"I know you don't," she said. "Good-night!" She turned abruptly and hurried away in the moonlight, escaping to the house.
Jack watched the empty night for some minutes. Then he turned away into the stable.
"That's that!" he said, seeing his little plans come to nought.
He went into the stable and sat down on his bed, near the horses. How good it was to be with the horses! How good animals were, with no "feelings" and no ideas. They just straight felt what they felt, without lies and complications.
Well, so be it! He was surprised. He had not expected Mary to funk the issue, since the issue was clear. What else was the right thing to do? Why, nothing else!
It seemed to him so obvious. Mary obviously wanted him, even more, perhaps, than he wanted her. Because she was only a part thing, by herself. All women were only parts of some whole, when they were by themselves: let them be as clever as they might. They were creatures of earth, and fragments, all of them. All women were only fragments; fragments of matrix at that.
No, he was not wrong, he was right. If the others didn't agree, they didn't, that was all. He still was right. He still hated the nauseous one-couple-in-one-cottage domesticity. He hated domesticity altogether. He loathed the thought of being shut up with one woman and a bunch of kids in a house. Several women, several houses, several bunches of kids: it would then be like a perpetual travelling, a camp, not a home. He hated homes. He wanted a camp.
He wanted to pitch his camp in the wilderness: with the faithful Tom, and Lennie, and his own wives. Wives, not wife. And the horses, and the come-and-go, and the element of wildness. Not to be tamed. His men, men by themselves. And his women never to be tamed. And the wilderness still there. He wanted to go like Abraham under the wild sky, speaking to a fierce wild Lord, and having angels stand in his doorway.
Why not? Even if the whole world said No! Even then, why not?
As for being ridiculous, what was more ridiculous than men wheeling perambulators and living among a mass of furniture in a tight house?