“But what understanding is it?” he said. “The understanding of a flea, a hopping flea with a proboscis. Why should you crawl abject before the understanding of a flea?”
There passed through Gudrun’s mind Blake’s representation of the soul of a flea. She wanted to fit it to Loerke. Blake was a clown too. But it was necessary to answer Gerald.
“Don’t you think the understanding of a flea is more interesting than the understanding of a fool?” she asked.
“A fool!” he repeated.
“A fool, a conceited fool—a Dummkopf,” she replied, adding the German word.
“Do you call me a fool?” he replied. “Well, wouldn’t I rather be the fool I am, than that flea downstairs?”
She looked at him. A certain blunt, blind stupidity in him palled on her soul, limiting her.
“You give yourself away by that last,” she said.
He sat and wondered.
“I shall go away soon,” he said.