Birkin was frightened.He was tired too, when he had reached this length of speculation.Suddenly his strange, strained attention gave way, he could not attend to these mysteries any more.There was another way, the way of freedom.There was the paradisal entry into pure, single being, the individual soul taking precedence over love and desire for union, stronger than any pangs of emotion, a lovely state of free proud singleness, which accepted the obligation of the permanent connection with others, and with the other, submits to the yoke and leash of love, but never forfeits its own proud individual singleness, even while it loves and yields.
There was the other way, the remaining way.And he must run to follow it.He thought of Ursula, how sensitive and delicate she really was, her skin so over-fine, as if one skin were wanting.She was really so marvellously gentle and sensitive.Why did he ever forget it? He must go to her at once.
He must ask her to marry him.They must marry at once, and so make a definite pledge, enter into a definite communion.He must set out at once and ask her, this moment.There was no moment to spare.
He drifted on swiftly to Beldover, half-unconscious of his own movement.
He saw the town on the slope of the hill, not straggling, but as if walled-in with the straight, final streets of miners' dwellings, making a great square, and it looked like Jerusalem to his fancy.The world was all strange and transcendent.
Rosalind opened the door to him.She started slightly, as a young girl will, and said:
`Oh, I'll tell father.'
With which she disappeared, leaving Birkin in the hall, looking at some reproductions from Picasso, lately introduced by Gudrun.He was admiring the almost wizard, sensuous apprehension of the earth, when Will Brangwen appeared, rolling down his shirt sleeves.
`Well,' said Brangwen, `I'll get a coat.' And he too disappeared for a moment.Then he returned, and opened the door of the drawing-room, saying:
`You must excuse me, I was just doing a bit of work in the shed.Come inside, will you.'
Birkin entered and sat down.He looked at the bright, reddish face of the other man, at the narrow brow and the very bright eyes, and at the rather sensual lips that unrolled wide and expansive under the black cropped moustache.How curious it was that this was a human being! What Brangwen thought himself to be, how meaningless it was, confronted with the reality of him.Birkin could see only a strange, inexplicable, almost patternless collection of passions and desires and suppressions and traditions and mechanical ideas, all cast unfused and disunited into this slender, bright-faced man of nearly fifty, who was as unresolved now as he was at twenty, and as uncreated.How could he be the parent of Ursula, when he was not created himself.He was not a parent.A slip of living flesh had been transmitted through him, but the spirit had not come from him.The spirit had not come from any ancestor, it had come out of the unknown.A child is the child of the mystery, or it is uncreated.
`The weather's not so bad as it has been,' said Brangwen, after waiting a moment.There was no connection between the two men.
`No,' said Birkin.`It was full moon two days ago.'
`Oh! You believe in the moon then, affecting the weather?'
`No, I don't think I do.I don't really know enough about it.'
`You know what they say? The moon and the weather may change together, but the change of the moon won't change the weather.'
`Is that it?' said Birkin.`I hadn't heard it.'
There was a pause.Then Birkin said:
`Am I hindering you? I called to see Ursula, really.Is she at home?'
`I don't believe she is.I believe she's gone to the library.I'll just see.'
Birkin could hear him enquiring in the dining-room.
`No,' he said, coming back.`But she won't be long.You wanted to speak to her?'
Birkin looked across at the other man with curious calm, clear eyes.
`As a matter of fact,' he said, `I wanted to ask her to marry me.'
A point of light came on the golden-brown eyes of the elder man.
`O-oh?' he said, looking at Birkin, then dropping his eyes before the calm, steadily watching look of the other: `Was she expecting you then?'
`No,' said Birkin.
`No? I didn't know anything of this sort was on foot -- ' Brangwen smiled awkwardly.
Birkin looked back at him, and said to himself: `I wonder why it should be "on foot"!' Aloud he said:
`No, it's perhaps rather sudden.' At which, thinking of his relationship with Ursula, he added -- `but I don't know -- '
`Quite sudden, is it? Oh!' said Brangwen, rather baffled and annoyed.
`In one way,' replied Birkin, `-- not in another.'
There was a moment's pause, after which Brangwen said:
`Well, she pleases herself -- '
`Oh yes!' said Birkin, calmly.
A vibration came into Brangwen's strong voice, as he replied:
`Though I shouldn't want her to be in too big a hurry, either.It's no good looking round afterwards, when it's too late.'
`Oh, it need never be too late,' said Birkin, `as far as that goes.'
`How do you mean?' asked the father.
`If one repents being married, the marriage is at an end,' said Birkin.
`You think so?'
`Yes.'
`Ay, well that may be your way of looking at it.'
Birkin, in silence, thought to himself: `So it may.As for your way of looking at it, William Brangwen, it needs a little explaining.'
`I suppose,' said Brangwen, `you know what sort of people we are? What sort of a bringing-up she's had?'
` "She",' thought Birkin to himself, remembering his childhood's corrections, `is the cat's mother.'
`Do I know what sort of a bringing-up she's had?' he said aloud.
He seemed to annoy Brangwen intentionally.
`Well,' he said, `she's had everything that's right for a girl to have -- as far as possible, as far as we could give it her.'
`I'm sure she has,' said Birkin, which caused a perilous full-stop.
The father was becoming exasperated.There was something naturally irritant to him in Birkin's mere presence.
`And I don't want to see her going back on it all,' he said, in a clanging voice.
`Why?' said Birkin.