CHAPTER III.
CLASS-ROOM
A school-day was drawing to a close. In the class-room the last lesson
was in progress, peaceful and still. It was elementary botany. The
desks were littered with catkins, hazel and willow, which the children
had been sketching. But the sky had come overdark, as the end of the
afternoon approached: there was scarcely light to draw any more. Ursula
stood in front of the class, leading the children by questions to
understand the structure and the meaning of the catkins.
A heavy, copper-coloured beam of light came in at the west window, gilding the outlines of the children's heads with red gold, and falling on the wall opposite in a rich, ruddy illumination. Ursula, however, was scarcely conscious of it. She was busy, the end of the day was here, the work went on as a peaceful tide that is at flood, hushed to retire.
This day had gone by like so many more, in an activity that was like a
trance. At the end there was a little haste, to finish what was in
hand. She was pressing the children with questions, so that they should
know all they were to know, by the time the gong went. She stood in
shadow in front of the class, with catkins in her hand, and she leaned
towards the children, absorbed in the passion of instruction.
She heard, but did not notice the click of the door. Suddenly she
started. She saw, in the shaft of ruddy, copper-coloured light near
her, the face of a man. It was gleaming like fire, watching her, waiting for her to be aware. It startled her terribly. She thought she was going to faint. All her suppressed, subconscious fear sprang into being, with anguish.
'Did I startle you?' said Birkin, shaking hands with her. 'I thought
you had heard me come in.'
'No,' she faltered, scarcely able to speak. He laughed, saying he was
sorry. She wondered why it amused him.
'It is so dark,' he said. 'Shall we have the light?'
And moving aside, he switched on the strong electric lights. The
class-room was distinct and hard, a strange place after the soft dim
magic that filled it before he came. Birkin turned curiously to look at
Ursula. Her eyes were round and wondering, bewildered, her mouth
quivered slightly. She looked like one who is suddenly wakened. There
was a living, tender beauty, like a tender light of dawn shining from
her face. He looked at her with a new pleasure, feeling gay in his
heart, irresponsible.
'You are doing catkins?' he asked, picking up a piece of hazel from a
scholar's desk in front of him. 'Are they as far out as this? I hadn't
noticed them this year.'
He looked absorbedly at the tassel of hazel in his hand.
'The red ones too!' he said, looking at the flickers of crimson that
came from the female bud.
Then he went in among the desks, to see the scholars' books. Ursula
watched his intent progress. There was a stillness in his motion that
hushed the activities of her heart. She seemed to be standing aside in
arrested silence, watching him move in another, concentrated world. His
presence was so quiet, almost like a vacancy in the corporate air.
Suddenly he lifted his face to her, and her heart quickened at the
flicker of his voice.
'Give them some crayons, won't you?' he said, 'so that they can make
the gynaecious flowers red, and the androgynous yellow. I'd chalk them
in plain, chalk in nothing else, merely the red and the yellow. Outline
scarcely matters in this case. There is just the one fact to
emphasise.'
'I haven't any crayons,' said Ursula.
'There will be some somewhere--red and yellow, that's all you want.'
Ursula sent out a boy on a quest.
'It will make the books untidy,' she said to Birkin, flushing deeply.
'Not very,' he said. 'You must mark in these things obviously. It's the
fact you want to emphasise, not the subjective impression to record. What's the fact?--red little spiky stigmas of the female flower, dangling yellow male catkin, yellow pollen flying from one to the other. Make a pictorial record of the fact, as a child does when drawing a face--two eyes, one nose, mouth with teeth--so--' And he drew a figure on the blackboard.
At that moment another vision was seen through the glass panels of the
door. It was Hermione Roddice. Birkin went and opened to her.
'I saw your car,' she said to him. 'Do you mind my coming to find you? I wanted to see you when you were on duty.'