“God knows,” he said. “Some satisfaction in basic repulsion, it seems to me. They seem to creep down some ghastly tunnel of darkness, and will never be satisfied till they’ve come to the end.”
Gerald looked out into the mist of fine snow that was blowing by. Everywhere was blind today, horribly blind.
“And what is the end?” he asked.
Birkin shook his head.
“I’ve not got there yet, so I don’t know. Ask Loerke, he’s pretty near. He is a good many stages further than either you or I can go.”
“Yes, but stages further in what?” cried Gerald, irritated.
Birkin sighed, and gathered his brows into a knot of anger.
“Stages further in social hatred,” he said. “He lives like a rat, in the river of corruption, just where it falls over into the bottomless pit. He’s further on than we are. He hates the ideal more acutely. He hates the ideal utterly, yet it still dominates him. I expect he is a Jew—or part Jewish.”
“Probably,” said Gerald.
“He is a gnawing little negation, gnawing at the roots of life.”