'And how do you propose to begin? I suppose you mean, reform the whole
order of society?' he asked.

Birkin had a slight, tense frown between the brows. He too was
impatient of the conversation.

'I don't propose at all,' he replied. 'When we really want to go for
something better, we shall smash the old. Until then, any sort of
proposal, or making proposals, is no more than a tiresome game for
self-important people.'

The little smile began to die out of Gerald's eyes, and he said,
looking with a cool stare at Birkin:

'So you really think things are very bad?'

'Completely bad.'

The smile appeared again.

'In what way?'

'Every way,' said Birkin. 'We are such dreary liars. Our one idea is to
lie to ourselves. We have an ideal of a perfect world, clean and
straight and sufficient. So we cover the earth with foulness; life is a
blotch of labour, like insects scurrying in filth, so that your collier
can have a pianoforte in his parlour, and you can have a butler and a
motor-car in your up-to-date house, and as a nation we can sport the
Ritz, or the Empire, Gaby Deslys and the Sunday newspapers. It is very