'We might see something of each other--I am in London for two or three
days,' said Gerald.
'Yes,' said Birkin, 'I don't want to go to the theatre, or the music
hall--you'd better come round to the flat, and see what you can make of
Halliday and his crowd.' 'Thanks--I should like to,' laughed Gerald. 'What are you doing
tonight?' 'I promised to meet Halliday at the Pompadour. It's a bad place, but
there is nowhere else.' 'Where is it?' asked Gerald.
'Piccadilly Circus.' 'Oh yes--well, shall I come round there?' 'By all means, it might amuse you.' The evening was falling. They had passed Bedford. Birkin watched the
country, and was filled with a sort of hopelessness. He always felt
this, on approaching London.
His dislike of mankind, of the mass of mankind, amounted almost to an
illness.
'"Where the quiet coloured end of evening smiles Miles and miles--"' he
was murmuring to himself, like a man condemned to death. Gerald, who
was very subtly alert, wary in all his senses, leaned forward and asked
smilingly: 'What were you saying?' Birkin glanced at him, laughed, and repeated:
'"Where the quiet coloured end of evening smiles, Miles and miles,
Over pastures where the something something sheep Half asleep--"'
Gerald also looked now at the country. And Birkin, who, for some reason
was now tired and dispirited, said to him: 'I always feel doomed when the train is running into London. I feel
such a despair, so hopeless, as if it were the end of the world.' 'Really!' said Gerald. 'And does the end of the world frighten you?' Birkin lifted his shoulders in a slow shrug.
'I don't know,' he said. 'It does while it hangs imminent and doesn't
fall. But people give me a bad feeling--very bad.' There was a roused glad smile in Gerald's eyes.
'Do they?' he said. And he watched the other man critically.
In a few minutes the train was running through the disgrace of
outspread London. Everybody in the carriage was on the alert, waiting
to escape. At last they were under the huge arch of the station, in the
tremendous shadow of the town. Birkin shut himself together--he was in
now.
The two men went together in a taxi-cab.
'Don't you feel like one of the damned?' asked Birkin, as they sat in a
little, swiftly-running enclosure, and watched the hideous great
street.
'No,' laughed Gerald.
'It is real death,' said Birkin.