it was all too late. Best be quiet, and bear one’s soul in patience and in fullness.

But when he went in again, at evening, to look at Gerald between the candles, because of his heart’s hunger, suddenly his heart contracted, his own candle all but fell from his hand, as, with a strange whimpering cry, the tears broke out. He sat down in a chair, shaken by a sudden access. Ursula who had followed him, recoiled aghast from him, as he sat with sunken head and body convulsively shaken, making a strange, horrible sound of tears.

‘I didn’t want it to be like this — I didn’t want it to be like this,’ he cried to himself. Ursula could but think of the Kaiser’s: ‘Ich habe as nicht gewollt.’ She looked almost with horror on Birkin.