'Why not?' asked Gerald.
Loerke shrugged his shoulders.
'I don't find them interesting--or beautiful--they are no good to me,
for my work.' 'Do you mean to say a woman isn't beautiful after she is twenty?' asked
Gerald.
'For me, no. Before twenty, she is small and fresh and tender and
slight. After that--let her be what she likes, she has nothing for me.
The Venus of Milo is a bourgeoise--so are they all.' 'And you don't care for women at all after twenty?' asked Gerald.
'They are no good to me, they are of no use in my art,' Loerke repeated
impatiently. 'I don't find them beautiful.' 'You are an epicure,' said Gerald, with a slight sarcastic laugh.
'And what about men?' asked Gudrun suddenly.
'Yes, they are good at all ages,' replied Loerke. 'A man should be big
and powerful--whether he is old or young is of no account, so he has
the size, something of massiveness and--and stupid form.' Ursula went out alone into the world of pure, new snow. But the
dazzling whiteness seemed to beat upon her till it hurt her, she felt
the cold was slowly strangling her soul. Her head felt dazed and numb.
Suddenly she wanted to go away. It occurred to her, like a miracle,
that she might go away into another world. She had felt so doomed up
here in the eternal snow, as if there were no beyond.
Now suddenly, as by a miracle she remembered that away beyond, below
her, lay the dark fruitful earth, that towards the south there were
stretches of land dark with orange trees and cypress, grey with olives,
that ilex trees lifted wonderful plumy tufts in shadow against a blue
sky. Miracle of miracles!--this utterly silent, frozen world of the
mountain-tops was not universal! One might leave it and have done with
it. One might go away.
She wanted to realise the miracle at once. She wanted at this instant
to have done with the snow-world, the terrible, static ice-built
mountain tops. She wanted to see the dark earth, to smell its earthy
fecundity, to see the patient wintry vegetation, to feel the sunshine
touch a response in the buds.
She went back gladly to the house, full of hope. Birkin was reading,
lying in bed.
'Rupert,' she said, bursting in on him. 'I want to go away.' He looked up at her slowly.
'Do you?' he replied mildly.
She sat by him und put her arms round his neck. It surprised her that
he was so little surprised.