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: