“But why does anybody care about him?” cried Gerald.
“Because they hate the ideal also, in their souls. They want to explore the sewers, and he’s the wizard rat that swims ahead.”
Still Gerald stood and stared at the blind haze of snow outside.
“I don’t understand your terms, really,” he said, in a flat, doomed voice. “But it sounds a rum sort of desire.”
“I suppose we want the same,” said Birkin. “Only we want to take a quick jump downwards, in a sort of ecstasy—and he ebbs with the stream, the sewer stream.”
Meanwhile Gudrun and Ursula waited for the next opportunity to talk to Loerke. It was no use beginning when the men were there. Then they could get into no touch with the isolated little sculptor. He had to be alone with them. And he preferred Ursula to be there, as a sort of transmitter to Gudrun.
“Do you do nothing but architectural sculpture?” Gudrun asked him one evening.
“Not now,” he replied. “I have done all sorts—except portraits—I never did portraits. But other things—”
“What kind of things?” asked Gudrun.
He paused a moment, then rose, and went out of the room. He returned almost immediately with a little roll of paper, which he handed to her. She unrolled it. It was a photogravure reproduction of a statuette, signed F. Loerke.