‘What were you doing?’ he asked.
‘I? Nothing. I’m in a bad way just now, everything’s on edge, and I can neither work nor play. I don’t know whether it’s a sign of old age, I’m sure.’
‘You mean you are bored?’
‘Bored, I don’t know. I can’t apply myself. And I feel the devil is either very present inside me, or dead.’
Birkin glanced up and looked in his eyes.
‘You should try hitting something,’ he said.
Gerald smiled.
‘Perhaps,’ he said. ‘So long as it was something worth hitting.’
‘Quite!’ said Birkin, in his soft voice. There was a long pause during which each could feel the presence of the other.
‘One has to wait,’ said Birkin.
‘Ah God! Waiting! What are we waiting for?’
‘Some old Johnny says there are three cures for ENNUI, sleep, drink, and travel,’ said Birkin.
‘All cold eggs,’ said Gerald. ‘In sleep, you dream, in drink you curse, and in travel you yell at a porter. No, work and love are the two. When you’re not at work you should be in love.’
‘Be it then,’ said Birkin.
‘Give me the object,’ said Gerald. ‘The possibilities of love exhaust themselves.’
‘Do they? And then what?’
‘Then you die,’ said Gerald.
‘So you ought,’ said Birkin.
‘I don’t see it,’ replied Gerald. He took his hands out of his trousers pockets, and reached for a cigarette. He was tense and nervous. He lit the cigarette over a lamp, reaching forward and drawing steadily. He was dressed for dinner, as usual in the evening, although he was alone.
‘There’s a third one even to your two,’ said Birkin. ‘Work, love, and fighting. You forget the fight.’
‘I suppose I do,’ said Gerald. ‘Did you ever do any boxing—?’
‘No, I don’t think I did,’ said Birkin.
‘Ay—’ Gerald lifted his head and blew the smoke slowly into the air.
‘Why?’ said Birkin.
‘Nothing. I thought we might have a round. It is perhaps true, that I want something to hit. It’s a suggestion.’
‘So you think you might as well hit me?’ said Birkin.
‘You? Well! Perhaps—! In a friendly kind of way, of course.’
‘Quite!’ said Birkin, bitingly.
Gerald stood leaning back against the mantel-piece. He looked down at Birkin, and his eyes flashed with a sort of terror like the eyes of a stallion, that are bloodshot and overwrought, turned glancing backwards in a stiff terror.
‘I fell that if I don’t watch myself, I shall find myself doing something silly,’ he said.
‘Why not do it?’ said Birkin coldly.
Gerald listened with quick impatience. He kept glancing down at Birkin, as if looking for something from the other man.
‘I used to do some Japanese wrestling,’ said Birkin. ‘A Jap lived in the same house with me in Heidelberg, and he taught me a little. But I was never much good at it.’
‘You did!’ exclaimed Gerald. ‘That’s one of the things I’ve never ever seen done. You mean jiu-jitsu, I suppose?’
‘Yes. But I am no good at those things—they don’t interest me.’
‘They don’t? They do me. What’s the start?’
‘I’ll show you what I can, if you like,’ said Birkin.
‘You will?’ A queer, smiling look tightened Gerald’s face for a moment, as he said, ‘Well, I’d like it very much.’
‘Then we’ll try jiu-jitsu. Only you can’t do much in a starched shirt.’
‘Then let us strip, and do it properly. Hold a minute—’ He rang the bell, and waited for the butler.
‘Bring a couple of sandwiches and a syphon,’ he said to the man, ‘and then don’t trouble me any more tonight —or let anybody else.’
The man went. Gerald turned to Birkin with his eyes lighted.
‘And you used to wrestle with a Jap?’ he said. ‘Did you strip?’
