Page 318 - women-in-love

there was some sordid tale being poured out to him, which
he drank in with a sort of mournful, sympathetic satisfac-
tion. He would have no RAISON D’ETRE if there were no
lugubrious miseries in the world, as an undertaker would
have no meaning if there were no funerals.
Mrs Crich recoiled back upon herself, she recoiled away
from this world of creeping democracy. A band of tight,
baleful exclusion fastened round her heart, her isolation
was fierce and hard, her antagonism was passive but terri-
bly pure, like that of a hawk in a cage. As the years went on,
she lost more and more count of the world, she seemed rapt
in some glittering abstraction, almost purely unconscious.
She would wander about the house and about the surround-
ing country, staring keenly and seeing nothing. She rarely
spoke, she had no connection with the world. And she did
not even think. She was consumed in a fierce tension of op-
position, like the negative pole of a magnet.
And she bore many children. For, as time went on, she
never opposed her husband in word or deed. She took no
notice of him, externally. She submitted to him, let him take
what he wanted and do as he wanted with her. She was like
a hawk that sullenly submits to everything. The relation be-
tween her and her husband was wordless and unknown, but
it was deep, awful, a relation of utter inter-destruction. And
he, who triumphed in the world, he became more and more
hollow in his vitality, the vitality was bled from within him,
as by some haemorrhage. She was hulked like a hawk in a
cage, but her heart was fierce and undiminished within her,
though her mind was destroyed.

318 Women in Love