‘I kept it,’ said Gudrun.
‘You’ll give it me, won’t you?’ she said.
But Gudrun was silent for some moments, before she replied:
‘Do you really want it, Ursula?’
‘I want to read it,’ said Ursula.
‘Certainly,’ said Gudrun.
Even now, she could not admit, to Ursula, that she wanted to keep it, as a memento, or a symbol. But Ursula knew, and was not pleased. So the subject was switched off.
‘What did you do in Paris?’ asked Ursula.
‘Oh,’ said Gudrun laconically—’the usual things. We had a FINE party one night in Fanny Bath’s studio.’
‘Did you? And you and Gerald were there! Who else? Tell me about it.’
‘Well,’ said Gudrun. ‘There’s nothing particular to tell. You know Fanny is FRIGHTFULLY in love with that painter, Billy Macfarlane. He was there—so Fanny spared nothing, she spent VERY freely. It was really remarkable! Of course, everybody got fearfully drunk—but in an interesting way, not like that filthy London crowd. The fact is these were all people that matter, which makes all the difference. There was a Roumanian, a fine chap. He got completely drunk, and climbed to the top of a high studio ladder, and gave the most marvellous address—really, Ursula, it was wonderful! He began in French—La vie, c’est une affaire d’ames imperiales—in a most beautiful voice—he was a fine-looking chap—but he had got into Roumanian before he had finished, and not a soul understood. But Donald Gilchrist was worked to a frenzy. He dashed his glass to the ground, and declared, by God, he was glad he had been born, by God, it was a miracle to be alive. And do you know, Ursula, so it was—’ Gudrun laughed rather hollowly.
‘But how was Gerald among them all?’ asked Ursula.
‘Gerald! Oh, my word, he came out like a dandelion in the sun! HE’S a whole saturnalia in himself, once he is roused. I shouldn’t like to say whose waist his arm did not go round. Really, Ursula, he seems to reap the women like a harvest. There wasn’t one that would have resisted him. It was too amazing! Can you understand it?’
Ursula reflected, and a dancing light came into her eyes.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I can. He is such a whole-hogger.’
‘Whole-hogger! I should think so!’ exclaimed Gudrun. ‘But it is true, Ursula, every woman in the room was ready to surrender to him. Chanticleer isn’t in it—even Fanny Bath, who is GENUINELY in love with Billy Macfarlane! I never was more amazed in my life! And you know, afterwards—I felt I was a whole ROOMFUL of women. I was no more myself to him, than I was Queen Victoria. I was a whole roomful of women at once. It was most astounding! But my eye, I’d caught a Sultan that time—’
Gudrun’s eyes were flashing, her cheek was hot, she looked strange, exotic, satiric. Ursula was fascinated at once—and yet uneasy.
They had to get ready for dinner. Gudrun came down in a daring gown of vivid green silk and tissue of gold, with green velvet bodice and a strange black-and-white band round her hair. She was really brilliantly beautiful and everybody noticed her. Gerald was in that full-blooded, gleaming state when he was most handsome. Birkin watched them with quick, laughing, half-sinister eyes, Ursula quite lost her head. There seemed a spell, almost a blinding spell, cast round their table, as if they were lighted up more strongly than the rest of the diningroom.
‘Don’t you love to be in this place?’ cried Gudrun. ‘Isn’t the snow wonderful! Do you notice how it exalts everything? It is simply marvellous. One really does feel LIBERMENSCHLICH—more than human.’
‘One does,’ cried Ursula. ‘But isn’t that partly the being out of England?’
‘Oh, of course,’ cried Gudrun. ‘One could never feel like this in England, for the simple reason that the damper is NEVER lifted off one, there. It is quite impossible really to let go, in England, of that I am assured.’
And she turned again to the food she was eating. She was fluttering with vivid intensity.
‘It’s quite true,’ said Gerald, ‘it never is quite the same in England. But perhaps we don’t want it to be—perhaps it’s like bringing the light a little too near the powder-magazine, to let go altogether, in England. One is afraid what might happen, if EVERYBODY ELSE let go.’
‘My God!’ cried Gudrun. ‘But wouldn’t it be wonderful, if all England did suddenly go off like a display of fireworks.’
‘It couldn’t,’ said Ursula. ‘They are all too damp, the powder is damp in them.’
‘I’m not so sure of that,’ said Gerald.
‘Nor I,’ said Birkin. ‘When the English really begin to go off, EN MASSE, it’ll be time to shut your ears and run.’
‘They never will,’ said Ursula.
‘We’ll see,’ he replied.
‘Isn’t it marvellous,’ said Gudrun, ‘how thankful one can be, to be out of one’s country. I cannot believe myself, I am so transported, the moment I set foot on a foreign shore. I say to myself “Here steps a new creature into life.”’
‘Don’t be too hard on poor old England,’ said Gerald. ‘Though we curse it, we love it really.’
To Ursula, there seemed a fund of cynicism in these words.
‘We may,’ said Birkin. ‘But it’s a damnably uncomfortable love: like a love for an aged parent who suffers horribly from a complication of diseases, for which there is no hope.’
Gudrun looked at him with dilated dark eyes.
