Page 376 - women-in-love

and transcendent.
Rosalind opened the door to him. She started slightly, as
a young girl will, and said:
‘Oh, I’ll tell father.’
With which she disappeared, leaving Birkin in the hall,
looking at some reproductions from Picasso, lately intro-
duced by Gudrun. He was admiring the almost wizard,
sensuous apprehension of the earth, when Will Brangwen
appeared, rolling down his shirt sleeves.
‘Well,’ said Brangwen, ‘I’ll get a coat.’ And he too dis-
appeared for a moment. Then he returned, and opened the
door of the drawing-room, saying:
‘You must excuse me, I was just doing a bit of work in the
shed. Come inside, will you.’
Birkin entered and sat down. He looked at the bright,
reddish face of the other man, at the narrow brow and the
very bright eyes, and at the rather sensual lips that unrolled
wide and expansive under the black cropped moustache.
How curious it was that this was a human being! What
Brangwen thought himself to be, how meaningless it was,
confronted with the reality of him. Birkin could see only
a strange, inexplicable, almost patternless collection of
passions and desires and suppressions and traditions and
mechanical ideas, all cast unfused and disunited into this
slender, bright-faced man of nearly fifty, who was as un-
resolved now as he was at twenty, and as uncreated. How
could he be the parent of Ursula, when he was not created
himself. He was not a parent. A slip of living flesh had been
transmitted through him, but the spirit had not come from

376 Women in Love