The kitchen did look more substantial, because of the
red-tiled floor and the stove, but it was cold and horrid.
The two girls tramped hollowly up the bare stairs. Every sound reechoed
under their hearts. They tramped down the bare corridor. Against the
wall of Ursula's bedroom were her things--a trunk, a work-basket, some
books, loose coats, a hat-box, standing desolate in the universal
emptiness of the dusk.
'A cheerful sight, aren't they?' said Ursula, looking down at her
forsaken possessions.
'Very cheerful,' said Gudrun.
The two girls set to, carrying everything down to the front door. Again
and again they made the hollow, re-echoing transit. The whole place
seemed to resound about them with a noise of hollow, empty futility. In
the distance the empty, invisible rooms sent forth a vibration almost
of obscenity. They almost fled with the last articles, into the
out-of-door.
But it was cold. They were waiting for Birkin, who was coming with the
car. They went indoors again, and upstairs to their parents' front
bedroom, whose windows looked down on the road, and across the country
at the black-barred sunset, black and red barred, without light.
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