'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.