Noor Ul Hadi

that go about freely when a dirty humanity doesn t interrupt them-end good pure-tissued demons: very nice. It pleased Ursula, what he said, pleased her very much, as a phantasy. Of course it was only a pleasant fancy. She herself knew too well the actuolity of humanity, its hideous actuality. She knew it could not disappear so cleanly and conveniently. it had a long way ot go yet, a long and hideous way. Her subtle, feminine, demonical soul knew it well. if pnly man was swept off the face of the earth, creation would go on so marvellously, with a new start, non-human. Man is one of the mistakes of creation-like the ichthyosauri. if only he were gone again, think what lovely things would come out of the liberated days,- things straight out of the fire. But man will never be gone, she said, with insidious, diabolical knowledge of the horrors of persistence. The world will go with him. Ah no, he answered, not so. I believe in the proud angles and the demons that are our fore-runners. They will destroy us, because we are not proud enough. The inhthyosauri were not prous: they rrawled and gloundred as we do. And besides, look at elder-flowers and bluebells-they are a sign that pure creation takes place- even the butterfly. But humanity never gets beyond the caterpillar stage-it rots in the chrysalis, it never will have wings. It is anti-creation, like monkeys and baboons. Ursula watched him as he talked. There seemed a certain impatient fry in him, all the while, and at the same time a great amusement in everything, nad a final tolerance. And it as this tolerance she mistrusted, not the fury. She saw that, all the while, in spite of himself, he would have to be trying to save the world. And this knowledge, whilst it comforted her heart somewhere with a little self-satisfaction, stability, yet filled her with a cerain sharp contempt and hate of him. She wanted him to heself, she hated the Salvator Mundil touch. It was something diffuse and generalised about him, which she could not stand. He would bahave in the same way, say the same things, give himself as completely to anybody who came along, anybody and everybody who liked to appeal to him. It was despicable, a very insidious from of prostitution. But, she said, you believe in individual love, even if you don t believe in loving humanity-? I don t believe in love at all-that is, any more than I believe in hate, or in grief. Love is one of the emotions like all the others-and so it is all right whilst you feel it But I can t see how it becomes an absolutw. It is just part of human relationships, no more. And it is only part of ANY human relationship. And why one should be require ALWAYS to feel it, any more than one always feels sorrow or distant joy, I cannot conceive. Love isn t a desideratum-it is an emotion you feel or you don t feel, according to circumstance. Then why do you care about people at all? she asked, if you don t velieve in love? Why do you bother about humanity? Why do I? Because I can t get away from it. Because you love it, she persisted. It irritated him. If I do love it, he said, it is my disease. But it is a disease you dont want to be cured of, she said, with some cold sneering. He was silent now, feeling she wanted to insult him. And if you don t believe in Love, what DO you believe in? she asked mocking. Simply in the end of the world, and grass? He was beginning to feel a fool. I believe in the unseenhosts, he said. And nothing else? You believe in nothing visible, except grass and birds? Your world is a poor show. Perhaps it is, he said, cool and superior now he was offended, assuming a certain insufferable aloof superiority, and withdrawing into his distance.Ursula disliked him. But also she felt she had lost something. She looked at him as he sat crouched on the bank. There was a certain priggish Sunday-schllo stiffness over him, proggish and detestable. And yet, at the sametime, the moulding of him was so quick and attractive, it gave such a great sense of freedom; themoulding of his brows,his chin, his whole physique, something so alive, somewhere, in spite of the look of sickness. And it was this duality in feeling which he created in her, that made a fine hate of him quicken in her bowels. there was his wonderful, desirable life-repidity, the rare quality of an utterly desirable man: nad there was at the same time this ridiculors, mean effacement into a Sslvator Mundil and a Sunday-school teacher, a prig of the stiffest type. He looked up at her. He saw her face strangely enkindled, as if suffused from wihtin by a powerful sweet fire. His woul wasarrested in wonder. She was enkindled in her own living fire. Arrested wonder and in pure, perfect attraction, he moved towards her. She sat like a strange quwwn, almost supernatural in her glowing smiling richness. The point about love, he said, his consciousness quickly adjusting itself, is that we hate the word because we have vulgarised it. It ought to be prescribed, tabooed from utteracne, for many years, till we get a new, better idea. There was a beam of understanding between them. But it always means the same thing, she said. Ah God, no, let it not mean that any more, he cried. Let the old meanings go. But still it is love, she persisted. A strange, wicked yellow light shone at him in her eyes. He hesitated, baffled, withdrawing. No, he said, it isn t. Spoken like that, never in the world. you ve no business to utter the word. I mist leave it to you, to take it out of the Ark of the Covenant at the right moment, she mocked. Again they looked at each other. She suddenly sprang up, turned her back to him, and walked away. He too rose slowly andwent to the water s edge, where, crouching, he began to amuse himself unconsciously. Picking a daisy he dropped it on the pong, sothat the stem was a keel, the flower floated like a little water lily, staring with its open face up tothe sky. It turned slowly round, in a slow, slow Dervish dance, as it veered away. He watched it,then dropped another daisy into the water, and after that another, and sat watching them with bright, absolved eyes, crouching near on the bank. Ursula turned to look. A strang feeling possessed her, as if something were taking place. But it was all intrangible. And some sort of control was being put on her. She could not known. She could only watch the brilliant little dises of the daisies veering slowly in travel on the dark, lustrous water. The little flotilla was drifting into the light, a company of white specks in the distance. Do let us go to the shore, to follow them, she said, afraid of being any longer imprisoned in the island. And they pushed off in the punt. She was glad to be on the free land again. She went along the bank towards the sluice. The daisies were scattered broadcast on the pond, tiny radiant things, like an axaltation, points of exaltations here and there. Why did they move her so strongly and mystically? look, he said, your boat of purple paper is escorting them, and they are a convoy of rafts. Some of the daisies come slowly towards her, heditationg, making a shy bright little cotillion on the dark clear water. Their gay bright candour moved her so much as they came near, that she was almost in tears. Why are they so lovely, she cried. Why do I think them so lovely? They are nice flowers, he said, her emotional tones putting a constraint on him. You know that a daisy is a company of florets, a concourse, vecome individual. Don t the botanists put it highest in the line of development? I believe they do. The compositae, yes, I think so, said Ursula, who was never very sure of anything. Things she knew perfectly well, at one moment, seemed to bocome doubtful the next. Explain it so, then, he said. The daisy is a perfect little democracy, so it s the highest of flower, hence its charm. No, she cried, no-never. It isn t democratic. No, he admitted. It s the golden mob of the proletariat, surrounded by a showy white fence of the idle rich. How hateful-your hateful social orders! she cried.Quite! It s a daisy-we ll leave it alone. Do. Let it be a dark horse for once, she said; if anything can be a dark horse to you, she added satirically. They stood aside, forgetful. As if a little stunned, they both were motionless, barely conscious. The little conflict into which they had fallen had torn their consciousness and left them like two impersonal forces, there in contact. He became aware of the lapse. He wanted to say something, to get on to a new more ordinary footing. You know, he saidm that I am having rooms here at the mill? Don t you think we can have some good times? Oh are you? she said, ignoring all his implication of admitted intimacy. He adjusted himself at once, became normally distant. If I find I can live sufficiently by muself, he continued, I shall give up my work altogether. It has become dead to me. I don t believe in hte humanity I pretend to be part of, I don t care a straw for the social ideals I live by, I hate the dying organic form of social mankind-so it can t be anything but trumpery, to work at education, I sall drop it as soon as I am clear enough-tomorrow perhaps-and be by muself. Have you enough to live on? asked Ursula. Yes-I ve about four hundred a year. That makes it easy for me. There was a pause. And what about Hermione? asked Ursula. That s over, finally-a pure failure, andnever could have been anything else. But you still know each other? We could hardly pretend to be strangers, could we? There was a stubborn pause. But isn t that a half-measure? asked Ursula at length. is. I don t think so,