Page 136 - women-in-love

ting up in bed, looked lazily and pleasantly out on the park,
that was so green and deserted, romantic, belonging to the
past. He was thinking how lovely, how sure, how formed,
how final all the things of the past were—the lovely ac-
complished past—this house, so still and golden, the park
slumbering its centuries of peace. And then, what a snare
and a delusion, this beauty of static things—what a horri-
ble, dead prison Breadalby really was, what an intolerable
confinement, the peace! Yet it was better than the sordid
scrambling conflict of the present. If only one might create
the future after one’s own heart—for a little pure truth, a lit-
tle unflinching application of simple truth to life, the heart
cried out ceaselessly.
‘I can’t see what you will leave me at all, to be interested
in,’ came Gerald’s voice from the lower room. ‘Neither the
Pussums, nor the mines, nor anything else.’
‘You be interested in what you can, Gerald. Only I’m not
interested myself,’ said Birkin.
‘What am I to do at all, then?’ came Gerald’s voice.
‘What you like. What am I to do myself?’
In the silence Birkin could feel Gerald musing this fact.
‘I’m blest if I know,’ came the good-humoured answer.
‘You see,’ said Birkin, ‘part of you wants the Pussum,
and nothing but the Pussum, part of you wants the mines,
the business, and nothing but the business—and there you
are—all in bits—‘
‘And part of me wants something else,’ said Gerald, in a
queer, quiet, real voice.
‘What?’ said Birkin, rather surprised.

136 Women in Love