Page 632 - women-in-love

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I have. And I do—I work now for my daily
bread.’
He paused, looked at her steadily, then dropped the sub-
ject entirely. She seemed to him to be trifling.
‘But have YOU ever worked as the world works?’ Ursula
asked him.
He looked at her untrustful.
‘Yes,’ he replied, with a surly bark. ‘I have known what
it was to lie in bed for three days, because I had nothing to
eat.’
Gudrun was looking at him with large, grave eyes, that
seemed to draw the confession from him as the marrow
from his bones. All his nature held him back from confess-
ing. And yet her large, grave eyes upon him seemed to open
some valve in his veins, and involuntarily he was telling.
‘My father was a man who did not like work, and we had
no mother. We lived in Austria, Polish Austria. How did
we live? Ha!—somehow! Mostly in a room with three other
families—one set in each corner—and the W.C. in the mid-
dle of the room—a pan with a plank on it—ha! I had two
brothers and a sister—and there might be a woman with
my father. He was a free being, in his way—would fight with
any man in the town—a garrison town—and was a little
man too. But he wouldn’t work for anybody—set his heart
against it, and wouldn’t.’
‘And how did you live then?’ asked Ursula.
He looked at her—then, suddenly, at Gudrun.
‘Do you understand?’ he asked.
‘Enough,’ she replied.

632 Women in Love