They waited for the tramcar.Ursula sat on top and looked out on the town.The dusk was just dimming the hollows of crowded houses.
`And are they going to inherit the earth?' she said.
`Yes -- they.'
`Then what are we going to do?' she asked.`We're not like them -- are we? We're not the meek?'
`No.We've got to live in the chinks they leave us.'
`How horrible!' cried Ursula.`I don't want to live in chinks.'
`Don't worry,' he said.`They are the children of men, they like market-places and street-corners best.That leaves plenty of chinks.'
`All the world,' she said.
`Ah no -- but some room.'
The tramcar mounted slowly up the hill, where the ugly winter-grey masses of houses looked like a vision of hell that is cold and angular.They sat and looked.Away in the distance was an angry redness of sunset.It was all cold, somehow small, crowded, and like the end of the world.
`I don't mind it even then,' said Ursula, looking at the repulsiveness of it all.`It doesn't concern me.'
`No more it does,' he replied, holding her hand.`One needn't see.One goes one's way.In my world it is sunny and spacious --'
`It is, my love, isn't it?' she cried, hugging near to him on the top of the tramcar, so that the other passengers stared at them.
`And we will wander about on the face of the earth,' he said, `and we'll look at the world beyond just this bit.'
There was a long silence.Her face was radiant like gold, as she sat thinking.
`I don't want to inherit the earth,' she said.`I don't want to inherit anything.'
He closed his hand over hers.
`Neither do I.I want to be disinherited.'
She clasped his fingers closely.
`We won't care about anything, ' she said.
He sat still, and laughed.
`And we'll be married, and have done with them,' she added.
Again he laughed.
`It's one way of getting rid of everything,' she said, `to get married.'
`And one way of accepting the whole world,' he added.
`A whole other world, yes,' she said happily.
`Perhaps there's Gerald -- and Gudrun --' he said.
`If there is there is, you see,' she said.`It's no good our worrying.
We can't really alter them, can we?'
`No,' he said.`One has no right to try -- not with the best intentions in the world.'
`Do you try to force them?' she asked.
`Perhaps,' he said.`Why should I want him to be free, if it isn't his business?'
She paused for a time.
`We can't make him happy, anyhow,' she said.`He'd have to be it of himself.'
`I know,' he said.`But we want other people with us, don't we?'
`Why should we?' she asked.
`I don't know,' he said uneasily.`One has a hankering after a sort of further fellowship.'
`But why?' she insisted.`Why should you hanker after other people?
Why should you need them?'
This hit him right on the quick.His brows knitted.
`Does it end with just our two selves?' he asked, tense.
`Yes -- what more do you want? If anybody likes to come along, let them.
But why must you run after them?'
His face was tense and unsatisfied.
`You see,' he said, `I always imagine our being really happy with some few other people -- a little freedom with people.'
She pondered for a moment.
`Yes, one does want that.But it must happen.You can't do anything for it with your will.You always seem to think you can force the flowers to come out.People must love us because they love us -- you can't make them.'
`I know,' he said.`But must one take no steps at all? Must one just go as if one were alone in the world -- the only creature in the world?'
`You've got me,' she said.`Why should you need others? Why must you force people to agree with you? Why can't you be single by yourself, as you are always saying? You try to bully Gerald -- as you tried to bully Hermione.You must learn to be alone.And it's so horrid of you.You've got me.And yet you want to force other people to love you as well.You do try to bully them to love you.And even then, you don't want their love.'
His face was full of real perplexity.
`Don't I?' he said.`It's the problem I can't solve.I know Iwant a perfect and complete relationship with you: and we've nearly got it -- we really have.But beyond that.Do I want a real, ultimate relationship with Gerald? Do I want a final, almost extra-human relationship with him -- a relationship in the ultimate of me and him -- or don't I?'
She looked at him for a long time, with strange bright eyes, but she did not answer.