Women in Love | Page 6

know herself what it was. It was a lack of robust self, she had no
natural sufficiency, there was a terrible void, a lack, a deficiency of
being within her.
And she wanted someone to close up this deficiency, to close it up for
ever. She craved for Rupert Birkin. When he was there, she felt
complete, she was sufficient, whole. For the rest of time she was
established on the sand, built over a chasm, and, in spite of all her
vanity and securities, any common maid-servant of positive, robust
temper could fling her down this bottomless pit of insufficiency, by the
slightest movement of jeering or contempt. And all the while the
pensive, tortured woman piled up her own defences of aesthetic
knowledge, and culture, and world-visions, and disinterestedness. Yet
she could never stop up the terrible gap of insufficiency.
If only Birkin would form a close and abiding connection with her, she
would be safe during this fretful voyage of life. He could make her
sound and triumphant, triumphant over the very angels of heaven. If
only he would do it! But she was tortured with fear, with misgiving.
She made herself beautiful, she strove so hard to come to that degree of
beauty and advantage, when he should be convinced. But always there
was a deficiency.
He was perverse too. He fought her off, he always fought her off. The
more she strove to bring him to her, the more he battled her back. And
they had been lovers now, for years. Oh, it was so wearying, so aching;
she was so tired. But still she believed in herself. She knew he was
trying to leave her. She knew he was trying to break away from her
finally, to be free. But still she believed in her strength to keep him, she
believed in her own higher knowledge. His own knowledge was high,
she was the central touchstone of truth. She only needed his
conjunction with her.
And this, this conjunction with her, which was his highest fulfilment
also, with the perverseness of a wilful child he wanted to deny. With

the wilfulness of an obstinate child, he wanted to break the holy
connection that was between them.
He would be at this wedding; he was to be groom's man. He would be
in the church, waiting. He would know when she came. She shuddered
with nervous apprehension and desire as she went through the
church-door. He would be there, surely he would see how beautiful her
dress was, surely he would see how she had made herself beautiful for
him. He would understand, he would be able to see how she was made
for him, the first, how she was, for him, the highest. Surely at last he
would be able to accept his highest fate, he would not deny her.
In a little convulsion of too-tired yearning, she entered the church and
looked slowly along her cheeks for him, her slender body convulsed
with agitation. As best man, he would be standing beside the altar. She
looked slowly, deferring in her certainty.
And then, he was not there. A terrible storm came over her, as if she
were drowning. She was possessed by a devastating hopelessness. And
she approached mechanically to the altar. Never had she known such a
pang of utter and final hopelessness. It was beyond death, so utterly
null, desert.
The bridegroom and the groom's man had not yet come. There was a
growing consternation outside. Ursula felt almost responsible. She
could not bear it that the bride should arrive, and no groom. The
wedding must not be a fiasco, it must not.
But here was the bride's carriage, adorned with ribbons and cockades.
Gaily the grey horses curvetted to their destination at the church-gate, a
laughter in the whole movement. Here was the quick of all laughter and
pleasure. The door of the carriage was thrown open, to let out the very
blossom of the day. The people on the roadway murmured faintly with
the discontented murmuring of a crowd.
The father stepped out first into the air of the morning, like a shadow.
He was a tall, thin, careworn man, with a thin black beard that was
touched with grey. He waited at the door of the carriage patiently,

self-obliterated.
In the opening of the doorway was a shower of fine foliage and flowers,
a whiteness of satin and lace, and a sound of a gay voice saying:
'How do I get out?'
A ripple of satisfaction ran through the expectant people. They pressed
near to receive her, looking with zest at the stooping blond head with
its flower buds, and at the delicate, white, tentative foot that was
reaching down to the step of the carriage. There was a sudden