§ 9
In the bedroom of her cottage at High Wood, Catherine stood in front of the cheval glass and eyed herself critically. It seemed to her in that moment that a miracle had happened, a door unlocked to her that she thought would be for ever closed, a dream which she had scarcely dared to glimpse, even from afar, brought suddenly and magically within her grasp. A miracle indeed, and yet the very ease with which she acclimatized herself to new conditions gave almost the impression that the miracle had been to some extent anticipated, that she had so prepared and organized her soul that she could slip into the new scheme of things with a minimum of perturbation.
Standing before the mirror, she was surprised at her own calmness. And the more she pondered, the more stupendous seemed the miracle, and consequently the more amazing her own attitude. Already it seemed that she was beginning to take for granted what a day before had been a dream so far from fulfilment that she had scarcely dared to admit it into coherent form. A day ago the idea that her affection for Verreker was reciprocated seemed the wildest phantasy: she had not dared even to think of such a thing hypothetically, for fear it should grow into her life as something confidently expected: yet dim and formless it had lurked behind all her thoughts and ideas; shadowy and infinitely remote, it had guided and inspired her with greater subtlety than she knew. But now it need no longer be dim and formless: it entered boldly into the strong light of day, into the definition of word and sentence: she could ask herself plainly the question, “Does he love me?” because deep down in her heart she knew that he did. Her instinct told her that he did, but she was quite prepared to doubt her own instinct. She did not know that her feminine instinct in such a matter was nearly infallible. But she was no longer afraid of treating herself to the random luxury of thinking and dreaming.
All at once she was seized with a terrible sense of absurdity and incongruity. Was it possible, was it even remotely conceivable that he should love her? She did not know that she was on the brink of the perennial mystery that has surprised millions of men and women: she felt that her question was singularly acute and penetrating. What was there in her that could attract him? Not her intellect, for he knew full well the measure of that. Not her musical genius, for he was not an admirer of it. Not her sympathies and ideals common to his, for she was incapable of understanding the major part of him. Nor even her beauty, for she was not beautiful. What, then, could it be? And the answer was that love, the force he despised, the elemental thing to which he conceived himself superior, had linked him to her by bonds that he had not the power to sever. The strong man had toppled. He suddenly ceased to be a god in the clouds and became a human being on her earth. Would his ideals crumble to dust at the touch of this mighty enslaving force? Would he shatter the dreams of a lifetime, those mighty dreams of his that had nothing to do with love, would he shatter them and lay the ruins at her feet? How would he reconcile the iron rigidity of his theories with the impulse of his passion?
There had been a time when she thought: All I want is his friendship, his sympathy, his understanding, the consciousness that our souls are affinite. Intellectual and spiritual sympathy with him, she had argued, is the summit of my ambition. To talk with him on terms of candid intimacy, to be the sharer of his deepest confidences, to realize in their relationship something of the glorious male ideal of camaraderie, that had been her grand aim. She had deceived herself. That was not so. In the moment that he stood on the foot-board of the departing train at Cambridge every vestige of the platonic camouflage was torn from her. There was one thought that was infinitely more rapturous, infinitely more seductive and alluring, than even the thought that he and she were on terms of deep intellectual and spiritual intimacy. And that was the thought that whilst he was standing there on the foot-board he was wondering whether to kiss her. If now her platonic dreams were to be fulfilled, she would be strangely and subtly disappointed. Deep communion with a god-like personality was fine. But she preferred the impulse that changed the deity into a man, that dragged him from the stars into the streets, that caused all his dreams and ideals to be obscured by that single momentous triviality, the desire to kiss her.
She was cruel, merciless in her hour of seeming triumph. She loved him more passionately than ever now that he was a being dethroned from heaven. She had thought formerly: I cannot understand him: we are on a different plane. But now she thought: He has come down to my plane. One thing at least I can understand: I can understand why he wanted to kiss me. And that crude fragment of understanding was more precious to her than all the subtleties and spiritual nuances which had made his soul a hitherto uncharted sea.
If she could break his ideals, if she could shatter everything in him that had nothing to do with her, she would be glad. Already, not content with the footing she had gained on what had seemed an unscalable cliff, she wanted to dominate the heights and destroy everything that was independent of her. Never had the essential selfishness of her nature so revealed itself. She grudged him every acre of his soul that was not sown with seeds of her own planting. She wanted him, all of him, passionately, selfishly: his soul and intellect would be for ever beyond her, so she was jealous of their freedom. That he should fall from the lofty heights of his idealism was epic, a thing of high tragedy, yet thrilling with passion: that she should be the means of it was something that convulsed her with rapture. Her passion was terrible and destructive. She wanted it to scorch his soul until he desired nothing save what she could give. She wanted entire possession of him: she grudged him everything that was beyond her comprehension.