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doesn’t. Every woman he comes across he wants to make
her in love with him. He doesn’t even know that he is do-
ing it. But there he is, before every woman he unfurls his
male attractiveness, displays his great desirability, he tries
to make every woman think how wonderful it would be
to have him for a lover. His very ignoring of the women is
part of the game. He is never UNCONSCIOUS of them. He
should have been a cockerel, so he could strut before fifty
females, all his subjects. But really, his Don Juan does NOT
interest me. I could play Dona Juanita a million times better
than he plays Juan. He bores me, you know. His maleness
bores me. Nothing is so boring, so inherently stupid and
stupidly conceited. Really, the fathomless conceit of these
men, it is ridiculous—the little strutters.
‘They are all alike. Look at Birkin. Built out of the limi-
tation of conceit they are, and nothing else. Really, nothing
but their ridiculous limitation and intrinsic insignificance
could make them so conceited.
‘As for Loerke, there is a thousand times more in him
than in a Gerald. Gerald is so limited, there is a dead end
to him. He would grind on at the old mills forever. And re-
ally, there is no corn between the millstones any more. They
grind on and on, when there is nothing to grind—saying
the same things, believing the same things, acting the same
things. Oh, my God, it would wear out the patience of a
stone.
‘I don’t worship Loerke, but at any rate, he is a free in-
dividual. He is not stiff with conceit of his own maleness.
He is not grinding dutifully at the old mills. Oh God, when

690 Women in Love