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Women in Love

<h3> CHAPTER XIV. </h3> <h3> WATER-PARTY </h3> Every year Mr Crich gave a more or less public water-party on the lake. There was a little pleasure-launch on Willey Water and several rowing boats, and guests could take tea either in the marquee that was set up in the grounds of the house, or they could picnic in the shade of the great walnut tree at the boat-house by the lake. This year the staff of the Grammar-School was invited, along with the chief officials of the firm. Gerald and the younger Criches did not care for this party, but it had become customary now, and it pleased the father, as being the only occasion when he could gather some people of the district together in festivity with him. For he loved to give pleasures to his dependents and to those poorer than himself. But his children preferred the company of their own equals in wealth. They hated their inferiors' humility or gratitude or awkwardness. Nevertheless they were willing to attend at this festival, as they had done almost since they were children, the more so, as they all felt a little guilty now, and unwilling to thwart their father any more, since he was so ill in health. Therefore, quite cheerfully Laura prepared to take her mother's place as hostess, and Gerald assumed responsibility for the amusements on the water. Birkin had written to Ursula saying he expected to see her at the party, and Gudrun, although she scorned the patronage of the Criches, would nevertheless accompany her mother and father if the weather were fine. The day came blue and full of sunshine, with little wafts of wind. The sisters both wore dresses of white crepe, and hats of soft grass. But Gudrun had a sash of brilliant black and pink and yellow colour wound broadly round her waist, and she had pink silk stockings, and black and pink and yellow decoration on the brim of her hat, weighing it down a little. She carried also a yellow silk coat over her arm, so that she looked remarkable, like a painting from the Salon. Her appearance was a sore trial to her father, who said angrily: 'Don't you think you might as well get yourself up for a Christmas cracker, an'ha' done with it?' But Gudrun looked handsome and brilliant, and she wore her clothes in pure defiance. When people stared at her, and giggled after her, she made a point of saying loudly, to Ursula: 'Regarde, regarde ces gens-la! Ne sont-ils pas des hiboux incroyables?' And with the words of French in her mouth, she would look over her shoulder at the giggling party. 'No, really, it's impossible!' Ursula would reply distinctly. And so the two girls took it out of their universal enemy. But their father became more and more enraged. Ursula was all snowy white, save that her hat was pink, and entirely without trimming, and her shoes were dark red, and she carried an orange-coloured coat. And in this guise they were walking all the way to Shortlands, their father and mother going in front. They were laughing at their mother, who, dressed in a summer material of black and purple stripes, and wearing a hat of purple straw, was setting forth with much more of the shyness and trepidation of a young girl than her daughters ever felt, walking demurely beside her husband, who, as usual, looked rather crumpled in his best suit, as if he were the father of a young family and had been holding the baby whilst his wife got dressed. 'Look at the young couple in front,' said Gudrun calmly. Ursula looked at her mother and father, and was suddenly seized with uncontrollable laughter. The two girls stood in the road and laughed till the tears ran down their faces, as they caught sight again of the shy, unworldly couple of their parents going on ahead. 'We are roaring at you, mother,' called Ursula, helplessly following after her parents. Mrs Brangwen turned round with a slightly puzzled, exasperated look. 'Oh indeed!' she said. 'What is there so very funny about ME, I should like to know?' She could not understand that there could be anything amiss with her appearance. She had a perfect calm sufficiency, an easy indifference to any criticism whatsoever, as if she were beyond it. Her clothes were always rather odd, and as a rule slip-shod, yet she wore them with a perfect ease and satisfaction. Whatever she had on, so long as she was barely tidy, she was right, beyond remark; such an aristocrat she was by instinct. 'You look so stately, like a country Baroness,' said Ursula, laughing with a little tenderness at her mother's naive puzzled air. 'JUST like a country Baroness!' chimed in Gudrun. Now the mother's natural hauteur became self-conscious, and the girls shrieked again. 'Go home, you pair of idiots, great giggling idiots!' cried the father inflamed with irritation. 'Mm-m-er!' booed Ursula, pulling a face at his crossness. The yellow lights danced in his eyes, he leaned forward in real rage. 'Don't be so silly as to take any notice of the great gabies,' said Mrs Brangwen, turning on her way. 'I'll see if I'm going to be followed by a pair of giggling yelling jackanapes—' he cried vengefully. The girls stood still, laughing helplessly at his fury, upon the path beside the hedge. 'Why you're as silly as they are, to take any notice,' said Mrs Brangwen also becoming angry now he was really enraged. 'There are some people coming, father,' cried Ursula, with mocking warning. He glanced round quickly, and went on to join his wife, walking stiff with rage. And the girls followed, weak with laughter. When the people had passed by, Brangwen cried in a loud, stupid voice: 'I'm going back home if there's any more of this. I'm damned if I'm going to be made a fool of in this fashion, in the public road.' He was really out of temper. At the sound of his blind, vindictive voice, the laughter suddenly left the girls, and their hearts contracted with contempt. They hated his words 'in the public road.' What did they care for the public road? But Gudrun was conciliatory. 'But we weren't laughing to HURT you,' she cried, with an uncouth gentleness which made her parents uncomfortable. 'We were laughing because we're fond of you.' 'We'll walk on in front, if they are SO touchy,' said Ursula, angry. And in this wise they arrived at Willey Water. The lake was blue and fair, the meadows sloped down in sunshine on one side, the thick dark woods dropped steeply on the other. The little pleasure-launch was fussing out from the shore, twanging its music, crowded with people, flapping its paddles. Near the boat-house was a throng of gaily-dressed persons, small in the distance. And on the high-road, some of the common people were standing along the hedge, looking at the festivity beyond, enviously, like souls not admitted to paradise. 'My eye!' said Gudrun, sotto voce, looking at the motley of guests, 'there's a pretty crowd if you like! Imagine yourself in the midst of that, my dear.' Gudrun's apprehensive horror of people in the mass unnerved Ursula. 'It looks rather awful,' she said anxiously. 'And imagine what they'll be like—IMAGINE!' said Gudrun, still in that unnerving, subdued voice. Yet she advanced determinedly. 'I suppose we can get away from them,' said Ursula anxiously. 'We're in a pretty fix if we can't,' said Gudrun. Her extreme ironic loathing and apprehension was very trying to Ursula. 'We needn't stay,' she said. 'I certainly shan't stay five minutes among that little lot,' said Gudrun. They advanced nearer, till they saw policemen at the gates. 'Policemen to keep you in, too!' said Gudrun. 'My word, this is a beautiful affair.' 'We'd better look after father and mother,' said Ursula anxiously. 'Mother's PERFECTLY capable of getting through this little celebration,' said Gudrun with some contempt. But Ursula knew that her father felt uncouth and angry and unhappy, so she was far from her ease. They waited outside the gate till their parents came up. The tall, thin man in his crumpled clothes was unnerved and irritable as a boy, finding himself on the brink of this social function. He did not feel a gentleman, he did not feel anything except pure exasperation. Ursula took her place at his side, they gave their tickets to the policeman, and passed in on to the grass, four abreast; the tall, hot, ruddy-dark man with his narrow boyish brow drawn with irritation, the fresh-faced, easy woman, perfectly collected though her hair was slipping on one side, then Gudrun, her eyes round and dark and staring, her full soft face impassive, almost sulky, so that she seemed to be backing away in antagonism even whilst she was advancing; and then Ursula, with the odd, brilliant, dazzled look on her face, that always came when she was in some false situation. Birkin was the good angel. He came smiling to them with his affected social grace, that somehow was never QUITE right. But he took off his hat and smiled at them with a real smile in his eyes, so that Brangwen cried out heartily in relief: 'How do you do? You're better, are you?' 'Yes, I'm better. How do you do, Mrs Brangwen? I know Gudrun and Ursula very well.' His eyes smiled full of natural warmth. He had a soft, flattering manner with women, particularly with women who were not young. 'Yes,' said Mrs Brangwen, cool but yet gratified. 'I have heard them speak of you often enough.' He laughed. Gudrun looked aside, feeling she was being belittled. People were standing about in groups, some women were sitting in the shade of the walnut tree, with cups of tea in their hands, a waiter in evening dress was hurrying round, some girls were simpering with parasols, some young men, who had just come in from rowing, were sitting cross-legged on the grass, coatless, their shirt-sleeves rolled up in manly fashion, their hands resting on their white flannel trousers, their gaudy ties floating about, as they laughed and tried to be witty with the young damsels. 'Why,' thought Gudrun churlishly, 'don't they have the manners to put their coats on, and not to assume such intimacy in their appearance.' She abhorred the ordinary young man, with his hair plastered back, and his easy-going chumminess. Hermione Roddice came up, in a handsome gown of white lace, trailing an enormous silk shawl blotched with great embroidered flowers, and balancing an enormous plain hat on her head. She looked striking, astonishing, almost macabre, so tall, with the fringe of her great cream-coloured vividly-blotched shawl trailing on the ground after her, her thick hair coming low over her eyes, her face strange and long and pale, and the blotches of brilliant colour drawn round her. 'Doesn't she look WEIRD!' Gudrun heard some girls titter behind her. And she could have killed them. 'How do you do!' sang Hermione, coming up very kindly, and glancing slowly over Gudrun's father and mother. It was a trying moment, exasperating for Gudrun. Hermione was really so strongly entrenched in her class superiority, she could come up and know people out of simple curiosity, as if they were creatures on exhibition. Gudrun would do the same herself. But she resented being in the position when somebody might do it to her. Hermione, very remarkable, and distinguishing the Brangwens very much, led them along to where Laura Crich stood receiving the guests. 'This is Mrs Brangwen,' sang Hermione, and Laura, who wore a stiff embroidered linen dress, shook hands and said she was glad to see her. Then Gerald came up, dressed in white, with a black and brown blazer, and looking handsome. He too was introduced to the Brangwen parents, and immediately he spoke to Mrs Brangwen as if she were a lady, and to Brangwen as if he were NOT a gentleman. Gerlad was so obvious in his demeanour. He had to shake hands with his left hand, because he had hurt his right, and carried it, bandaged up, in the pocket of his jacket. Gudrun was VERY thankful that none of her party asked him what was the matter with the hand. The steam launch was fussing in, all its music jingling, people calling excitedly from on board. Gerald went to see to the debarkation, Birkin was getting tea for Mrs Brangwen, Brangwen had joined a Grammar-School group, Hermione was sitting down by their mother, the girls went to the landing-stage to watch the launch come in. She hooted and tooted gaily, then her paddles were silent, the ropes were thrown ashore, she drifted in with a little bump. Immediately the passengers crowded excitedly to come ashore. 'Wait a minute, wait a minute,' shouted Gerald in sharp command. They must wait till the boat was tight on the ropes, till the small gangway was put out. Then they streamed ashore, clamouring as if they had come from America. 'Oh it's SO nice!' the young girls were crying. 'It's quite lovely.' The waiters from on board ran out to the boat-house with baskets, the captain lounged on the little bridge. Seeing all safe, Gerald came to Gudrun and Ursula. 'You wouldn't care to go on board for the next trip, and have tea there?' he asked. 'No thanks,' said Gudrun coldly. 'You don't care for the water?' 'For the water? Yes, I like it very much.' He looked at her, his eyes searching. 'You don't care for going on a launch, then?' She was slow in answering, and then she spoke slowly. 'No,' she said. 'I can't say that I do.' Her colour was high, she seemed angry about something. 'Un peu trop de monde,' said Ursula, explaining. 'Eh? TROP DE MONDE!' He laughed shortly. 'Yes there's a fair number of 'em.' Gudrun turned on him brilliantly. 'Have you ever been from Westminster Bridge to Richmond on one of the Thames steamers?' she cried. 'No,' he said, 'I can't say I have.' 'Well, it's one of the most VILE experiences I've ever had.' She spoke rapidly and excitedly, the colour high in her cheeks. 'There was absolutely nowhere to sit down, nowhere, a man just above sang "Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep" the WHOLE way; he was blind and he had a small organ, one of those portable organs, and he expected money; so you can imagine what THAT was like; there came a constant smell of luncheon from below, and puffs of hot oily machinery; the journey took hours and hours and hours; and for miles, literally for miles, dreadful boys ran with us on the shore, in that AWFUL Thames mud, going in UP TO THE WAIST—they had their trousers turned back, and they went up to their hips in that indescribable Thames mud, their faces always turned to us, and screaming, exactly like carrion creatures, screaming "'Ere y'are sir, 'ere y'are sir, 'ere y'are sir," exactly like some foul carrion objects, perfectly obscene; and paterfamilias on board, laughing when the boys went right down in that awful mud, occasionally throwing them a ha'penny. And if you'd seen the intent look on the faces of these boys, and the way they darted in the filth when a coin was flung—really, no vulture or jackal could dream of approaching them, for foulness. I NEVER would go on a pleasure boat again—never.' Gerald watched her all the time she spoke, his eyes glittering with faint rousedness. It was not so much what she said; it was she herself who roused him, roused him with a small, vivid pricking. 'Of course,' he said, 'every civilised body is bound to have its vermin.' 'Why?' cried Ursula. 'I don't have vermin.' 'And it's not that—it's the QUALITY of the whole thing—paterfamilias laughing and thinking it sport, and throwing the ha'pennies, and materfamilias spreading her fat little knees and eating, continually eating—' replied Gudrun. 'Yes,' said Ursula. 'It isn't the boys so much who are vermin; it's the people themselves, the whole body politic, as you call it.' Gerald laughed. 'Never mind,' he said. 'You shan't go on the launch.' Gudrun flushed quickly at his rebuke. There were a few moments of silence. Gerald, like a sentinel, was watching the people who were going on to the boat. He was very good-looking and self-contained, but his air of soldierly alertness was rather irritating. 'Will you have tea here then, or go across to the house, where there's a tent on the lawn?' he asked. 'Can't we have a rowing boat, and get out?' asked Ursula, who was always rushing in too fast. 'To get out?' smiled Gerald. 'You see,' cried Gudrun, flushing at Ursula's outspoken rudeness, 'we don't know the people, we are almost COMPLETE strangers here.' 'Oh, I can soon set you up with a few acquaintances,' he said easily. Gudrun looked at him, to see if it were ill-meant. Then she smiled at him. 'Ah,' she said, 'you know what we mean. Can't we go up there, and explore that coast?' She pointed to a grove on the hillock of the meadow-side, near the shore half way down the lake. 'That looks perfectly lovely. We might even bathe. Isn't it beautiful in this light. Really, it's like one of the reaches of the Nile—as one imagines the Nile.' Gerald smiled at her factitious enthusiasm for the distant spot. 'You're sure it's far enough off?' he asked ironically, adding at once: 'Yes, you might go there, if we could get a boat. They seem to be all out.' He looked round the lake and counted the rowing boats on its surface. 'How lovely it would be!' cried Ursula wistfully. 'And don't you want tea?' he said. 'Oh,' said Gudrun, 'we could just drink a cup, and be off.' He looked from one to the other, smiling. He was somewhat offended—yet sporting. 'Can you manage a boat pretty well?' he asked. 'Yes,' replied Gudrun, coldly, 'pretty well.' 'Oh yes,' cried Ursula. 'We can both of us row like water-spiders.' 'You can? There's light little canoe of mine, that I didn't take out for fear somebody should drown themselves. Do you think you'd be safe in that?' 'Oh perfectly,' said Gudrun. 'What an angel!' cried Ursula. 'Don't, for MY sake, have an accident—because I'm responsible for the water.' 'Sure,' pledged Gudrun. 'Besides, we can both swim quite well,' said Ursula. 'Well—then I'll get them to put you up a tea-basket, and you can picnic all to yourselves,—that's the idea, isn't it?' 'How fearfully good! How frightfully nice if you could!' cried Gudrun warmly, her colour flushing up again. It made the blood stir in his veins, the subtle way she turned to him and infused her gratitude into his body. 'Where's Birkin?' he said, his eyes twinkling. 'He might help me to get it down.' 'But what about your hand? Isn't it hurt?' asked Gudrun, rather muted, as if avoiding the intimacy. This was the first time the hurt had been mentioned. The curious way she skirted round the subject sent a new, subtle caress through his veins. He took his hand out of his pocket. It was bandaged. He looked at it, then put it in his pocket again. Gudrun quivered at the sight of the wrapped up paw. 'Oh I can manage with one hand. The canoe is as light as a feather,' he said. 'There's Rupert!—Rupert!' Birkin turned from his social duties and came towards them. 'What have you done to it?' asked Ursula, who had been aching to put the question for the last half hour. 'To my hand?' said Gerald. 'I trapped it in some machinery.' 'Ugh!' said Ursula. 'And did it hurt much?' 'Yes,' he said. 'It did at the time. It's getting better now. It crushed the fingers.' 'Oh,' cried Ursula, as if in pain, 'I hate people who hurt themselves. I can FEEL it.' And she shook her hand. 'What do you want?' said Birkin. The two men carried down the slim brown boat, and set it on the water. 'You're quite sure you'll be safe in it?' Gerald asked. 'Quite sure,' said Gudrun. 'I wouldn't be so mean as to take it, if there was the slightest doubt. But I've had a canoe at Arundel, and I assure you I'm perfectly safe.' So saying, having given her word like a man, she and Ursula entered the frail craft, and pushed gently off. The two men stood watching them. Gudrun was paddling. She knew the men were watching her, and it made her slow and rather clumsy. The colour flew in her face like a flag. 'Thanks awfully,' she called back to him, from the water, as the boat slid away. 'It's lovely—like sitting in a leaf.' He laughed at the fancy. Her voice was shrill and strange, calling from the distance. He watched her as she paddled away. There was something childlike about her, trustful and deferential, like a child. He watched her all the while, as she rowed. And to Gudrun it was a real delight, in make-belief, to be the childlike, clinging woman to the man who stood there on the quay, so good-looking and efficient in his white clothes, and moreover the most important man she knew at the moment. She did not take any notice of the wavering, indistinct, lambent Birkin, who stood at his side. One figure at a time occupied the field of her attention. The boat rustled lightly along the water. They passed the bathers whose striped tents stood between the willows of the meadow's edge, and drew along the open shore, past the meadows that sloped golden in the light of the already late afternoon. Other boats were stealing under the wooded shore opposite, they could hear people's laughter and voices. But Gudrun rowed on towards the clump of trees that balanced perfect in the distance, in the golden light. The sisters found a little place where a tiny stream flowed into the lake, with reeds and flowery marsh of pink willow herb, and a gravelly bank to the side. Here they ran delicately ashore, with their frail boat, the two girls took off their shoes and stockings and went through the water's edge to the grass. The tiny ripples of the lake were warm and clear, they lifted their boat on to the bank, and looked round with joy. They were quite alone in a forsaken little stream-mouth, and on the knoll just behind was the clump of trees. 'We will bathe just for a moment,' said Ursula, 'and then we'll have tea.' They looked round. Nobody could notice them, or could come up in time to see them. In less than a minute Ursula had thrown off her clothes and had slipped naked into the water, and was swimming out. Quickly, Gudrun joined her. They swam silently and blissfully for a few minutes, circling round their little stream-mouth. Then they slipped ashore and ran into the grove again, like nymphs. 'How lovely it is to be free,' said Ursula, running swiftly here and there between the tree trunks, quite naked, her hair blowing loose. The grove was of beech-trees, big and splendid, a steel-grey scaffolding of trunks and boughs, with level sprays of strong green here and there, whilst through the northern side the distance glimmered open as through a window. When they had run and danced themselves dry, the girls quickly dressed and sat down to the fragrant tea. They sat on the northern side of the grove, in the yellow sunshine facing the slope of the grassy hill, alone in a little wild world of their own. The tea was hot and aromatic, there were delicious little sandwiches of cucumber and of caviare, and winy cakes. 'Are you happy, Prune?' cried Ursula in delight, looking at her sister. 'Ursula, I'm perfectly happy,' replied Gudrun gravely, looking at the westering sun. 'So am I.' When they were together, doing the things they enjoyed, the two sisters were quite complete in a perfect world of their own. And this was one of the perfect moments of freedom and delight, such as children alone know, when all seems a perfect and blissful adventure. When they had finished tea, the two girls sat on, silent and serene. Then Ursula, who had a beautiful strong voice, began to sing to herself, softly: 'Annchen von Tharau.' Gudrun listened, as she sat beneath the trees, and the yearning came into her heart. Ursula seemed so peaceful and sufficient unto herself, sitting there unconsciously crooning her song, strong and unquestioned at the centre of her own universe. And Gudrun felt herself outside. Always this desolating, agonised feeling, that she was outside of life, an onlooker, whilst Ursula was a partaker, caused Gudrun to suffer from a sense of her own negation, and made her, that she must always demand the other to be aware of her, to be in connection with her. 'Do you mind if I do Dalcroze to that tune, Hurtler?' she asked in a curious muted tone, scarce moving her lips. 'What did you say?' asked Ursula, looking up in peaceful surprise. 'Will you sing while I do Dalcroze?' said Gudrun, suffering at having to repeat herself. Ursula thought a moment, gathering her straying wits together. 'While you do—?' she asked vaguely. 'Dalcroze movements,' said Gudrun, suffering tortures of self-consciousness, even because of her sister. 'Oh Dalcroze! I couldn't catch the name. DO—I should love to see you,' cried Ursula, with childish surprised brightness. 'What shall I sing?' 'Sing anything you like, and I'll take the rhythm from it.' But Ursula could not for her life think of anything to sing. However, she suddenly began, in a laughing, teasing voice: 'My love—is a high-born lady—' Gudrun, looking as if some invisible chain weighed on her hands and feet, began slowly to dance in the eurythmic manner, pulsing and fluttering rhythmically with her feet, making slower, regular gestures with her hands and arms, now spreading her arms wide, now raising them above her head, now flinging them softly apart, and lifting her face, her feet all the time beating and running to the measure of the song, as if it were some strange incantation, her white, rapt form drifting here and there in a strange impulsive rhapsody, seeming to be lifted on a breeze of incantation, shuddering with strange little runs. Ursula sat on the grass, her mouth open in her singing, her eyes laughing as if she thought it was a great joke, but a yellow light flashing up in them, as she caught some of the unconscious ritualistic suggestion of the complex shuddering and waving and drifting of her sister's white form, that was clutched in pure, mindless, tossing rhythm, and a will set powerful in a kind of hypnotic influence. 'My love is a high-born lady—She is-s-s—rather dark than shady—' rang out Ursula's laughing, satiric song, and quicker, fiercer went Gudrun in the dance, stamping as if she were trying to throw off some bond, flinging her hands suddenly and stamping again, then rushing with face uplifted and throat full and beautiful, and eyes half closed, sightless. The sun was low and yellow, sinking down, and in the sky floated a thin, ineffectual moon. Ursula was quite absorbed in her song, when suddenly Gudrun stopped and said mildly, ironically: 'Ursula!' 'Yes?' said Ursula, opening her eyes out of the trance. Gudrun was standing still and pointing, a mocking smile on her face, towards the side. 'Ugh!' cried Ursula in sudden panic, starting to her feet. 'They're quite all right,' rang out Gudrun's sardonic voice. On the left stood a little cluster of Highland cattle, vividly coloured and fleecy in the evening light, their horns branching into the sky, pushing forward their muzzles inquisitively, to know what it was all about. Their eyes glittered through their tangle of hair, their naked nostrils were full of shadow. 'Won't they do anything?' cried Ursula in fear. Gudrun, who was usually frightened of cattle, now shook her head in a queer, half-doubtful, half-sardonic motion, a faint smile round her mouth. 'Don't they look charming, Ursula?' cried Gudrun, in a high, strident voice, something like the scream of a seagull. 'Charming,' cried Ursula in trepidation. 'But won't they do anything to us?' Again Gudrun looked back at her sister with an enigmatic smile, and shook her head. 'I'm sure they won't,' she said, as if she had to convince herself also, and yet, as if she were confident of some secret power in herself, and had to put it to the test. 'Sit down and sing again,' she called in her high, strident voice. 'I'm frightened,' cried Ursula, in a pathetic voice, watching the group of sturdy short cattle, that stood with their knees planted, and watched with their dark, wicked eyes, through the matted fringe of their hair. Nevertheless, she sank down again, in her former posture. 'They are quite safe,' came Gudrun's high call. 'Sing something, you've only to sing something.' It was evident she had a strange passion to dance before the sturdy, handsome cattle. Ursula began to sing, in a false quavering voice: 'Way down in Tennessee—' She sounded purely anxious. Nevertheless, Gudrun, with her arms outspread and her face uplifted, went in a strange palpitating dance towards the cattle, lifting her body towards them as if in a spell, her feet pulsing as if in some little frenzy of unconscious sensation, her arms, her wrists, her hands stretching and heaving and falling and reaching and reaching and falling, her breasts lifted and shaken towards the cattle, her throat exposed as in some voluptuous ecstasy towards them, whilst she drifted imperceptibly nearer, an uncanny white figure, towards them, carried away in its own rapt trance, ebbing in strange fluctuations upon the cattle, that waited, and ducked their heads a little in sudden contraction from her, watching all the time as if hypnotised, their bare horns branching in the clear light, as the white figure of the woman ebbed upon them, in the slow, hypnotising convulsion of the dance. She could feel them just in front of her, it was as if she had the electric pulse from their breasts running into her hands. Soon she would touch them, actually touch them. A terrible shiver of fear and pleasure went through her. And all the while, Ursula, spell-bound, kept up her high-pitched thin, irrelevant song, which pierced the fading evening like an incantation. Gudrun could hear the cattle breathing heavily with helpless fear and fascination. Oh, they were brave little beasts, these wild Scotch bullocks, wild and fleecy. Suddenly one of them snorted, ducked its head, and backed. 'Hue! Hi-eee!' came a sudden loud shout from the edge of the grove. The cattle broke and fell back quite spontaneously, went running up the hill, their fleece waving like fire to their motion. Gudrun stood suspended out on the grass, Ursula rose to her feet. It was Gerald and Birkin come to find them, and Gerald had cried out to frighten off the cattle. 'What do you think you're doing?' he now called, in a high, wondering vexed tone. 'Why have you come?' came back Gudrun's strident cry of anger. 'What do you think you were doing?' Gerald repeated, auto-matically. 'We were doing eurythmics,' laughed Ursula, in a shaken voice. Gudrun stood aloof looking at them with large dark eyes of resentment, suspended for a few moments. Then she walked away up the hill, after the cattle, which had gathered in a little, spell-bound cluster higher up. 'Where are you going?' Gerald called after her. And he followed her up the hill-side. The sun had gone behind the hill, and shadows were clinging to the earth, the sky above was full of travelling light. 'A poor song for a dance,' said Birkin to Ursula, standing before her with a sardonic, flickering laugh on his face. And in another second, he was singing softly to himself, and dancing a grotesque step-dance in front of her, his limbs and body shaking loose, his face flickering palely, a constant thing, whilst his feet beat a rapid mocking tattoo, and his body seemed to hang all loose and quaking in between, like a shadow. 'I think we've all gone mad,' she said, laughing rather frightened. 'Pity we aren't madder,' he answered, as he kept up the incessant shaking dance. Then suddenly he leaned up to her and kissed her fingers lightly, putting his face to hers and looking into her eyes with a pale grin. She stepped back, affronted. 'Offended—?' he asked ironically, suddenly going quite still and reserved again. 'I thought you liked the light fantastic.' 'Not like that,' she said, confused and bewildered, almost affronted. Yet somewhere inside her she was fascinated by the sight of his loose, vibrating body, perfectly abandoned to its own dropping and swinging, and by the pallid, sardonic-smiling face above. Yet automatically she stiffened herself away, and disapproved. It seemed almost an obscenity, in a man who talked as a rule so very seriously. 'Why not like that?' he mocked. And immediately he dropped again into the incredibly rapid, slack-waggling dance, watching her malevolently. And moving in the rapid, stationary dance, he came a little nearer, and reached forward with an incredibly mocking, satiric gleam on his face, and would have kissed her again, had she not started back. 'No, don't!' she cried, really afraid. 'Cordelia after all,' he said satirically. She was stung, as if this were an insult. She knew he intended it as such, and it bewildered her. 'And you,' she cried in retort, 'why do you always take your soul in your mouth, so frightfully full?' 'So that I can spit it out the more readily,' he said, pleased by his own retort. Gerald Crich, his face narrowing to an intent gleam, followed up the hill with quick strides, straight after Gudrun. The cattle stood with their noses together on the brow of a slope, watching the scene below, the men in white hovering about the white forms of the women, watching above all Gudrun, who was advancing slowly towards them. She stood a moment, glancing back at Gerald, and then at the cattle. Then in a sudden motion, she lifted her arms and rushed sheer upon the long-horned bullocks, in shuddering irregular runs, pausing for a second and looking at them, then lifting her hands and running forward with a flash, till they ceased pawing the ground, and gave way, snorting with terror, lifting their heads from the ground and flinging themselves away, galloping off into the evening, becoming tiny in the distance, and still not stopping. Gudrun remained staring after them, with a mask-like defiant face. 'Why do you want to drive them mad?' asked Gerald, coming up with her. She took no notice of him, only averted her face from him. 'It's not safe, you know,' he persisted. 'They're nasty, when they do turn.' 'Turn where? Turn away?' she mocked loudly. 'No,' he said, 'turn against you.' 'Turn against ME?' she mocked. He could make nothing of this. 'Anyway, they gored one of the farmer's cows to death, the other day,' he said. 'What do I care?' she said. 'I cared though,' he replied, 'seeing that they're my cattle.' 'How are they yours! You haven't swallowed them. Give me one of them now,' she said, holding out her hand. 'You know where they are,' he said, pointing over the hill. 'You can have one if you'd like it sent to you later on.' She looked at him inscrutably. 'You think I'm afraid of you and your cattle, don't you?' she asked. His eyes narrowed dangerously. There was a faint domineering smile on his face. 'Why should I think that?' he said. She was watching him all the time with her dark, dilated, inchoate eyes. She leaned forward and swung round her arm, catching him a light blow on the face with the back of her hand. 'That's why,' she said, mocking. And she felt in her soul an unconquerable desire for deep violence against him. She shut off the fear and dismay that filled her conscious mind. She wanted to do as she did, she was not going to be afraid. He recoiled from the slight blow on his face. He became deadly pale, and a dangerous flame darkened his eyes. For some seconds he could not speak, his lungs were so suffused with blood, his heart stretched almost to bursting with a great gush of ungovernable emotion. It was as if some reservoir of black emotion had burst within him, and swamped him. 'You have struck the first blow,' he said at last, forcing the words from his lungs, in a voice so soft and low, it sounded like a dream within her, not spoken in the outer air. 'And I shall strike the last,' she retorted involuntarily, with confident assurance. He was silent, he did not contradict her. She stood negligently, staring away from him, into the distance. On the edge of her consciousness the question was asking itself, automatically: 'Why ARE you behaving in this IMPOSSIBLE and ridiculous fashion.' But she was sullen, she half shoved the question out of herself. She could not get it clean away, so she felt self-conscious. Gerald, very pale, was watching her closely. His eyes were lit up with intent lights, absorbed and gleaming. She turned suddenly on him. 'It's you who make me behave like this, you know,' she said, almost suggestive. 'I? How?' he said. But she turned away, and set off towards the lake. Below, on the water, lanterns were coming alight, faint ghosts of warm flame floating in the pallor of the first twilight. The earth was spread with darkness, like lacquer, overhead was a pale sky, all primrose, and the lake was pale as milk in one part. Away at the landing stage, tiniest points of coloured rays were stringing themselves in the dusk. The launch was being illuminated. All round, shadow was gathering from the trees. Gerald, white like a presence in his summer clothes, was following down the open grassy slope. Gudrun waited for him to come up. Then she softly put out her hand and touched him, saying softly: 'Don't be angry with me.' A flame flew over him, and he was unconscious. Yet he stammered: 'I'm not angry with you. I'm in love with you.' His mind was gone, he grasped for sufficient mechanical control, to save himself. She laughed a silvery little mockery, yet intolerably caressive. 'That's one way of putting it,' she said. The terrible swooning burden on his mind, the awful swooning, the loss of all his control, was too much for him. He grasped her arm in his one hand, as if his hand were iron. 'It's all right, then, is it?' he said, holding her arrested. She looked at the face with the fixed eyes, set before her, and her blood ran cold. 'Yes, it's all right,' she said softly, as if drugged, her voice crooning and witch-like. He walked on beside her, a striding, mindless body. But he recovered a little as he went. He suffered badly. He had killed his brother when a boy, and was set apart, like Cain. They found Birkin and Ursula sitting together by the boats, talking and laughing. Birkin had been teasing Ursula. 'Do you smell this little marsh?' he said, sniffing the air. He was very sensitive to scents, and quick in understanding them. 'It's rather nice,' she said. 'No,' he replied, 'alarming.' 'Why alarming?' she laughed. 'It seethes and seethes, a river of darkness,' he said, 'putting forth lilies and snakes, and the ignis fatuus, and rolling all the time onward. That's what we never take into count—that it rolls onwards.' 'What does?' 'The other river, the black river. We always consider the silver river of life, rolling on and quickening all the world to a brightness, on and on to heaven, flowing into a bright eternal sea, a heaven of angels thronging. But the other is our real reality—' 'But what other? I don't see any other,' said Ursula. 'It is your reality, nevertheless,' he said; 'that dark river of dissolution. You see it rolls in us just as the other rolls—the black river of corruption. And our flowers are of this—our sea-born Aphrodite, all our white phosphorescent flowers of sensuous perfection, all our reality, nowadays.' 'You mean that Aphrodite is really deathly?' asked Ursula. 'I mean she is the flowering mystery of the death-process, yes,' he replied. 'When the stream of synthetic creation lapses, we find ourselves part of the inverse process, the blood of destructive creation. Aphrodite is born in the first spasm of universal dissolution—then the snakes and swans and lotus—marsh-flowers—and Gudrun and Gerald—born in the process of destructive creation.' 'And you and me—?' she asked. 'Probably,' he replied. 'In part, certainly. Whether we are that, in toto, I don't yet know.' 'You mean we are flowers of dissolution—fleurs du mal? I don't feel as if I were,' she protested. He was silent for a time. 'I don't feel as if we were, ALTOGETHER,' he replied. 'Some people are pure flowers of dark corruption—lilies. But there ought to be some roses, warm and flamy. You know Herakleitos says "a dry soul is best." I know so well what that means. Do you?' 'I'm not sure,' Ursula replied. 'But what if people ARE all flowers of dissolution—when they're flowers at all—what difference does it make?' 'No difference—and all the difference. Dissolution rolls on, just as production does,' he said. 'It is a progressive process—and it ends in universal nothing—the end of the world, if you like. But why isn't the end of the world as good as the beginning?' 'I suppose it isn't,' said Ursula, rather angry. 'Oh yes, ultimately,' he said. 'It means a new cycle of creation after—but not for us. If it is the end, then we are of the end—fleurs du mal if you like. If we are fleurs du mal, we are not roses of happiness, and there you are.' 'But I think I am,' said Ursula. 'I think I am a rose of happiness.' 'Ready-made?' he asked ironically. 'No—real,' she said, hurt. 'If we are the end, we are not the beginning,' he said. 'Yes we are,' she said. 'The beginning comes out of the end.' 'After it, not out of it. After us, not out of us.' 'You are a devil, you know, really,' she said. 'You want to destroy our hope. You WANT US to be deathly.' 'No,' he said, 'I only want us to KNOW what we are.' 'Ha!' she cried in anger. 'You only want us to know death.' 'You're quite right,' said the soft voice of Gerald, out of the dusk behind. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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