'Don't you know whether you are unwell or not, without thinking about
it?' she persisted.
'Not always,' he said coldly.
'But don't you think that's very wicked?' 'Wicked?' 'Yes. I think it's CRIMINAL to have so little connection with your own
body that you don't even know when you are ill.' He looked at her darkly.
'Yes,' he said.
'Why don't you stay in bed when you are seedy? You look perfectly
ghastly.' 'Offensively so?' he asked ironically.
'Yes, quite offensive. Quite repelling.' 'Ah!! Well that's unfortunate.' 'And it's raining, and it's a horrible night. Really, you shouldn't be
forgiven for treating your body like it--you OUGHT to suffer, a man who
takes as little notice of his body as that.' '--takes as little notice of his body as that,' he echoed mechanically.
This cut her short, and there was silence.
The others came in from church, and the two had the girls to face, then
the mother and Gudrun, and then the father and the boy.
'Good-evening,' said Brangwen, faintly surprised. 'Came to see me, did
you?' 'No,' said Birkin, 'not about anything, in particular, that is. The day
was dismal, and I thought you wouldn't mind if I called in.' 'It HAS been a depressing day,' said Mrs Brangwen sympathetically. At
that moment the voices of the children were heard calling from
upstairs: 'Mother! Mother!' She lifted her face and answered mildly
into the distance: 'I shall come up to you in a minute, Doysie.' Then
to Birkin: 'There is nothing fresh at Shortlands, I suppose? Ah,' she
sighed, 'no, poor things, I should think not.' 'You've been over there today, I suppose?' asked the father.
'Gerald came round to tea with me, and I walked back with him. The
house is overexcited and unwholesome, I thought.' 'I should think they were people who hadn't much restraint,' said
Gudrun.
'Or too much,' Birkin answered.
'Oh yes, I'm sure,' said Gudrun, almost vindictively, 'one or the
other.' 'They all feel they ought to behave in some unnatural fashion,' said
Birkin. 'When people are in grief, they would do better to cover their
faces and keep in retirement, as in the old days.' 'Certainly!' cried Gudrun, flushed and inflammable. 'What can be worse
than this public grief--what is more horrible, more false! If GRIEF is
not private, and hidden, what is?' 'Exactly,' he said. 'I felt ashamed when I was there and they were all
going about in a lugubrious false way, feeling they must not be natural
or ordinary.' 'Well--' said Mrs Brangwen, offended at this criticism, 'it isn't so
easy to bear a trouble like that.' And she went upstairs to the children.