Snowed Up W HEN U RSULA and Birkin were gone, Gudrun felt herself free in her contest with Gerald.As they grew more used to each other, he seemed to press upon her more and more.At first she could manage him, so that her own will was always left free.
But very soon, he began to ignore her female tactics, he dropped his respect for her whims and her privacies, he began to exert his own will blindly, without submitting to hers.
Already a vital conflict had set in, which frightened them both.But he was alone, whilst already she had begun to cast round for external resource.
When Ursula had gone, Gudrun felt her own existence had become stark and elemental.She went and crouched alone in her bedroom, looking out of the window at the big, flashing stars.In front was the faint shadow of the mountain-knot.That was the pivot.She felt strange and inevitable, as if she were centred upon the pivot of all existence, there was no further reality.
Presently Gerald opened the door.She knew he would not be long before he came.She was rarely alone, he pressed upon her like a frost, deadening her.
`Are you alone in the dark?' he said.And she could tell by his tone he resented it, he resented this isolation she had drawn round herself.
Yet, feeling static and inevitable, she was kind towards him.
`Would you like to light the candle?' she asked.
He did not answer, but came and stood behind her, in the darkness.
`Look,' she said, `at that lovely star up there.Do you know its name?'
He crouched beside her, to look through the low window.
`No,' he said.`It is very fine.'
` Isn't it beautiful! Do you notice how it darts different coloured fires -- it flashes really superbly --'
They remained in silence.With a mute, heavy gesture she put her hand on his knee, and took his hand.
`Are you regretting Ursula?' he asked.
`No, not at all,' she said.Then, in a slow mood, she asked:
`How much do you love me?'
He stiffened himself further against her.
`How much do you think I do?' he asked.
`I don't know,' she replied.
`But what is your opinion?' he asked.
There was a pause.At length, in the darkness, came her voice, hard and indifferent:
`Very little indeed,' she said coldly, almost flippant.
His heart went icy at the sound of her voice.
`Why don't I love you?' he asked, as if admitting the truth of her accusation, yet hating her for it.
`I don't know why you don't -- I've been good to you.You were in a fearful state when you came to me.'
Her heart was beating to suffocate her, yet she was strong and unrelenting.
`When was I in a fearful state?' he asked.
`When you first came to me.I had to take pity on you.But it was never love.'
It was that statement `It was never love,' which sounded in his ears with madness.
`Why must you repeat it so often, that there is no love?' he said in a voice strangled with rage.
`Well you don't think you love, do you?' she asked.
He was silent with cold passion of anger.
`You don't think you can love me, do you?' she repeated almost with a sneer.
`No,' he said.
`You know you never have loved me, don't you?'
`I don't know what you mean by the word `love,' he replied.
`Yes, you do.You know all right that you have never loved me.Have you, do you think?'
`No,' he said, prompted by some barren spirit of truthfulness and obstinacy.
`And you never will love me,' she said finally, `will you?'
There was a diabolic coldness in her, too much to bear.
`No,' he said.
`Then,' she replied, `what have you against me!'
He was silent in cold, frightened rage and despair.`If only I could kill her,' his heart was whispering repeatedly.`If only I could kill her -- I should be free.'
It seemed to him that death was the only severing of this Gordian knot.
`Why do you torture me?' he said.
She flung her arms round his neck.
`Ah, I don't want to torture you,' she said pityingly, as if she were comforting a child.The impertinence made his veins go cold, he was insensible.
She held her arms round his neck, in a triumph of pity.And her pity for him was as cold as stone, its deepest motive was hate of him, and fear of his power over her, which she must always counterfoil.
`Say you love me,' she pleaded.`Say you will love me for ever -- won't you -- won't you?'
But it was her voice only that coaxed him.Her senses were entirely apart from him, cold and destructive of him.It was her overbearing will that insisted.
`Won't you say you'll love me always?' she coaxed.`Say it, even if it isn't true -- say it Gerald, do.'
`I will love you always,' he repeated, in real agony, forcing the words out.
She gave him a quick kiss.
`Fancy your actually having said it,' she said with a touch of raillery.
He stood as if he had been beaten.
`Try to love me a little more, and to want me a little less,' she said, in a half contemptuous, half coaxing tone.
The darkness seemed to be swaying in waves across his mind, great waves of darkness plunging across his mind.It seemed to him he was degraded at the very quick, made of no account.
`You mean you don't want me?' he said.
`You are so insistent, and there is so little grace in you, so little fineness.You are so crude.You break me -- you only waste me -- it is horrible to me.'
`Horrible to you?' he repeated.
`Yes.Don't you think I might have a room to myself, now Ursula has gone? You can say you want a dressing room.'
`You do as you like -- you can leave altogether if you like,' he managed to articulate.
`Yes, I know that,' she replied.`So can you.You can leave me whenever you like -- without notice even.'
The great tides of darkness were swinging across his mind, he could hardly stand upright.A terrible weariness overcame him, he felt he must lie on the floor.Dropping off his clothes, he got into bed, and lay like a man suddenly overcome by drunkenness, the darkness lifting and plunging as if he were lying upon a black, giddy sea.He lay still in this strange, horrific reeling for some time, purely unconscious.
At length she slipped from her own bed and came over to him.He remained rigid, his back to her.He was all but unconscious.