Page 133 - women-in-love

and I only just saved myself from jumping in his stomach,
in a real old-fashioned row.’
Birkin was silent.
‘Of course,’ he said, ‘Julius is somewhat insane. On the
one hand he’s had religious mania, and on the other, he is
fascinated by obscenity. Either he is a pure servant, washing
the feet of Christ, or else he is making obscene drawings of
Jesus—action and reaction—and between the two, nothing.
He is really insane. He wants a pure lily, another girl, with a
baby face, on the one hand, and on the other, he MUST have
the Pussum, just to defile himself with her.’
‘That’s what I can’t make out,’ said Gerald. ‘Does he love
her, the Pussum, or doesn’t he?’
‘He neither does nor doesn’t. She is the harlot, the actual
harlot of adultery to him. And he’s got a craving to throw
himself into the filth of her. Then he gets up and calls on the
name of the lily of purity, the baby-faced girl, and so enjoys
himself all round. It’s the old story—action and reaction,
and nothing between.’
‘I don’t know,’ said Gerald, after a pause, ‘that he does
insult the Pussum so very much. She strikes me as being
rather foul.’
‘But I thought you liked her,’ exclaimed Birkin. ‘I always
felt fond of her. I never had anything to do with her, person-
ally, that’s true.’
‘I liked her all right, for a couple of days,’ said Gerald.
‘But a week of her would have turned me over. There’s a cer-
tain smell about the skin of those women, that in the end is
sickening beyond words—even if you like it at first.’

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