Women in Love (Barnes & Noble Classics S - D. H. Lawrence [164]
“Well, that’s good,” he said. “And so you came here to wrestle with your good angel, did you?”
“Did I?” said Birkin.
“Well, it looks like it. Isn’t that what you did?”
Now Birkin could not follow Gerald’s meaning.
“And what’s going to happen?” said Gerald. “You’re going to keep open the proposition, so to speak?”
“I suppose so. I vowed to myself I would see them all to the devil. But I suppose I shall ask her again, in a little while.”
Gerald watched him steadily.
“So you’re fond of her then?” he asked.
“I think—I love her,” said Birkin, his face going very still and fixed.
Gerald glistened for a moment with pleasure, as if it were something done specially to please him. Then his face assumed a fitting gravity, and he nodded his head slowly.
“You know,” he said, “I always believed in love—true love. But where does one find it nowadays?”
“I don’t know,” said Birkin.
“Very rarely,” said Gerald. Then, after a pause, “I’ve never felt it myself—not what I should call love. I’ve gone after women—and been keen enough over some of them. But I’ve never felt love. I don’t believe I’ve ever felt as much love for a woman, as I have for you—not love. You understand what I mean?”
“Yes. I’m sure you’ve never loved a woman.”
“You feel that, do you? And do you think I ever shall? You understand what I mean?” He put his hand to his breast, closing his fist there, as if he would draw something out. “I mean that—that—I can’t express what it is, but I know it.”
“What is it, then?” asked Birkin.
“You see, I can’t put it into words. I mean, at any rate, something abiding, something that can’t change—”
His eyes were bright and puzzled.
“Now do you think I shall ever feel that for a woman?” he said, anxiously.
Birkin looked at him, and shook his head.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I could not say.”
Gerald had been on the qui vive, as awaiting his fate. Now he drew back in his chair.
“No,” he said, “and neither do I, and neither do I.”
“We are different, you and I,” said Birkin. “I can’t tell your life.”
“No,” said Gerald, “no more can I. But I tell you—I begin to doubt it!”
“That you will ever love a woman?”
“Well—yes—what you would truly call love—”
“You doubt it?”
“Well—begin to.”
There was a long pause.
“Life has all kinds of things,” said Birkin “There isn’t only one road.”
“Yes, I believe that too. I believe it. And mind you, I don’t care how it is with me—I don’t care how it is—so long as I don’t feel—” he paused, and a blank, barren look passed over his face, to express his feeling—“so long as I feel I’ve lived, somehow—and I don’t care how it is—but I want to feel that ”
“Fulfilled,” said Birkin.
“We-ell, perhaps it is, fulfilled; I don’t use the same words as you.”
“It is the same.”
CHAPTER XXI
Threshold
GUDRUN WAS AWAY IN London, having a little show of her work, with a friend, and looking round, preparing for flight from Beldover. Come what might she would be on the wing in a very short time. She received a letter from Winifred Crich, ornamental with drawings.
“Father also has been to London, to be examined by the doctors. It made him very tired. They say he must rest a very great deal, so he is mostly in bed. He brought me a lovely tropical parrot in faiënce, of Dresden ware, also a man ploughing, and two mice climbing up a stalk, also in faiënce. The mice were Copenhagen ware. They are the best, but mice don’t shine so much, otherwise they are very good, their tails are slim and long. They all shine nearly like glass. Of course it is the glaze, but I don’t like it. Gerald likes the man ploughing the best, his trousers are torn, he is ploughing with an ox, being I suppose a German peasant. It is all grey and white, white shirt and grey trousers, but very shiny and clean. Mr. Birkin likes the girl best, under the hawthorn blossom, with a lamb, and with daffodils painted on her skirts, in the drawing room. But that is silly, because the lamb is not a real lamb, and she is silly too.
“Dear Miss Brangwen, are you coming back soon, you are very much missed