Women in Love

d talking. Ursula was stitching a piece of brightly-coloured embroidery, and Gudrun was drawing upon a board

et married?' Ursula laid her embroidery in her lap

e replied. `It dep

n aback. She watched her

g! But don't you think anyhow, you'd be --' she darkened

me over Urs

e said. `But

ghtly irritated. She wan

s the experience of havin

eed be an experien

Gudrun, coolly. `Possibly undesirable, b

la. `More likely to be

ry still, to

conversation to a close. Gudrun, almost angrily, took up her rubber

sider a good offe

ejected several

k -- `But anything really wo

awfully nice man. I liked

eren't you fea

int, one isn't even tempted -- oh, if I were tempted, I'd marry like a shot. I'm

the temptation is, not to!' They both laughed, lookin

passive, soft-skinned, soft-limbed. She wore a dress of dark-blue silky stuff, with ruches of blue and green linen lace in the neck and sleeves; and she had emerald-green stockings. Her look of confidence and diffidence contrasted with Ursula's sensitive expectancy. Th

nly catching her underlip between her teeth, and making a stra

ome, expecting him

vidual of sufficient means -- well --' she tailed off ironically. Then she looked searchingly at Ursula, as if to probe her. `Don't you find yours

in the bud?'

n general.' There was a pause, whilst

d again there was a pause. `But do you

ered this, with a little bitterness. She was a class mistress herse

. But really imagine it: imagine any man one knows, imagine him coming

s a blan

ed voice. `It's just impossible

children --' said

s face

la?' she asked coldly. A dazzled,

s still beyond

run. `I get no feeling whatever fr

a masklike, expressionless fa

really want them, in one's soul -- only superficially.' A hardn

other people's child

ked at her siste

said, to close

m day to day, and always thinking, trying to lay hold on life, to grasp it in her own understanding. Her active living was suspended, but underneath, in the darkness, something was coming to pass. If only she co

softness and her fine, exquisite richness of texture and delicacy of line. There was a certain playfulness about

ome home, Prun

t back from her drawing and looked at Urs

?' she repeated. `I have ask

n't you

my coming back home was just

a long, slow look of

dazzled and falsified, and as if she di

omewhat superbly. `If one jumps over th

very risky?'

smile dawned on

but words!' And so again she closed the c

ome, now you have come

oldly, before answering. Then, in

lf completel

fat

, almost with resentmen

out him: I've refrain

an end. The sisters found themselves confronted by a voi

n's cheek was flushed with repressed emotion.

t wedding?' she asked at length,

ng up, as if to escape something, thus betraying the tension of the s

it, the sordid, too-familiar place! She was afraid at the depth of her feeling against the home,

n the Midlands. Yet forward she went, through the whole sordid gamut of pettiness, the long amorphous, gritty street. She was exposed to every stare, she passed on through a stretch of torment. It was strange that she should have chosen to come back and test the full effect of this sha

on-garden, where sooty cabbage stumps stood shameless. No

rvellous, it's really marvellous -- it's really wonderful, another world. The people are all ghouls, and everything is ghostly. E

ows of dwellings, approaching curved up the hill-slope, in straight lines along the brow of the hill. They were of darkened red brick, brittle, with dark slate roofs. The path on which the sisters walked was black, trodden-in by the feet of the recurrent colliers, and bounded from the field by iron fences; the stile that led again into the roa

side? She was aware of her grass-green stockings, her large grass-green velour hat, her full soft coat, of a strong blue colour. And she felt as if

ile world. But all the time her heart was crying, as if in the midst of some ordeal: `I want to go b

ld feel he

is, don't yo

s me,' stamm

tay long,' r

t along, grasp

over the fields and the wooded hills, and seemed darkly to gleam in the air. It was a spring day, chill, with snatches of sunshine. Yellow celandines showed out from the hedge-bo

t bend of the road, low under the trees, stood a little group of expectant people, waiting to see the wedding

drun, swerving away. `The

g wavering

a, `they're all right. They a

o through them

sisters approached the group of uneasy, watchful common people. They were chiefly wo

r them, but barely sufficient, as if grudging to yield ground. The sisters passed in silence thr

ent and murderous. She would have liked them all annihilated, cleared away, so that the world was left clear fo

mmediately halted, turned round, and branched off up a small side path which led to the

the laurel bushes, to rest. Behind her, the large red building of the school rose up peacefully, the windows all open for the

. Ursula looked at her, and thought how amazingly beautiful she was, flushed with discomfiture. But she caused a constraint ove

to stay here?'

up as if rebuked. `We will stand in the corner by

of sap and of spring, perhaps of violets from off the graves. Some white daisies were

gate, a concentration as a carriage drove up, wedding guests were mounting up the steps and pass

ise their various characteristics, to place them in their true light, give them their own surroundings, settle them for ever as they passed before her along the path to the church. She knew them, they were finished, sea

Her face was pale, yellowish, with a clear, transparent skin, she leaned forward rather, her features were strongly marked, handsome, with a tense, unseeing, predative look. Her colour

aleness, like a young, good-humoured, smiling wolf, did not blind her to the significant, sinister stillness in his bearing, the lurking danger of his unsubdued temper. `His totem is the wolf,' she repeated to herself. `His mother is an old, unbroken wolf.' And then she experienced a keen paroxyism, a transport, as if she had made some incredible discovery, known to nobody else on earth. A strange transport took possession of her, all her veins were in a paroxysm of violent sensation. `Good God!' she exclaimed to herself, `what is this?' And then, a moment after, she was saying assure

ncing an enormous flat hat of pale yellow velvet, on which were streaks of ostrich feathers, natural and grey. She drifted forward as if scarcely conscious, her long blanched face lifted up, not to see the world. She was rich. She wore a dress of silky, frail velvet, of pale yellow colour, and she carried a lot of small rosecoloured cyclamens. Her shoes and stockings were of brownish grey, like the feathers on her hat, her hair was heavy, she drifted along with a

Baronet of the old school, she was a woman of the new school, full of intellectuality, and heavy, nerve-worn with consciousness. She was pa

n different kinds of society, Gudrun had already come to know a good many people of repute and standing. She had met Hermione twice, but they did not take to each other. It would be queer to meet again down here in the Midlands, where their soci

e of ideas. With all that was highest, whether in society or in thought or in public action, or even in art, she was at one, she moved among the foremost, at home with them. No one could put her down, no one could make mock of her, because she stood among the first, and th

d perfect, according to the first standards, yet she suffered a torture, under her confidence and her pride, feeling herself exposed to wounds and to mockery and to despite. She always felt vulnerable, vulnerable,

nd, built over a chasm, and, in spite of all her vanity and securities, any common maid-servant of positive, robust temper could fling her down this bottomless pit of insufficiency, by the slightest movement of jeering or

and triumphant, triumphant over the very angels of heaven. If only he would do it! But she was tortured with fear, with misgiving. She made her

wearying, so aching; she was so tired. But still she believed in herself. She knew he was trying to leave her. She knew he was trying to break away from her finally, to be free. But still sh

h the perverseness of a wilful child he wanted to deny. With the wilfulness of

ent through the church-door. He would be there, surely he would see how beautiful her dress was, surely he would see how she had made herself beautiful for him. He would understan

ly along her cheeks for him, her slender body convulsed with agitation. As best man,

sessed by a devastating hopelessness. And she approached mechanically to the altar. Never had sh

nation outside. Ursula felt almost responsible. She could not bear it that the b

hurch-gate, a laughter in the whole movement. Here was the quick of all laughter and pleasure. The door of the carriage was thrown

was a tall, thin, careworn man, with a thin black beard that was touched w

fine foliage and flowers, a whiteness of sat

o I ge

its flower buds, and at the delicate, white, tentative foot that was reaching down to the step of the carriage. There was a sudden foaming ru

one it!'

e eternal red carpet. Her father, mute and yellowish, his black beard making him look more careworn, mounted the

ht of him. There was a carriage. It was running. It had just come into sight. Yes, it was he. Ursula turned towards the bride and the people, and, from her place of vantage, gave

ached the top of the steps, turned round gaily to see what was the commotion. She saw a confusion among the peop

standing high on the path in the sunlight and waving her bo

ed again, looki

path above him. A queer, startled look went over his face. He hesitated f

beating of her white feet and fraying of her white garments, towards the church. Like a hound the young man was after her, le

vulgar women below, carri

f laughter and challenge, veered, poised, and was gone beyond the grey stone buttress. In another instant the bridegroom, bent forward as he

her stooping figure of Mr Crich, waiting suspended on the path, watching with expressionless face the flight to the church.

ar,' said Birkin, a fa

conically. And the two men

elfconsciousness. Although he was dressed correctly for his part, yet there was an innate incongruity which caused a slight ridiculousness in his appearance

urroundings, adjusting himself quickly to his interlocutor and his circumstance, that he achieved a verisimilitude of ord

lked along the path; he played with situations like a man on a t

ldn't find a button-hook, so it took us a long tim

ly to time,'

`But today I was really punctual,

e, for the time. Ursula was left thinking about Bir

ome kinship between her and him, a natural, tacit understanding, a using of the same language. But there had been no time for the understanding to develop

anted to

she asked, a little reluctantly, of Gu

tractive. What I can't stand about him is his way with other people -his way of treating an

e do it?' s

all events,' said Gudrun. `I tell you, he treats any littl

d Ursula. `One m

he's a wonderful chap, in other respects -- a m

forced to assent to Gudrun's pronouncements

patient of talk. She wanted to think about Gerald Crich. She wanted to see if th

her. She seemed to gravitate physically towards him. She wanted to stand touching him. She could hardly

d spiritual, like the angels, but which came from torture, gave her a certain poignancy that tore his heart with pity. He saw her bowed head, her rapt face, the face of an almost demoniacal ecstatic. Feeling him looking, she lifted her face and sought his eyes, her own beautiful grey eyes flaring h

nt into the vestry. Hermione crowded involuntarily

e flowers could feel the vibration, and what they thought of it, this strange motion in the air. The bride was quite demure on the arm of the bridegroom, who stared up into the sky before him, shutting and opening his eyes unconscio

estored, yet still subtly demoniacal, now she held Birkin by the arm. And he was exp

trange stealth glistening through his amiable, almost happy appearance. Gudrun rose sharply and went away. She could not