And this made him go hard and cold. As the train
ran on, he sat looking at the land, and Gerald fell away, became as
nothing to him.
Birkin looked at the land, at the evening, and was thinking: 'Well, if
mankind is destroyed, if our race is destroyed like Sodom, and there is
this beautiful evening with the luminous land and trees, I am
satisfied. That which informs it all is there, and can never be lost.
After all, what is mankind but just one expression of the
incomprehensible. And if mankind passes away, it will only mean that
this particular expression is completed and done. That which is
expressed, and that which is to be expressed, cannot be diminished.
There it is, in the shining evening. Let mankind pass away--time it
did. The creative utterances will not cease, they will only be there.
Humanity doesn't embody the utterance of the incomprehensible any more.
Humanity is a dead letter. There will be a new embodiment, in a new
way. Let humanity disappear as quick as possible.'
Gerald interrupted him by asking,
'Where are you staying in London?'
Birkin looked up.
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