‘But what do you mean by being himself?’ said Gerald. ‘Is that an aphorism or a cliche?’
‘I mean just doing what you want to do. I think it was perfect good form in Laura to bolt from Lupton to the church door. It was almost a masterpiece in good form. It’s the hardest thing in the world to act spontaneously on one’s impulses—and it’s the only really gentlemanly thing to do—provided you’re fit to do it.’
‘You don’t expect me to take you seriously, do you?’ asked Gerald.
‘Yes, Gerald, you’re one of the very few people I do expect that of.’
‘Then I’m afraid I can’t come up to your expectations here, at any rate. You think people should just do as they like.’
‘I think they always do. But I should like them to like the purely individual thing in themselves, which makes them act in singleness. And they only like to do the collective thing.’
‘And I,’ said Gerald grimly, ‘shouldn’t like to be in a world of people who acted individually and spontaneously, as you call it. We should have everybody cutting everybody else’s throat in five minutes.’
‘That means YOU would like to be cutting everybody’s throat,’ said Birkin.
‘How does that follow?’ asked Gerald crossly.
‘No man,’ said Birkin, ‘cuts another man’s throat unless he wants to cut it, and unless the other man wants it cutting. This is a complete truth. It takes two people to make a murder: a murderer and a murderee. And a murderee is a man who is murderable. And a man who is murderable is a man who in a profound if hidden lust desires to be murdered.’
‘Sometimes you talk pure nonsense,’ said Gerald to Birkin. ‘As a matter of fact, none of us wants our throat cut, and most other people would like to cut it for us—some time or other—’
‘It’s a nasty view of things, Gerald,’ said Birkin, ‘and no wonder you are afraid of yourself and your own unhappiness.’
‘How am I afraid of myself?’ said Gerald; ‘and I don’t think I am unhappy.’
‘You seem to have a lurking desire to have your gizzard slit, and imagine every man has his knife up his sleeve for you,’ Birkin said.
‘How do you make that out?’ said Gerald.
‘From you,’ said Birkin.
There was a pause of strange enmity between the two men, that was very near to love. It was always the same between them; always their talk brought them into a deadly nearness of contact, a strange, perilous intimacy which was either hate or love, or both. They parted with apparent unconcern, as if their going apart were a trivial occurrence. And they really kept it to the level of trivial occurrence. Yet the heart of each burned from the other. They burned with each other, inwardly. This they would never admit. They intended to keep their relationship a casual free-and-easy friendship, they were not going to be so unmanly and unnatural as to allow any heart-burning between them. They had not the faintest belief in deep relationship between men and men, and their disbelief prevented any development of their powerful but suppressed friendliness.
CHAPTER III.
CLASSROOM
A school-day was drawing to a close. In the classroom 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 classroom 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,
