Page 588 - women-in-love

question.
‘Any hope of England’s becoming real? God knows. It’s a
great actual unreality now, an aggregation into unreality. It
might be real, if there were no Englishmen.’
‘You think the English will have to disappear?’ persisted
Gudrun. It was strange, her pointed interest in his answer.
It might have been her own fate she was inquiring after. Her
dark, dilated eyes rested on Birkin, as if she could conjure
the truth of the future out of him, as out of some instrument
of divination.
He was pale. Then, reluctantly, he answered:
‘Well—what else is in front of them, but disappearance?
They’ve got to disappear from their own special brand of
Englishness, anyhow.’
Gudrun watched him as if in a hypnotic state, her eyes
wide and fixed on him.
‘But in what way do you mean, disappear?—‘ she per-
sisted.
‘Yes, do you mean a change of heart?’ put in Gerald.
‘I don’t mean anything, why should I?’ said Birkin. ‘I’m
an Englishman, and I’ve paid the price of it. I can’t talk
about England—I can only speak for myself.’
‘Yes,’ said Gudrun slowly, ‘you love England immensely,
IMMENSELY, Rupert.’
‘And leave her,’ he replied.
‘No, not for good. You’ll come back,’ said Gerald, nod-
ding sagely.
‘They say the lice crawl off a dying body,’ said Birkin,
with a glare of bitterness. ‘So I leave England.’

588 Women in Love