How to act, that was the question? Whither to go, how to
become oneself? One was not oneself, one was merely a
half-stated question. How to become oneself, how to know the
question and the answer of oneself, when one was merely an
unfixed something--nothing, blowing about like the winds of
heaven, undefined, unstated.
She turned to the visions, which had spoken far-off words
that ran along the blood like ripples of an unseen wind, she
heard the words again, she denied the vision, for she must be a
weekday person, to whom visions were not true, and she demanded
only the weekday meaning of the words.
There were words spoken by the vision: and words must
have a weekday meaning, since words were weekday stuff. Let them
speak now: let them bespeak themselves in weekday terms. The
vision should translate itself into weekday terms.
"Sell all thou hast, and give to the poor," she heard on
Sunday morning. That was plain enough, plain enough for Monday
morning too. As she went down the hill to the station, going to
school, she took the saying with her.
"Sell all thou hast, and give to the poor."
Did she want to do that? Did she want to sell her
pearl-backed brush and mirror, her silver candlestick, her
pendant, her lovely little necklace, and go dressed in drab like
the Wherrys: the unlovely uncombed Wherrys, who were the "poor"
to her? She did not.
She walked this Monday morning on the verge of misery. For
she did want to do what was right. And she didn't want to do
what the gospels said. She didn't want to be poor--really
poor. The thought was a horror to her: to live like the Wherrys,
so ugly, to be at the mercy of everybody.
"Sell that thou hast, and give to the poor."
One could not do it in real life. How dreary and hopeless it
made her!
Nor could one turn the other cheek. Theresa slapped Ursula on
the face. Ursula, in a mood of Christian humility, silently
presented the other side of her face. Which Theresa, in
exasperation at the challenge, also hit. Whereupon Ursula, with
boiling heart, went meekly away.
But anger, and deep, writhing shame tortured her, so she was
not easy till she had again quarrelled with Theresa and had
almost shaken her sister's head off.
"That'll teach you," she said, grimly.
And she went away, unchristian but clean.
There was something unclean and degrading about this humble
side of Christianity. Ursula suddenly revolted to the other
extreme.
"I hate the Wherrys, and I wish they were dead. Why does my
father leave us in the lurch like this, making us be poor and
insignificant? Why is he not more? If we had a father as he
ought to be, he would be Earl William Brangwen, and I should be
the Lady Ursula? What right have I to be poor? crawling
along the lane like vermin? If I had my rights I should be
seated on horseback in a green riding-habit, and my groom would
be behind me. And I should stop at the gates of the cottages,
and enquire of the cottage woman who came out with a child in
her arms, how did her husband, who had hurt his foot. And I
would pat the flaxen head of the child, stooping from my horse,
and I would give her a shilling from my purse, and order
nourishing food to be sent from the hall to the cottage."