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Women in Love

<h3> CHAPTER XXIX. </h3> <h3> CONTINENTAL </h3> 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 Ostend. 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 lights 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 bows 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 fore-knowledge that she knew. To him, the wonder of this transit 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 transit 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 Styx into the desolated underworld, was this landing at night. There was the raw, half-lighted, covered-in vastness of the dark place, boarded and hollow underfoot, with only desolation everywhere. Ursula had caught sight of the big, pallid, mystic letters 'OSTEND,' standing in the darkness. Everybody was hurrying with a blind, insect-like intentness through the dark grey air, porters were calling in un-English English, then trotting with heavy bags, their colourless 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 underclothing in the bags, then scrawling a chalk-mark. It was done. Birkin snapped the hand bags, 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 inhuman agitation through the dark-grey air, spectres were running along the darkness between the train. 'Koln—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: 'Elsass—Lothringen—Luxembourg, Metz—Basle.' 'That was it, Basle!' The porter came up. 'A Bale—deuxieme classe?—Voila!' 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 insolent. '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 ham between, which were such a wide bite that it almost dislocated Ursula's jaw; and they walked beside the high trains. It was all so strange, so extremely desolate, like the underworld, grey, grey, dirt grey, desolate, forlorn, nowhere—grey, 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—Bruges! 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 REVENANT 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—Ghent 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 cross to the dark farm-buildings. She thought of the Marsh, the old, intimate farm-life at Cossethay. My God, how far was she projected from her childhood, how far was she still to go! In one life-time one travelled through aeons. The great chasm of memory from her childhood in the intimate country surroundings of Cossethay and the Marsh Farm—she remembered the servant Tilly, 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 Cossethay churchyard, was a little creature of history, not really herself. They were at Brussels—half an hour for breakfast. They got down. 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 greyness of dawn began. There were several people in the compartment, large florid Belgian business-men 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. Ah, 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—there were always houses passing. This was an old world she was still journeying through, winter-heavy and dreary. There was plough-land 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-Lorraine, through Metz. But she was blind, she could see no more. Her soul did not look out. They came at last to Basle, 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 Crich—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. 'Shu-hu!' 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 today!' 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, blond fur, and a soft blond 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 half way 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 Madam—the lift!' 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 chagrined, 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 changed, Gerald came in. He looked shining like the sun on frost. 'Go with Gerald and 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 Macfarlane. 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 Roumanian, 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—La vie, c'est une affaire d'ames imperiales—in a most beautiful voice—he was a fine-looking chap—but he had got into Roumanian before he had finished, and not a 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 do you know, Ursula, so it was—' Gudrun laughed rather hollowly. '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 saturnalia in himself, once he is 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 Bath, who is GENUINELY in love with Billy Macfarlane! I never was more amazed in my life! And you know, afterwards—I felt I was a whole ROOMFUL of women. I was no more myself to him, than I was Queen Victoria. I was a whole roomful of women at once. It was most astounding! But my eye, I'd caught 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 bodice 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 LIBERMENSCHLICH—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, EN MASSE, 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 country. I cannot believe myself, I am 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 fund 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's 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've 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. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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