The suggestion of primitive art was their refuge, and the inner mysteries of sensation their object of worship. Art and Life were to them the Reality and the Unreality.
'Of course,' said Gudrun, 'life doesn’t really matter—it is one’s art which is central. What one does in one’s life has peu de rapport, it doesn’t signify much.'
'Yes, that is so, exactly,' replied the sculptor. 'What one does in one’s art, that is the breath of one’s being. What one does in one’s life, that is a bagatelle for the outsiders to fuss about.'
It was curious what a sense of elation and freedom Gudrun found in this communication. She felt established for ever. Of course Gerald was bagatelle. Love was one of the temporal things in her life, except in so far as she was an artist. She thought of Cleopatra—Cleopatra must have been an artist; she reaped the essential from a man, she harvested the ultimate sensation, and threw away the husk; and Mary Stuart, and the great Rachel, panting with her lovers after the theatre, these were the exoteric exponents of love. After all, what was the lover but fuel for the transport of this subtle knowledge, for a female art, the art of pure, perfect knowledge in sensuous understanding.
One evening Gerald was arguing with Loerke about Italy and Tripoli. The Englishman was in a strange, inflammable state, the German was excited. It was a contest of words, but it meant a conflict of spirit between the two men. And all the while Gudrun could see in Gerald an arrogant English contempt for a foreigner. Although Gerald was quivering, his eyes flashing, his face flushed, in his argument there was a brusqueness, a savage contempt in his manner, that made Gudrun’s blood flare up, and made Loerke keen and mortified. For Gerald came down like a sledge–hammer with his assertions, anything the little German said was merely contemptible rubbish.
At last Loerke turned to Gudrun, raising his hands in helpless irony, a shrug of ironical dismissal, something appealing and child–like.
'Sehen sie, gnadige Frau–' he began.
'Bitte sagen Sie nicht immer, gnadige Frau,' cried Gudrun, her eyes flashing, her cheeks burning. She looked like a vivid Medusa. Her voice was loud and clamorous, the other people in the room were startled.
'Please don’t call me Mrs Crich,' she cried aloud.
The name, in Loerke’s mouth particularly, had been an intolerable humiliation and constraint upon her, these many days.
The two men looked at her in amazement. Gerald went white at the cheek–bones.
'What shall I say, then?' asked Loerke, with soft, mocking insinuation.
'Sagen Sie nur nicht das,' she muttered, her cheeks flushed crimson. 'Not that, at least.'
She saw, by the dawning look on Loerke’s face, that he had understood. She was not Mrs Crich! So–o–, that explained a great deal.
'Soll ich Fraulein sagen?' he asked, malevolently.
'I am not married,' she said, with some hauteur.
Her heart was fluttering now, beating like a bewildered bird. She knew she had dealt a cruel wound, and she could not bear it.
Gerald sat erect, perfectly still, his face pale and calm, like the face of a statue. He was unaware of her, or of Loerke or anybody. He sat perfectly still, in an unalterable calm. Loerke, meanwhile, was crouching and glancing up from under his ducked head.
Gudrun was tortured for something to say, to relieve the suspense. She twisted her face in a smile, and glanced knowingly, almost sneering, at Gerald.
'Truth is best,' she said to him, with a grimace.
But now again she was under his domination; now, because she had dealt him this blow; because she had destroyed him, and she did not know how he had taken it. She watched him. He was interesting to her. She had lost her interest in Loerke.
Gerald rose at length, and went over in a leisurely still movement, to the Professor. The two began a conversation on Goethe.
She was rather piqued by the simplicity of Gerald’s demeanour this evening. He did not seem angry or disgusted, only he looked curiously innocent and pure, really beautiful. Sometimes it came upon him, this look of clear distance, and it always fascinated her.
She waited, troubled, throughout the evening. She thought he would avoid her, or give some sign. But he spoke to her simply and unemotionally, as he would to anyone else in the room. A certain peace, an abstraction possessed his soul.
