But the other is our real reality--'
'But what other? I don't see any other,' said Ursula.
'It is your reality, nevertheless,' he said; 'that dark river of
dissolution. You see it rolls in us just as the other rolls--the black
river of corruption. And our flowers are of this--our sea-born
Aphrodite, all our white phosphorescent flowers of sensuous perfection,
all our reality, nowadays.'
'You mean that Aphrodite is really deathly?' asked Ursula.
'I mean she is the flowering mystery of the death-process, yes,' he
replied. 'When the stream of synthetic creation lapses, we find
ourselves part of the inverse process, the blood of destructive
creation. Aphrodite is born in the first spasm of universal
dissolution--then the snakes and swans and lotus--marsh-flowers--and
Gudrun and Gerald--born in the process of destructive creation.'
'And you and me--?' she asked.
'Probably,' he replied. 'In part, certainly. Whether we are that, in
toto, I don't yet know.'
'You mean we are flowers of dissolution--fleurs du mal? I don't feel as
if I were,' she protested.
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