The smile in his eyes was very astonishing, as he looked at the other man. It was the pure gleam of relief. His face was pallid and even haggard.
“The right woman, I suppose you mean,” said Birkin spitefully.
“Of course, for choice. Failing that, an amusing man.”
He laughed as he said it. Birkin sat down near the fire.
“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 mantelpiece. 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 jiujitsu, 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 jiujitsu. 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?”
“Sometimes.”
“You did! What was he like then, as a wrestler?”
“Good, I believe. I am no judge. He was very quick and slippery and full of electric fire. It is a remarkable thing, what a curious sort of fluid force they seem to have in them, those people—not like a human grip—like a polyp—”
Gerald nodded.
“I should imagine so,” he said, “to look at them. They repel me, rather.”
“Repel and attract, both. They are very repulsive when they are cold, and they look grey. But when they are hot and roused, there is a definite attraction—a curious kind of full electric fluid—like eels.”
“Well—yes—probably.”
The man brought in the tray and set it down.
“Don’t come in any more,” said Gerald.
The door closed.
“Well then,” said Gerald; “shall we strip and begin? Will you have a drink first?”
“No, I don’t want one.”
“Neither do I.”
Gerald fastened the door and pushed the furniture aside. The room was large, there was plenty of space, it was thickly carpeted. Then he quickly threw off his clothes, and waited for Birkin. The latter, white and thin, came over to him. Birkin was more a presence than a visible object, Gerald was aware of him completely, but not really visually. Whereas Gerald himself was concrete and noticeable, a piece of pure final substance.
“Now,” said Birkin, “I will show you what I learned, and what I remember. You let me take you so—” And his hands closed on the naked body of the other man. In another moment, he had Gerald swung over lightly and balanced against his knee, head downwards. Relaxed, Gerald sprang to his feet with eyes glittering.
“That’s smart,” he said. “Now try again.”
So the two men began to struggle together. They were very dissimilar. Birkin was tall and narrow, his bones were very thin and fine. Gerald was much heavier and more plastic. His bones were strong and round, his limbs were rounded, all his contours were beautifully and fully moulded. He seemed to stand with a proper, rich weight on the face of the earth, whilst Birkin seemed to
