But then, to have no claim upon her, he must stand by himself, in sheer
nothingness. And his brain turned to nought at the idea. It was a state
of nothingness. On the other hand, he might give in, and fawn to her.
Or, finally, he might kill her. Or he might become just indifferent,
purposeless, dissipated, momentaneous. But his nature was too serious,
not gay enough or subtle enough for mocking licentiousness.
A strange rent had been torn in him; like a victim that is torn open
and given to the heavens, so he had been torn apart and given to
Gudrun. How should he close again? This wound, this strange,
infinitely-sensitive opening of his soul, where he was exposed, like an
open flower, to all the universe, and in which he was given to his
complement, the other, the unknown, this wound, this disclosure, this
unfolding of his own covering, leaving him incomplete, limited,
unfinished, like an open flower under the sky, this was his cruellest
joy. Why then should he forego it? Why should he close up and become
impervious, immune, like a partial thing in a sheath, when he had
broken forth, like a seed that has germinated, to issue forth in being,
embracing the unrealised heavens.
He would keep the unfinished bliss of his own yearning even through the
torture she inflicted upon him. A strange obstinacy possessed him. He
would not go away from her whatever she said or did. A strange, deathly
yearning carried him along with her. She was the determinating
influence of his very being, though she treated him with contempt,
repeated rebuffs, and denials, still he would never be gone, since in
being near her, even, he felt the quickening, the going forth in him,
the release, the knowledge of his own limitation and the magic of the
promise, as well as the mystery of his own destruction and
annihilation.
She tortured the open heart of him even as he turned to her. And she
was tortured herself. It may have been her will was stronger. She felt,
with horror, as if he tore at the bud of her heart, tore it open, like
an irreverent persistent being. Like a boy who pulls off a fly's wings,
or tears open a bud to see what is in the flower, he tore at her
privacy, at her very life, he would destroy her as an immature bud,
torn open, is destroyed.
She might open towards him, a long while hence, in her dreams, when she
was a pure spirit. But now she was not to be violated and ruined. She
closed against him fiercely.