‘What does?’

‘The other river, the black river. We always consider the silver river of life, rolling on and quickening all the world to a brightness, on and on to heaven, flowing into a bright eternal sea, a heaven of angels thronging. But the other is our real reality—’

‘But what other? I don’t see any other,’ said Ursula.

‘It is your reality, nevertheless,’ he said; ‘that dark river of dissolution. You see it rolls in us just as the other rolls—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.

‘Probably,’ he replied. ‘In part, certainly. Whether we are that, in toto, I don’t yet know.’

‘You mean we are flowers of dissolution—fleurs du mal? I don’t feel as if I were,’ she protested.

He was silent for a time.

‘I don’t feel as if we were, ALTOGETHER,’ he replied. ‘Some people are pure flowers of dark corruption—lilies. But there ought to be some roses, warm and flamy. You know Herakleitos says “a dry soul is best.” I know so well what that means. Do you?’

‘I’m not sure,’ Ursula replied. ‘But what if people ARE all flowers of dissolution—when they’re flowers at all—what difference does it make?’

‘No difference—and all the difference. Dissolution rolls on, just as production does,’ he said. ‘It is a progressive process—and it ends in universal nothing—the end of the world, if you like. But why isn’t the end of the world as good as the beginning?’

‘I suppose it isn’t,’ said Ursula, rather angry.

‘Oh yes, ultimately,’ he said. ‘It means a new cycle of creation after—but not for us. If it is the end, then we are of the end—fleurs du mal if you like. If we are fleurs du mal, we are not roses of happiness, and there you are.’

‘But I think I am,’ said Ursula. ‘I think I am a rose of happiness.’

‘Ready–made?’ he asked ironically.

‘No—real,’ she said, hurt.

‘If we are the end, we are not the beginning,’ he said.

‘Yes we are,’ she said. ‘The beginning comes out of the end.’