rds.'

'What does?'

'The other river, the black river. We always consider the silver river
of life, rolling on and quickening all the world to a brightness, on
and on to heaven, flowing into a bright eternal sea, a heaven of angels
thronging. But the other is our real reality--'

'But what other? I don't see any other,' said Ursula.

'It is your reality, nevertheless,' he said; 'that dark river of
dissolution. You see it rolls in us just as the other rolls--the black
river of corruption. And our flowers are of this--our sea-born
Aphrodite, all our white phosphorescent flowers of sensuous perfection,
all our reality, nowadays.'

'You mean that Aphrodite is really deathly?' asked Ursula.

'I mean she is the flowering mystery of the death-process, yes,' he
replied. 'When the stream of synthetic creation lapses, we find
ourselves part of the inverse process, the blood of destructive
creation. Aphrodite is born in the first spasm of universal
dissolution--then the snakes and swans and lotus--marsh-flowers--and
Gudrun and Gerald--born in the process of destructive creation.'

'And you and me--?' she asked.

'Probably,' he replied. 'In part, certainly. Whether we are that, in
toto, I don't yet know.'

'You mean we are flowers of dissolution--fleurs du mal? I don't feel as
if I were,' she protested.

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,