He opened the door, and ushered the four strangers into the playroom. Instantly a silence fell. A slight embarrassment came over the company. The newcomers had a sense of many blond faces looking their way. Then the host was bowing to a short, energetic-looking man with large moustaches, and saying in a low voice, Herr Professor, Darf ich vorstellen? The Herr Professor was prompt and energetic. He bowed low to the English people, smiling, and began to be a comrade at once. Nehmen die Herrschaften teil an unser Unterhaltung, he said, with a vigorous suavity, his voice curling up in the question. The four English people smiled, lounging with an attentive uneasiness in the middle of the room. Gerald, who was spokesman, said that they would willingly take part in the entertainment. Gudrun and Ursula, laughing, excited, felt the eyes of all the men upon them, and they lifted their heads, and looked nowhere, and felt royal. The Professor announced the names of those present, sans cérémonie. There was a bowing to the wrong people and to the right people. Everybody was there except the man and wife. The two tall, clear-skinned, athletic daughters of the Professor, with their plain-cut dark blue blouses and loaden skirts, their rather long, strong necks, their clear blue eyes and carefully banded hair, and their blushes, bowed and stood back. The three students bowed very low in the humble hope of making an impression of extreme good breeding. Then there was a thin, dark-skinned man with full eyes, an odd creature like a child, and like a troll, quick, detached. He bowed slightly. His companion, a large, fair young man, stylishly dressed, blushed to the eyes and bowed very low. It was over. Herr Lerker was giving us a recitation in the Cologne dialect, said the Professor. He must forgive us for interrupting him, said Gerald. We should like very much to hear it. There was instantly a bowing and an offering of seats. Gudrun and Ursula, Gerald and Birkin, sat in the deep sofas against the wall. The room was of naked, oiled panelling like the rest of the house. It had a piano, sofas and chairs, and a couple of tables with books and magazines. In its complete absence of decoration, save for the big blue stove, it was cosy and pleasant. Herr Lerker was the little man with the boyish figure and the round, full, sensitive-looking head, and the quick, full eyes like a mouse's. He glanced swiftly from one to the other of the strangers, and held himself aloof. Please go on with the recitation, said the Professor suavely, with his slight authority. Lerker, who was sitting hunched on the piano's stool, blinked and did not answer. It would be a great pleasure, said Ursula, who had been getting the sentence ready in German for some minutes. Then suddenly the small, unresponding man swung aside towards his previous audience, and broke forth exactly as he had broken off, in a controlled mocking voice giving an imitation of a quarrel between an old cologne woman and a railway guard. His body was slight and unformed, like a boy's, but his voice was mature, sardonic. Its movement had the flexibility of essential energy, and of a mocking, penetrating understanding. Gudrun could not understand a word of his monologue, but she was spellbound watching him. He must be an artist, nobody else could have such fine adjustment and singleness. The Germans were doubled up with laughter, hearing his strange droll words, his droll phrases of dialect. And in the midst of their paroxysms, they glanced with deference at the four English strangers, the elect. Gudrun and Ursula were forced to laugh. The room rang with shouts of laughter. The blue eyes of the professor's daughters were swimming over with laughter tears. Their clear cheeks were flushed crimson with mirth. Their father broke out in the most astonishing peals of hilarity. The students bowed their heads on their knees in excess of joy. Ursula looked round amazed. The laughter was bubbling out of her involuntarily. She looked at Gudrun. Gudrun looked at her, and the two sisters burst out laughing, carried away. Lurker glanced at them swiftly with his full eyes. Birkin was sniggering involuntarily. Gerald Cry sat erect with a glistening look of amusement on his face, and the laughter crashed out again in wild paroxysms. The professor's daughters were reduced to shaking helplessness. The veins of the professor's neck were swollen, his face was purple, he was strangled in ultimate silent spasms of laughter. The students were shouting half-articulated words that tailed off in helpless explosions. Then suddenly the rapid patter of the artists ceased. There were little whoops of subsiding mirth. Ursula and Gudrun were wiping their eyes, and the professor was crying loudly. We couldn't understand it, cried Ursula. You couldn't understand it, cried the students, let loose at last in speech with the newcomers. The mixture was made. The newcomers were stirred into the party like new ingredients. The whole room was alive. Gerald was in his element. He talked freely and excitedly. His face glistened with a strange amusement. Perhaps even Birkin in the end would break forth. He was shy and withheld, though full of attention. Ursula was prevailed upon to sing Annie Lowry, as the professor called it. There was a hush of extreme deference. She had never been so flattered in her life. Gudrun accompanied her on the piano, playing from memory. Ursula had a beautiful ringing voice, but usually no confidence. She spoiled everything. This evening she felt conceited and untrammeled. Birkin was well in the background. She shone almost in reaction. The Germans made her feel fine and infallible. She was liberated into overweening self-confidence. She felt like a bird flying in the air as her voice soared out, enjoying herself extremely in the balance and flight of the song, like the motion of a bird's wings that is up in the wind, sliding and playing on the air. She played with sentimentality, supported by rapturous attention. She was very happy singing that song by herself, full of a conceit of emotion and power, working upon all those people and upon herself, exerting herself with gratification, giving immeasurable gratification to the Germans. At the end the Germans were all touched with admiring delicious melancholy. They praised her in soft, reverent voices. They could not say too much. She was dilated and brilliant, like a flower in the morning sun. She felt Birkin looking at her, as if he were jealous of her, and her breasts thrilled. Her veins were all golden. She was as happy as the sun that has just opened above clouds, and everybody seemed so admiring and radiant. It was perfect. End of the second part of Chapter 29. Recording by Ruth Golding. The third part of Chapter 29 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. The third part of Chapter 29. Continental. After dinner she wanted to go out for a minute to look at the world. The company tried to dissuade her. It was so terribly cold, but just to look, she said. They all four wrapped up warmly and found themselves in a vague, unsubstantial outdoors of dim snow and ghosts of an upper world that made strange shadows before the stars. It was indeed cold, bruisingly, frighteningly, unnaturally cold. Ursula could not believe the air in her nostrils. It seemed conscious, malevolent, purposive in its intense, murderous coldness. Yet it was wonderful, an intoxication, a silence of dim, unrealised snow, of the invisible intervening between her and the visible, between her and the flashing stars. She could see a Ryan sloping up. How wonderful he was! Wonderful enough to make one cry aloud. And all around was this cradle of snow, and there was firm snow underfoot that struck with heavy cold through her boot soles. It was night and silence. She imagined she could hear the stars. She imagined, distinctly, she could hear the celestial musical motion of the stars quite near at hand. She seemed like a bird flying amongst their harmonious motion. And she clung close to Birkin. Suddenly she realised she did not know what he was thinking. She did not know where he was ranging. My love! she said, stopping to look at him. His face was pale, his eyes dark, there was a faint spark of starlight on them. And he saw her face soft and up turned to him very near. He kissed her softly. What then, he asked, do you love me? She asked too much. He answered quietly. She clung a little closer. Not too much, she pleaded. Far too much, he said almost sadly. And does it make you sad that I am everything to you? She asked, wistful. He held her close to him, kissing her, and saying, scarcely audible, no, but I feel like a beggar, I feel poor. She was silent, looking at the stars now. Then she kissed him. Don't be a beggar, she pleaded wistfully. It isn't ignominious that you love me. It is ignominious to feel poor, isn't it? he replied. Why? Why should it be? she asked. He only stood still in the terribly cold air that moved invisibly over the mountaintops, folding her round with his arms. I couldn't bear this cold eternal place without you, he said. I couldn't bear it, it would kill the quick of my life. She kissed him again, suddenly. Do you hate it? she asked, puzzled, wondering. If I couldn't come near to you, if you weren't here, I should hate it. I couldn't bear it, he answered. But the people are nice, she said. I mean the stillness, the cold, the frozen eternality, he said. She wondered. Then her spirit came home to him, nestling unconscious in him. Yes, it is good we are warm and together, she said. And they turned home again. They saw the golden lights of the hotel glowing out in the night of snow silence, small in the hollow, like a cluster of yellow berries. It seemed like a bunch of sunsparks, tiny and orange in the midst of the snow darkness. Behind was a high shadow of a peak, blotting out the stars like a ghost. They drew near to their home. They saw a man come from the dark building with a lighted lantern, which swung golden, and made that his dark feet walked in a halo of snow. He was a small dark figure in the darkened snow. He unlatched the door of an outhouse. A smell of cows, hot, animal, almost like beef, came out on the heavily cold air. There was a glimpse of two cattle in their dark stalls, then the door was shut again, and not a chink of light showed. It had reminded Ursula again of home, of the marsh, of her childhood, and of the journey to Brussels, and strangely of Anton Skrebensky. Oh, God, could one bear it, this past which was gone down the abyss? Could she bear that it ever had been? She looked round this silent upper world of snow and stars and powerful cold. There was another world, like views on a magic lantern, the marsh, cosy-tay, Ilkeston, lit up with a common unreal light. There was a shadowy, unreal Ursula, a whole shadow play of an unreal life. It was as unreal and circumscribed as a magic lantern show. She wished the slides could all be broken, she wished it could be gone forever like a lantern slide which was broken. She wanted to have no past, she wanted to have come down from the slopes of heaven to this place, with Birkin, not to have toiled out of the murk of her childhood and her upbringing, slowly all soiled. She felt that memory was a dirty trick played upon her. What was this decree that she should remember? Why not a bath of pure oblivion, a new birth, without any recollections or blemish of a past life? She was with Birkin, she had just come into life, here in the high snow, against the stars. What had she to do with parents and antecedents? She knew herself new and unbegotten, she had no father, no mother, no anterior connections. She was herself, pure and silvery. She belonged only to the oneness with Birkin, a oneness that struck deeper notes, sounding into the heart of the universe, the heart of reality, where she had never existed before. Even Gudrun was a separate unit, separate, separate, having nothing to do with this self, this Ursula, in her new world of reality. That old shadow world, the actuality of the past, oh, let it go! She rose free on the wings of her new condition. Gudrun and Gerald had not come in. They had walked up the valley straight in front of the house, not like Ursula and Birkin, onto the little hill at the right. Gudrun was driven by a strange desire. She wanted to plunge on and on till she came to the end of the valley of snow. Then she wanted to climb the wall of white finality, climb over into the peaks that sprang up like sharp petals in the heart of the frozen mysterious navel of the world. She felt that there, over the strange, blind, terrible wall of rocky snow, there in the navel of the mystic world, among the final cluster of peaks, there in the infolded navel of it all was her consummation. If she could but come there alone and pass into the infolded navel of eternal snow and of uprising immortal peaks of snow and rock, she would be a oneness with all. She would be herself the eternal infinite silence, the sleeping, timeless, frozen center of the all. They went back to the house, to the rayonion's aisle. She was curious to see what was going on. The men there made her alert, roused her curiosity. It was a new taste of life for her. They were so prostrate before her yet so full of life. The party was boisterous. They were dancing altogether, dancing the shawl-plattlen, the Tyrellese dance of the clapping hands, and tossing the partner in the air at the crisis. The Germans were all proficient. They were from Munich chiefly. Gerald also was quite passable. There were three zithers twanging away in a corner. It was a scene of great animation and confusion. The professor was initiating Ursula into the dance, stamping, clapping and swinging her high with amazing force and zest. When the crisis came, even Birkin was behaving manfully with one of the professor's fresh, strong daughters, who was exceedingly happy. Everybody was dancing. There was the most boisterous turmoil. Gudrun looked on with delight. The solid wooden floor resounded to the knocking heels of the men. The air quivered with the clapping hands and the zither music. There was a golden dust about the hanging lamps. Suddenly the dance finished. Lurker and the students rushed out to bring in drinks. There was an excited clamour of voices, a clinking of muggleds, a great crying of pause it, pause it. Lurker was everywhere at once like a gnome, suggesting drinks for the women, making an obscure, slightly risky joke with the men, confusing and mystifying the waiter. He wanted very much to dance with Gudrun. From the first moment he had seen her, he wanted to make a connection with her. Instinctively she felt this, and she waited for him to come up. But a kind of sulkingness kept him away from her, so she thought he disliked her. Avilu Shu Platon, genetic of Haal, said the large fair youth Lurker's companion. He was too soft, too humble for Gudrun's taste. But she wanted to dance, and the fair youth, who was called Lightner, was handsome enough in his uneasy, slightly abject fashion, a humility that covered a certain fear. She accepted him as a partner. The zithers sounded out again, the dance began. Gerald led them laughing with one of the professor's daughters. Ursula danced with one of the students, Birkin with the other daughter of the professor, the professor with Frau Kammer, and the rest of the men danced together, with quite as much zest as if they had had women partners. Because Gudrun had danced with the well-built soft youth, his companion Lurker was more pettish and exasperated than ever, and would not even notice her existence in the room. This peaked her, but she made up to herself by dancing with the professor, who was strong as a mature, well-seasoned bull, and as full of coarse energy. She could not bear him critically, and yet she enjoyed being rushed through the dance, and tossed up into the air on his coarse, powerful impetus. The professor enjoyed it too. He eyed her with strange, large, blue eyes full of galvanic fire. She hated him for the seasoned semi-paternal animalism with which he regarded her, but she admired his weight of strength. The room was charged with excitement and strong animal emotion. Lurker was kept away from Gudrun, to whom he wanted to speak, as by a hedge of thorns, and he felt a sardonic, ruthless hatred for this young love-companion, Lightner, who was his penniless dependent. He mocked the youth with an acid ridicule that made Lightner red in the face, and impotent with resentment. Gerald, who had now got the dance perfectly, was dancing again with the younger of the professor's daughters, who was almost dying of virgin excitement, because she thought Gerald so handsome, so superb. He had her in his power, as if she were a palpitating bird, a fluttering, bewildered creature. And it made him smile, as she shrank convulsively between his hands violently when he must throw her into the air. At the end she was so overcome with prostrate love for him that she could scarcely speak sensibly at all. Birkin was dancing with Ursula. There were odd little fires playing in his eyes. He seemed to have turned into something wicked and flickering, mocking, suggestive, quite impossible. Ursula was frightened of him, and fascinated. Clear before her eyes, as in a vision, she could see the sardonic, licentious mockery of his eyes. He moved towards her with subtle, animal, indifferent approach. The strangeness of his hands, which came quick and cunning, inevitably to the vital place beneath her breasts, and lifting with mocking, suggestive impulse, carried her through the air as if without strength, through black magic, made her swoon with fear. For a moment she revolted. It was horrible. She would break the spell. But before the resolution had formed, she had submitted again, yielded to her fear. He knew all the time what he was doing. She could see it in his smiling, concentrated eyes. It was his responsibility. She would leave it to him. When they were alone in the darkness, she felt the strange, licentiousness of him hovering upon her. She was troubled and repelled. Why should he turn like this? What is it? She asked in dread. But his face only glistened on her, unknown, horrible. And yet she was fascinated. Her impulse was to repel him violently, break from this spell of mocking brutishness. But she was too fascinated. She wanted to submit. She wanted to know what would he do to her. He was so attractive and so repulsive at one. The sardonic suggestivity that flickered over his face and looked from his narrowed eyes made her want to hide, to hide herself away from him and watch him from somewhere unseen. Why are you like this? She demanded again, rousing against him with sudden force and animosity. The flickering fires in his eyes concentrated as he looked into her eyes. Then the lids drooped with a faint motion of satiric contempt. Then they rose again to the same remorseless suggestivity. And she gave way. He might do as he would. His licentiousness was repulsively attractive. But he was self-responsive. She would see what it was. They might do as they liked. This she realized as she went to sleep. How could anything that gave one satisfaction be excluded? What was degrading? Who cared? Degrading things were real with a different reality. And he was so unabashed and unrestrained. Wasn't it rather horrible a man who could be so soulful and spiritual, now to be so—she balked at her own thoughts and memories, then she added, so bestial. So bestial they too, so degraded. She winced. But after all, why not? She exalted as well. Why not be bestial and go the whole round of experience? She exalted in it. She was bestial. How good it was to be really shameful. There would be no shameful things she had not experienced. Yet she was unabashed. She was herself. Why not? She was free when she knew everything, and no dark, shameful things were denied her. Gudrun, who had been watching Gerald in the Réunion d'Arles, suddenly thought, he should have all the women he can. It is his nature. It is absurd to call him monogamous. He is naturally promiscuous. That is his nature. The thought came to her involuntarily. It shocked her somewhat. It was as if she had seen some new menne, menne upon the wall. Yet it was merely true. A voice seemed to have spoken it to her so clearly that for the moment she believed in inspiration. It is really true, she said to herself again. She knew quite well she had believed it all along. She knew it implicitly. But she must keep it dark almost from herself. She must keep it completely secret. It was knowledge for her alone, and scarcely even to be admitted to herself. The deep resolve formed in her to combat him. One of them must triumph over the other. Which should it be? Her soul steeled itself with strength. Almost she laughed within herself at her confidence. It woke a certain keen half contempt to as pity, tenderness for him. She was so ruthless. Everybody retired early. The professor and lurker went into a small lounge to drink. They both watched Gudrun go along the landing by the railing upstairs. And Shehnes-Tranzimmer said the professor. Yah! asserted lurker shortly. Gerald walked with his queer long wolf steps across the bedroom to the window, stooped and looked out. Then rose again and turned to Gudrun, his eyes sharp with an abstract smile. He seemed very tall to her. She saw the glisten of his whitish eyebrows that met between his brows. How do you like it? he said. He seemed to be laughing inside himself quite unconsciously. She looked at him. He was a phenomenon to her, not a human being. A sort of creature, greedy. I like it very much, she replied. Who do you like best downstairs? he asked, standing tall and glistening above her with his glistening stiff hair erect. Who do I like best? she repeated, wanting to answer his question and finding it difficult to collect herself. Why, I don't know. I don't know enough about them yet to be able to say. Who do you like best? Oh, I don't care. I don't like or dislike any of them. Doesn't matter about me. I wanted to know about you. But why? she asked, going rather pale. The abstract unconscious smile in his eyes was intensified. I wanted to know, he said. She turned aside, breaking the spell. In some strange way she felt he was getting power over her. Well, I can't tell you already, she said. She went to the mirror to take out the hairpins from her hair. She stood before the mirror every night for some minutes, rushing her fine, dark hair. It was part of the inevitable ritual of her life. He followed her and stood behind her. She was busy with bent head, taking out the pins and shaking her warm hair loose. When she looked up, she saw him in the glass standing behind her, watching unconsciously, not consciously seeing her, and yet watching with fine-pupiled eyes that seemed to smile, and which were not really smiling. She started. It took all her courage for her to continue brushing her hair as usual, for her to pretend she was at her ease. She was far, far from being at her ease with him. She beat her brains wildly for something to say to him. What are your plans for tomorrow? she asked nonchalantly, whilst her heart was beating so furiously. Her eyes were so bright with strange nervousness, she felt he could not but observe. But she knew also that he was completely blind, blind as a wolf looking at her. It was a strange battle between her ordinary consciousness and his uncanny black art consciousness. I don't know, he replied. What would you like to do? He spoke emptily, his mind was sunk away. Oh, she said with easy protestation, I'm ready for anything, anything will be fine for me, I'm sure. And to herself she was saying, God, why am I so nervous? Why are you so nervous, you fool? If he sees it, I'm done for forever. You know you're done for forever if he sees the absurd state you're in. And she smiled to herself as if it were all child's play. Meanwhile her heart was plunging, she was almost fainting. She could see him in the mirror as he stood there behind her, tall and overarching, blonde and terribly frightening. She glanced at his reflection with furtive eyes, willing to give anything to save him from knowing she could see him. He did not know she could see his reflection. He was looking unconsciously, glisteningly, down at her head, from which the hair fell loose as she brushed it with wild nervous hand. She held her head aside and brushed and brushed her hair madly. For her life she could not turn round and face him, for her life she could not. And the knowledge made her almost sink to the ground in a faint, helpless, spent. She was aware of his frightening, impending figure standing close behind her. She was aware of his hard, strong, unyielding chest close upon her back. And she felt she could not bear it any more. In a few minutes she would fall down at his feet, grovelling at his feet and letting him destroy her. The thought pricked up all her sharp intelligence and presence of mind. She dared not turn round to him, and there he stood motionless, unbroken. Summoning all her strength she said, in a full, resonant, nonchalant voice, that was forced out with all her remaining self-control. Oh! what do you mind looking in that bag behind there and giving me my— Here her power fell inert. My what? My what? she screamed in silence to herself. But he had started round, surprised and startled that she should ask him to look in her bag, which she always kept so very private to herself. She turned now, her face white, her dark eyes blazing with uncanny overraught excitement. She saw him stooping to the bag, undoing the loosely buckled strap, unattentive. You're what? he asked. Oh! a little enamel box, yellow, with a design of a cormorant plucking her breast. She went towards him, stooping her beautiful bare arm, and deftly turned some of her things disclosing the box, which was exquisitely painted. That is it, see? she said, taking it from under his eyes. And he was baffled now. He was left to fasten up the bag whilst she swiftly did up her hair for the night, and sat down to unfasten her shoes. She would not turn her back to him any more. He was baffled, frustrated, but unconscious. She had the whip hand over him now. She knew he had not realised her terrible panic. Her heart was beating heavily still. Fool! Fool! that she was to get into such a state! How she thanked God for Gerald's obtuse blindness! Thank God he could see nothing! She sat slowly unlacing her shoes, and he too commenced to undress. Thank God that crisis was over. She felt almost fond of him now, almost in love with him. Oh, Gerald! she laughed, caressively, teasingly. Oh, what a fine game you played with the Professor's daughter, didn't you now? What game? he asked, looking round. Isn't she in love with you? Oh dear, isn't she in love with you? said Gudrun, in her gayest, most attractive mood. I shouldn't think so, he said. Shouldn't think so, she teased. Why the poor girl is lying at this moment overwhelmed, dying with love for you. She thinks you're wonderful. Oh, marvellous, beyond what man has ever been. Really, isn't it funny? Why funny? What is funny? he asked. Why to see you working it on her? she said, with a half-reproach that confused the male conceit in him. Really, Gerald, the poor girl! I did nothing to her, he said. Oh, it was too shameful, the way you simply swept her off her feet. That was shoe-platten, he replied with a bright grin. Laughed Gudrun, her mockery quivered through his muscles with curious re-echoes. When he slept, he seemed to crouch down in the bed, lapped up in his own strength, that yet was hollow. And Gudrun slept strongly, a victorious sleep. Suddenly, she was almost fiercely awake. The small timber room glowed with the dawn that came upwards from the low window. She could see down the valley when she lifted her head. The snow, with a pinkish, half-revealed magic. The fringe of pine trees at the bottom of the slope, and one tiny figure moved over the vaguely illuminated space. She glanced at his watch. It was seven o'clock. He was still completely asleep, and she was so hard awake, it was almost frightening. A hard metallic wakefulness. She lay looking at him. He slept in the subjection of his own health and defeat. She was overcome by a sincere regard for him. Till now she was afraid before him. She lay and thought about him. What he was. What he represented in the world. A fine, independent will he had. She thought of the revolution he had worked in the mines in so short a time. She knew that if he were confronted with any problem, any hard, actual difficulty, he would overcome it. If he laid hold of any idea he would carry it through. He had the faculty of making order out of confusion. Only let him grip hold of a situation, and he would bring to pass an inevitable conclusion. For a few moments she was born away on the wild wings of ambition. Gerald, with his force of will, and his power for comprehending the actual world, should be set to solve the problems of the day, the problem of industrialism in the modern world. She knew he would, in the course of time, effect the changes he desired. He could reorganize the industrial system. She knew he could do it. As an instrument in these things he was marvellous. She had never seen any man with his potentiality. He was unaware of it, but she knew. He only needed to be hitched on. He needed that his hand should be set to the task, because he was so unconscious. And this she could do. She would marry him. He would go into Parliament in the Conservative interest. He would clear up the great muddle of labour and industry. He was so superbly fearless, masterful. He knew that every problem could be worked out in life as in geometry. And he would care neither about himself nor about anything, but the pure working out of the problem. He was very pure, really. Her heart beat fast. She flew away on wings of elation, imagining a future. He would be a Napoleon of peace or a Bismarck, and she the woman behind him. She had read Bismarck's letters and had been deeply moved by them. And Gerald would be freer, more dauntless than Bismarck. But even as she lay in fictitious transport, bathed in the strange, false sunshine of hope in life, something seemed to snap in her, and a terrible cynicism began to gain upon her, blowing in like a wind. Everything turned to irony with her. The last flavour of everything was ironical. When she felt her pang of undeniable reality, this was when she knew the hard irony of hopes and ideas. She lay and looked at him as he slept. He was shealy beautiful. He was a perfect instrument. To her mind, he was a pure, inhuman, almost superhuman instrument. His instrumentality appealed so strongly to her. She wished she were God to use him as a tool. And the same instant came the ironical question. What for? She thought of the Collier's wives, with their linoleum and their lace curtains, and their little girls in high-laced boots. She thought of the wives and daughters of the pit managers, their tennis parties, and their terrible struggles to be superior each to the other in the social scale. There was shortlands with its meaningless distinction, the meaningless crowd of the cries. There was London, the House of Commons, the extant social world. My God! Young as she was, Gudrun had touched the whole pulse of social England. She had no ideas of rising in the world. She knew, with the perfect cynicism of cruel use, that to rise in the world meant to have one outside show instead of another. The advance was like having a spurious half-crown instead of a spurious penny. The whole coinage of valuation was spurious. Yet, of course, her cynicism knew well enough that in a world where spurious coin was current, a bad sovereign was better than a bad fathering. But rich and poor she despised both alike. Already she mocked at herself for her dreams. They could be fulfilled easily enough. But she recognised too well in her spirit the mockery of her own impulses. What did she care that Gerald had created a richly-paying industry out of an old worn-out concern? What did she care? The worn-out concern and the rapid, splendidly-organised industry they were bad money, yet, of course, she cared a great deal outwardly. And outwardly was all that mattered, for inwardly was a bad joke. Everything was intrinsically a piece of irony to her. She leaned over Gerald and said in her heart, with compassion, Oh, my dear, my dear, the game isn't worth even you. You are a fine thing, really. Why should you be used on such a poor show? Her heart was breaking with pity and grief for him. And at the same moment a grimace came over her mouth of mocking irony at her own unspoken tirade. Ah, what a farce it was! She thought of Parnell and Catherine O'Shea. Parnell! After all, who can take the nationalisation of Ireland seriously? Who can take political Ireland, really, seriously, whatever it does? And who can take political England seriously? Who can? Who can care a straw, really, how the old patched-up constitution is tinkered at any more? Who cares a button for our national ideas any more than for our national bowler hat? Ha, it's all old hat. It is all old bowler hat. That's all it is, Gerald, my young hero. At any rate, we'll spare ourselves the nausea of stirring the old broth any more. You be beautiful, my Gerald, and reckless. There are perfect moments. Wake up, Gerald. Wake up. Convince me of the perfect moments. Oh, convince me. I need it. He opened his eyes and looked at her. She greeted him with a mocking, enigmatic smile in which was a poignant gaiety. Over his face went the reflection of the smile he smiled too purely unconsciously. That filled her with extraordinary delight to see the smile cross his face, reflected from her face. She remembered that was how a baby smiled. It filled her with extraordinary radiant delight. You've done it, she said. What, he asked dazed. Convince me. And she bent down, kissing him passionately, passionately, so that he was bewildered. He did not ask her of what he had convinced her, though he meant to. He was glad she was kissing him. She seemed to be feeling for his very heart to touch the quick of him. And he wanted her to touch the quick of his being. He wanted that, most of all. Outside, somebody was singing in a manly, reckless, handsome voice. Goodrun knew that that song would sound through her eternity, sung in a manly, reckless, mocking voice. It marked one of her supreme moments, the supreme pangs of her nervous gratification. There it was, fixed in eternity for her. The day came, fine and bluish. There was a light wind blowing among the mountain tops, keen as a rapier where it touched, carrying with it a fine dust of snow powder. Gerald went out with the fine, blind face of a man who is in his state of fulfilment. Goodrun and he were in perfect static unity this morning, but unseeing and unwitting. They went out with a toboggan, leaving Ursula and Birkin to follow. Goodrun was all scarlet and royal blue, a scarlet jersey and cap, and a royal blue skirt and stockings. She went gaily over the white snow with Gerald beside her in white and grey, pulling the little toboggan. They grew small in the distance of snow, climbing the steep slope. For Goodrun herself, she seemed to pass altogether into the whiteness of the snow. She became a pure, thoughtless crystal. When she reached the top of the slope in the wind, she looked round and saw peak beyond peak of rock and snow, bluish, transcendent in heaven. And it seemed to her like a garden, with the peaks for pure flowers and her heart gathering them. She had no separate consciousness for Gerald. She held on to him as they went, cheering down over the keen slope. She felt as if her senses were being whetted on some fine grindstone that was keen as flame. The snow sprinted on either side, like sparks from a blade that is being sharpened. The whiteness round about ran swifter, swifter. In pure flame the white slope flew against her. And she fused like one molten dancing globule, rushed through a white intensity. Then there was a great swerve at the bottom when they swung, as it were, in a fall to earth in the diminishing motion. They came to rest. But when she rose to her feet, she could not stand. She gave a strange cry, turned and clung to him, sinking her face on his breast, fainting in him. Utter oblivion came over her as she lay for a few moments abandoned against him. What is it? he was saying. Was it too much for you? But she heard nothing. When she came to, she stood up and looked round, astonished. Her face was white, her eyes brilliant and large. What is it? he repeated. Did it upset you? She looked at him with her brilliant eyes that seemed to have undergone some transfiguration, and she laughed with a terrible merriment. No! she cried with triumphant joy. It was the complete moment of my life. And she looked at him with her dazzling, overweening laughter, like one possessed. A fine blade seemed to enter his heart, but he did not care or take any notice. But they climbed up the slope again, and they flew down through the white flame again, splendidly, splendidly. Gudrun was laughing and flashing, powdered with snow crystals. Gerald worked perfectly. He felt he could guide the toboggan to a hair breath. Almost he could make it pierce into the air and right into the very heart of the sky. It seemed to him the flying sledge was but his strength spread out. He had but to move his arms. The motion was his own. They explored the great slopes to find another slide. He felt there must be something better than they had known. And he found what he desired. A perfect, long, fierce sweep. Shearing past the foot of a rock and into the trees at the base, it was dangerous he knew, but then he knew also he would direct the sledge between his fingers. The first days passed in an ecstasy of physical motion, slaying, skiing, skating, moving in an intensity of speed and white light that surpassed life itself, and carried the souls of the human beings beyond into an inhuman abstraction of velocity and weight and eternal frozen snow. Gerald's eyes became hard and strange, and as he went by on his skis he was more like some powerful, fateful sigh than a man. His muscles elastic, in a perfect soaring trajectory, his body projected in pure flight, mindless, soulless, whirling along one perfect line of force. Luckily there came a day of snow when they must all stay indoors, otherwise Birkin said they would all lose their faculties and begin to utter themselves in cries and shrieks, like some strange unknown species of snow-creatures. END OF THE THIRD PART OF CHAPTER XXIX