She wants petty, immediate power, she wants the illusion that she is a great woman, that is all.In her soul she's a devilish unbeliever, common as dirt.That's what she is at the bottom.And all the rest is pretence -- but you love it.You love the sham spirituality, it's your food.And why? Because of the dirt underneath.Do you think I don't know the foulness of your sex life -- and her's? -- I do.And it's that foulness you want, you liar.Then have it, have it.You're such a liar.'
She turned away, spasmodically tearing the twigs of spindleberry from the hedge, and fastening them, with vibrating fingers, in the bosom of her coat.
He stood watching in silence.A wonderful tenderness burned in him, at the sight of her quivering, so sensitive fingers: and at the same time he was full of rage and callousness.
`This is a degrading exhibition,' he said coolly.
`Yes, degrading indeed,' she said.`But more to me than to you.'
`Since you choose to degrade yourself,' he said.Again the flash came over her face, the yellow lights concentrated in her eyes.
` You! ' she cried.`You! You truth-lover! You purity-monger! It stinks, your truth and your purity.It stinks of the offal you feed on, you scavenger dog, you eater of corpses.You are foul, foul and you must know it.Your purity, your candour, your goodness -- yes, thank you, we've had some.What you are is a foul, deathly thing, obscene, that's what you are, obscene and perverse.You, and love! You may well say, you don't want love.No, you want yourself, and dirt, and death -- that's what you want.You are so perverse, so death-eating.And then --'
`There's a bicycle coming,' he said, writhing under her loud denunciation.
She glanced down the road.
`I don't care,' she cried.
Nevertheless she was silent.The cyclist, having heard the voices raised in altercation, glanced curiously at the man, and the woman, and at the standing motor-car as he passed.
`-- Afternoon,' he said, cheerfully.
`Good-afternoon,' replied Birkin coldly.
They were silent as the man passed into the distance.
A clearer look had come over Birkin's face.He knew she was in the main right.He knew he was perverse, so spiritual on the one hand, and in some strange way, degraded, on the other.But was she herself any better? Was anybody any better?
`It may all be true, lies and stink and all,' he said.`But Hermione's spiritual intimacy is no rottener than your emotional-jealous intimacy.
One can preserve the decencies, even to one's enemies: for one's own sake.
Hermione is my enemy -- to her last breath! That's why I must bow her off the field.'
`You! You and your enemies and your bows! A pretty picture you make of yourself.But it takes nobody in but yourself.I jealous! I! What I say,' her voice sprang into flame, `I say because it is true, do you see, because you are you, a foul and false liar, a whited sepulchre.That's why I say it.And you hear it.'
`And be grateful,' he added, with a satirical grimace.
`Yes,' she cried, `and if you have a spark of decency in you, be grateful.'
`Not having a spark of decency, however --' he retorted.
`No,' she cried, `you haven't a spark.And so you can go your way, and I'll go mine.It's no good, not the slightest.So you can leave me now, I don't want to go any further with you -- leave me --'
`You don't even know where you are,' he said.
`Oh, don't bother, I assure you I shall be all right.I've got ten shillings in my purse, and that will take me back from anywhere you have brought me to.' She hesitated.The rings were still on her fingers, two on her little finger, one on her ring finger.Still she hesitated.
`Very good,' he said.`The only hopeless thing is a fool.'
`You are quite right,' she said.
Still she hesitated.Then an ugly, malevolent look came over her face, she pulled the rings from her fingers, and tossed them at him.One touched his face, the others hit his coat, and they scattered into the mud.
`And take your rings,' she said, `and go and buy yourself a female elsewhere -- there are plenty to be had, who will be quite glad to share your spiritual mess, -- or to have your physical mess, and leave your spiritual mess to Hermione.'
With which she walked away, desultorily, up the road.He stood motionless, watching her sullen, rather ugly walk.She was sullenly picking and pulling at the twigs of the hedge as she passed.She grew smaller, she seemed to pass out of his sight.A darkness came over his mind.Only a small, mechanical speck of consciousness hovered near him.
He felt tired and weak.Yet also he was relieved.He gave up his old position.He went and sat on the bank.No doubt Ursula was right.It was true, really, what she said.He knew that his spirituality was concomitant of a process of depravity, a sort of pleasure in self-destruction.There really was a certain stimulant in self-destruction, for him -- especially when it was translated spiritually.But then he knew it -- he knew it, and had done.And was not Ursula's way of emotional intimacy, emotional and physical, was it not just as dangerous as Hermione's abstract spiritual intimacy? Fusion, fusion, this horrible fusion of two beings, which every woman and most men insisted on, was it not nauseous and horrible anyhow, whether it was a fusion of the spirit or of the emotional body? Hermione saw herself as the perfect Idea, to which all men must come: And Ursula was the perfect Womb, the bath of birth, to which all men must come! And both were horrible.Why could they not remain individuals, limited by their own limits? Why this dreadful all-comprehensiveness, this hateful tyranny?
Why not leave the other being, free, why try to absorb, or melt, or merge?
One might abandon oneself utterly to the moments, but not to any other being.
He could not bear to see the rings lying in the pale mud of the road.
He picked them up, and wiped them unconsciously on his hands.They were the little tokens of the reality of beauty, the reality of happiness in warm creation.But he had made his hands all dirty and gritty.