Page 332 - women-in-love

ternoon great basketfuls of buns and cakes were taken into
the schools, and great pitchers of milk, the school children
had what they wanted. They were sick with eating too much
cake and milk.
And then it came to an end, and the men went back to
work. But it was never the same as before. There was a new
situation created, a new idea reigned. Even in the machine,
there should be equality. No part should be subordinate to
any other part: all should be equal. The instinct for cha-
os had entered. Mystic equality lies in abstraction, not in
having or in doing, which are processes. In function and
process, one man, one part, must of necessity be subordi-
nate to another. It is a condition of being. But the desire for
chaos had risen, and the idea of mechanical equality was the
weapon of disruption which should execute the will of man,
the will for chaos.
Gerald was a boy at the time of the strike, but he longed
to be a man, to fight the colliers. The father however was
trapped between two halftruths, and broken. He wanted to
be a pure Christian, one and equal with all men. He even
wanted to give away all he had, to the poor. Yet he was a
great promoter of industry, and he knew perfectly that he
must keep his goods and keep his authority. This was as
divine a necessity in him, as the need to give away all he
possessed—more divine, even, since this was the necessity
he acted upon. Yet because he did NOT act on the other
ideal, it dominated him, he was dying of chagrin because
he must forfeit it. He wanted to be a father of loving kind-
ness and sacrificial benevolence. The colliers shouted to him

332 Women in Love