Divers
The week passed away.On the Saturday it rained,a soft drizzling rain that held off at times.In one of the intervals, Anita and Ursula set out for a walk, going towards Willey waters. The atmosphere was grey and translucent, the birds sang sharply on the young twigs,the earth would be quickening and hastening in growth. The two girls walked swiftly, gladly, because of the soft, subtle rush of the morning that filled the wet haze. By the road the black - thorn was in blossom, white and wet, its tiny amber grains burning faintly in the white smoke of blossom. Purple twigs were darkly luminous in the grey air,high hedges glowed like living shadows, hovering nearer,coming into creation. The morning was full of new creations.
When the sisters came to willey waters, the lake lay grey and visionary, stretching into the moist, translucent vista of trees and meadow. Fine electric activity sounds came from the dumbbells below the road,the birds piping one against the other, and the water mysteriously plashing, issuing from the lake.
The two girls drifted swiftly along. Infront of them, at the corner of the lake, near the road, was a mossy boat-house under a walnut tree, and a little landing-stage where a boat was moored, wavering like a shadow on the still grey water, below the green, decayed poles. All was shadowy with the coming summer.
Suddenly,from the boat-house, a white figure ran out, frightening in its swift sharp transit, across the old landing- stage. It launched in a white are through the air, there was a bursting of the waters, and among the smooth ripples a swimmer was making out into space, in a centre of faintly heaving motion. The whole otherworld was wet and remote, he had to himself. He could move into the pure translucency of the grey, uncreated water.
Anita stood by the stone wall, watching.
‘How I envy him, ‘ She said, in a low desirous tone.
‘Ugh!’ Shivered Ursula. So cold!’
‘Yes,but how good,how really fine, to swim out there!’ The sisters stood watching the swimmer move further into the grey, moist , full space of the water,pulsing with his own small, invading motion, and arched over with mist and dim woods.
‘ Don’t you wish it were you?’ asked Anita, looking at Ursula.
‘I do, ‘said Ursula. ‘But I’m not sure - it’s so wet.’
‘ No’, said Anita, reluctantly.She stood watching the motion on the bosom of the water, as if fascinated. He , having swun a certain distance, turned round and was swimming on his back, looking along the water at the two girls by the wall. In the faint wash of motion, they could see his ruddy face, and could feel him watching them.
‘ It is Gideon crich, ‘said Ursula.
‘I know, ‘ replied Anita.
And she stood motionless gazing over the water at the face which washed up and down in the flood, as he swam steadily. From his separate element he saw them and he exulted in himself because of his own advantage , his possession of a world to himself. He was immune and perfect. He loved his own vigorous, thrusting motion , and violent impulse of the very cold water against his limbs, buoying him up. He could see the girls watching him a way off, outside , and that pleased him. He lifted his arm from the water, in a sign to them.
‘ He is waving,’ said Ursula.
Yes, ‘replied Anita. They watched him. He waved again, with a strange movement in recognition of the difference.
‘Like a Nibelung,’ laughed Ursula.Anita said nothing,only stood still looking over the water.
Gideon suddenly turned, and was swimming away swiftly, with a side stroke. He was alone now,alone and immune in the middle of the waters which he had all to himself. He exulted in his isolation in the new element, unquestioned and unconditioned. He was happy , thrusting with his legs and all his body, without bonds or connections anywhere , just himself in the watery world.
Anita envied him almost painfully. Even this momentary possession of pure isolation and fluidity seemed to her so terribly desirable that she felt herself as if damned , out there on the high- road .
‘God , what it is to be a man! She cried.
What?! Exclaimed Ursula in surprise.
‘ The freedom, the liberty, the mobility!’ Cried Anita, strangely flushed and brilliant. ‘You’re a man, you want to do a thing,you do it. You haven’t the THOUSAND obstacles a woman has in front of her.’
Ursula wondered what was in Anita’s mind to occasion this outburst. She could not understand.
‘What do you want to do? She asked.
‘ Nothing, ‘cried Anita in swift refutation .
‘But supposing I did. Supposing i want to swim up into that water.It is impossible , it is one of the impossibilities of life, for me to take off my clothes off now and jump in.But isn’t it RIDICULOUS? Doesn’t it simply prevent living?
She was so hot, so flushed , so furious that Ursula was puzzled.
The two sisters went on, up the road. They were passing between the trees just below shortlands. They looked up at the long, low house , dim and glamorous in the wet morning. Its cedar trees slanting before the windows.
Anita seemed to be studying it closely.
‘ Dont you think it’s attractive, Ursula ? asked Anita.
‘ Very,’ said Ursula, ‘ very peaceful and charming.!
‘It has form, too - it has a period.
‘What period?!
‘Oh, eighteenth century, too certainly, Dorothy Wordsworth and Jane Austen, don’t you think?
Ursula laughed.
‘Don’t you think so? repeated Anita .
‘Perhaps. But I don’t think the Criches fit the period .I know Gideon is putting a private electric plant for lighting the house, and is making all kinds of the latest improvements!
Anita shrugged her shoulders swiftly.
‘Of course, ‘ she said , that’s quite inevitable.
Quite,’laughed Ursula.He is several generations of youngness at one go.They hate him for it .He takes them all by the scrott of the neck,and fairly flings them along.He’ll have to die soon,when he’s made every possible improvement,and there will be nothing more to improve.He’s got GO , anyhow.'
'Certainly , he's got to go,' Said Anita.'In fact, I've never seen a man that showed signs of so much.The unfortunate thing is, where does his GO go to, what becomes of it?'
'Oh I know,'said Ursula. 'It goes with applying the latest appliances!.
'Exactly ,'said Anita.
'You know he shot his brother?'said Ursula.
'Shot his brother?' cried Anita , frowning as if in disapprobation.He and his brother were playing together with a gun.He told his brother to look down at the gun, and it was loaded, and blew the top of his head off.Isn't it a horrible story?.
'How fearful!' cried Anita ."But it is long ago?'
'Desire!' said Anita, coldly, stiffening a little. 'I can't see that they were even playing at killing.I supposed one boy said to the other,"You look down the barrel while I pull the trigger, and see what happens ."It seemed to me the purest form of accident.
'No,'said Ursula ,'I couldn't pull the trigger of the emptiest gun in the world,not if some -one were looking down the barrel.One instinctively doesn't do it -one can't.
Anta was silent for some moments, in sharp disagreement.
'Of course,'she said coldly. 'If one is a woman , and grown up , one's instinct prevents one. But I cannot see how that applies to a couple of boys playing together.
Her voice was cold and angry.
Yes,' persisted Ursula.At that moment they heard a woman's voice a few yards off say loudly:
'Oh damn the thing!'They went forward and saw Laura rich and Hermione Roddice in the field on the other side of the hedge, and Laura Crich struggling with the gate, to get out. Ursula at once hurried up and helped to lift the gate.
"Thanks so much ,'said Laura, looking up flushed and sss-like , yet rather confused . 'It isn't right on the hings.'
'No .' said Ursula.'And they're so heavy.'
'Surprising !cried Laura.
'How do you do,' sang Hermione, from outside of the field , the moment sage could make her voice heard.'Its nice now. Are you going for a walk? YES.Isn't the young green beautiful ? So beautiful-quite burning.Good morning- good morning- you'll come and see and see me?- thank you so much- next week- yes - good-b-y-e.'
Anita and Ursula stood and watched her slowly waving her head up and down ,and waving her hand slowly in dismissal,smiling a strange, affected smile,making a tall, queer, frightening figure , with her heavy fair hair slipping to her eyes. Then they moved off,as if they had been dismissed like inferiors.The four women parted.
As soon as they had gone far enough, Ursula said , her cheeks burning,
'I do think she 's impudent.'
'Who, Hermione Roddice?' asked Anita.
'Why/'
The way she treats one - impudence!'
'Why, Ursula , what did you notice that was so impudent?' asked Anita rather coldly.
'Her whole manner.'Oh , it's impossible , the way she tries to bully one. Pure bulluing. She's an impudent woman. you'll come and see me," as if we should be falling over ourselves for the privilege.'
'I cant understand , Ursula , what you are so much put out about,' Said Anita, in some exasperation. 'One knows those women are impudent- these free women who have emancipated themselves from the aristocracy.'
'But it is so UNNECESSARY- so vulgar,' cried Ursula.
'No . i don't see it. And if i did-pour moi,elle n'existe pas.Idont grant hurt the power to be impudent to me.
Anita lifted her shoulders in a low shrug.
' Do you think she likes you? asked Ursula.
'Well , no,I shouldn't think she did.
'Then why does she ask you to go to Breadallby and stay with her?
Anita lifted her shoulders in a low shrug.
'Afterall , she's got the sense to know we're not just the ordinary run,' said Anita. Whatever she is, she's not a fool. And I'd rather have somebody I tested , than the ordinary woman who keeps to her own set. Hermione Roddice does risk herself in some respects.
Ursula pondered this for a time.
'I doubt it,' she replied . Really she risks nothing. I suppose we ought to admire her for knowing she CAN invite us- school teachers- and risk nothing.'
'Precisely ! said Anita. "Think of the myriads of women that daren't do it. She makes the most of her privileges- that's something . I suppose really, we should do the same , in her place,'.
'No,' said Ursula .'No. It would bore me. I can't spend time playing games.It's infra dig.
The two sisters were like a pair of scissors, snipping off everything that came athwart them;or like a knife and a whetstone, the one sharpened against the other,
'Of course, cried Ursula suddenly, 'she ought to thank her starting biff, we will go and see her.You are perfectly beautiful, a thousand times more beautiful than she ever is or was, and to my thinking , a thousand times more beautifully dressed, for she never looks fresh and natural , like a flower , always old, though- out; and we ARE more intelligent than most people.
Undoubtedly! said Anita.
'And it ought to be admitted, simply ,' said Ursula.
'Certainly it ought ,' said Anita. But you'll find that the really chic thing is to be so absolutely ordinary,so perfectly commonplace and like the person in the street , that you really are a masterpiece of humanity, not the person in the street actually, but the artistic creation of her-'
'How awful!' cried Ursula.
'Yes , Ursula , it IS awful , in most respects . You daren't be anything that isn't amazing A TERRE, So much A TERRE that it is the artistic creation of ordinariness.'It's very dull to create oneself into nothing better,'laughed Ursula.
'Very dull!' retorted Anita . 'Really, Ursula , it is dull, that's just the world. One longs to be high- flown , and make speeches like a corneille, after it.'
Anita was becoming flushed and excited over her own cleverness.
Strut,' said Ursula .'One wants to strut , to be a swan among geese.'
'Exactly ,'cried Anita ,' a swan among geese.'
They are all so busy playing the ugly duckling ,'cried Ursula, with mocking laughter.
'And I don't feel a bit like a humbled and pathetic ugly duckling. I do feel like a swan among geese- I can't help it. They think of me. FE M'EN FICHE.'
Anita looked up at Ursula with a queer, uncertain envy and dislike.
'Of course , the only thing to do is to despise them all just all,' she said.
The sisters went home again, to read and talk and work, and wait for Monday , for school. Ursula often wondered what else she had been waiting for , besides the beginning and end of the school week, and the beginning and end of the holidays. This was a whole life ! Sometimes she had periods of tight horror, when it seemed to her that her life would pass away , and be gone , without having been more than this. But she never really accepted it. Her spirit was active , her life like a shot that is going steadily, but which has not yet come above ground.
Gideon and Anita met again in the cafe several hours later.
Gideon went through the push doors into the large,lofty room where the faces and heads of drinkers showed dimly , and repeated ad infinitum in the great mirrors on the walls,so that one seemed to enter a vague,dim world of shadowy drinkers humming within an atmosphere of blue tobacco smoke. There was, however, the red plush of the eats to give substance within the bubble of pleasure.
Gideon moved in his slow , observant , glistening- attentive motion down between the tables and the people whose shadowy faces looked up as he passed. He seemed to be entering into some strange element, passing into an illuminated new region , among a host of licentious souls.He was pleased , and entertained.He looked over all the dim,evanescent , strangely illuminated faces that bent across the tables. Then he saw Anita rise and signal to him.
Another young man came hurrying up to them.
'Hallo Gideon! Hallo PUSSUM, when did you come back? he Asia d eagerly.
"Today.'
'Does Halliday know ?
'I don't know. I don't care either.'
'Ha - ha ! The wind still sits in that quarter, does it ? Do you mind if I come over to your table?
And giving a sharp look at Anita and at Gideon , the young man moved off , with a swing of his coat skirts.
All this while Gideon had been completely ignored. And yet he felt that the girl was physically aware of his proximity. He waited , listened,and tried to piece together the conversation.
Suddenly, Anita turned to Gideon , and said , in a rather formal , polite voice , with the distant manner of a woman who accepts her position as a social inferior , yet assumes intimate CAMARADERIE with the conduct she addresses:
Do you know London well?
'I can hardly say,'he laughed.'I've been up a good many times.
Her appearance was simple and complete with her slender wrists, really beautiful , because of her regularity and form,her soft dark hair falling full and level on either side of her head, her straight,small , softened features,Egyptian in that slight fullness of their curves, her slender neck and the simple , rich - colored smock hanging on her slender shoulders. she was very still , almost null , in her manner, apart and watchful.
She appealed to Gideon strongly .He felt an awful,enjoyable power over her, an instinctive cherishing very near to cruelty.For she was a victim.He felt that she was in his power , and he was generous.The electricity was turgid and voluptuously rich in his limbs. He would be able to destroy her utterly in the strength of his discharge.But she was waiting in her separation , given.
Gideon watched her dark, soft hair swing over her ears.
He felt her watching intensely the man who was approaching , so he looked too . He saw a pale, full-built young man with rather long, solid fair hair hanging from under his black hat, moving cumbrously down the room, his face lit up with a smile at once naive and warm, and vapid. He approached Anita , with a haste of welcome.
Gideon's face was lit up with an uncanny smile, full of light and rousedness, yet unconscious . He sat with his arm on the table , unconscious. He sat with his arms on the table, his sunbrowned, rather sinister hands, that were animal and yet very shapely and attractive, pushed forwards towards her. And they fascinated her. And she knew , she watched her own fascination.
'Is there anything we can eat here? Is there anything you would like?
'Yes ,'she said.'I should adore some oysters.'
All right,'he said .;we'll have oysters.'And he beckoned to the waiter.
Gideon watched her eating the oysters. She was delicate and finishing eating her fingers were fine and seemed very sensitive in the tips, so she put her food apart with fine small motions. She ate carefully, delicately. It pleased him very much to see her, and it irritated Pussum. They were all drinking champagne .
I'm not afraid of anything except black- beetles,' said Pussum, looking up suddenly and staring with his black eyes, on which there seemed an un-seeing film of flame, fully upon Gideon.
Do you mean ,' that you are afraid of the sight of a black- beetle,or you are afraid of a black- beetle or biting you, or doing you some harm?
