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.'You will go south?' said Gerald, a little ring of uneasiness in his voice.'Yes,' said Birkin, turning away.There was a queer, indefinable hostility between the two men, lately.Birkinwas on the whole dim and indifferent, drifting along in a dim, easy flow, unnoticing and patient, since hecame abroad, whilst Gerald on the other hand, was intense and gripped into white light, agonistes.The twomen revoked one another.Gerald and Gudrun were very kind to the two who were departing, solicitous for their welfare as if they weretwo children.Gudrun came to Ursula's bedroom with three pairs of the coloured stockings for which she wasnotorious, and she threw them on the bed.But these were thick silk stockings, vermilion, cornflower blue, andgrey, bought in Paris.The grey ones were knitted, seamless and heavy.Ursula was in raptures.She knewGudrun must be feeling VERY loving, to give away such treasures.'I can't take them from you, Prune,' she cried.'I can't possibly deprive you of them--the jewels.''AREN'T they jewels!' cried Gudrun, eyeing her gifts with an envious eye.'AREN'T they real lambs!''Yes, you MUST keep them,' said Ursula.'I don't WANT them, I've got three more pairs.I WANT you to keep them--I want you to have them.They'reyours, there--'And with trembling, excited hands she put the coveted stockings under Ursula's pillow.'One gets the greatest joy of all out of really lovely stockings,' said Ursula.'One does,' replied Gudrun; 'the greatest joy of all.'And she sat down in the chair.It was evident she had come for a last talk.Ursula, not knowing what shewanted, waited in silence.'Do you FEEL, Ursula,' Gudrun began, rather sceptically, that you are going-away-for-ever,never-to-return, sort of thing?''Oh, we shall come back,' said Ursula.'It isn't a question of train-journeys.'Women in Love 337/371 Women in Love'Yes, I know.But spiritually, so to speak, you are going away from us all?'Ursula quivered.'I don't know a bit what is going to happen,' she said.'I only know we are going somewhere.'Gudrun waited.'And you are glad?' she asked.Ursula meditated for a moment.'I believe I am VERY glad,' she replied.But Gudrun read the unconscious brightness on her sister's face, rather than the uncertain tones of her speech.'But don't you think you'll WANT the old connection with the world--father and the rest of us, and all that itmeans, England and the world of thought--don't you think you'll NEED that, really to make a world?'Ursula was silent, trying to imagine.'I think,' she said at length, involuntarily, 'that Rupert is right--one wants a new space to be in, and one fallsaway from the old.'Gudrun watched her sister with impassive face and steady eyes.'One wants a new space to be in, I quite agree,' she said.'But I think that a new world is a development fromthis world, and that to isolate oneself with one other person, isn't to find a new world at all, but only to secureoneself in one's illusions.'Ursula looked out of the window.In her soul she began to wrestle, and she was frightened.She was alwaysfrightened of words, because she knew that mere word-force could always make her believe what she did notbelieve.'Perhaps,' she said, full of mistrust, of herself and everybody.'But,' she added, 'I do think that one can't haveanything new whilst one cares for the old--do you know what I mean?--even fighting the old is belonging toit.I know, one is tempted to stop with the world, just to fight it.But then it isn't worth it.'Gudrun considered herself.'Yes,' she said.'In a way, one is of the world if one lives in it.But isn't it really an illusion to think you can getout of it? After all, a cottage in the Abruzzi, or wherever it may be, isn't a new world.No, the only thing to dowith the world, is to see it through.'Ursula looked away.She was so frightened of argument.'But there CAN be something else, can't there?' she said.'One can see it through in one's soul, long enoughbefore it sees itself through in actuality.And then, when one has seen one's soul, one is something else.''CAN one see it through in one's soul?' asked Gudrun.'If you mean that you can see to the end of what willhappen, I don't agree.I really can't agree.And anyhow, you can't suddenly fly off on to a new planet, becauseWomen in Love 338/371 Women in Loveyou think you can see to the end of this.'Ursula suddenly straightened herself.'Yes,' she said.'Yes--one knows.One has no more connections here.One has a sort of other self, that belongsto a new planet, not to this.You've got to hop off.'Gudrun reflected for a few moments.Then a smile of ridicule, almost of contempt, came over her face.'And what will happen when you find yourself in space?' she cried in derision.'After all, the great ideas of theworld are the same there.You above everybody can't get away from the fact that love, for instance, is thesupreme thing, in space as well as on earth.''No,' said Ursula, 'it isn't.Love is too human and little.I believe in something inhuman, of which love is onlya little part.I believe what we must fulfil comes out of the unknown to us, and it is something infinitely morethan love.It isn't so merely HUMAN.'Gudrun looked at Ursula with steady, balancing eyes.She admired and despised her sister so much, both!Then, suddenly she averted her face, saying coldly, uglily:'Well, I've got no further than love, yet.'Over Ursula's mind flashed the thought: 'Because you never HAVE loved, you can't get beyond it.'Gudrun rose, came over to Ursula and put her arm round her neck.'Go and find your new world, dear,' she said, her voice clanging with false benignity.'After all, the happiestvoyage is the quest of Rupert's Blessed Isles
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