“Oh, of course,” cried Gudrun. “One could never feel like this in England, for the simple reason that the damper is never lifted off one, there. It is quite impossible really to let go, in England, of that I am assured.”
And she turned again to the food she was eating. She was fluttering with vivid intensity.
“It’s quite true,” said Gerald, “it never is quite the same in England. But perhaps we don’t want it to be—perhaps it’s like bringing the light a little too near the powder-magazine, to let go altogether, in England. One is afraid what might happen, if everybody else let go.”
“My God!” cried Gudrun. “But wouldn’t it be wonderful, if all England did suddenly go off like a display of fireworks.”
“It couldn’t,” said Ursula. “They are all too damp, the powder is damp in them.”
“I’m not so sure of that,” said Gerald.
“Nor I,” said Birkin. “When the English really begin to go off, en masse, it’ll be time to shut your ears and run.”
“They never will,” said Ursula.
“We’ll see,” he replied.
“Isn’t it marvellous,” said Gudrun, “how thankful one can be, to be out of one’s country. I cannot believe myself, I am so transported, the moment I set foot on a foreign shore. I say to myself ‘Here steps a new creature into life.’”