'
'No? Did it upset YOU very much?'
'It's a shock. But I don't feel it very much, really. I don't feel any
different. We've all got to die, and it doesn't seem to make any great
difference, anyhow, whether you die or not. I can't feel any GRIEF you
know. It leaves me cold. I can't quite account for it.'
'You don't care if you die or not?' asked Birkin.
Gerald looked at him with eyes blue as the blue-fibred steel of a
weapon. He felt awkward, but indifferent. As a matter of fact, he did
care terribly, with a great fear.
'Oh,' he said, 'I don't want to die, why should I? But I never trouble.
The question doesn't seem to be on the carpet for me at all. It doesn't
interest me, you know.'
'TIMOR MORTIS CONTURBAT ME,' quoted Birkin, adding--'No, death doesn't
really seem the point any more. It curiously doesn't concern one. It's
like an ordinary tomorrow.'
Gerald looked closely at his friend. The eyes of the two men met, and
an unspoken understanding was exchanged.
Gerald narrowed his eyes, his face was cool and unscrupulous as he
looked at Birkin, impersonally, with a vision that ended in a point in
space, strangely keen-eyed and yet blind.
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