Women in love

" You think we ought to break up this life, just let 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 anymore."

"Tell me," said Birkin. " What do u live for?"

Gerald's face went baffled.

"What do I live for?" he repeated. " I suppose I live to work, to produce something, in so far as I am a purposive being. Apart from that, I live because I am living. "

" What do u think is the aim and objective of your life, Gerald?" He asked.

Again Gerald was taken aback. He could not think what his friend was getting at. Was he poking fun, or not?

" At this moment, I couldn't say off-hand," He replied, with flat ironic humour.

"Do u think to live is the be-all and end-all of life?" Birkin asked, with direction, attentive seriousness.

"Of my own life?" said Gerald.

"Yes."

There was a really puzzled pause.

" I can't say," said Gerald. " It hasnt been, so far."

" What have ur life been, So far?"

" Oh - finding out things for myself - and getting experiences - and making things go."

Birkin knitted his brows like sharply moulded steel.

" I find," he said, " that one needs some one really pure single activity - I should call love a single pure activity. But I don't really love anybody - not now."

"Have u ever really loved anybody?" asked Gerald.

"Yes and no," replied Birkin.

"Not finally?" said Gerald.

"Finally - finally - no," said Birkin.

"Nor I," said Gerald.

"And u want to?" said Birkin.

Gerald looked with a long, twinkling, almost sardonic look into the eyes of the other man.

"I don't know," he said.

"I do, I do want to love," said Birkin.

"You do?"

"Yes. I want the finality of love."

"The finality of love," repeated Gerald. And he waited for a moment...