, his face was uplifted, weak,
perhaps slightly disintegrate, and yet with a moving beauty of its own.

'Of course,' said Maxim, 'you've been in hot countries where the people
go about naked.'

'Oh really!' exclaimed Halliday. 'Where?'

'South America--Amazon,' said Gerald.

'Oh but how perfectly splendid! It's one of the things I want most to
do--to live from day to day without EVER putting on any sort of
clothing whatever. If I could do that, I should feel I had lived.'

'But why?' said Gerald. 'I can't see that it makes so much difference.'

'Oh, I think it would be perfectly splendid. I'm sure life would be
entirely another thing--entirely different, and perfectly wonderful.'

'But why?' asked Gerald. 'Why should it?'

'Oh--one would FEEL things instead of merely looking at them. I should
feel the air move against me, and feel the things I touched, instead of
having only to look at them. I'm sure life is all wrong because it has
become much too visual--we can neither hear nor feel nor understand, we
can only see. I'm sure that is entirely wrong.'

'Yes, that is true, that is true,' said the Russian.

Gerald glanced at him, and saw him, his suave, golden coloured body
with the black hair growing fine and freely, like tendrils, and his
limbs like smooth plant-stems. He was so healthy and well-made, why did
he make one ashamed, why did one feel repelled? Why should Gerald even
dislike it, why did it seem to him to detract from his own dignity. Was
that all a human being amounted to? So uninspired! thought Gerald.

Birkin suddenly appeared in the doorway, in white pyjamas and wet hair,
and a towel over his arm. He was aloof and white, and somehow
evanescent.

'There's the bath-room now, if you want it,' he said generally, and was
going away again, when Gerald called:

'I say, Rupert!'

'What?' The single white figure appeared again, a presence in the room.

'What do you think of that figure there? I want to know,' Gerald asked.

Birkin, white and strangely ghostly, went over to the carved figure of
the negro woman in labour. Her nude, protuberant body crouched in a
strange, clutching posture, her hands gripping the ends of the band,
above her breast.

'It is art,' said Birkin.

'Very beautiful, it's very beautiful,' said the Russian.

They all drew near to look. Gerald looked at the group of men, the
Russian golden and like a water-plant, Halliday tall and heavily,
brokenly beautiful, Birkin very