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.