`Pure culture in sensation, culture in the physical consciousness, really ultimate physical consciousness, mindless, utterly sensual.It is so sensual as to be final, supreme.'
But Gerald resented it.He wanted to keep certain illusions, certain ideas like clothing.
`You like the wrong things, Rupert,' he said, `things against yourself.'
`Oh, I know, this isn't everything,' Birkin replied, moving away.
When Gerald went back to his room from the bath, he also carried his clothes.He was so conventional at home, that when he was really away, and on the loose, as now, he enjoyed nothing so much as full outrageousness.
So he strode with his blue silk wrap over his arm and felt defiant.
The Pussum lay in her bed, motionless, her round, dark eyes like black, unhappy pools.He could only see the black, bottomless pools of her eyes.
Perhaps she suffered.The sensation of her inchoate suffering roused the old sharp flame in him, a mordant pity, a passion almost of cruelty.
`You are awake now,' he said to her.
`What time is it?' came her muted voice.
She seemed to flow back, almost like liquid, from his approach, to sink helplessly away from him.Her inchoate look of a violated slave, whose fulfilment lies in her further and further violation, made his nerves quiver with acutely desirable sensation.After all, his was the only will, she was the passive substance of his will.He tingled with the subtle, biting sensation.And then he knew, he must go away from her, there must be pure separation between them.
It was a quiet and ordinary breakfast, the four men all looking very clean and bathed.Gerald and the Russian were both correct and comme il faut in appearance and manner, Birkin was gaunt and sick, and looked a failure in his attempt to be a properly dressed man, like Gerald and Maxim.Halliday wore tweeds and a green flannel shirt, and a rag of a tie, which was just right for him.The Hindu brought in a great deal of soft toast, and looked exactly the same as he had looked the night before, statically the same.
At the end of the breakfast the Pussum appeared, in a purple silk wrap with a shimmering sash.She had recovered herself somewhat, but was mute and lifeless still.It was a torment to her when anybody spoke to her.
Her face was like a small, fine mask, sinister too, masked with unwilling suffering.It was almost midday.Gerald rose and went away to his business, glad to get out.But he had not finished.He was coming back again at evening, they were all dining together, and he had booked seats for the party, excepting Birkin, at a music-hall.
At night they came back to the flat very late again, again flushed with drink.Again the man-servant -- who invariably disappeared between the hours of ten and twelve at night -- came in silently and inscrutably with tea, bending in a slow, strange, leopard-like fashion to put the tray softly on the table.His face was immutable, aristocratic-looking, tinged slightly with grey under the skin; he was young and good-looking.But Birkin felt a slight sickness, looking at him, and feeling the slight greyness as an ash or a corruption, in the aristocratic inscrutability of expression a nauseating, bestial stupidity.
Again they talked cordially and rousedly together.But already a certain friability was coming over the party, Birkin was mad with irritation, Halliday was turning in an insane hatred against Gerald, the Pussum was becoming hard and cold, like a flint knife, and Halliday was laying himself out to her.And her intention, ultimately, was to capture Halliday, to have complete power over him.
In the morning they all stalked and lounged about again.But Gerald could feel a strange hostility to himself, in the air.It roused his obstinacy, and he stood up against it.He hung on for two more days.The result was a nasty and insane scene with Halliday on the fourth evening.Halliday turned with absurd animosity upon Gerald, in the cafe.There was a row.
Gerald was on the point of knocking-in Halliday's face; when he was filled with sudden disgust and indifference, and he went away, leaving Halliday in a foolish state of gloating triumph, the Pussum hard and established, and Maxim standing clear.Birkin was absent, he had gone out of town again.
Gerald was piqued because he had left without giving the Pussum money.
It was true, she did not care whether he gave her money or not, and he knew it.But she would have been glad of ten pounds, and he would have been very glad to give them to her.Now he felt in a false position.
He went away chewing his lips to get at the ends of his short clipped moustache.
He knew the Pussum was merely glad to be rid of him.She had got her Halliday whom she wanted.She wanted him completely in her power.Then she would marry him.She wanted to marry him.She had set her will on marrying Halliday.
She never wanted to hear of Gerald again; unless, perhaps, she were in difficulty; because after all, Gerald was what she called a man, and these others, Halliday, Libidnikov, Birkin, the whole Bohemian set, they were only half men.But it was half men she could deal with.She felt sure of herself with them.The real men, like Gerald, put her in her place too much.
Still, she respected Gerald, she really respected him.She had managed to get his address, so that she could appeal to him in time of distress.
She knew he wanted to give her money.She would perhaps write to him on that inevitable rainy day.
