'I will go away the day after tomorrow,' she said.
She only did not want Gerald to think that she was afraid of him, that
she was running away because she was afraid of him. She was not afraid
of him, fundamentally. She knew it was her safeguard to avoid his
physical violence. But even physically she was not afraid of him. She
wanted to prove it to him. When she had proved it, that, whatever he
was, she was not afraid of him; when she had proved THAT, she could
leave him forever. But meanwhile the fight between them, terrible as
she knew it to be, was inconclusive. And she wanted to be confident in
herself. However many terrors she might have, she would be unafraid,
uncowed by him. He could never cow her, nor dominate her, nor have any
right over her; this she would maintain until she had proved it. Once
it was proved, she was free of him forever.
But she had not proved it yet, neither to him nor to herself. And this
was what still bound her to him. She was bound to him, she could not
live beyond him. She sat up in bed, closely wrapped up, for many hours,
thinking endlessly to herself. It was as if she would never have done
weaving the great provision of her thoughts.
'It isn't as if he really loved me,' she said to herself. 'He doesn't.
Every woman he comes across he wants to make her in love with him. He
doesn't even know that he is doing it. But there he is, before every
woman he unfurls his male attractiveness, displays his great
desirability, he tries to make every woman think how wonderful it would
be to have him for a lover. His very ignoring of the women is part of
the game. He is never UNCONSCIOUS of them. He should have been a
cockerel, so he could strut before fifty females, all his subjects. But
really, his Don Juan does NOT interest me. I could play Dona Juanita a
million times better than he plays Juan. He bores me, you know. His
maleness bores me. Nothing is so boring, so inherently stupid and
stupidly conceited. Really, the fathomless conceit of these men, it is
ridiculous--the little strutters.
'They are all alike. Look at Birkin. Built out of the limitation of
conceit they are, and nothing else. Really, nothing but their
ridiculous limitation and intrinsic insignificance could make them so
conceited.
'As for Loerke, there is a thousand times more in him than in a Gerald.
Gerald is so limited, there is a dead end to him. He would grind on at
the old mills forever. And really, there is no corn between the
millstones any more. They grind on and on, when there is nothing to
grind--saying the same things, believing the same things, acting the
same things. Oh, my God, it would wear out the patience of a stone.