you--and it's such an insult.'
'Oh, it is,' said Ursula. 'One must discriminate.'
'One MUST discriminate,' repeated Gudrun. 'But he's a wonderful chap,
in other respects--a marvellous personality. But you can't trust him.'
'Yes,' said Ursula vaguely. She was always forced to assent to Gudrun's
pronouncements, even when she was not in accord altogether.
The sisters sat silent, waiting for the wedding party to come out.
Gudrun was impatient of talk. She wanted to think about Gerald Crich.
She wanted to see if the strong feeling she had got from him was real.
She wanted to have herself ready.
Inside the church, the wedding was going on. Hermione Roddice was
thinking only of Birkin. He stood near her. She seemed to gravitate
physically towards him. She wanted to stand touching him. She could
hardly be sure he was near her, if she did not touch him. Yet she stood
subjected through the wedding service.
She had suffered so bitterly when he did not come, that still she was
dazed. Still she was gnawed as by a neuralgia, tormented by his
potential absence from her. She had awaited him in a faint delirium of
nervous torture. As she stood bearing herself pensively, the rapt look
on her face, that seemed spiritual, like the angels, but which came
from torture, gave her a certain poignancy that tore his heart with
pity. He saw her bowed head, her rapt face, the face of an almost
demoniacal ecstatic. Feeling him looking, she lifted her face and
sought his eyes, her own beautiful grey eyes flaring him a great
signal. But he avoided her look, she sank her head in torment and
shame, the gnawing at her heart going on. And he too was tortured with
shame, and ultimate dislike, and with acute pity for her, because he
did not want to meet her eyes, he did not want to receive her flare of
recognition.
The bride and bridegroom were married, the party went into the vestry.
Hermione crowded involuntarily up against Birkin, to touch him. And he
endured it.
Outside, Gudrun and Ursula listened for their father's playing on the
organ. He would enjoy playing a wedding march. Now the married pair
were coming! The bells were ringing, making the air shake. Ursula
wondered if the trees and the flowers could feel the vibration, and
what they thought of it, this strange motion in the air. The bride was
quite demure on the arm of the bridegroom, who stared up into the sky
before him, shutting and opening his eyes unconsciously, as if he were
neither here nor there. He looked rather comical, blinking and trying
to be in the scene, when emotionally he was violated by his exposure to
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