Chapter 23 Excurse

NEXT DAY Birkin sought Ursula out. It happened to be the half-day at the Grammar School. He appeared towards the end of the morning, and asked her, would she drive with him in the afternoon. She consented. But her face was closed and unresponding, and his heart sank.

The afternoon was fine and dim. He was driving the motor-car, and she sat beside him. But still her face was closed against him, unresponding. When she became like this, like a wall against him, his heart contracted.

His life now seemed so reduced, that he hardly cared any more. At moments it seemed to him he did not care a straw whether Ursula or Hermione or anybody else existed or did not exist. Why bother! Why strive for a coherent, satisfied life? Why not drift on in a series of accidents--like a picaresque novel? Why not? Why bother about human relationships? Why take them seriously--male or female? Why form any serious connections at all? Why not be casual, drifting along, taking all for what it was worth?

And yet, still, he was damned and doomed to the old effort at serious living.

`Look,' he said, `what I bought.' The car was running along a broad white road, between autumn trees.

He gave her a little bit of screwed-up paper. She took it and opened it.

`How lovely,' she cried.

She examined the gift.

`How perfectly lovely!' she cried again. `But why do you give them me?' She put the question offensively.

His face flickered with bored irritation. He shrugged his shoulders slightly.

`I wanted to,' he said, coolly.

`But why? Why should you?'

`Am I called on to find reasons?' he asked.

There was a silence, whilst she examined the rings that had been screwed up in the paper.

`I think they are beautiful,' she said, `especially this. This is wonderful-'

It was a round opal, red and fiery, set in a circle of tiny rubies.

`You like that best?' he said.

`I think I do.'

`I like the sapphire,' he said.

`This?'

It was a rose-shaped, beautiful sapphire, with small brilliants.

`Yes,' she said, `it is lovely.' She held it in the light. `Yes, perhaps it is the best--'

`The blue--' he said.

`Yes, wonderful--'

He suddenly swung the car out of the way of a farm-cart. It tilted on the bank. He was a careless driver, yet very quick. But Ursula was frightened. There was always that something regardless in him which terrified her. She suddenly felt he might kill her, by making some dreadful accident with the motor-car. For a moment she was stony with fear.

`Isn't it rather dangerous, the way you drive?' she asked him.

`No, it isn't dangerous,' he said. And then, after a pause: `Don't you like the yellow ring at all?'

It was a squarish topaz set in a frame of steel, or some other similar mineral, finely wrought.

`Yes,' she said, `I do like it. But why did you buy these rings?'

`I wanted them. They are second-hand.'

`You bought them for yourself?'

`No. Rings look wrong on my hands.'

`Why did you buy them then?'

`I bought them to give to you.'

`But why? Surely you ought to give them to Hermione! You belong to her.'

He did not answer. She remained with the jewels shut in her hand. She wanted to try them on her fingers, but something in her would not let her. And moreover, she was afraid her hands were too large, she shrank from the mortification of a failure to put them on any but her little finger. They travelled in silence through the empty lanes.

Driving in a motor-car excited her, she forgot his presence even.

`Where are we?' she asked suddenly.

`Not far from Worksop.'

`And where are we going?'

`Anywhere.'

It was the answer she liked.

She opened her hand to look at the rings. They gave her such pleasure, as they lay, the three circles, with their knotted jewels, entangled in her palm. She would have to try them on. She did so secretly, unwilling to let him see, so that he should not know her finger was too large for them. But he saw nevertheless. He always saw, if she wanted him not to. It was another of his hateful, watchful characteristics.

Only the opal, with its thin wire loop, would go on her ring finger. And she was superstitious. No, there was ill-portent enough, she would not accept this ring from him in pledge.

`Look,' she said, putting forward her hand, that was half-closed and shrinking. `The others don't fit me.'

He looked at the red-glinting, soft stone, on her over-sensitive skin.

`Yes,' he said.

`But opals are unlucky, aren't they?' she said wistfully.

`No. I prefer unlucky things. Luck is vulgar. Who wants what luck would bring? I don't.'

`But why?' she laughed.

And, consumed with a desire to see how the other rings would look on her hand, she put them on her little finger.

`They can be made a little bigger,' he said.

`Yes,' she replied, doubtfully. And she sighed. She knew that, in accepting the rings, she was accepting a pledge. Yet fate seemed more than herself. She looked again at the jewels. They were very beautiful to her eyes--not as ornament, or wealth, but as tiny fragments of loveliness.

`I'm glad you bought them,' she said, putting her hand, half unwillingly, gently on his arm.

He smiled, slightly. He wanted her to come to him. But he was angry at the bottom of his soul, and indifferent. He knew she had a passion for him, really. But it was not finally interesting. There were depths of passion when one became impersonal and indifferent, unemotional. Whereas Ursula was still at the emotional personal level--always so abominably personal. He had taken her as he had never been taken himself. He had taken her at the roots of her darkness and shame--like a demon, laughing over the fountain of mystic corruption which was one of the sources of her being, laughing, shrugging, accepting, accepting finally. As for her, when would she so much go beyond herself as to accept him at the quick of death?

She now became quite happy. The motor-car ran on, the afternoon was soft and dim. She talked with lively interest, analysing people and their motives--Gudrun, Gerald. He answered vaguely. He was not very much interested any more in personalities and in people--people were all different, but they were all enclosed nowadays in a definite limitation, he said; there were only about two great ideas, two great streams of activity remaining, with various forms of reaction therefrom. The reactions were all varied in various people, but they followed a few great laws, and intrinsically there was no difference. They acted and reacted involuntarily according to a few great laws, and once the laws, the great principles, were known, people were no longer mystically interesting. They were all essentially alike, the differences were only variations on a theme. None of them transcended the given terms.

Ursula did not agree--people were still an adventure to her--but--perhaps not as much as she tried to persuade herself. Perhaps there was something mechanical, now, in her interest. Perhaps also her interest was destructive, her analysing was a real tearing to pieces. There was an under-space in her where she did not care for people and their idiosyncracies, even to destroy them. She seemed to touch for a moment this undersilence in herself, she became still, and she turned for a moment purely to Birkin.

`Won't it be lovely to go home in the dark?' she said. `We might have tea rather late--shall we?--and have high tea? Wouldn't that be rather nice?'

`I promised to be at Shortlands for dinner,' he said.

`But--it doesn't matter--you can go tomorrow--'

`Hermione is there,' he said, in rather an uneasy voice. `She is going away in two days. I suppose I ought to say good-bye to her. I shall never see her again.'

Ursula drew away, closed in a violent silence. He knitted his brows, and his eyes began to sparkle again in anger.

`You don't mind, do you?' he asked irritably.

`No, I don't care. Why should I? Why should I mind?' Her tone was jeering and offensive.

`That's what I ask myself,' he said; `why should you mind! But you seem to.' His brows were tense with violent irritation.

`I assure you I don't, I don't mind in the least. Go where you belong--it's what I want you to do.'

`Ah you fool!' he cried, `with your "go where you belong." It's finished between Hermione and me. She means much more to you, if it comes to that, than she does to me. For you can only revolt in pure reaction from her--and to be her opposite is to be her counterpart.'

`Ah, opposite!' cried Ursula. `I know your dodges. I am not taken in by your word-twisting. You belong to Hermione and her dead show. Well, if you do, you do. I don't blame you. But then you've nothing to do with me.

In his inflamed, overwrought exasperation, he stopped the car, and they sat there, in the middle of the country lane, to have it out. It was a crisis of war between them, so they did not see the ridiculousness of their situation.

`If you weren't a fool, if only you weren't a fool,' he cried in bitter despair, `you'd see that one could be decent, even when one has been wrong. I was wrong to go on all those years with Hermione -- it was a deathly process. But after all, one can have a little human decency. But no, you would tear my soul out with your jealousy at the very mention of Hermione's name.'

`I jealous! I -- jealous! You are mistaken if you think that. I'm not jealous in the least of Hermione, she is nothing to me, not that!' And Ursula snapped her fingers. `No, it's you who are a liar. It's you who must return, like a dog to his vomit. It is what Hermione stands for that I hate. I hate it. It is lies, it is false, it is death. But you want it, you can't help it, you can't help yourself. You belong to that old, deathly way of living -then go back to it. But don't come to me, for I've nothing to do with it.'

And in the stress of her violent emotion, she got down from the car and went to the hedgerow, picking unconsciously some flesh-pink spindleberries, some of which were burst, showing their orange seeds.

`Ah, you are a fool,' he cried, bitterly, with some contempt.

`Yes, I am. I am a fool. And thank God for it. I'm too big a fool to swallow your cleverness. God be praised. You go to your women -- go to them -- they are your sort -- you've always had a string of them trailing after you -- and you always will. Go to your spiritual brides -- but don't come to me as well, because I'm not having any, thank you. You're not satisfied, are you? Your spiritual brides can't give you what you want, they aren't common and fleshy enough for you, aren't they? So you come to me, and keep them in the background! You will marry me for daily use. But you'll keep yourself well provided with spiritual brides in the background. I know your dirty little game.' Suddenly a flame ran over her, and she stamped her foot madly on the road, and he winced, afraid that she would strike him. `And I, I'm not spiritual enough, I'm not as spiritual as that Hermione --!' Her brows knitted, her eyes blazed like a tiger's. `Then go to her, that's all I say, go to her, go. Ha, she spiritual - spiritual, she! A dirty materialist as she is. She spiritual? What does she care for, what is her spirituality? What is it?' Her fury seemed to blaze out and burn his face. He shrank a little. `I tell you it's dirt, dirt, and nothing but dirt. And it's dirt you want, you crave for it. Spiritual! Is that spiritual, her bullying, her conceit, her sordid materialism? She's a fishwife, a fishwife, she is such a materialist. And all so sordid. What does she work out to, in the end, with all her social passion, as you call it. Social passion -- what social passion has she? -- show it me! -- where is it? She wants petty, immediate power, she wants the illusion that she is a great woman, that is all. In her soul she's a devilish unbeliever, common as dirt. That's what she is at the bottom. And all the rest is pretence -- but you love it. You love the sham spirituality, it's your food. And why? Because of the dirt underneath. Do you think I don't know the foulness of your sex life -- and her's? -- I do. And it's that foulness you w
ant, you liar. Then have it, have it. You're such a liar.'

She turned away, spasmodically tearing the twigs of spindleberry from the hedge, and fastening them, with vibrating fingers, in the bosom of her coat.

He stood watching in silence. A wonderful tenderness burned in him, at the sight of her quivering, so sensitive fingers: and at the same time he was full of rage and callousness.

`This is a degrading exhibition,' he said coolly.

`Yes, degrading indeed,' she said. `But more to me than to you.'

`Since you choose to degrade yourself,' he said. Again the flash came over her face, the yellow lights concentrated in her eyes.

`You!' she cried. `You! You truth-lover! You purity-monger! It stinks, your truth and your purity. It stinks of the offal you feed on, you scavenger dog, you eater of corpses. You are foul, foul and you must know it. Your purity, your candour, your goodness -- yes, thank you, we've had some. What you are is a foul, deathly thing, obscene, that's what you are, obscene and perverse. You, and love! You may well say, you don't want love. No, you want yourself, and dirt, and death -- that's what you want. You are so perverse, so death-eating. And then --'

`There's a bicycle coming,' he said, writhing under her loud denunciation.

She glanced down the road.

`I don't care,' she cried.

Nevertheless she was silent. The cyclist, having heard the voices raised in altercation, glanced curiously at the man, and the woman, and at the standing motor-car as he passed.

`-- Afternoon,' he said, cheerfully.

`Good-afternoon,' replied Birkin coldly.

They were silent as the man passed into the distance.

A clearer look had come over Birkin's face. He knew she was in the main right. He knew he was perverse, so spiritual on the one hand, and in some strange way, degraded, on the other. But was she herself any better? Was anybody any better?

`It may all be true, lies and stink and all,' he said. `But Hermione's spiritual intimacy is no rottener than your emotional-jealous intimacy. One can preserve the decencies, even to one's enemies: for one's own sake. Hermione is my enemy -- to her last breath! That's why I must bow her off the field.'

`You! You and your enemies and your bows! A pretty picture you make of yourself. But it takes nobody in but yourself. I jealous! I! What I say,' her voice sprang into flame, `I say because it is true, do you see, because you are you, a foul and false liar, a whited sepulchre. That's why I say it. And you hear it.'

`And be grateful,' he added, with a satirical grimace.

`Yes,' she cried, `and if you have a spark of decency in you, be grateful.'

`Not having a spark of decency, however --' he retorted.

`No,' she cried, `you haven't a spark. And so you can go your way, and I'll go mine. It's no good, not the slightest. So you can leave me now, I don't want to go any further with you -- leave me --'

`You don't even know where you are,' he said.

`Oh, don't bother, I assure you I shall be all right. I've got ten shillings in my purse, and that will take me back from anywhere you have brought me to.' She hesitated. The rings were still on her fingers, two on her little finger, one on her ring finger. Still she hesitated.

`Very good,' he said. `The only hopeless thing is a fool.'

`You are quite right,' she said.

Still she hesitated. Then an ugly, malevolent look came over her face, she pulled the rings from her fingers, and tossed them at him. One touched his face, the others hit his coat, and they scattered into the mud.

`And take your rings,' she said, `and go and buy yourself a female elsewhere -- there are plenty to be had, who will be quite glad to share your spiritual mess, -- or to have your physical mess, and leave your spiritual mess to Hermione.'

With which she walked away, desultorily, up the road. He stood motionless, watching her sullen, rather ugly walk. She was sullenly picking and pulling at the twigs of the hedge as she passed. She grew smaller, she seemed to pass out of his sight. A darkness came over his mind. Only a small, mechanical speck of consciousness hovered near him.

He felt tired and weak. Yet also he was relieved. He gave up his old position. He went and sat on the bank. No doubt Ursula was right. It was true, really, what she said. He knew that his spirituality was concomitant of a process of depravity, a sort of pleasure in self-destruction. There really was a certain stimulant in self-destruction, for him -- especially when it was translated spiritually. But then he knew it -- he knew it, and had done. And was not Ursula's way of emotional intimacy, emotional and physical, was it not just as dangerous as Hermione's abstract spiritual intimacy? Fusion, fusion, this horrible fusion of two beings, which every woman and most men insisted on, was it not nauseous and horrible anyhow, whether it was a fusion of the spirit or of the emotional body? Hermione saw herself as the perfect Idea, to which all men must come: And Ursula was the perfect Womb, the bath of birth, to which all men must come! And both were horrible. Why could they not remain individuals, limited by their own limits? Why this dreadful allcomprehensiveness, this hateful tyranny? Why not leave the other being, free, why try to absorb, or melt, or merge? One might abandon oneself utterly to the moments, but not to any other being.

He could not bear to see the rings lying in the pale mud of the road. He picked them up, and wiped them unconsciously on his hands. They were the little tokens of the reality of beauty, the reality of happiness in warm creation. But he had made his hands all dirty and gritty.

There was a darkness over his mind. The terrible knot of consciousness that had persisted there like an obsession was broken, gone, his life was dissolved in darkness over his limbs and his body. But there was a point of anxiety in his heart now. He wanted her to come back. He breathed lightly and regularly like an infant, that breathes innocently, beyond the touch of responsibility.

She was coming back. He saw her drifting desultorily under the high hedge, advancing towards him slowly. He did not move, he did not look again. He was as if asleep, at peace, slumbering and utterly relaxed.

She came up and stood before him, hanging her head.

`See what a flower I found you,' she said, wistfully holding a piece of purple-red bell-heather under his face. He saw the clump of coloured bells, and the tree-like, tiny branch: also her hands, with their over-fine, over-sensitive skin.

`Pretty!' he said, looking up at her with a smile, taking the flower. Everything had become simple again, quite simple, the complexity gone into nowhere. But he badly wanted to cry: except that he was weary and bored by emotion.

Then a hot passion of tenderness for her filled his heart. He stood up and looked into her face. It was new and oh, so delicate in its luminous wonder and fear. He put his arms round her, and she hid her face on his shoulder.

It was peace, just simple peace, as he stood folding her quietly there on the open lane. It was peace at last. The old, detestable world of tension had passed away at last, his soul was strong and at ease.

She looked up at him. The wonderful yellow light in her eyes now was soft and yielded, they were at peace with each other. He kissed her, softly, many, many times. A laugh came into her eyes.

`Did I abuse you?' she asked.

He smiled too, and took her hand, that was so soft and given.

`Never mind,' she said, `it is all for the good.' He kissed her again, softly, many times.

`Isn't it?' she said.

`Certainly,' he replied. `Wait! I shall have my own back.'

She laughed suddenly, with a wild catch in her voice, and flung her arms around him.

`You are mine, my love, aren't you?' she cried straining him close.

`Yes,' he said, softly.

His voice was so soft and final, she went very still, as if under a fate which had taken her. Yes, she acquiesced -- but it was accomplished without her acquiescence. He was kissing her quietly, repeatedly, with a soft, still happiness that almost made her heart stop beating.

`My love!' she cried, lifting her face and looking with frightened, gentle wonder of bliss. Was it all real? But his eyes were beautiful and soft and immune from stress or excitement, beautiful and smiling lightly to her, smiling with her. She hid her face on his shoulder, hiding before him, because he could see her so completely. She knew he loved her, and she was afraid, she was in a strange element, a new heaven round about her. She wished he were passionate, because in passion she was at home. But this was so still and frail, as space is more frightening than force.

Again, quickly, she lifted her head.

`Do you love me?' she said, quickly, impulsively.

`Yes,' he replied, not heeding her motion, only her stillness.

She knew it was true. She broke away.

`So you ought,' she said, turning round to look at the road. `Did you find the rings?'

`Yes.'

`Where are they?'

`In my pocket.'

She put her hand into his pocket and took them out.

She was restless.

`Shall we go?' she said.

`Yes,' he answered. And they mounted to the car once more, and left behind them this memorable battle-field.

They drifted through the wild, late afternoon, in a beautiful motion that was smiling and transcendent. His mind was sweetly at ease, the life flowed through him as from some new fountain, he was as if born out of the cramp of a womb.

`Are you happy?' she asked him, in her strange, delighted way.

`Yes,' he said.

`So am I,' she cried in sudden ecstacy, putting her arm round him and clutching him violently against her, as he steered the motor-car.

`Don't drive much more,' she said. `I don't want you to be always doing something.'

`No,' he said. `We'll finish this little trip, and then we'll be free.'

`We will, my love, we will,' she cried in delight, kissing him as he turned to her.

He drove on in a strange new wakefulness, the tension of his consciousness broken. He seemed to be conscious all over, all his body awake with a simple, glimmering awareness, as if he had just come awake, like a thing that is born, like a bird when it comes out of an egg, into a new universe.

They dropped down a long hill in the dusk, and suddenly Ursula recognised on her right hand, below in the hollow, the form of Southwell Minster.

`Are we here!' she cried with pleasure.

The rigid, sombre, ugly cathedral was settling under the gloom of the coming night, as they entered the narrow town, the golden lights showed like slabs of revelation, in the shop-windows.

`Father came here with mother,' she said, `when they first knew each other. He loves it -- he loves the Minster. Do you?'

`Yes. It looks like quartz crystals sticking up out of the dark hollow. We'll have our high tea at the Saracen's Head.'

As they descended, they heard the Minster bells playing a hymn, when the hour had struck six. Glory to thee my God this night For all the blessings of the light -- So, to Ursula's ear, the tune fell out, drop by drop, from the unseen sky on to the dusky town. It was like dim, bygone centuries sounding. It was all so far off. She stood in the old yard of the inn, smelling of straw and stables and petrol. Above, she could see the first stars. What was it all? This was no actual world, it was the dreamworld of one's childhood -- a great circumscribed reminiscence. The world had become unreal. She herself was a strange, transcendent reality.

They sat together in a little parlour by the fire.

`Is it true?' she said, wondering.

`What?'

`Everything -- is everything true?'

`The best is true,' he said, grimacing at her.

`Is it?' she replied, laughing, but unassured.

She looked at him. He seemed still so separate. New eyes were opened in her soul. She saw a strange creature from another world, in him. It was as if she were enchanted, and everything were metamorphosed. She recalled again the old magic of the Book of Genesis, where the sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were fair. And he was one of these, one of these strange creatures from the beyond, looking down at her, and seeing she was fair.

He stood on the hearth-rug looking at her, at her face that was upturned exactly like a flower, a fresh, luminous flower, glinting faintly golden with the dew of the first light. And he was smiling faintly as if there were no speech in the world, save the silent delight of flowers in each other. Smilingly they delighted in each other's presence, pure presence, not to be thought of, even known. But his eyes had a faintly ironical contraction.

And she was drawn to him strangely, as in a spell. Kneeling on the hearth-rug before him, she put her arms round his loins, and put her face against his thigh. Riches! Riches! She was overwhelmed with a sense of a heavenful of riches.

`We love each other,' she said in delight.

`More than that,' he answered, looking down at her with his glimmering, easy face.

Unconsciously, with her sensitive fingertips, she was tracing the back of his thighs, following some mysterious life-flow there. She had discovered something, something more than wonderful, more wonderful than life itself. It was the strange mystery of his life-motion, there, at the back of the thighs, down the flanks. It was a strange reality of his being, the very stuff of being, there in the straight downflow of the thighs. It was here she discovered him one of the sons of God such as were in the beginning of the world, not a man, something other, something more.

This was release at last. She had had lovers, she had known passion. But this was neither love nor passion. It was the daughters of men coming back to the sons of God, the strange inhuman sons of God who are in the beginning.

Her face was now one dazzle of released, golden light, as she looked up at him, and laid her hands full on his thighs, behind, as he stood before her. He looked down at her with a rich bright brow like a diadem above his eyes. She was beautiful as a new marvellous flower opened at his knees, a paradisal flower she was, beyond womanhood, such a flower of luminousness. Yet something was tight and unfree in him. He did not like this crouching, this radiance -- not altogether.

It was all achieved, for her. She had found one of the sons of God from the Beginning, and he had found one of the first most luminous daughters of men.

She traced with her hands the line of his loins and thighs, at the back, and a living fire ran through her, from him, darkly. It was a dark flood of electric passion she released from him, drew into herself. She had established a rich new circuit, a new current of passional electric energy, between the two of them, released from the darkest poles of the body and established in perfect circuit. It was a dark fire of electricity that rushed from him to her, and flooded them both with rich peace, satisfaction.

`My love,' she cried, lifting her face to him, her eyes, her mouth open in transport.

`My love,' he answered, bending and kissing her, always kissing her.

She closed her hands over the full, rounded body of his loins, as he stooped over her, she seemed to touch the quick of the mystery of darkness that was bodily him. She seemed to faint beneath, and he seemed to faint, stooping over her. It was a perfect passing away for both of them, and at the same time the most intolerable accession into being, the marvellous fullness of immediate gratification, overwhelming, outflooding from the source of the deepest life-force, the darkest, deepest, strangest life-source of the human body, at the back and base of the loins.

After a lapse of stillness, after the rivers of strange dark fluid richness had passed over her, flooding, carrying away her mind and flooding down her spine and down her knees, past her feet, a strange flood, sweeping away everything and leaving her an essential new being, she was left quite free, she was free in complete ease, her complete self. So she rose, stilly and blithe, smiling at him. He stood before her, glimmering, so awfully real, that her heart almost stopped beating. He stood there in his strange, whole body, that had its marvellous fountains, like the bodies of the sons of God who were in the beginning. There were strange fountains of his body, more mysterious and potent than any she had imagined or known, more satisfying, ah, finally, mystically-physically satisfying. She had thought there was no source deeper than the phallic source. And now, behold, from the smitten rock of the man's body, from the strange marvellous flanks and thighs, deeper, further in mystery than the phallic source, came the floods of ineffable darkness and ineffable riches.

They were glad, and they could forget perfectly. They laughed, and went to the meal provided. There was a venison pasty, of all things, a large broad-faced cut ham, eggs and cresses and red beet-root, and medlars and apple-tart, and tea.

`What good things!' she cried with pleasure. `How noble it looks! -- shall I pour out the tea? --'

She was usually nervous and uncertain at performing these public duties, such as giving tea. But today she forgot, she was at her ease, entirely forgetting to have misgivings. The tea-pot poured beautifully from a proud slender spout. Her eyes were warm with smiles as she gave him his tea. She had learned at last to be still and perfect.

`Everything is ours,' she said to him.

`Everything,' he answered.

She gave a queer little crowing sound of triumph.

`I'm so glad!' she cried, with unspeakable relief.

`So am I,' he said. `But I'm thinking we'd better get out of our responsibilities as quick as we can.'

`What responsibilities?' she asked, wondering.

`We must drop our jobs, like a shot.'

A new understanding dawned into her face.

`Of course,' she said, `there's that.'

`We must get out,' he said. `There's nothing for it but to get out, quick.'

She looked at him doubtfully across the table.

`But where?' she said.

`I don't know,' he said. `We'll just wander about for a bit.'

Again she looked at him quizzically.

`I should be perfectly happy at the Mill,' she said.

`It's very near the old thing,' he said. `Let us wander a bit.'

His voice could be so soft and happy-go-lucky, it went through her veins like an exhilaration. Nevertheless she dreamed of a valley, and wild gardens, and peace. She had a desire too for splendour -- an aristocratic extravagant splendour. Wandering seemed to her like restlessness, dissatisfaction.

`Where will you wander to?' she asked.

`I don't know. I feel as if I would just meet you and we'd set off -- just towards the distance.'

`But where can one go?' she asked anxiously. `After all, there is only the world, and none of it is very distant.'

`Still,' he said, `I should like to go with you -- nowhere. It would be rather wandering just to nowhere. That's the place to get to -- nowhere. One wants to wander away from the world's somewheres, into our own nowhere.'

Still she meditated.

`You see, my love,' she said, `I'm so afraid that while we are only people, we've got to take the world that's given -- because there isn't any other.'

`Yes there is,' he said. `There's somewhere where we can be free -somewhere where one needn't wear much clothes -- none even -- where one meets a few people who have gone through enough, and can take things for granted -- where you be yourself, without bothering. There is somewhere -- there are one or two people --'

`But where --?' she sighed.

`Somewhere -- anywhere. Let's wander off. That's the thing to do -- let's wander off.'

`Yes --' she said, thrilled at the thought of travel. But to her it was only travel.

`To be free,' he said. `To be free, in a free place, with a few other people!'

`Yes,' she said wistfully. Those `few other people' depressed her.

`It isn't really a locality, though,' he said. `It's a perfected relation between you and me, and others -- the perfect relation -- so that we are free together.'

`It is, my love, isn't it,' she said. `It's you and me. It's you and me, isn't it?' She stretched out her arms to him. He went across and stooped to kiss her face. Her arms closed round him again, her hands spread upon his shoulders, moving slowly there, moving slowly on his back, down his back slowly, with a strange recurrent, rhythmic motion, yet moving slowly down, pressing mysteriously over his loins, over his flanks. The sense of the awfulness of riches that could never be impaired flooded her mind like a swoon, a death in most marvellous possession, mystic-sure. She possessed him so utterly and intolerably, that she herself lapsed out. And yet she was only sitting still in the chair, with her hands pressed upon him, and lost.

Again he softly kissed her.

`We shall never go apart again,' he murmured quietly. And she did not speak, but only pressed her hands firmer down upon the source of darkness in him.

They decided, when they woke again from the pure swoon, to write their resignations from the world of work there and then. She wanted this.

He rang the bell, and ordered note-paper without a printed address. The waiter cleared the table.

`Now then,' he said, `yours first. Put your home address, and the date -then "Director of Education, Town Hall -- Sir --" Now then! -- I don't know how one really stands -- I suppose one could get out of it in less than month -- Anyhow "Sir -- I beg to resign my post as classmistress in the Willey Green Grammar School. I should be very grateful if you would liberate me as soon as possible, without waiting for the expiration of the month's notice." That'll do. Have you got it? Let me look. "Ursula Brangwen." Good! Now I'll write mine. I ought to give them three months, but I can plead health. I can arrange it all right.'

He sat and wrote out his formal resignation.

`Now,' he said, when the envelopes were sealed and addressed, `shall we post them here, both together? I know Jackie will say, "Here's a coincidence!" when he receives them in all their identity. Shall we let him say it, or not?'

`I don't care,' she said.

`No --?' he said, pondering.

`It doesn't matter, does it?' she said.

`Yes,' he replied. `Their imaginations shall not work on us. I'll post yours here, mine after. I cannot be implicated in their imaginings.'

He looked at her with his strange, non-human singleness.

`Yes, you are right,' she said.

She lifted her face to him, all shining and open. It was as if he might enter straight into the source of her radiance. His face became a little distracted.

`Shall we go?' he said.

`As you like,' she replied.

They were soon out of the little town, and running through the uneven lanes of the country. Ursula nestled near him, into his constant warmth, and watched the pale-lit revelation racing ahead, the visible night. Sometimes it was a wide old road, with grass-spaces on either side, flying magic and elfin in the greenish illumination, sometimes it was trees looming overhead, sometimes it was bramble bushes, sometimes the walls of a crew-yard and the butt of a barn.

`Are you going to Shortlands to dinner?' Ursula asked him suddenly. He started.

`Good God!' he said. `Shortlands! Never again. Not that. Besides we should be too late.'

`Where are we going then -- to the Mill?'

`If you like. Pity to go anywhere on this good dark night. Pity to come out of it, really. Pity we can't stop in the good darkness. It is better than anything ever would be -- this good immediate darkness.'

She sat wondering. The car lurched and swayed. She knew there was no leaving him, the darkness held them both and contained them, it was not to be surpassed Besides she had a full mystic knowledge of his suave loins of darkness, dark-clad and suave, and in this knowledge there was some of the inevitability and the beauty of fate, fate which one asks for, which one accepts in full.

He sat still like an Egyptian Pharoah, driving the car. He felt as if he were seated in immemorial potency, like the great carven statues of real Egypt, as real and as fulfilled with subtle strength, as these are, with a vague inscrutable smile on the lips. He knew what it was to have the strange and magical current of force in his back and loins, and down his legs, force so perfect that it stayed him immobile, and left his face subtly, mindlessly smiling. He knew what it was to be awake and potent in that other basic mind, the deepest physical mind. And from this source he had a pure and magic control, magical, mystical, a force in darkness, like electricity.

It was very difficult to speak, it was so perfect to sit in this pure living silence, subtle, full of unthinkable knowledge and unthinkable force, upheld immemorially in timeless force, like the immobile, supremely potent Egyptians, seated forever in their living, subtle silence.

`We need not go home,' he said. `This car has seats that let down and make a bed, and we can lift the hood.'

She was glad and frightened. She cowered near to him.

`But what about them at home?' she said.

`Send a telegram.'

Nothing more was said. They ran on in silence. But with a sort of second consciousness he steered the car towards a destination. For he had the free intelligence to direct his own ends. His arms and his breast and his head were rounded and living like those of the Greek, he had not the unawakened straight arms of the Egyptian, nor the sealed, slumbering head. A lambent intelligence played secondarily above his pure Egyptian concentration in darkness.

They came to a village that lined along the road. The car crept slowly along, until he saw the post-office. Then he pulled up.

`I will send a telegram to your father,' he said. `I will merely say "spending the night in town," shall I?'

`Yes,' she answered. She did not want to be disturbed into taking thought.

She watched him move into the post-office. It was also a shop, she saw. Strange, he was. Even as he went into the lighted, public place he remained dark and magic, the living silence seemed the body of reality in him, subtle, potent, indiscoverable. There he was! In a strange uplift of elation she saw him, the being never to be revealed, awful in its potency, mystic and real. This dark, subtle reality of him, never to be translated, liberated her into perfection, her own perfected being. She too was dark and fulfilled in silence.

He came out, throwing some packages into the car.

`There is some bread, and cheese, and raisins, and apples, and hard chocolate,' he said, in his voice that was as if laughing, because of the unblemished stillness and force which was the reality in him. She would have to touch him. To speak, to see, was nothing. It was a travesty to look and to comprehend the man there. Darkness and silence must fall perfectly on her, then she could know mystically, in unrevealed touch. She must lightly, mindlessly connect with him, have the knowledge which is death of knowledge, the reality of surety in not-knowing.

Soon they had run on again into the darkness. She did not ask where they were going, she did not care. She sat in a fullness and a pure potency that was like apathy, mindless and immobile. She was next to him, and hung in a pure rest, as a star is hung, balanced unthinkably. Still there remained a dark lambency of anticipation. She would touch him. With perfect fine finger-tips of reality she would touch the reality in him, the suave, pure, untranslatable reality of his loins of darkness. To touch, mindlessly in darkness to come in pure touching upon the living reality of him, his suave perfect loins and thighs of darkness, this was her sustaining anticipation.

And he too waited in the magical steadfastness of suspense, for her to take this knowledge of him as he had taken it of her. He knew her darkly, with the fullness of dark knowledge. Now she would know him, and he too would be liberated. He would be night-free, like an Egyptian, steadfast in perfectly suspended equilibrium, pure mystic nodality of physical being. They would give each other this star-equilibrium which alone is freedom.

She saw that they were running among trees -- great old trees with dying bracken undergrowth. The palish, gnarled trunks showed ghostly, and like old priests in the hovering distance, the fern rose magical and mysterious. It was a night all darkness, with low cloud. The motor-car advanced slowly.

`Where are we?' she whispered.

`In Sherwood Forest.'

It was evident he knew the place. He drove softly, watching. Then they came to a green road between the trees. They turned cautiously round, and were advancing between the oaks of the forest, down a green lane. The green lane widened into a little circle of grass, where there was a small trickle of water at the bottom of a sloping bank. The car stopped.

`We will stay here,' he said, `and put out the lights.'

He extinguished the lamps at once, and it was pure night, with shadows of trees like realities of other, nightly being. He threw a rug on to the bracken, and they sat in stillness and mindless silence. There were faint sounds from the wood, but no disturbance, no possible disturbance, the world was under a strange ban, a new mystery had supervened. They threw off their clothes, and he gathered her to him, and found her, found the pure lambent reality of her forever invisible flesh. Quenched, inhuman, his fingers upon her unrevealed nudity were the fingers of silence upon silence, the body of mysterious night upon the body of mysterious night, the night masculine and feminine, never to be seen with the eye, or known with the mind, only known as a palpable revelation of living otherness.

She had her desire of him, she touched, she received the maximum of unspeakable communication in touch, dark, subtle, positively silent, a magnificent gift and give again, a perfect acceptance and yielding, a mystery, the reality of that which can never be known, vital, sensual reality that can never be transmuted into mind content, but remains outside, living body of darkness and silence and subtlety, the mystic body of reality. She had her desire fulfilled. He had his desire fulfilled. For she was to him what he was to her, the immemorial magnificence of mystic, palpable, real otherness.

They slept the chilly night through under the hood of the car, a night of unbroken sleep. It was already high day when he awoke. They looked at each other and laughed, then looked away, filled with darkness and secrecy. Then they kissed and remembered the magnificence of the night. It was so magnificent, such an inheritance of a universe of dark reality, that they were afraid to seem to remember. They hid away the remembrance and the knowledge.

 

第二天伯金就来找厄秀拉。那是将近中午时，伯金来到小学校问厄秀拉是否愿意同他一起驾车出游。厄秀拉同意了，但她脸色阴沉着，毫无表情。见她这样，他的心沉了下去。

下午天气晴朗，光线柔和。伯金开着汽车，厄秀拉就坐在他身边，但她的脸色依旧阴沉着毫无表情。每当她这样象一堵墙似的冲着他，他的心里就十分难受。

他的生命现在是太微不足道了，他几乎对什么都不在乎了。有时他似乎一点都不在乎厄秀拉、赫麦妮或别人是否存在。何苦麻烦呢！为什么非要追求一种和谐、满意的生活？为什么不在一连串偶然事件中游荡——就象流浪汉小说那样？为什么不呢？为什么要去在乎什么人与人之间的关系？为什么那么严肃地对待别人？为什么要与别人结成如此严肃的关系？为什么不随便些、游游荡荡、承认一切都有其价值？

可说到底，他是命中注定要走老路、要认真生活的。

“看，”他说，“看我买了些什么？”汽车在雪白宽阔的路上行驶着，沿路两旁都是树木。

他给她一卷纸，她打开就看。

“太美了。”她看着礼物说。

“真是太美了！”她又叫起来。“可你为什么把它们给我？”

她挑战地问。

他脸上现出一丝厌烦和愤愤然的表情，然后耸了耸肩。

“我想这样。”他冷漠地说。

“可为什么？你这是为什么？”

“一定要我做出解释吗？”他说。

她一言不发地看着包在纸里的戒指。

“我觉得它们太美了，”她说，“特别是这一只，太美妙了——”

这只戒指上镶着火蛋白石，周围是一圈细小的红宝石。

“你最喜欢那一只吗？”他问。

“是的。”

“可我喜欢蓝宝石的。”他说。

“这一只吗？”

这是一只漂亮的玫瑰型蓝宝石戒指，上面点缀着一些小钻石。

“是啊，”她说，“很好看。”她把戒指举到阳光下看了看说。“也许，这才是最好的——”

“蓝的——”他说。

“对，很奇妙——”

突然他一扭方向盘，汽车才避免了与一辆农家马车相撞。但汽车却倾斜在岸边。他开车很马虎，老爱开飞车。厄秀拉可吓坏了。他那种莽撞劲儿总让她害怕。她突然感到他会开车出事，她会死于车祸。想到此她一时心凉了。

“你这么开车不是有点太危险了吗？”她问。

“不，不危险，”他说，然后他又问她：“你不喜欢黄色的戒指吗？”

这是一只镶在钢架之类的金属中的方黄玉戒指，做工很精细。

“喜欢的，”她说，“可是你为什么买这些戒指？”

“我需要。都是旧货。”

“你买来是自己用吗？”

“不是。我的手戴戒指不象样。”

“那你买它们干什么？”

“买来送给你。”

“为什么给我？你肯定是买来送给赫麦妮的！你属于她。”

他没说话。她手里仍攥着这些首饰。她想戴上这几只戒指，可她心中什么东西在阻挡她这样做。另外她恐怕自己的手太大戴不下，她要避免戴不下戒指丢丑，所以只在小手指上试了试。他们就这样在空空荡荡的街上驾车转游。

坐汽车很令她激动，以至于她忘记了自己的现状。

“我们到哪儿了？”她突然问。

“离作坊不远。”

“我们去哪儿呢？”

“哪儿都行。”

她就喜欢这样的答复。

她张开手，看着手中的戒指。三个镶有宝石的圆圆的戒指摆在她的手掌里，她真想戴上试试，但又不想让伯金看见，否则他会发现她的手指头太粗。但他还是发现了。凡是她不想让他看到的他偏偏都能看到。他这么眼尖，真让人恨。

只有那只镶火蛋白石的戒指环圈比较薄，她的手指头可以伸进去。但她这人很迷信，觉得有一种不祥之兆。不，她不要他这象征性的戒指。这等于把自己许给他了。

“看，”她向他伸出半握着的手。“别的几个都不合适。”

他看到柔和的宝石在她过于敏感的皮肤上闪着红光。

“是不合适。”他说。

“火蛋白石不吉利，是吗？”她若有所思地说。

“不过我喜欢不吉利的东西。吉利很庸俗。谁需要吉利所带来的一切？反正我不需要。”

“那是为什么呢？”她笑道。

她急于想看看其它两只戒指戴在自己手上是什么样，于是她就把它们穿在小手指上。

“这些戒指本可以再做大一点的。”他说。

“对，”她将信将疑地说。然后她叹了一口气。她知道，接受了戒指就等于接受了一种约束。但命运是不可抗拒的。她又看看戒指，在她眼里它们极漂亮——不是装饰品或财富，而是爱物。

“你买了这些戒指真叫我高兴。”说着她不太情愿地把手轻轻搭在他的胳膊上。

他微微一笑。他需要她亲近他，但他内心深处却是愤然、漠然的。他知道她对他怀有一股激情，这是真的。但这不是彻底的激情。更深层的激情是当一个人变得超越自身，超越情感时爆发出来的。而厄秀拉仍停留在情感与自我的阶段——总是无法超越自身。他接受了她，但他并没有被她占有。他接受了黑暗、羞赧的她——象一个魔鬼俯视着神秘腐朽的源泉——她生命的源泉。他笑着、抖动着双肩，最终接受了她。至于她，什么时候她才能超越自己，在死亡的意义上接受他？

这会儿她变得很幸福。汽车在向前行驶，午后的天气柔和、晴朗。她饶有兴趣地聊着天儿，分析着人们和他们的动机——戈珍和杰拉德。他含含糊糊地回答着。他对于各种人的性格什么的并不那么感兴趣——人们各不相同，但都受着同样的局限。大约只有两种伟大的观念，只有两条巨大的运动流，从中派生出多种形式的回流。这种回流——反逆流在不同的人身上表现不一样，但人们遵循的不过是几条大的规律，从本质上说都没什么区别。他们运动或反运动，毫不受意志支配地遵循着几条大规律，而一旦这些规律和大的原则为人所知，人就不再神秘，也就没什么意思了。人们从本质上说都一样，他们的不同不过是一个主旋律的变奏。他们当中谁也无法超越天命。

厄秀拉不同意这种说法，她认为了解人仍旧是一种历险，不过这也许比不上自己过图说服自己更是一种历险。或许现在她的兴趣有点象机器一样呆板。或许她的兴趣是破坏性的，她的分析真象在把东西肢解。在她心目中，她并不在意别人和别人的特殊之处，甚至别人遭毁灭她都不在乎。一时间她似乎触到了心中的这一想法，她沉静下来，只把兴趣全转到伯金身上。

“在暮色中回去不是很美吗？”她说，“我们稍晚一点喝茶好吗？喝浓茶，好吗？”

“我答应人家到肖特兰兹吃晚饭的。”他说。

“可这没关系，你，你可以明天再去嘛。”

“赫麦妮在那儿，”他很不安地说。“她两天以后就会离开这儿。我想我该跟她告别，以后我再也不见她了。”

厄秀拉同他拉开了距离，沉默不语了。伯金眉毛紧蹙着，眼里闪动着怒火。

“你不在意吧？”他有点恼火地说。

“不，我不在意。我为什么要在意呢？为什么？”她的话很挖苦人。

“我是在问我自己，”他说，“你为什么在意？！可你看上去就是不满意。”他气得眉毛紧蹙成一团。

“请相信，我不在乎，一点儿都不在乎！去你应该去的地方吧——我就希望你这样做。”

“你这个傻瓜！”他叫道。“我和赫麦妮的关系已经完了。她对你来说比对我还重要。你同她作对，说明你同她是一类人。”

“作对！”厄秀拉叫了起来，“我知道你的诡计。我才不会让你的花言巧语骗了我呢。你属于赫麦妮，被她迷住了。你愿意，就去吧。我不谴责你。可那样的话，你我就没什么关系了。”

伯金气愤极了，狂怒中停下了车。于是，他们就坐在村路中央的车中，把这件事说个明白。这是他们之间的一场战争危机，他们并未看出这种境况的荒唐之处。

“如果你不是个傻瓜，如果你还不傻，”他痛苦绝望地叫着，“你就该知道，甚至当你错的时候你也应该体面些。这些年我同赫麦妮保持关系是错误的，这是个死亡的过程。但不管怎么说，人还是要有人的面子的。可你却一提赫麦妮就满怀妒嫉地要把我的心都撕碎。”

“妒嫉！妒嫉！我妒嫉！你这样想就错了。我一点都不妒嫉赫麦妮，对我来说她一钱不值。压根儿谈不上妒嫉！”说着她打了一个响指。“你撒谎。你要找回赫麦妮，就象狗要寻到自己吐出过的东西一样。我恨的是赫麦妮所主张的。我所以恨，是因为她说的是假话。可你需要这些假话，你拿它没办法，拿你自己也没办法。你属于那个旧的、死气沉沉的生活方式，那就回到那种生活方式中去吧。但别来找我，我跟它可没任何关系。”

她一气之下跳下汽车到树篱前，情不自禁地摘着粉红色的桨果，有些果子已经绽开，露出桔红色的籽。

“你可真是个傻瓜。”他有点轻蔑地叫着。

“对，我傻，我是傻。感谢上帝让我这么傻。我太傻了，无法品味你的聪明。感谢上帝吧。你去找你的女人，去吧，她们跟你是一类人，你总有一批这样的人追随你，总有。去找你精神上的新娘去吧，别来找我，因为我没她们那种精神，谢谢你了。你不满意，是吗？你的精神新娘无法给予你所需要的东西，她们对你来说并不够平易近人、不够肉感，是吗？于是你甩下她们来找我！你想跟我结婚过家常生活，可又要暗中与她们进行精神上的往来！我懂你这套肮脏的把戏。”一股怒火燃遍全身，她双脚发疯地跺着地，于是他害怕了，深怕她打他。“而我，我并不够精神化，在这方面我不如赫麦妮——！”说着，她的双眉蹙紧了，目光老虎般地闪烁着。“那就去找她吧，我要说的就这句话，去找她吧，去。哈哈，她，精神——精神，她！她是个肮脏的物质主义者。她精神化吗？她关注的是什么？她的精神又是什么？”她的怒气似乎化作烈火喷将出来炙烤着他的脸。他后退了。“我告诉你吧，这太肮脏，肮脏，肮脏。你要的就是肮脏，你渴求的就是肮脏。精神化？！难道她的霸道、骄横、肮脏的物质主义就是精神化？她是一个泼妇，泼妇，就是这样的物质主义者。太肮脏了。她那股子社交激情到底会怎样？社交激情，她有什么样的社交激情？让我看看！在哪儿？她需要垂手可得的小权力，她需要一种伟女人的幻觉，就是这么回事。在她的灵魂中，她是一个凶恶的异教徒，很肮脏。从根本上说她就是这么个人。其余的全是装的——可你喜欢这个。你喜欢这种虚假的精神，这是你的食粮。为什么？那是潜伏着的肮脏所至。你以为我不知道你的性生活有多肮脏吗？还有她的，我也知晓。而你需要的正是这种肮脏，你这骗子。那就过这肮脏生活去吧，去吧。你这骗子。”

她转过身去，战栗着从篱笆上摘下桨果，双手颤抖着把桨果戴在胸部。

他默默地看着她。一看到她战栗着的敏感的手指，他心中就燃起一股奇妙的温柔之情，但同时他心里也感到气愤、冰冷。

“这种表现很卑劣。”他冷冷地说。

“是的，的确卑劣，”她说，“对我来说更是如此。”

“看来你是愿意降低自己的身份的，”他说。这时他看到她脸上燃起火焰，目光中凝聚着黄色的光点。

“你！”她叫道，“你！好一个热爱真理的人！好一个纯洁的人！你的真理和纯洁让人听着恶心。你这个垃圾堆里刨食的狗，食死尸的狗。你肮脏，肮脏，你必须明白这一点。你纯洁，公正，善良，是的，谢谢你，你有那么点纯洁、公正、善良。可你的真实面目是，猥亵，肮脏，你就是这么个人，猥亵、变态。你还爱！你也可以说你不需要爱。不，你需要你自己、肮脏和死亡——你要的就是这个。你太变态，太僵死，还有——”

“过来一辆自行车，”他说。他让她那大声的谴责搞得很不安。

她朝路上看去。

“我才不管什么自行车呢。”她叫道。

她总算沉默了。那骑车人听到这边的争吵声，奇怪地看着这一男一女，又看看停在路上的汽车。

“你好，”他快活地说。

那人走远了，他们沉默了。

伯金脸色变开朗了。他知道总的来说厄秀拉是对的。他知道自己心理变态了，一方面过于精神化，另一方面，自己卑劣得出奇。可是难道她比自己强多少吗？难道别人就能强多少？

“或许这是对的。”他说。“但是赫麦妮的意淫并不比你的那种情感上的妒忌更坏。人甚至应该在自己的敌人面前保持自己的体面。赫麦妮至死都会是我的敌人！我必须用箭把她赶走。”

“你！你，你的敌人，你的箭！你把你自己描绘得挺美啊。可这幅画中只有你一个人，没别人。我嫉妒！我说那些话，”她大叫着，“是因为那是事实，明白吗？你是你，一个肮脏虚伪的骗子，一个伪君子。我说的就是这个，你全听到了。”

“很感谢你，”他调侃地扮个鬼脸道。

“是的，”她叫道，“如果你还有点体面，就该感谢我。”

“可是，我没一点体面——”他反讥道。

“没有，”她喊道，“你没一丁点儿。所以，你可以走你自己的路，我走我的路。没什么好处，一点也没有。你可以把我留在这儿了，我不想跟你多走一步，留下我——”

“你甚至不知道你在哪里——”他说。

“不必麻烦了，请放心，我不会出问题的。我钱包里有十个先令，你把我弄到哪儿，这点钱也够我回去的路费。”她犹豫着。她手上还戴着戒指呢，两只戴在小手指上，一只戴在无名指上。她仍犹豫着不动。

“很好，”他说，“最没希望的是傻瓜。”

“你说得很对。”她说。

她又犹豫了片刻。脸上露出丑陋、恶毒的表情，从手指上撸下戒指冲他扔过去。一只打在他脸上，另外两只掉到衣服上又散落在泥土中。

“收回你的戒指吧，”她说，“去买个女人吧，哪儿都可以买到，有许多人愿意与你共享那些乱哄哄的精神或享有你的肉欲，把精神留给赫麦妮。”

说完她就漫不经心地上路了。伯金伫立着看着她阴沉地走远了，一边走一边揪扯着篱笆上的树枝子。她的身影渐渐变小，似乎在他的视线中消失了。他觉得头脑中一片黑暗，只有一点意识的游丝在抖动着。

他感到疲惫虚弱，但也感到释然。他改变了下姿势，走过去坐在岸边上。毫无疑问厄秀拉是对的。她说的的确是真情。他知道他的精神化是伴随着一种坠落的，那是一种自我毁灭的快感。自我毁灭中的确有一种快感，对他来说当自我毁灭在精神上转化成另一种形式出现时更是如此。他知道，他这样做了。还有，难道厄秀拉的情感之淫不是同赫麦妮那种深奥的意淫同样危险吗？熔化，熔化，这两种生命的熔合，每个男女都坚持这样做，不管是精神实体还是情感实体，不是都很令人恶心、可怕吗？赫麦妮觉得自己是一个完整的观念，所有的男人都得追随她，而厄秀拉则是完整的母腹，是新生儿的浴池，所有的男人都必须奔向她！她们都很可怕。她们为什么不是个性化的人，为什么不受到自身的限制？她们为什么如此可怕得完整，如此可憎得霸道？她们为什么不让别人自由，为什么要溶解人家？一个人完全可以沉湎于重大的事情，但不是沉湎于别的生命。

他不忍心看着戒指陷在路上的泥土中。他拾起戒指，情不自禁地用手擦着上面的泥土。这戒指是美的象征，是热烈的创造中幸福的象征。他的手上沾上了沙砾，脏了。

他头脑中一片黑暗。头脑中凝聚着的意识粉碎了，远逝了，他的生命在黑暗中溶化了。他心中很是焦虑。他需要她回来。他象婴儿那样轻微、有规律地喘息着，象婴孩一样天真无邪，毫无责任感。

她正往回走。他看到她正沿着高高的篱笆漫不经心地朝他缓缓走来。他没动，没有再看她。他似乎静静地睡了，蛰伏着，彻底放松了。

她走过来垂着头站在他面前。

“看我给你采来了什么花儿？”说着她把一束紫红色的石楠花捧到他面前。他看到了那一簇喇叭样的各色花儿和细小如树枝般的花梗，还看到捧着花的那手，她手上的皮肤那么细腻、那么敏感。

“很美！”他抬头冲她笑着接过了花儿。一切又变得很简单了，复杂性全消逝了。但是他真想大叫，但没叫出声，他太累，感情负担太重了。

随后他心中升起一股对她的温柔激情。他站起来，凝视着她的脸。这是一张全新的脸，那么骄纤，脸上露出惊奇与恐惧的表情。他搂住她，她把脸伏在他的肩上。

安宁，那样宁馨，他就站在路上默默地拥抱着她。最终是静谧。原先那可恶的紧张世界终于逝去了。

她抬头看着他，眼中那奇妙的黄色光芒变得柔和、温顺起来，他们二人的心情都平静下来了。他吻了她，温柔地，一遍又一遍。她的目光充满了笑意。

“我骂你了吗？”她问。

他也笑了，握住了她柔软的手。

“千万别在意，”她说，“这也是为了咱们好。”他温柔地吻了她许多次。

“难道不是吗？”她说。

“当然，”他说，“等着吧，我会报复的。”

她突然一声大笑，猛地拥抱住他。

“你是我的，我的爱，不是吗？”她叫着搂紧了他。

“是的。”他温柔地说。

他的话那么肯定，语气那么温柔，令她无法动弹，似乎屈从于一种命运。是的，她默许了，可他却没有得到她的许可就做了一切。他默默地一遍又一遍地吻她，温柔、幸福地吻她，他的吻几乎令她的心停止了跳动。

“我的爱！”她叫着，抬起脸惊喜地看着