and sang so lustily and camped under the trees in such freedom wanted, of
course, the love connexion. The girls were doubtful, but then the thing was
so much talked about, it was supposed to be so important. And the men were
so humble and craving. Why couldn't a girl be queenly, and give the gift of
herself?
So they had given the gift of themselves, each to the youth with whom
she had the most subtle and intimate arguments. The arguments, the
discussions were the great thing: the love-making and connexion were only a
sort of primitive reversion and a bit of an anti-climax. One was less in
love with the boy afterwards, and a little inclined to hate him, as if he
had trespassed on one's privacy and inner freedom. For, of course, being a
girl, one's whole dignity and meaning in life consisted in the achievement
of an absolute, a perfect, a pure and noble freedom. What else did a girl's
life mean? To shake off the old and sordid connexions and subjections.
And however one might sentimentalize it, this sex business was one of
the most ancient, sordid connexions and subjections. Poets who glorified it
were mostly men. Women had always known there was something better,
something higher. And now they knew it more definitely than ever. The
beautiful pure freedom of a woman was infinitely more wonderful than any
sexual love. The only unfortunate thing was that men lagged so far behind
women in the matter. They insisted on the sex thing like dogs.
And a woman had to yield. A man was like a child with his appetites. A
woman had to yield him what he wanted, or like a child he would probably
turn nasty and flounce away and spoil what was a very pleasant connexion.
But a woman could yield to a man without yielding her inner, free self. That
the poets and talkers about sex did not seem to have taken sufficiently into
account. A woman could take a man without really giving herself away.
Certainly she could take him without giving herself into his power. Rather
she could use this sex thing to have power over him. For she only had to
hold herself back in sexual intercourse, and let him finish and expend
himself without herself coming to the crisis: and then she could prolong the
connexion and achieve her orgasm and her crisis while he was merely her
tool.
Both sisters had had their love experience by the time the war came,
and they were hurried home. Neither was ever in love with a young man unless
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