Page 673 - women-in-love

it. Knowing him finally she was the Alexander seeking new
worlds. But there WERE no new worlds, there were no more
MEN, there were only creatures, little, ultimate CREA-
TURES like Loerke. The world was finished now, for her.
There was only the inner, individual darkness, sensation
within the ego, the obscene religious mystery of ultimate
reduction, the mystic frictional activities of diabolic reduc-
ing down, disintegrating the vital organic body of life.
All this Gudrun knew in her subconsciousness, not in
her mind. She knew her next step-she knew what she should
move on to, when she left Gerald. She was afraid of Gerald,
that he might kill her. But she did not intend to be killed.
A fine thread still united her to him. It should not be HER
death which broke it. She had further to go, a further, slow
exquisite experience to reap, unthinkable subtleties of sen-
sation to know, before she was finished.
Of the last series of subtleties, Gerald was not capable.
He could not touch the quick of her. But where his ruder
blows could not penetrate, the fine, insinuating blade of
Loerke’s insect-like comprehension could. At least, it was
time for her now to pass over to the other, the creature, the
final craftsman. She knew that Loerke, in his innermost
soul, was detached from everything, for him there was nei-
ther heaven nor earth nor hell. He admitted no allegiance,
he gave no adherence anywhere. He was single and, by ab-
straction from the rest, absolute in himself.
Whereas in Gerald’s soul there still lingered some attach-
ment to the rest, to the whole. And this was his limitation.
He was limited, BORNE, subject to his necessity, in the last

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