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‘What does he say?’ she asked Ursula. And Ursula trans-
lated, stammering and brief. Loerke watched Gudrun’s face,
to see her judgment.
‘And do you think then,’ said Gudrun, ‘that art should
serve industry?’
‘Art should INTERPRET industry, as art once interpret-
ed religion,’ he said.
‘But does your fair interpret industry?’ she asked him.
‘Certainly. What is man doing, when he is at a fair like
this? He is fulfilling the counterpart of labour—the ma-
chine works him, instead of he the machine. He enjoys the
mechanical motion, in his own body.’
‘But is there nothing but work—mechanical work?’ said
Gudrun.
‘Nothing but work!’ he repeated, leaning forward, his
eyes two darknesses, with needle-points of light. ‘No, it is
nothing but this, serving a machine, or enjoying the motion
of a machine—motion, that is all. You have never worked
for hunger, or you would know what god governs us.’
Gudrun quivered and flushed. For some reason she was
almost in tears.
‘No, I have not worked for hunger,’ she replied, ‘but I
have worked!’
‘Travaille—lavorato?’ he asked. ‘E che lavoro—che lav-
oro? Quel travail est-ce que vous avez fait?’
He broke into a mixture of Italian and French, instinc-
tively using a foreign language when he spoke to her.
‘You have never worked as the world works,’ he said to
her, with sarcasm.

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