. He realised
it, he admitted it, it only needed one last effort on his own part, to
win for himself the same completeness. He knew that it only needed one
convulsion of his will for him to be able to turn upon himself also, to
close upon himself as a stone fixes upon itself, and is impervious,
self-completed, a thing isolated.

This knowledge threw him into a terrible chaos. Because, however much
he might mentally WILL to be immune and self-complete, the desire for
this state was lacking, and he could not create it. He could see that,
to exist at all, he must be perfectly free of Gudrun, leave her if she
wanted to be left, demand nothing of her, have no claim upon her.

But then, to have no claim upon her, he must stand by himself, in sheer
nothingness. And his brain turned to nought at the idea. It was a state
of nothingness. On the other hand, he might give in, and fawn to her.
Or, finally, he might kill her. Or he might become just indifferent,
purposeless, dissipated, momentaneous. But his nature was too serious,
not gay enough or subtle enough for mocking licentiousness.

A strange rent had been torn in him; like a victim that is torn open
and given to the heavens, so he had been torn apart and given to
Gudrun. How should he close again? This wound, this strange,
infinitely-sensitive opening of his soul, where he was exposed, like an
open flower, to all the universe, and in which he was given to his
complement, the other, the unknown, this wound, this disclosure, this
unfolding of his own covering, leaving him incomplete, limited,
unfinished, like an open flower under the sky, this was his cruellest
joy. Why then should he forego it? Why should he close up and become
impervious, immune, like a partial thing in a sheath, when he had
broken forth, like a seed that has germinated, to issue forth in being,
embracing the unrealised heavens.

He would keep the unfinished bliss of his own yearning even through the
torture she inflicted upon him. A strange obstinacy possessed him. He
would not go away from her whatever she said or did. A strange, deathly
yearning carried him along with her. She was the determinating
influence of his very being, though she treated him with contempt,
repeated rebuffs, and denials, still he would never be gone, since in
being near her, even, he felt the quickening, the going forth in him,
the release, the knowledge of his own limitation and the magic of the
promise, as well as the myster