Chapter 3 Class-room

A SCHOOL-DAY was drawing to a close. In the class-room the last lesson was in progress, peaceful and still. It was elementary botany. The desks were littered with catkins, hazel and willow, which the children had been sketching. But the sky had come overdark, as the end of the afternoon approached: there was scarcely light to draw any more. Ursula stood in front of the class, leading the children by questions to understand the structure and the meaning of the catkins.

A heavy, copper-coloured beam of light came in at the west window, gilding the outlines of the children's heads with red gold, and falling on the wall opposite in a rich, ruddy illumination. Ursula, however, was scarcely conscious of it. She was busy, the end of the day was here, the work went on as a peaceful tide that is at flood, hushed to retire.

This day had gone by like so many more, in an activity that was like a trance. At the end there was a little haste, to finish what was in hand. She was pressing the children with questions, so that they should know all they were to know, by the time the gong went. She stood in shadow in front of the class, with catkins in her hand, and she leaned towards the children, absorbed in the passion of instruction.

She heard, but did not notice the click of the door. Suddenly she started. She saw, in the shaft of ruddy, copper-coloured light near her, the face of a man. It was gleaming like fire, watching her, waiting for her to be aware. It startled her terribly. She thought she was going to faint. All her suppressed, subconscious fear sprang into being, with anguish.

`Did I startle you?' said Birkin, shaking hands with her. `I thought you had heard me come in.'

`No,' she faltered, scarcely able to speak. He laughed, saying he was sorry. She wondered why it amused him.

`It is so dark,' he said. `Shall we have the light?'

And moving aside, he switched on the strong electric lights. The class-room was distinct and hard, a strange place after the soft dim magic that filled it before he came. Birkin turned curiously to look at Ursula. Her eyes were round and wondering, bewildered, her mouth quivered slightly. She looked like one who is suddenly wakened. There was a living, tender beauty, like a tender light of dawn shining from her face. He looked at her with a new pleasure, feeling gay in his heart, irresponsible.

`You are doing catkins?' he asked, picking up a piece of hazel from a scholar's desk in front of him. `Are they as far out as this? I hadn't noticed them this year.'

He looked absorbedly at the tassel of hazel in his hand.

`The red ones too!' he said, looking at the flickers of crimson that came from the female bud.

Then he went in among the desks, to see the scholars' books. Ursula watched his intent progress. There was a stillness in his motion that hushed the activities of her heart. She seemed to be standing aside in arrested silence, watching him move in another, concentrated world. His presence was so quiet, almost like a vacancy in the corporate air.

Suddenly he lifted his face to her, and her heart quickened at the flicker of his voice.

`Give them some crayons, won't you?' he said, `so that they can make the gynaecious flowers red, and the androgynous yellow. I'd chalk them in plain, chalk in nothing else, merely the red and the yellow. Outline scarcely matters in this case. There is just the one fact to emphasise.'

`I haven't any crayons,' said Ursula.

`There will be some somewhere -- red and yellow, that's all you want.'

Ursula sent out a boy on a quest.

`It will make the books untidy,' she said to Birkin, flushing deeply.

`Not very,' he said. `You must mark in these things obviously. It's the fact you want to emphasise, not the subjective impression to record. What's the fact? -- red little spiky stigmas of the female flower, dangling yellow male catkin, yellow pollen flying from one to the other. Make a pictorial record of the fact, as a child does when drawing a face -- two eyes, one nose, mouth with teeth -- so --' And he drew a figure on the blackboard.

At that moment another vision was seen through the glass panels of the door. It was Hermione Roddice. Birkin went and opened to her.

`I saw your car,' she said to him. `Do you mind my coming to find you? I wanted to see you when you were on duty.'

She looked at him for a long time, intimate and playful, then she gave a short little laugh. And then only she turned to Ursula, who, with all the class, had been watching the little scene between the lovers.

`How do you do, Miss Brangwen,' sang Hermione, in her low, odd, singing fashion, that sounded almost as if she were poking fun. `Do you mind my coming in?'

Her grey, almost sardonic eyes rested all the while on Ursula, as if summing her up.

`Oh no,' said Ursula.

`Are you sure?' repeated Hermione, with complete sang froid, and an odd, halfbullying effrontery.

`Oh no, I like it awfully,' laughed Ursula, a little bit excited and bewildered, because Hermione seemed to be compelling her, coming very close to her, as if intimate with her; and yet, how could she be intimate?

This was the answer Hermione wanted. She turned satisfied to Birkin.

`What are you doing?' she sang, in her casual, inquisitive fashion.

`Catkins,' he replied.

`Really!' she said. `And what do you learn about them?' She spoke all the while in a mocking, half teasing fashion, as if making game of the whole business. She picked up a twig of the catkin, piqued by Birkin's attention to it.

She was a strange figure in the class-room, wearing a large, old cloak of greenish cloth, on which was a raised pattern of dull gold. The high collar, and the inside of the cloak, was lined with dark fur. Beneath she had a dress of fine lavendercoloured cloth, trimmed with fur, and her hat was close-fitting, made of fur and of the dull, green-and-gold figured stuff. She was tall and strange, she looked as if she had come out of some new, bizarre picture.

`Do you know the little red ovary flowers, that produce the nuts? Have you ever noticed them?' he asked her. And he came close and pointed them out to her, on the sprig she held.

`No,' she replied. `What are they?'

`Those are the little seed-producing flowers, and the long catkins, they only produce pollen, to fertilise them.'

`Do they, do they!' repeated Hermione, looking closely.

`From those little red bits, the nuts come; if they receive pollen from the long danglers.'

`Little red flames, little red flames,' murmured Hermione to herself. And she remained for some moments looking only at the small buds out of which the red flickers of the stigma issued.

`Aren't they beautiful? I think they're so beautiful,' she said, moving close to Birkin, and pointing to the red filaments with her long, white finger.

`Had you never noticed them before?' he asked.

`No, never before,' she replied.

`And now you will always see them,' he said.

`Now I shall always see them,' she repeated. `Thank you so much for showing me. I think they're so beautiful -- little red flames --'

Her absorption was strange, almost rhapsodic. Both Birkin and Ursula were suspended. The little red pistillate flowers had some strange, almost mysticpassionate attraction for her.

The lesson was finished, the books were put away, at last the class was dismissed. And still Hermione sat at the table, with her chin in her hand, her elbow on the table, her long white face pushed up, not attending to anything. Birkin had gone to the window, and was looking from the brilliantly-lighted room on to the grey, colourless outside, where rain was noiselessly falling. Ursula put away her things in the cupboard.

At length Hermione rose and came near to her.

`Your sister has come home?' she said.

`Yes,' said Ursula.

`And does she like being back in Beldover?'

`No,' said Ursula.

`No, I wonder she can bear it. It takes all my strength, to bear the ugliness of this district, when I stay here. Won't you come and see me? Won't you come with your sister to stay at Breadalby for a few days? -- do --'

`Thank you very much,' said Ursula.

`Then I will write to you,' said Hermione. `You think your sister will come? I should be so glad. I think she is wonderful. I think some of her work is really wonderful. I have two water-wagtails, carved in wood, and painted -- perhaps you have seen it?'

`No,' said Ursula.

`I think it is perfectly wonderful -- like a flash of instinct.'

`Her little carvings are strange,' said Ursula.

`Perfectly beautiful -- full of primitive passion --'

`Isn't it queer that she always likes little things? -- she must always work small things, that one can put between one's hands, birds and tiny animals. She likes to look through the wrong end of the opera glasses, and see the world that way -why is it, do you think?'

Hermione looked down at Ursula with that long, detached scrutinising gaze that excited the younger woman.

`Yes,' said Hermione at length. `It is curious. The little things seem to be more subtle to her --'

`But they aren't, are they? A mouse isn't any more subtle than a lion, is it?'

Again Hermione looked down at Ursula with that long scrutiny, as if she were following some train of thought of her own, and barely attending to the other's speech.

`I don't know,' she replied.

`Rupert, Rupert,' she sang mildly, calling him to her. He approached in silence.

`Are little things more subtle than big things?' she asked, with the odd grunt of laughter in her voice, as if she were making game of him in the question.

`Dunno,' he said.

`I hate subtleties,' said Ursula.

Hermione looked at her slowly.

`Do you?' she said.

`I always think they are a sign of weakness,' said Ursula, up in arms, as if her prestige were threatened.

Hermione took no notice. Suddenly her face puckered, her brow was knit with thought, she seemed twisted in troublesome effort for utterance.

`Do you really think, Rupert,' she asked, as if Ursula were not present, `do you really think it is worth while? Do you really think the children are better for being roused to consciousness?'

A dark flash went over his face, a silent fury. He was hollow-cheeked and pale, almost unearthly. And the woman, with her serious, conscience-harrowing question tortured him on the quick.

`They are not roused to consciousness,' he said. `Consciousness comes to them, willy-nilly.'

`But do you think they are better for having it quickened, stimulated? Isn't it better that they should remain unconscious of the hazel, isn't it better that they should see as a whole, without all this pulling to pieces, all this knowledge?'

`Would you rather, for yourself, know or not know, that the little red flowers are there, putting out for the pollen?' he asked harshly. His voice was brutal, scornful, cruel.

Hermione remained with her face lifted up, abstracted. He hung silent in irritation.

`I don't know,' she replied, balancing mildly. `I don't know.'

`But knowing is everything to you, it is all your life,' he broke out. She slowly looked at him.

`Is it?' she said.

`To know, that is your all, that is your life -- you have only this, this knowledge,' he cried. `There is only one tree, there is only one fruit, in your mouth.'

Again she was some time silent.

`Is there?' she said at last, with the same untouched calm. And then in a tone of whimsical inquisitiveness: `What fruit, Rupert?'

`The eternal apple,' he replied in exasperation, hating his own metaphors.

`Yes,' she said. There was a look of exhaustion about her. For some moments there was silence. Then, pulling herself together with a convulsed movement, Hermione resumed, in a sing-song, casual voice:

`But leaving me apart, Rupert; do you think the children are better, richer, happier, for all this knowledge; do you really think they are? Or is it better to leave them untouched, spontaneous. Hadn't they better be animals, simple animals, crude, violent, anything, rather than this self-consciousness, this incapacity to be spontaneous.'

They thought she had finished. But with a queer rumbling in her throat she resumed, `Hadn't they better be anything than grow up crippled, crippled in their souls, crippled in their feelings -- so thrown back -- so turned back on themselves -- incapable --' Hermione clenched her fist like one in a trance -- `of any spontaneous action, always deliberate, always burdened with choice, never carried away.'

Again they thought she had finished. But just as he was going to reply, she resumed her queer rhapsody -- `never carried away, out of themselves, always conscious, always self-conscious, always aware of themselves. Isn't anything better than this? Better be animals, mere animals with no mind at all, than this, this nothingness --'

`But do you think it is knowledge that makes us unliving and selfconscious?' he asked irritably.

She opened her eyes and looked at him slowly.

`Yes,' she said. She paused, watching him all the while, her eyes vague. Then she wiped her fingers across her brow, with a vague weariness. It irritated him bitterly. `It is the mind,' she said, `and that is death.' She raised her eyes slowly to him: `Isn't the mind --' she said, with the convulsed movement of her body, `isn't it our death? Doesn't it destroy all our spontaneity, all our instincts? Are not the young people growing up today, really dead before they have a chance to live?'

`Not because they have too much mind, but too little,' he said brutally.

`Are you sure?' she cried. `It seems to me the reverse. They are overconscious, burdened to death with consciousness.'

`Imprisoned within a limited, false set of concepts,' he cried.

But she took no notice of this, only went on with her own rhapsodic interrogation.

`When we have knowledge, don't we lose everything but knowledge?' she asked pathetically. `If I know about the flower, don't I lose the flower and have only the knowledge? Aren't we exchanging the substance for the shadow, aren't we forfeiting life for this dead quality of knowledge? And what does it mean to me, after all? What does all this knowing mean to me? It means nothing.'

`You are merely making words,' he said; `knowledge means everything to you. Even your animalism, you want it in your head. You don't want to be an animal, you want to observe your own animal functions, to get a mental thrill out of them. It is all purely secondary -- and more decadent than the most hide-bound intellectualism. What is it but the worst and last form of intellectualism, this love of yours for passion and the animal instincts? Passion and the instincts -- you want them hard enough, but through your head, in your consciousness. It all takes place in your head, under that skull of yours. Only you won't be conscious of what actually is: you want the lie that will match the rest of your furniture.'

Hermione set hard and poisonous against this attack. Ursula stood covered with wonder and shame. It frightened her, to see how they hated each other.

`It's all that Lady of Shalott business,' he said, in his strong abstract voice. He seemed to be charging her before the unseeing air. `You've got that mirror, your own fixed will, your immortal understanding, your own tight conscious world, and there is nothing beyond it. There, in the mirror, you must have everything. But now you have come to all your conclusions, you want to go back and be like a savage, without knowledge. You want a life of pure sensation and "passion."'

He quoted the last word satirically against her. She sat convulsed with fury and violation, speechless, like a stricken pythoness of the Greek oracle.

`But your passion is a lie,' he went on violently. `It isn't passion at all, it is your will. It's your bullying will. You want to clutch things and have them in your power. You want to have things in your power. And why? Because you haven't got any real body, any dark sensual body of life. You have no sensuality. You have only your will and your conceit of consciousness, and your lust for power, to know.'

He looked at her in mingled hate and contempt, also in pain because she suffered, and in shame because he knew he tortured her. He had an impulse to kneel and plead for forgiveness. But a bitterer red anger burned up to fury in him. He became unconscious of her, he was only a passionate voice speaking.

`Spontaneous!' he cried. `You and spontaneity! You, the most deliberate thing that ever walked or crawled! You'd be verily deliberately spontaneous -- that's you. Because you want to have everything in your own volition, your deliberate voluntary consciousness. You want it all in that loathsome little skull of yours, that ought to be cracked like a nut. For you'll be the same till it is cracked, like an insect in its skin. If one cracked your skull perhaps one might get a spontaneous, passionate woman out of you, with real sensuality. As it is, what you want is pornography -- looking at yourself in mirrors, watching your naked animal actions in mirrors, so that you can have it all in your consciousness, make it all mental.'

There was a sense of violation in the air, as if too much was said, the unforgivable. Yet Ursula was concerned now only with solving her own problems, in the light of his words. She was pale and abstracted.

`But do you really want sensuality?' she asked, puzzled.

Birkin looked at her, and became intent in his explanation.

`Yes,' he said, `that and nothing else, at this point. It is a fulfilment -- the great dark knowledge you can't have in your head -- the dark involuntary being. It is death to one's self -- but it is the coming into being of another.'

`But how? How can you have knowledge not in your head?' she asked, quite unable to interpret his phrases.

`In the blood,' he answered; `when the mind and the known world is drowned in darkness everything must go -- there must be the deluge. Then you find yourself a palpable body of darkness, a demon --'

`But why should I be a demon --?' she asked.

`"Woman wailing for her demon lover" --' he quoted -- `why, I don't know.'

Hermione roused herself as from a death -- annihilation.

`He is such a dreadful satanist, isn't he?' she drawled to Ursula, in a queer resonant voice, that ended on a shrill little laugh of pure ridicule. The two women were jeering at him, jeering him into nothingness. The laugh of the shrill, triumphant female sounded from Hermione, jeering him as if he were a neuter.

`No,' he said. `You are the real devil who won't let life exist.'

She looked at him with a long, slow look, malevolent, supercilious.

`You know all about it, don't you?' she said, with slow, cold, cunning mockery.

`Enough,' he replied, his face fixing fine and clear like steel. A horrible despair, and at the same time a sense of release, liberation, came over Hermione. She turned with a pleasant intimacy to Ursula.

`You are sure you will come to Breadalby?' she said, urging.

`Yes, I should like to very much,' replied Ursula.

Hermione looked down at her, gratified, reflecting, and strangely absent, as if possessed, as if not quite there.

`I'm so glad,' she said, pulling herself together. `Some time in about a fortnight. Yes? I will write to you here, at the school, shall I? Yes. And you'll be sure to come? Yes. I shall be so glad. Good-bye! Good-bye!'

Hermione held out her hand and looked into the eyes of the other woman. She knew Ursula as an immediate rival, and the knowledge strangely exhilarated her. Also she was taking leave. It always gave her a sense of strength, advantage, to be departing and leaving the other behind. Moreover she was taking the man with her, if only in hate.

Birkin stood aside, fixed and unreal. But now, when it was his turn to bid goodbye, he began to speak again.

`There's the whole difference in the world,' he said, `between the actual sensual being, and the vicious mental-deliberate profligacy our lot goes in for. In our night-time, there's always the electricity switched on, we watch ourselves, we get it all in the head, really. You've got to lapse out before you can know what sensual reality is, lapse into unknowingness, and give up your volition. You've got to do it. You've got to learn not-to-be, before you can come into being.

`But we have got such a conceit of ourselves -- that's where it is. We are so conceited, and so unproud. We've got no pride, we're all conceit, so conceited in our own papier-mache realised selves. We'd rather die than give up our little selfrighteous self-opinionated self-will.'

There was silence in the room. Both women were hostile and resentful. He sounded as if he were addressing a meeting. Hermione merely paid no attention, stood with her shoulders tight in a shrug of dislike.

Ursula was watching him as if furtively, not really aware of what she was seeing. There was a great physical attractiveness in him -- a curious hidden richness, that came through his thinness and his pallor like another voice, conveying another knowledge of him. It was in the curves of his brows and his chin, rich, fine, exquisite curves, the powerful beauty of life itself. She could not say what it was. But there was a sense of richness and of liberty.

`But we are sensual enough, without making ourselves so, aren't we?' she asked, turning to him with a certain golden laughter flickering under her greenish eyes, like a challenge. And immediately the queer, careless, terribly attractive smile came over his eyes and brows, though his mouth did not relax.

`No,' he said, `we aren't. We're too full of ourselves.'

`Surely it isn't a matter of conceit,' she cried.

`That and nothing else.'

She was frankly puzzled.

`Don't you think that people are most conceited of all about their sensual powers?' she asked.

`That's why they aren't sensual -- only sensuous -- which is another matter. They're always aware of themselves -- and they're so conceited, that rather than release themselves, and live in another world, from another centre, they'd --'

`You want your tea, don't you,' said Hermione, turning to Ursula with a gracious kindliness. `You've worked all day --'

Birkin stopped short. A spasm of anger and chagrin went over Ursula. His face set. And he bade good-bye, as if he had ceased to notice her.

They were gone. Ursula stood looking at the door for some moments. Then she put out the lights. And having done so, she sat down again in her chair, absorbed and lost. And then she began to cry, bitterly, bitterly weeping: but whether for misery or joy, she never knew.

 

学校的一天就要结束了。教室里正上最后一堂课，宁静，安谧。这堂课讲的是基础植物学。桌子上摆满了杨花，榛子和柳枝供孩子们临描。天色变暗了，下午就要结束了，教室里光线暗极了，孩子们无法再画下去了。厄秀拉站在前面给孩子们提着问题，帮助他们了解杨花的结构和意义。

西面的窗户晖映着一抹浓重的桔黄色，给孩子们的头上勾勒出一圈火红金黄的轮廓，对面的墙壁也涂上了一层瑰丽的血红。可厄秀拉对这幅景色并不怎么在意，她太忙了，白天已进入尾声了，一天的工作象退潮时平静的潮水一样，渐渐收尾了。

这一天就象许多天一样恍恍惚惚地过去了。最后她有点急匆匆地处理完了手头的事。她给孩子们提着问题，催促着他们，为的是在下课的锣声敲响时他们弄懂这天应该知道的问题。她手里拿着杨花站在教室前的阴影中，身体微微前倾向着孩子们讲着，沉浸在教学的激情中。

她听到门“咔嗒”响了一声，但没去注意。突然她浑身一惊：她看到一个男人的脸出现在那一道血红金黄的光线中，就在她身边。他浑身红焰一般闪着光，看着她，等着她去注意他。这个身影简直把她吓坏了，她觉得自己就要昏过去了。

她心中压抑着的潜意识恐怖感立时痛苦地爆发出来了。

“我让你吃惊了吧？”伯金同她握着手说，“我以为你听到我进来的声音了。”

“没有，”她迟疑着，几乎说不出话来。他笑着说他很抱歉。她不明白这有什么好笑的。

“太黑了，”他说，“开开灯好吗？”

说着他挪到边上打开了电灯，灯光很强。教室里清晰多了，跟刚才他来时比显得陌生了，刚才这儿溶满了舒缓黛色的魔幻色彩。伯金转过身好奇地看着厄秀拉。她的眼睛惊诧地睁圆了，由于惊恐，嘴唇都有点哆嗦了，看上去她就象一个刚刚被惊醒的人一样。她的面庞洋溢着一种活生生、温柔的美，就象柔和的夕阳一样在闪烁。他看着她，又添一分喜悦，满心的欢乐，轻松愉快。

“你正摆弄杨花？”他问着，顺手从讲台上拣起一颗榛子。

“都长成这么大了吗？今年我还没有留意过呢。”

他手中捏着雄花，看上去很入迷。

“还有红的！”他看着雌蕊中落出的绯红色说。

然后他在课桌中穿行着去看学术书，厄秀拉看着他稳步走来走去，他的稳重令她屏息。她似乎静静地站在一旁，眼看着他在另一个世界里聚精会神地走动着。他那静悄悄的身影几乎象凝结着的空气中的一个空洞。

突然他向她扬起脸来说话，听到他的声音她的心跳加快了。

“给他们一些彩笔吧，”他说，“让他们把雌性花涂上红色，雄性花涂成黄色。我只画不着色的画儿，只涂红、黄两种颜色。在这种情况下素描没什么不好的，要强调的就是这一点。”

“我这儿没有彩笔。”厄秀拉说。

“别处会有的，红的和黄的，你只需要这两种。”

厄秀拉打发一个男孩子去找。

“彩笔会把书弄脏的。”厄秀拉对伯金说，脸红透了。

“没那么严重，”他说，“你必须把这些东西标明，这是你要强调的事实，而不是记录主观印象。而这种事实就是雌花儿的小红斑点儿和悬坠着的黄色雄性杨花，黄色的花粉从这儿飞到那儿。将这事实绘成图，就象孩子画脸谱一样——两只眼，一只鼻子，嘴里长着牙齿，就这样——”说着他在黑板上画出一个人形来。

就在这时，玻璃门外出现了另一个人的身影。来人是赫麦妮·罗迪斯。伯金走过去为她打开门。

“我看到了你的汽车。”她对他说，“我进来找你，你不介意吧？我想看看你履行公务时的样子。”

她亲昵愉快地看了他好半天，然后笑了一下。接着她自己朝厄秀拉转过身来，厄秀拉和她的学生们一直在看着这对情人间的一幕。

“你好，布朗温小姐，”赫麦妮唱歌般地同厄秀拉打招呼，那声音低沉，奇妙，象在唱歌，又象在打趣。“我进来，你不介意吧？”

她那双灰色、几乎充满讽刺意味的眼睛一直看着厄秀拉，似乎要把她看透。

“哦，不介意的。”厄秀拉说。

“真的吗？”赫麦妮追问，态度镇定，毫不掩饰自己的霸道专横。

“哦，不介意，我很高兴，”厄秀拉笑道，既激动又惊恐，因为赫麦妮似乎在逼近她，那样子似乎跟她很亲昵，其实她怎么能亲近厄秀拉呢？

赫麦妮需要的正是这样的回答。她转身满意地对伯金说：

“你做什么呢？”那声音是漫不经心的。

“摆弄杨花，”他回答。

“真的！”她说。“那你都学到了什么？”她一直用一种嘲弄、玩笑的口吻说话，似乎这一切都是一场游戏。她拣起一枚杨花，吸引了伯金的注意力。

她身穿一件宽大的绿色大衣，大衣上透着凸出的图案，显得她在教室里有点怪模怪样的。大衣高领和大衣的衬里都是用黑色皮毛做的，里面着一件香草色的上衣，边儿上镶着皮毛，很合适的皮帽子上拼着暗绿和暗黄色的图案。她高大，模样很怪，就象从什么希奇古怪的图画上走下来的人一样。

“你认识这红色的小椭圆花儿吗？它可以产坚果呢。你注意过它们吗？”他问赫麦妮，说着他走近她，指点着她手中的枝子。

“没有，”她回答，“是什么？”

“这些是产籽的花儿，这长长的杨花只生产使它们受精的花粉。”

“是吗？是吗！”赫麦妮重复着，看得很仔细。

“坚果就从这些红红的小东西里长出来，当然它们要先受精。”

“小小的红色火焰，红色火焰，”赫麦妮自言自语着。好半天，她只是盯着那长出红花儿的小花蕾看来看去。

“多么好看啊，我觉得它们太美了，”她凑近伯金，细长，苍白的手指指点着红红的花丝说。

“你以前注意过吗？”他问。

“没有，从来没有。”她答道。

“以后总要看到这些了。”他说。

“对，我会注意的。”她重复他的话说，“谢谢你给我看了这么多，它们太美了，小小的红火苗儿——”

她对此那么入迷，几乎有些发狂，这可有点不正常。厄秀拉和伯金都感到迷惑不解。这些红雌蕊竟对赫麦妮有某种奇妙的吸引力，几乎令她产生了神秘的激情。

这一课上完了，教科书放到一边不用了，学生们终于放学了。但赫麦妮仍然坐在桌前，双肘支在桌上，两手托着下腭，苍白的长脸向上仰着，不知在看什么。伯金走到窗前，从灯光明亮的屋里朝外观望，外面灰濛濛的，细雨已悄然落下。

厄秀拉把她的东西都归置到柜子里去。

赫麦妮终于站起身走近厄秀拉问道：

“你妹妹回家来了？”

“回来了。”厄秀拉说。

“她愿意回贝多弗来吗？”

“不愿意。”厄秀拉说。

“不会吧，我想她能够忍受。我呆在这里就得竭尽全力忍受这个地区的丑陋面目。你愿意来看我吗？和你妹妹一起来布莱德比住几天，好吗？”

“那太谢谢您了。”厄秀拉说。

“那好，我会给你写信的，”赫麦妮说，“你觉得你妹妹会来吗？她如果能来我会很高兴的。我觉得她这个人很好，她的一些作品真是优秀之作。我有她的一幅木刻，上了色的，刻的是两只水鹡鸰，也许你没见过吧？”

“没有。”厄秀拉说。

“我觉得那幅作品妙极了，全然是本能的闪光——”

“她的雕刻很古怪。”厄秀拉说。

“十足得美妙，充满了原始激情——”

“真奇怪，她为什么总喜欢一些小东西呢？她一定经常画些小东西，小鸟儿啦，或者小动物什么的，人们可以捧在手中把玩。她总喜欢透过望远镜的反面观察事物，观察世界，你知道这是为什么？”

赫麦妮俯视着厄秀拉，用那种超然、审视的目光久久地盯着她，这目光令厄秀拉激动。

“是啊，”赫麦妮终于说，“这真奇怪。那些小东西似乎对她来说更难以捉摸——”

“可其实不然，对吗？一只老鼠并不比一头狮子难以捉摸，不是吗？”

赫麦妮再一次俯视着厄秀拉，仍然审视地看着她，似乎她仍然按照自己的思路想着什么，一点也不在意对方在说什么。

“我不知道。”她回答。

“卢伯特，卢伯特，”她唱歌般地叫他过来，他就默默地靠近了她。

“小东西比大东西更微妙吗？”她问道，喉咙里憋着一声奇特的笑，似乎她不是在提问而是在做游戏。

“不知道。”他说。

“我讨厌微妙不可捉摸的东西。”厄秀拉说。

赫麦妮缓缓地巡视她，问：

“是吗？”

“我总认为小东西表现出的是软弱。”厄秀拉说着抬起了胳膊，似乎她的尊严受到了威胁。

赫麦妮对此没有注意。突然她的面部皱了起来，眉头紧锁着，似乎她想着什么，竭力要表达自己。

“卢伯特，你真地以为，”她视厄秀拉旁若无人一般，问道：“你真地以为唤醒了孩子们的思想是件值得的事吗？”

伯金脸上闪过一道阴影，他生气了。他的两腮下陷着，脸色苍白，几乎没有人样儿了。这个女人用她那严肃、扰乱人意识的问题折磨他，说到了他的痛处。

“他们不是被唤醒的，他们自然会有思想的，不管愿意不愿意。”

“可是，你以为加快或刺激他们的思想发展会更好吗？让他们不知道榛子为何物不是更好吗？为什么要把榛子弄成一点点的，把知识分割成一点点的？让他们识其全豹不是更好？”

“不管你懂不懂吧，你是否希望让这些小红花儿在这儿受精呢？”他严厉地问。他的语调残酷、尖刻、蛮横。

赫麦妮的脸仍然仰着，茫茫然。伯金在生闷气。

“我不懂，”她和解地说，“我是不懂。”

“可知识对你来说就是一切，是你的全部生命，”他忿忿地脱口而出。她缓缓地巡视他。

“是吗？”她说。

“知识，是全部的你，你的生命——你只有这个，知识，”

他叫道，“只有一棵树，你的口中只有一颗果子。”

她又沉默了一会儿。

“是吗？”她终于无动于衷地说。然后她又怪声怪气地问：

“什么果子，卢伯特？”

“那永恒的苹果，①”他气愤地答道，连自己都仇恨这个比喻。

①这里指“智慧树”上的果子，象征知识和理智。

“是的，”她说道，看上去很疲惫。一时间大家都沉默了。然后，她竭尽全力振作起精神，又恢复了那漫不经心歌唱般的语调。

“别考虑我，卢伯特。你是否认为孩子们有了这些知识会变得更好、更富有，更幸福？你真是这么想的吗？是不是让他们不受影响，顺其自然？让他们仍然是动物，简单的动物，粗犷、凶暴。怎么样都可以，就是不能因为有自我意识而无法顺其自然。”

大家以为她说完了，可她喉咙奇怪地咕哝一下，又说了起来：“让他们怎么着都行，就是不要长大了灵魂残废，感情上残废，最后自食其果，无法——”赫麦妮象一个神情恍惚的人一样握紧了拳头——“无法顺其自然地行事，总是谋划什么，总是选择来选择去一事无成。”

大家又以为她的话说完了。可就在伯金要回答她时，她又狂热地说：“总是无法自行其事，总那么清醒，自我意识过强，时时注意自己，难道没有比这更好的吗？最好是动物，一点头脑都没有的动物，也比这强，这样太不值了。”

“难道你认为是知识使得我们失去了生气，让我们有了自我意识？”伯金气恼地问。

她睁大眼睛打量着他说：

“是的，”她停顿一下，茫然地看着他。然后她用手指抹了一下眉毛，显得有点疲惫。这个动作令他反感极了。“头脑这东西，”她说，“就是死亡。”她渐渐抬起眼皮看着他说：

“难道头脑，”她浑身抽动着说：“不是我们的末日吗？难道它不是毁灭了我们的自然属性，毁灭了我们全部的本能吗？难道今日的年轻人不是在长大以后连活的机会都没有就死了吗？”

“但那不是因为他们太有头脑，而是因为太没有头脑了。”

他粗暴地说。

“你敢肯定吗？”她叫道。“我觉得恰恰相反。他们的意识太强了，一直到死都受着沉重的意识的重压。”

“受着有限的，虚假的思想的禁锢。”他叫着。

赫麦妮对他的话一点也不注意，仍旧狂热地发问：

“当我们有了知识时，我们就牺牲了一切，就只剩下知识了，不是吗？”她颇为动情地问道。“如果我懂得了这花儿是怎么回事，难道我不是失去了花朵，只剩下了那么点知识？难道我们不是在用实体换来影子，难道我们不是为了这种僵死的知识而失去了生命？可这对我来说究竟意味着什么？这一切知识对我意味着什么？什么也不是。”

“你只是在搬弄词藻，”伯金说，“可知识对你来说意味着一切。甚至你的人同野兽的理论，也不过是你头脑里的东西。你并不想成为野兽，你只是想理论一下你的动物功能，从而获得一种精神上的刺激。这都是次要的，比最墨守成规的唯理智论更没落。你爱激情，爱野兽的本能，这不过是唯理智论最坏的表现形式，难道不是吗？激情和本能，你苦苦地思念这些，可只是在你的头脑中，在你的意识中。这些都发生在你的头脑中，发生在那个脑壳里。只是你无法意识到这是怎么一回事罢了：他要的是用谎言来代替真实。”

对伯金的攻击赫麦妮报之以冷酷刻毒的表情。厄秀拉站在那儿，一脸的惊诧与羞赧。他们相互这样反目，把厄秀拉吓坏了。

“这全是夏洛特小姐①那一套，”他用令人难以捉摸的口吻说。他似乎是在冲着一片空荡荡的空间说着指责她的话。“你有了那面镜子，那是你顽固的意志，是你一成不变的领悟能力，你缜密的意识世界，除此以外再没别的了。在这面镜子里你一定获得了一切。可是现在你清醒了，你要返璞归真了，想成为野蛮人，不要知识了。你要的是一种纯粹感觉与‘激情’的生活。”

①《亚瑟王传奇》中的一女子，她单相思爱上了一位骑士，苦恋而死。

他用一个“激情”来反讽她。她气得浑身直打颤，无言以对，那副样子很象古希腊神谕宣示所里的女巫。

“可你的所谓激情是骗人的，”他激烈地继续说，“压根儿不是什么激情，而是你的意志。你要抓住什么东西，为的是控制它们。为什么？因为你没有一具真正的躯体，一具黑暗、富有肉感的生命之躯。你没有性欲，有的只是你的意志，意识思想和权力欲、知识欲。”

他又恨又蔑视地看着她，同时因为她在痛苦自己也感到痛苦。他感到羞耻，因为他知道他折磨着她。他真想跪下肯求她的宽恕，可他又无法平息心中的怒火。他忘却了她的存在，仅仅变成了一个充满激情的声音：

“顺其自然！”他叫道，“你还顺其自然！你比谁都老谋深算！你顺的是你的老谋深算，这才是你，你要用你的意志去控制一切，你要的是老谋深算与主观意志。你那可恶的小脑壳里装的全是这些，应该象砸坚果一样把它砸碎，因为不砸碎它你仍然会是这样，就象包着壳的昆虫一样。如果有人砸碎了你的脑壳，他就可以让你成为一个自然的、有激情的、有真正肉欲的女人。可你呢，你需要的淫荡——从镜子中观看你自己，观看你赤裸裸的动物行为，从而你就可以将其意识化。”

空气中有一种亵渎的气氛，似乎他说了太多不能令人原谅的话。但厄秀拉关心的是借助伯金的话解决自己的问题。她脸色苍白，很茫然地问：

“你真地需要肉欲吗？”

伯金看看她，认真地解释道：

“是的，恰恰需要这个，而不是别的。这是一种满足和完善——你的头脑无法获得的伟大的黑暗知识——黑暗的非自主存在。它是你自己本身的死亡，可却是另一个自我的复活。”

“可这是怎样的呢？你怎么能够让知识不存在于头脑中呢？”她无法解释他的话。

“在血液中，”他回答，“当意识和已知世界沉入黑暗中时——什么都一样——就一定有一场大雨。然后你发现自己处在一个可以感知的黑暗躯体中，变成了一个魔鬼——”

“可我为什么要变成一个魔鬼呢？”她问。

“‘女人嚎叫着寻找她的魔鬼情人，①’”他说道，“我不知道这是为什么。”

①引自S·T·柯勒律治（１７７２—１８３４）《忽必烈汗》。

赫麦妮似乎从死亡中醒来了。

“他是一个可怕的撒旦主义者，不是吗？”她拉长声音对厄秀拉说，那奇怪的共鸣声在结尾处又添一声嘲弄的尖笑。这两个女人在嘲笑他，笑得他一无是处。赫麦妮那尖声、凯旋般的女人的笑在嘲弄他，似乎他是个阉人。

“我不是，”他说，“你们是真正的魔鬼，你们不允许生命存在。”

赫麦妮缓缓地审视了他好久，那目光恶毒、傲慢。

“你什么都懂，不是吗？”她语调缓慢、冷漠，透着狡猾的嘲弄味儿。

“够了，”他说，他的面庞钢铁般生硬。赫麦妮立时感到一阵可怕的失落，同时又感到释然。她转身亲昵地对厄秀拉说：

“你们肯定会来布莱德比吗？”

“是的，我很乐意去。”厄秀拉说。

赫麦妮满意地看看她，心不在焉地想着什么，似乎丢了魂一样。

“我太高兴了。”她说着振作起了精神，“两周之内的什么时候来，行吗？我就把信写到这里来，写到学校，行吗？好吧。你肯定会来吗？好。我太高兴了。再见！再见！”

赫麦妮对厄秀拉伸出手来凝视着她。她知道厄秀拉是她的直接情故，这可把她高兴坏了，真有点奇怪。现在她要告辞了。与别人告别，把别人留在原地总让她感到有力量，感到占了便宜。再说，她在仇恨中带走了这个男人，这更是再好不过了。

伯金站在一旁，失神地一动不动。可当他告别时，他又开始讲起来：

“在这个世界上，实际的肉欲与我们命中注定的罪恶的放荡性意淫之间是不可同日而语的。晚上，我们总要扭开电灯在灯光下观看我们自己，于是我们把这东西都注入头脑里了，真的。你要想知道肉欲的真实，你就先要沉迷，坠入无知中，放弃你的意志。你必须这样。你要生，首先要学会死。

“可我们太自傲了，就这么回事。我们太自傲，而不是自豪。我们没一点自豪感，我们傲气十足，自造假象欺骗自己。我们宁可死也不放弃自己那一丁点自以为是，固步自封的自我意志。”

屋里一片安宁。两个女人充满了敌意和不满。而他却好象在什么大会上做讲演。赫麦妮几乎连听都不听，自顾耸耸肩表示厌恶。

厄秀拉似乎在偷偷看着他，并不真地知道自己看的是什么。他身上有一种巨大的魅力——某种内在的奇特的低沉声音发自这个瘦削，苍白的人，象另外一个人的声音在传达着对他的认识。他眉毛和下腭的曲线变幻多端，漂亮、优雅的曲线展示着生命本身强有力的美。她说不清这是怎么回事，但她感到一种满足与畅快。

“可是，尽管我们有肉欲，但我们没有这样做，是吗？”她转身问他，蓝色的眼睛闪烁着金色的光芒，她在笑，象对他挑战一样。于是，他的眼睛与眉毛立时露出神奇、毫无拘束、令人心动的迷人的微笑，但他的嘴唇丝毫没有动一动。

“不，我们没有，”他说，“我们太为自我所充溢。”

“肯定地说，这并不是自傲的问题。”她叫了起来。

“是的，不会是别的。”

她简直迷惑了。

“你不认为人们都为自己的肉欲力量感到骄傲吗？”她问。

“这说明他们并不是肉欲者，而是感觉者，这是另一个问题。人们总意识到自己，又那么自傲，并不是解放自己，让自己生活在另一个世界中，并不是来自另一个中心，他们——”

“你要用茶点了吧，嗯？”赫麦妮转身优雅、和蔼地对厄秀拉说。“你工作了一整天了呀——”

伯金的话戛然而止。厄秀拉感到一股怒火涌上心头，她感到懊悔。伯金绷起脸道别，似乎他不再注意她了。

他们走了，厄秀拉盯着门看了好一会儿。然后她关掉了电灯，又一次坐在椅子上失魂落魄起来。她哭了，伤心地啜泣着，很伤心，是喜是悲？她弄不清。