They came to the town, and left Gerald at the railway station. Gudrun
and Winifred were to come to tea with Birkin, who expected Ursula also.
In the afternoon, however, the first person to turn up was Hermione.
Birkin was out, so she went in the drawing-room, looking at his books
and papers, and playing on the piano. Then Ursula arrived. She was
surprised, unpleasantly so, to see Hermione, of whom she had heard
nothing for some time.
'It is a surprise to see you,' she said.
'Yes,' said Hermione--'I've been away at Aix--' 'Oh, for your health?' 'Yes.' The two women looked at each other. Ursula resented Hermione's long,
grave, downward-looking face. There was something of the stupidity and
the unenlightened self-esteem of a horse in it. 'She's got a
horse-face,' Ursula said to herself, 'she runs between blinkers.' It
did seem as if Hermione, like the moon, had only one side to her penny.
There was no obverse. She stared out all the time on the narrow, but to
her, complete world of the extant consciousness. In the darkness, she
did not exist. Like the moon, one half of her was lost to life. Her
self was all in her head, she did not know what it was spontaneously to
run or move, like a fish in the water, or a weasel on the grass. She
must always KNOW.
But Ursula only suffered from Hermione's one-sidedness. She only felt
Hermione's cool evidence, which seemed to put her down as nothing.
Hermione, who brooded and brooded till she was exhausted with the ache
of her effort at consciousness, spent and ashen in her body, who gained
so slowly and with such effort her final and barren conclusions of
knowledge, was apt, in the presence of other women, whom she thought
simply female, to wear the conclusions of her bitter assurance like
jewels which conferred on her an unquestionable distinction,
established her in a higher order of life. She was apt, mentally, to
condescend to women such as Ursula, whom she regarded as purely
emotional. Poor Hermione, it was her one possession, this aching
certainty of hers, it was her only justification. She must be confident
here, for God knows, she felt rejected and deficient enough elsewhere.
In the life of thought, of the spirit, she was one of the elect. And
she wanted to be universal. But there was a devastating cynicism at the
bottom of her. She did not believe in her own universals--they were
sham. She did not believe in the inner life--it was a trick, not a
reality. She did not believe in the spiritual world--it was an
affectation. In the last resort, she believed in Mammon, the flesh, and
the devil--these at least were not sham. She was a priestess without
belief, without conviction, suckled in a creed outworn, and condemned
to the reiteration of mysteries that were not divine to her. Yet there
was no escape. She was a leaf upon a dying tree. What help was there
then, but to fight still for the old, withered truths, to die for the
old, outworn belief, to be a sacred and inviolate priestess of
desecrated mysteries? The old great truths BAD been true. And she was a
leaf of the old great tree of knowledge that was withering now. To the
old and last truth then she must be faithful even though cynicism and
mockery took place at the bottom of her soul.