'If death isn't the point,' he said, in a strangely abstract, cold,
fine voice--'what is?' He sounded as if he had been found out.
'What is?' re-echoed Birkin. And there was a mocking silence.
'There's long way to go, after the point of intrinsic death, before we
disappear,' said Birkin.
'There is,' said Gerald. 'But what sort of way?' He seemed to press the
other man for knowledge which he himself knew far better than Birkin
did.
'Right down the slopes of degeneration--mystic, universal degeneration.
There are many stages of pure degradation to go through: agelong. We
live on long after our death, and progressively, in progressive
devolution.'
Gerald listened with a faint, fine smile on his face, all the time, as
if, somewhere, he knew so much better than Birkin, all about this: as
if his own knowledge were direct and personal, whereas Birkin's was a
matter of observation and inference, not quite hitting the nail on the
head:--though aiming near enough at it. But he was not going to give
himself away.
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