'High! There are centuries and hundreds of centuries of development in
a straight line, behind that carving; it is an awful pitch of culture,
of a definite sort.'

'What culture?' Gerald asked, in opposition. He hated the sheer African
thing.

'Pure culture in sensation, culture in the physical consciousness,
really ultimate PHYSICAL consciousness, mindless, utterly sensual. It
is so sensual as to be final, supreme.'

But Gerald resented it. He wanted to keep certain illusions, certain
ideas like clothing.

'You like the wrong things, Rupert,' he said, 'things against
yourself.'

'Oh, I know, this isn't everything,' Birkin replied, moving away.

When Gerald went back to his room from the bath, he also carried his
clothes. He was so conventional at home, that when he was really away,
and on the loose, as now, he enjoyed nothing so much as full
outrageousness. So he strode with his blue silk wrap over his arm and
felt defiant.

The Pussum lay in her bed, motionless, her round, dark eyes like black,
unhappy pools. He could only see the black, bottomless pools of her
eyes. Perhaps she suffered. The sensation of her inchoate suffering
roused the old sharp flame in him, a mordant pity, a passion almost of
cruelty.