'It was once,' said Birkin, 'gilded--and it had a cane seat. Somebody
has nailed this wooden seat in. Look, here is a trifle of the red that
underlay the gilt. The rest is all black, except where the wood is worn
pure and glossy. It is the fine unity of the lines that is so
attractive. Look, how they run and meet and counteract. But of course
the wooden seat is wrong--it destroys the perfect lightness and unity
in tension the cane gave. I like it though--' 'Ah yes,' said Ursula, 'so do I.' 'How much is it?' Birkin asked the man.
'Ten shillings.' 'And you will send it--?' It was bought.
'So beautiful, so pure!' Birkin said. 'It almost breaks my heart.' They
walked along between the heaps of rubbish. 'My beloved country--it had
something to express even when it made that chair.' 'And hasn't it now?' asked Ursula. She was always angry when he took
this tone.
'No, it hasn't. When I see that clear, beautiful chair, and I think of
England, even Jane Austen's England--it had living thoughts to unfold
even then, and pure happiness in unfolding them. And now, we can only
fish among the rubbish heaps for the remnants of their old expression.
There is no production in us now, only sordid and foul mechanicalness.' 'It isn't true,' cried Ursula. 'Why must you always praise the past, at
the expense of the present? REALLY, I don't think so much of Jane
Austen's England. It was materialistic enough, if you like--' 'It could afford to be materialistic,' said Birkin, 'because it had the
power to be something other--which we haven't. We are materialistic
because we haven't the power to be anything else--try as we may, we
can't bring off anything but materialism: mechanism, the very soul of
materialism.' Ursula was subdued into angry silence. She did not heed what he said.
She was rebelling against something else.
'And I hate your past. I'm sick of it,' she cried. 'I believe I even
hate that old chair, though it IS beautiful. It isn't MY sort of
beauty. I wish it had been smashed up when its day was over, not left
to preach the beloved past to us. I'm sick of the beloved past.' 'Not so sick as I am of the accursed present,' he said.
'Yes, just the same. I hate the present--but I don't want the past to
take its place--I don't want that old chair.' He was rather angry for a moment. Then he looked at the sky shining
beyond the tower of the public baths, and he seemed to get over it all.
He laughed.