“Birkin came with Hermione. She had a rapt, triumphant look, like the fallen angels restored, yet still subtly demoniacal, now she held Birkin by the arm. And he was expressionless, neutralised, possessed by her as if it were his fate, without question.”

“Have I interrupted a conversation?' she asked. 'No, only a complete silence,' said Birkin. 'Oh,' said Ursula, vaguely, absent.”

“This was very bitter to Gerald, who had never known what boredom was, who had gone from activity to activity, never at a loss. Now, gradually, everything seemed to be stopping in him. He did not want any more to do the things that offered. Something dead within him just refused to respond to any suggestion. He cast over in his mind, what it would be possible to do, to save himself from this misery of nothingness, relieve the stress of this hollowness. And there were only three things left, that would rouse him, make him live. One was to drink or smoke hashish, the other was to be soothed by Birkin, and the third was women. And there was no-one for the moment to drink with. Nor was there a woman. And he knew Birkin was out. So there was nothing to do but to bear the stress of his own emptiness.”

“In the inner dark she saw a handsome bay horse with his clean earspricked like daggers from his naked head as he swung handsomely roundto stare at the open doorway. He had big, black, brilliant eyes, with asharp questioning glint, and that air of tense, alert quietness which betraysan animal that can be dangerous... He was of such a lovely red-goldcolour, and a dark, invisible fire seemed to come out of him .. .She looked at the glowing bay horse, that stood there with his ears back,his face averted, but attending as if he were some lightning conductor. Hewas a stallion . ..Dimly, in her weary young-woman's soul, an ancient understandingseemed to flood in . . . For some reason the sight of him, his power, his alive,alert intensity, his unyieldingness, made her want to cry. She never didcry ... But now, as if that mysterious fire of the horse's body had split somerock in her, she went home and hid herself in her room, and just cried. Thewild, brilliant, alert head of St Mawr seemed to look at her out of anotherworld. It was as if she had had a vision, as if the walls of her own world hadsuddenly melted away, leaving her in a great darkness, in the midst of whichthe large, brilliant eyes of that horse looked at her with demonish question,while his naked ears stood up like daggers from the naked lines of hisinhuman head, and his great body glowed red with power.What was it? Almost like a god looking at her terribly out of theeverlasting dark, she had felt the eyes of that horse; great, glowing,fearsome eyes, arched with a question, and containing a white blade oflight like a threat. What was his non-human question, and his uncannythreat? She didn't know. He was some splendid demon, and she mustworship him. (St Mawr)”

“It was not the passion that was new to her, it was the yearning adoration. She knew she had always feared it, for it left her helpless; she feared it still, lest if she adored him too much, then she would lose herself, become effaced, and she did not want to be effaced, a slave, like a savage woman. She must not become a slave. She feared her adoration, yet she would not at once fight against it.”

“And however one might sentimentalise it, this sex business was one of the most ancient, sordid connections and subjections. Poets who glorified it were mostly men. Women had always known there was something better, something higher. And now they knew it more definitely than ever. The beautiful pure freedom of a woman was infinitely more wonderful than any sexual love. The only unfortunate thing was that men lagged so far behind women in the matter. They insisted on the sex thing like dogs.And a woman had to yield. A man was like a child with his appetites. A woman had to yield him what he wanted, or like a child he would probably turn nasty and flounce away and spoil what was a very pleasant connection. But a woman could yield to a man without yielding her inner, free self. That the poets and talkers about sex did not seem to have taken sufficiently into account. A woman could take a man without really giving herself away. Certainly she could take him without giving herself into his power. Rather she could use this sex thing to have power over him. For she only had to hold herself back in sexual intercourse, and let him finish and expend himself without herself coming to the crisis: and then she could prolong the connection and achieve her orgasm and her crisis while he was merely her tool.”

“His body was urgent against her, and she didn't have the heart anymore to fight...She saw his eyes, tense and brilliant, fierce, not loving. But her will had left her. A strange weight was on her limbs. She was giving way. She was giving up...she had to lie down there under the boughs of the tree, like an animal, while he waited, standing there in his shirt and breeches, watching her with haunted eyes...He too had bared the front part of his body and she felt his naked flesh against her as he came into her. For a moment he was still inside her, turgid there and quivering. Then as he began to move, in the sudden helpless orgasm, there awoke in her new strange thrills rippling inside her. Rippling, rippling, rippling, like a flapping overlapping of soft flames, soft as feathers, running to points of brilliance, exquisite and melting her all molten inside. It was like bells rippling up and up to a culmination. She lay unconscious of the wild little cries she uttered at the last. But it was over too soon, too soon, and she could no longer force her own conclusion with her own activity. This was different, different. She could do nothing. She could no longer harden and grip for her own satisfaction upon him. She could only wait, wait and moan in spirit and she felt him withdrawing, withdrawing and contracting, coming to the terrible moment when he would slip out of her and be gone. Whilst all her womb was open and soft, and softly clamouring, like a sea anenome under the tide, clamouring for him to come in again and make fulfillment for her. She clung to him unconscious in passion, and he never quite slipped from her, and she felt the soft bud of him within her stirring, and strange rhythms flushing up into her with a strange rhythmic growing motion, swelling and swelling til it filled all her cleaving consciousness, and then began again the unspeakable motion that was not really motion, but pure deepening whirlpools of sensation swirling deeper and deeper through all her tissue and consciousness, til she was one perfect concentric fluid of feeling, and she lay there crying in unconscious inarticulate cries.”