She grew
smaller, she seemed to pass out of his sight. A darkness came over his
mind. Only a small, mechanical speck of consciousness hovered near him.
He felt tired and weak. Yet also he was relieved. He gave up his old
position. He went and sat on the bank. No doubt Ursula was right. It
was true, really, what she said. He knew that his spirituality was
concomitant of a process of depravity, a sort of pleasure in
self-destruction. There really WAS a certain stimulant in
self-destruction, for him--especially when it was translated
spiritually. But then he knew it--he knew it, and had done. And was not
Ursula's way of emotional intimacy, emotional and physical, was it not
just as dangerous as Hermione's abstract spiritual intimacy? Fusion,
fusion, this horrible fusion of two beings, which every woman and most
men insisted on, was it not nauseous and horrible anyhow, whether it
was a fusion of the spirit or of the emotional body? Hermione saw
herself as the perfect Idea, to which all men must come: And Ursula was
the perfect Womb, the bath of birth, to which all men must come! And
both were horrible.
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