The train came, and they went on board, sitting on either side a little
table, by the window, in the restaurant car. Birkin glanced over his
paper, then looked up at Gerald, who was waiting for him.
'I believe the man means it,' he said, 'as far as he means anything.' 'And do you think it's true? Do you think we really want a new gospel?'
asked Gerald.
Birkin shrugged his shoulders.
'I think the people who say they want a new religion are the last to
accept anything new. They want novelty right enough. But to stare
straight at this life that we've brought upon ourselves, and reject it,
absolutely smash up the old idols of ourselves, that we sh'll never do.
You've got very badly to want to get rid of the old, before anything
new will appear--even in the self.' Gerald watched him closely.
'You think we ought to break up this life, just start and let fly?' he
asked.
'This life. Yes I do. We've got to bust it completely, or shrivel
inside it, as in a tight skin. For it won't expand any more.' There was a queer little smile in Gerald's eyes, a look of amusement,
calm and curious.
'And how do you propose to begin? I suppose you mean, reform the whole
order of society?' he asked.
Birkin had a slight, tense frown between the brows. He too was
impatient of the conversation.
'I don't propose at all,' he replied. 'When we really want to go for
something better, we shall smash the old. Until then, any sort of
proposal, or making proposals, is no more than a tiresome game for
self-important people.' The little smile began to die out of Gerald's eyes, and he said,
looking with a cool stare at Birkin: 'So you really think things are very bad?' 'Completely bad.' The smile appeared again.
'In what way?' 'Every way,' said Birkin. 'We are such dreary liars. Our one idea is to
lie to ourselves. We have an ideal of a perfect world, clean and
straight and sufficient. So we cover the earth with foulness; life is a
blotch of labour, like insects scurrying in filth, so that your collier
can have a pianoforte in his parlour, and you can have a butler and a
motor-car in your up-to-date house, and as a nation we can sport the
Ritz, or the Empire, Gaby Deslys and the Sunday newspapers. It is very
dreary.' Gerald took a little time to re-adjust himself after this tirade.
'Would you have us live without houses--return to nature?' he asked.