Women in Love

'I would have nothing at all. People only do what they want to do--and

what they are capable of doing. If they were capable of anything else,

there would be something else.' Again Gerald pondered. He was not going to take offence at Birkin.

'Don't you think the collier's PIANOFORTE, as you call it, is a symbol

for something very real, a real desire for something higher, in the

collier's life?' 'Higher!' cried Birkin. 'Yes. Amazing heights of upright grandeur. It

makes him so much higher in his neighbouring collier's eyes. He sees

himself reflected in the neighbouring opinion, like in a Brocken mist,

several feet taller on the strength of the pianoforte, and he is

satisfied. He lives for the sake of that Brocken spectre, the

reflection of himself in the human opinion. You do the same. If you are

of high importance to humanity you are of high importance to yourself.

That is why you work so hard at the mines. If you can produce coal to

cook five thousand dinners a day, you are five thousand times more

important than if you cooked only your own dinner.' 'I suppose I am,' laughed Gerald.

'Can't you see,' said Birkin, 'that to help my neighbour to eat is no

more than eating myself. "I eat, thou eatest, he eats, we eat, you eat,

they eat"--and what then? Why should every man decline the whole verb.

First person singular is enough for me.' 'You've got to start with material things,' said Gerald. Which

statement Birkin ignored.

'And we've got to live for SOMETHING, we're not just cattle that can

graze and have done with it,' said Gerald.

'Tell me,' said Birkin. 'What do you live for?' Gerald's face went baffled.

'What do I live for?' he repeated. 'I suppose I live to work, to

produce something, in so far as I am a purposive being. Apart from

that, I live because I am living.' 'And what's your work? Getting so many more thousands of tons of coal

out of the earth every day. And when we've got all the coal we want,

and all the plush furniture, and pianofortes, and the rabbits are all

stewed and eaten, and we're all warm and our bellies are filled and

we're listening to the young lady performing on the pianoforte--what

then? What then, when you've made a real fair start with your material

things?' Gerald sat laughing at the words and the mocking humour of the other

man. But he was cogitating too.

'We haven't got there yet,' he replied. 'A good many people are still

waiting for the rabbit and the fire to cook it.' 'So while you get the coal I must chase the rabbit?' said Birkin,

mocking at Gerald.