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‘I don’t know, I’m sure,’ he replied. ‘But I do think you’ve
got to find some way of resolving the situation—not because
you want to, but because you’ve GOT to, otherwise you’re
done. The whole of everything, and yourself included, is just
on the point of caving in, and you are just holding it up with
your hands. Well, it’s a situation that obviously can’t con-
tinue. You can’t stand holding the roof up with your hands,
for ever. You know that sooner or later you’ll HAVE to let
go. Do you understand what I mean? And so something’s
got to be done, or there’s a universal collapse—as far as you
yourself are concerned.’
He shifted slightly on the hearth, crunching a cinder un-
der his heel. He looked down at it. Gudrun was aware of the
beautiful old marble panels of the fireplace, swelling softly
carved, round him and above him. She felt as if she were
caught at last by fate, imprisoned in some horrible and fa-
tal trap.
‘But what CAN be done?’ she murmured humbly. ‘You
must use me if I can be of any help at all—but how can I? I
don’t see how I CAN help you.’
He looked down at her critically.
‘I don’t want you to HELP,’ he said, slightly irritated, ‘be-
cause there’s nothing to be DONE. I only want sympathy,
do you see: I want somebody I can talk to sympathetically.
That eases the strain. And there IS nobody to talk to sympa-
thetically. That’s the curious thing. There IS nobody. There’s
Rupert Birkin. But then he ISN’T sympathetic, he wants to
DICTATE. And that is no use whatsoever.’
She was caught in a strange snare. She looked down at

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