Women in Love
Page 163'Of course,' he said, with a startling change of conversation, 'it is
father who really feels it. It will finish him. For him the world
collapses. All his care now is for Winnie--he must save Winnie. He says
she ought to be sent away to school, but she won't hear of it, and
he'll never do it. Of course she IS in rather a queer way. We're all of
us curiously bad at living. We can do things--but we can't get on with
life at all. It's curious--a family failing.' 'She oughtn't to be sent away to school,' said Birkin, who was
considering a new proposition.
'She oughtn't. Why?' 'She's a queer child--a special child, more special even than you. And
Only moderately ordinary children should be sent to school--so it seems
to me.' 'I'm inclined to think just the opposite. I think it would probably
make her more normal if she went away and mixed with other children.' 'She wouldn't mix, you see. YOU never really mixed, did you? And she
wouldn't be willing even to pretend to. She's proud, and solitary, and
naturally apart. If she has a single nature, why do you want to make
her gregarious?' 'No, I don't want to make her anything. But I think school would be
good for her.' 'Was it good for you?' Gerald's eyes narrowed uglily. School had been torture to him. Yet he
had not questioned whether one should go through this torture. He
'I hated it at the time, but I can see it was necessary,' he said. 'It
brought me into line a bit--and you can't live unless you do come into
line somewhere.' 'Well,' said Birkin, 'I begin to think that you can't live unless you
keep entirely out of the line. It's no good trying to toe the line,
when your one impulse is to smash up the line. Winnie is a special
nature, and for special natures you must give a special world.' 'Yes, but where's your special world?' said Gerald.
'Make it. Instead of chopping yourself down to fit the world, chop the
world down to fit yourself. As a matter of fact, two exceptional people
don't WANT a world same as your brothers-in-law. It's just the special
quality you value. Do you WANT to be normal or ordinary! It's a lie.
You want to be free and extraordinary, in an extraordinary world of
liberty.' Gerald looked at Birkin with subtle eyes of knowledge. But he would
never openly admit what he felt. He knew more than Birkin, in one
direction--much more. And this gave him his gentle love for the other
man, as if Birkin were in some way young, innocent, child-like: so
amazingly clever, but incurably innocent.