than for him to go down on his knees to it, begging it to do as it
wishes, and to fulfil its own marvellous nature.'
Ursula was just breaking out, when Hermione lifted her face and began,
in her musing sing-song:
'I do think--I do really think we must have the COURAGE to use the
lower animal life for our needs. I do think there is something wrong,
when we look on every living creature as if it were ourselves. I do
feel, that it is false to project our own feelings on every animate
creature. It is a lack of discrimination, a lack of criticism.'
'Quite,' said Birkin sharply. 'Nothing is so detestable as the maudlin
attributing of human feelings and consciousness to animals.'
'Yes,' said Hermione, wearily, 'we must really take a position. Either
we are going to use the animals, or they will use us.'
'That's a fact,' said Gerald. 'A horse has got a will like a man,
though it has no MIND strictly. And if your will isn't master, then the
horse is master of you. And this is a thing I can't help. I can't help
being master of the horse.'
'If only we could learn how to use our will,' said Hermione, 'we could
do anything. The will can cure anything, and put anything right. That I
am convinced of--if only we use the will properly, intelligibly.'
'What do you mean by using the will properly?' said Birkin.
'A very great doctor taught me,' she said, addressing Ursula and Gerald
vaguely. 'He told me for instance, that to cure oneself of a bad habit,
one should FORCE oneself to do it, when one would not do it--make
oneself do it--and then the habit would disappear.'
'How do you mean?' said Gerald.
'If you bite your nails, for example. Then, when you don't want to bite
your nails, bite them, make yourself bite them. And you would find the
habit was broken.'
'Is that so?' said Gerald.
'Yes. And in so many things, I have MADE myself well. I was a very
queer and nervous girl. And by learning to use my will, simply by using
my will, I MADE myself right.'
Ursula looked all the white at Hermione, as she spoke in her slow,
dispassionate, and yet strangely tense voice. A curious thrill went
over the younger woman. Some strange, dark, convulsive power was in
Hermione, fascinating and repelling.
'It is fatal to use the will like that,' cried Birkin harshly,
'disgusting. Such a will is an obscenity.'
Hermione looked at him for a long time, with her shadowed, heavy eyes.
Her face was soft and pale and thin, almost phosphorescent, her jaw was
lean.
'I'm sure it isn't,' she said at length. There always seemed an
interval, a strange split between what she seemed to feel and
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