And in the stress of her violent emotion, she got down from the car and went to the hedgerow, picking unconsciously some flesh-pink spindleberries, some of which were burst, showing their orange seeds.
“Ah, you are a fool,” he cried, bitterly, with some contempt.
“Yes, I am. I am a fool. And thank God for it. I’m too big a fool to swallow your cleverness. God be praised. You go to your women—go to them—they are your sort—you’ve always had a string of them trailing after you—and you always will. Go to your spiritual brides—but don’t come to me as well, because I’m not having any, thank you. You’re not satisfied, are you? Your spiritual brides can’t give you what you want, they aren’t common and fleshy enough for you, aren’t they? So you come to me, and keep them in the background! You will marry me for daily use. But you’ll keep yourself well provided with spiritual brides in the background. I know your dirty little game.” Suddenly a flame ran over her, and she stamped her foot madly on the road, and he winced, afraid that she would strike him. “And I, I’m not spiritual enough, I’m not as spiritual as that Hermione—!” Her brows knitted, her eyes blazed like a tiger’s. “Then go to her, that’s all I say, go to her, go. Ha, she spiritual—spiritual, she! A dirty materialist as she is. She spiritual? What does she care for, what is her spirituality? What is it?” Her fury seemed to blaze out and burn his face. He shrank a little. “I tell you it’s dirt, dirt, and nothing but dirt. And it’s dirt you want, you crave for it. Spiritual! Is that spiritual, her bullying, her conceit, her sordid materialism? She’s a fishwife, a fishwife, she is such a materialist. And all so sordid. What does she work out to, in the end, with all her social passion, as you call it. Social passion—what social passion has she?—show it me!—where is it? She wants petty, immediate power, she wants the illusion that she is a great woman, that is all. In her soul she’s a devilish unbeliever, common as dirt. That’s what she is at the bottom. And all the rest is pretence—but you love it. You love the sham spirituality, it’s your food. And why? Because of the dirt underneath. Do you think I don’t know the foulness of your sex life—and hers?—I do. And it’s that foulness you want, you liar. Then have it, have it. You’re such a liar.”
She turned away, spasmodically tearing the twigs of spindleberry from the hedge, and fastening them, with vibrating fingers, in the bosom of her coat.
He stood watching in silence. A wonderful tenderness burned in him, at the sight of her quivering, so sensitive fingers: and at the same time he was full of rage and callousness.
“This is a degrading exhibition,” he said coolly.
“Yes, degrading indeed,” she said. “But more to me than to you.”
“Since you choose to degrade yourself,” he said. Again the flash came over her face, the yellow lights concentrated in her eyes.
“You!” she cried. “You! You truth-lover! You purity-monger! It stinks, your truth and your purity. It stinks of the offal you feed on, you scavenger dog, you eater of corpses. You are foul, foul—and you must know it. Your purity, your candour, your goodness—yes, thank you, we’ve had some. What you are is a foul, deathly thing, obscene, that’s what you are, obscene and perverse. You, and love! You may well say, you don’t want love. No, you want yourself, and dirt, and death—that’s what you want. You are so perverse, so death-eating. And then—”
“There’s a bicycle coming,” he said, writhing under her loud denunciation.
She glanced down the road.
“I don’t care,” she cried.
Nevertheless she was silent. The cyclist, having heard the voices raised in altercation, glanced curiously at the man, and the woman, and at the standing motorcar as he passed.
“—Afternoon,” he said, cheerfully.
“Good afternoon,” replied Birkin coldly.
They were silent as the man passed into the distance.
A clearer look had come over Birkin’s face. He knew she was in the main right. He knew he was perverse, so spiritual on the one hand, and in some strange way, degraded, on the other. But was she herself any better? Was anybody any better?
“It may all be true, lies and stink and all,” he said. “But Hermione’s spiritual intimacy is no rottener than your emotional-jealous intimacy. One can preserve the decencies, even to one’s enemies: for one’s own sake. Hermione is my enemy—to her last breath! That’s why I must bow her off the field.”
“You! You and your enemies and your bows! A pretty picture you make of yourself. But it takes nobody in but yourself. I jealous! I! What I say,” her voice sprang into flame, “I say because it is true, do you see, because you are you, a foul and false liar, a whited sepulchre. That’s why I say it. And you hear it.”
“And be grateful,” he added, with a satirical grimace.
“Yes,” she cried, “and if you have a spark of decency in you, be grateful.”
“Not having a spark of decency, however—” he retorted.
“No,” she cried, “you haven’t a spark. And so you can go your way, and I’ll go mine. It’s no good, not the slightest. So you can leave me now, I don’t want to go any further with you—leave me—”
“You don’t even know where you are,” he said.
“Oh, don’t bother, I assure you I shall be all right. I’ve got ten shillings in my purse, and that will take me back from anywhere you have brought
