He was silent for a time.
“I don’t feel as if we were, altogether,” he replied. “Some people are pure flowers of dark corruption—lilies. But there ought to be some roses, warm and flamy. You know Herakleitos says ‘a dry soul is best.’ I know so well what that means. Do you?”
“I’m not sure,” Ursula replied. “But what if people are all flowers of dissolution—when they’re flowers at all—what difference does it make?”
“No difference—and all the difference. Dissolution rolls on, just as production does,” he said. “It is a progressive process—and it ends in universal nothing—the end of the world, if you like. But why isn’t the end of the world as good as the beginning?”
“I suppose it isn’t,” said Ursula, rather angry.
“Oh yes, ultimately,” he said. “It means a new cycle of creation after—but not for us. If it is the end, then we are of the end—fleurs du mal if you like. If we are fleurs du mal, we are not roses of happiness, and there you are.”
“But I think I am,” said Ursula. “I think I am a rose of happiness.”
“Ready-made?” he asked ironically.
“No—real,” she said, hurt.
“If we are the end, we are not the beginning,” he said.