Ursula looked out of the window. In her soul she began to wrestle, and she was frightened. She was always frightened of words, because she knew that mere word-force could always make her believe what she did not believe.
“Perhaps,” she said, full of mistrust, of herself and everybody. “But,” she added, “I do think that one can’t have anything new whilst one cares for the old—do you know what I mean?—even fighting the old is belonging to it. I know, one is tempted to stop with the world, just to fight it. But then it isn’t worth it.”
Gudrun considered herself.
“Yes,” she said. “In a way, one is of the world if one lives in it. But isn’t it really an illusion to think you can get out of it? After all, a cottage in the Abruzzi, or wherever it may be, isn’t a new world. No, the only thing to do with the world, is to see it through.”
Ursula looked away. She was so frightened of argument.
“But there can be something else, can’t there?” she said. “One can see it through in one’s soul, long enough before it sees itself through in actuality. And then, when one has seen one’s soul, one is something else.”
“Can one see it through in one’s soul?” asked Gudrun. “If you mean that you can see to the end of what will happen, I don’t agree. I really can’t agree. And anyhow, you can’t suddenly fly off on to a new planet, because you think you can see to the end of this.”
Ursula suddenly straightened herself.
“Yes,” she said. “Yes—one knows. One has no more connections here. One has a sort of other self, that belongs to a new planet, not to this. You’ve got to hop off.”
Gudrun reflected for a few moments. Then a smile of ridicule, almost of contempt, came over her face.