Women in Love

Ursula too was attracted by Loerke. In both sisters he commanded a

certain homage. But there were moments when to Ursula he seemed

indescribably inferior, false, a vulgarism.

Both Birkin and Gerald disliked him, Gerald ignoring him with some

contempt, Birkin exasperated.

'What do the women find so impressive in that little brat?' Gerald

asked.

'God alone knows,' replied Birkin, 'unless it's some sort of appeal he

makes to them, which flatters them and has such a power over them.' Gerald looked up in surprise.

'DOES he make an appeal to them?' he asked.

'Oh yes,' replied Birkin. 'He is the perfectly subjected being,

existing almost like a criminal. And the women rush towards that, like

a current of air towards a vacuum.' 'Funny they should rush to that,' said Gerald.

'Makes one mad, too,' said Birkin. 'But he has the fascination of pity

and repulsion for them, a little obscene monster of the darkness that

he is.' Gerald stood still, suspended in thought.

'What DO women want, at the bottom?' he asked.

Birkin shrugged his shoulders.

'God knows,' he said. 'Some satisfaction in basic repulsion, it seems

to me. They seem to creep down some ghastly tunnel of darkness, and

will never be satisfied till they've come to the end.' Gerald looked out into the mist of fine snow that was blowing by.

Everywhere was blind today, horribly blind.

'And what is the end?' he asked.

Birkin shook his head.

'I've not got there yet, so I don't know. Ask Loerke, he's pretty near.

He is a good many stages further than either you or I can go.' 'Yes, but stages further in what?' cried Gerald, irritated.

Birkin sighed, and gathered his brows into a knot of anger.

'Stages further in social hatred,' he said. 'He lives like a rat, in

the river of corruption, just where it falls over into the bottomless

pit. He's further on than we are. He hates the ideal more acutely. He

HATES the ideal utterly, yet it still dominates him. I expect he is a

Jew--or part Jewish.' 'Probably,' said Gerald.

'He is a gnawing little negation, gnawing at the roots of life.' 'But why does anybody care about him?' cried Gerald.

'Because they hate the ideal also, in their souls. They want to explore

the sewers, and he's the wizard rat that swims ahead.' Still Gerald stood and stared at the blind haze of snow outside.

'I don't understand your terms, really,' he said, in a flat, doomed

voice. 'But it sounds a rum sort of desire.' 'I suppose we want the same,' said Birkin. 'Only we want to take a

quick jump downwards, in a sort of ecstasy--and he ebbs with the

stream, the sewer stream.' Meanwhile Gudrun and Ursula waited for the next opportunity to talk to

Loerke. It was no use beginning when the men were there. Then they

could get into no touch with the isolated little sculptor. He had to be

alone with them. And he preferred Ursula to be there, as a sort of

transmitter to Gudrun.