‘The other river, the black river. We always consider the silver river of life, rolling on and quickening all the world to a brightness, on and on to heaven, flowing into a bright eternal sea, a heaven of angels thronging. But the other is our real reality—’
‘But what other? I don’t see any other,’ said Ursula.
‘It is your reality, nevertheless,’ he said; ‘that dark river of dissolution. You see it rolls in us just as the other rolls—the black river of corruption. And our flowers are of this—our sea-born Aphrodite, all our white phosphorescent flowers of sensuous perfection, all our reality, nowadays.’
‘You mean that Aphrodite is really deathly?’ asked Ursula.
‘I mean she is the flowering mystery of the death-process, yes,’ he replied. ‘When the stream of synthetic creation lapses, we find ourselves part of the inverse process, the blood of destructive creation. Aphrodite is born in the first spasm of universal dissolution—then the snakes and swans and lotus—marsh-flowers—and Gudrun and Gerald—born in the process of destructive creation.’
‘And you and me—?’ she asked.
‘Probably,’ he replied. ‘In part, certainly. Whether we are that, in toto, I don’t yet know.’
‘You mean we are flowers of dissolution—fleurs du mal? I don’t feel as if I were,’ she protested.
He was silent for a time.
‘I don’t feel as if we were, ALTOGETHER,’ he replied. ‘Some people are pure flowers of dark corruption—lilies. But there ought to be some roses, warm and flamy. You know Herakleitos says “a dry soul is best.” I know so well what that means. Do you?’
‘I’m not sure,’ Ursula replied. ‘But what if people ARE all flowers of dissolution—when they’re flowers at all— what difference does it make?’
‘No difference—and all the difference. Dissolution rolls on, just as production does,’ he said. ‘It is a progressive process—and it ends in universal nothing—the end of the world, if you like. But why isn’t the end of the world as good as the beginning?’
‘I suppose it isn’t,’ said Ursula, rather angry.
‘Oh yes, ultimately,’ he said. ‘It means a new cycle of creation after—but not for us. If it is the end, then we are of the end—fleurs du mal if you like. If we are fleurs du mal, we are not roses of happiness, and there you are.’
‘But I think I am,’ said Ursula. ‘I think I am a rose of happiness.’
‘Ready-made?’ he asked ironically.
‘No—real,’ she said, hurt.
‘If we are the end, we are not the beginning,’ he said.
‘Yes we are,’ she said. ‘The beginning comes out of the end.’
‘After it, not out of it. After us, not out of us.’
‘You are a devil, you know, really,’ she said. ‘You want to destroy our hope. You WANT US to be deathly.’
‘No,’ he said, ‘I only want us to KNOW what we are.’
‘Ha!’ she cried in anger. ‘You only want us to know death.’
‘You’re quite right,’ said the soft voice of Gerald, out of the dusk behind.
Birkin rose. Gerald and Gudrun came up. They all began to smoke, in the moments of silence. One after another, Birkin lighted their cigarettes. The match flickered in the twilight, and they were all smoking peacefully by the water-side. The lake was dim, the light dying from off it, in the midst of the dark land. The air all round was intangible, neither here nor there, and there was an unreal noise of banjoes, or suchlike music.
As the golden swim of light overhead died out, the moon gained brightness, and seemed to begin to smile forth her ascendancy. The dark woods on the opposite shore melted into universal shadow. And amid this universal under-shadow, there was a scattered intrusion of lights. Far down the lake were fantastic pale strings of colour, like beads of wan fire, green and red and yellow. The music came out in a little puff, as the launch, all illuminated, veered into the great shadow, stirring her outlines of half-living lights, puffing out her music in little drifts.
All were lighting up. Here and there, close against the faint water, and at the far end of the lake, where the water lay milky in the last whiteness of the sky, and there was no shadow, solitary, frail flames of lanterns floated from the unseen boats. There was a sound of oars, and a boat passed from the pallor into the darkness under the wood, where her lanterns seemed to kindle into fire, hanging in ruddy lovely globes. And again, in the lake, shadowy red gleams hovered in reflection about the boat. Everywhere were these noiseless ruddy creatures of fire drifting near the surface of the water, caught at by the rarest, scarce visible reflections.
Birkin brought the lanterns from the bigger boat, and the four shadowy white figures gathered round, to light them. Ursula held up the first, Birkin lowered the light from the rosy, glowing cup of his hands, into the depths of the lantern. It was kindled, and they all stood back to look at the great blue moon of light that hung from Ursula’s hand, casting a strange gleam on her face. It flickered, and Birkin went bending over the well of light. His face shone out like an apparition, so unconscious, and again, something demoniacal. Ursula was dim and veiled, looming over him.
‘That is all right,’ said his voice softly.
She held up the lantern. It had a flight of storks streaming through a turquoise sky of light, over a dark earth.
‘This is beautiful,’ she said.
‘Lovely,’ echoed Gudrun, who wanted to hold one also, and lift it up full of beauty.
‘Light one for me,’ she said. Gerald stood by her, incapacitated. Birkin lit the lantern she held up. Her heart beat with anxiety, to see how beautiful it would be. It was primrose yellow, with tall straight flowers growing darkly from their dark leaves, lifting their heads into the primrose day, while butterflies hovered about them, in the pure clear
