When she crawled out, after an hour or so, she went rather
stiffly to play. She willed to forget. She cut off her childish
soul from memory, so that the pain, and the insult should not be
real. She asserted herself only. There was not nothing in the
world but her own self. So very soon, she came to believe in the
outward malevolence that was against her. And very early, she
learned that even her adored father was part of this
malevolence. And very early she learned to harden her soul in
resistance and denial of all that was outside her, harden
herself upon her own being.
She never felt sorry for what she had done, she never forgave
those who had made her guilty. If he had said to her, "Why,
Ursula, did you trample my carefully-made bed?" that would have
hurt her to the quick, and she would have done anything for him.
But she was always tormented by the unreality of outside things.
The earth was to walk on. Why must she avoid a certain patch,
just because it was called a seed-bed? It was the earth to walk
on. This was her instinctive assumption. And when he bullied
her, she became hard, cut herself off from all connection, lived
in the little separate world of her own violent will.
As she grew older, five, six, seven, the connection between
her and her father was even stronger. Yet it was always
straining to break. She was always relapsing on her own violent
will into her own separate world of herself. This made him grind
his teeth with bitterness, for he still wanted her. But she
could harden herself into her own self's universe,
impregnable.
He was very fond of swimming, and in warm weather would take
her down to the canal, to a silent place, or to a big pond or
reservoir, to bathe. He would take her on his back as he went
swimming, and she clung close, feeling his strong movement under
her, so strong, as if it would uphold all the world. Then he
taught her to swim.
She was a fearless little thing, when he dared her. And he
had a curious craving to frighten her, to see what she would do
with him. He said, would she ride on his back whilst he jumped
off the canal bridge down into the water beneath.
She would. He loved to feel the naked child clinging on to
his shoulders. There was a curious fight between their two
wills. He mounted the parapet of the canal bridge. The water was
a long way down. But the child had a deliberate will set upon
his. She held herself fixed to him.
He leapt, and down they went. The crash of the water as they
went under struck through the child's small body, with a sort of
unconsciousness. But she remained fixed. And when they came up
again, and when they went to the bank, and when they sat on the
grass side by side, he laughed, and said it was fine. And the
dark-dilated eyes of the child looked at him wonderingly,
darkly, wondering from the shock, yet reserved and unfathomable,
so he laughed almost with a sob.