'Shall we swear to each other, one day?' said Birkin, putting out his
hand towards Gerald.
Gerald just touched the extended fine, living hand, as if withheld and
afraid.
'We'll leave it till I understand it better,' he said, in a voice of
excuse.
Birkin watched him. A little sharp disappointment, perhaps a touch of
contempt came into his heart.
'Yes,' he said. 'You must tell me what you think, later. You know what
I mean? Not sloppy emotionalism. An impersonal union that leaves one
free.' They lapsed both into silence. Birkin was looking at Gerald all the
time. He seemed now to see, not the physical, animal man, which he
usually saw in Gerald, and which usually he liked so much, but the man
himself, complete, and as if fated, doomed, limited. This strange sense
of fatality in Gerald, as if he were limited to one form of existence,
one knowledge, one activity, a sort of fatal halfness, which to himself
seemed wholeness, always overcame Birkin after their moments of
passionate approach, and filled him with a sort of contempt, or
boredom. It was the insistence on the limitation which so bored Birkin
in Gerald. Gerald could never fly away from himself, in real
indifferent gaiety. He had a clog, a sort of monomania.
There was silence for a time. Then Birkin said, in a lighter tone,
letting the stress of the contact pass: 'Can't you get a good governess for Winifred?--somebody exceptional?' 'Hermione Roddice suggested we should ask Gudrun to teach her to draw
and to model in clay. You know Winnie is astonishingly clever with that
plasticine stuff. Hermione declares she is an artist.' Gerald spoke in
the usual animated, chatty manner, as if nothing unusual had passed.
But Birkin's manner was full of reminder.
'Really! I didn't know that. Oh well then, if Gudrun WOULD teach her,
it would be perfect--couldn't be anything better--if Winifred is an
artist. Because Gudrun somewhere is one. And every true artist is the
salvation of every other.' 'I thought they got on so badly, as a rule.' 'Perhaps. But only artists produce for each other the world that is fit
to live in. If you can arrange THAT for Winifred, it is perfect.' 'But you think she wouldn't come?' 'I don't know. Gudrun is rather self-opinionated. She won't go cheap
anywhere. Or if she does, she'll pretty soon take herself back. So
whether she would condescend to do private teaching, particularly here,
in Beldover, I don't know. But it would be just the thing. Winifred has
got a special nature. And if you can put into her way the means of
being self-sufficient, that is the best thing possible. She'll never
get on with the ordinary life. You find it difficult enough yourself,
and she is several skins thinner than you are. It is awful to think
what her life will be like unless she does find a means of expression,
some way of fulfilment. You can see what mere leaving it to fate
brings. You can see how much marriage is to be trusted to--look at your
own mother.' 'Do you think mother is abnormal?' 'No! I think she only wanted something more, or other than the common
run of life. And not getting it, she has gone wrong perhaps.' 'After producing a brood of wrong children,' said Gerald gloomily.