Then she looked at him with her
slow, heavy gaze. 'Barnes is starting his school of aesthetics, and
Olandese is going to give a set of discourses on the Italian national
policy-'
'Both rubbish,' he said.
'No, I don't think so,' said Hermione.
'Which do you admire, then?'
'I admire both. Barnes is a pioneer. And then I am interested in Italy,
in her coming to national consciousness.'
'I wish she'd come to something different from national consciousness,
then,' said Birkin; 'especially as it only means a sort of
commercial-industrial consciousness. I hate Italy and her national
rant. And I think Barnes is an amateur.'
Hermione was silent for some moments, in a state of hostility. But yet,
she had got Birkin back again into her world! How subtle her influence
was, she seemed to start his irritable attention into her direction
exclusively, in one minute. He was her creature.
'No,' she said, 'you are wrong.' Then a sort of tension came over her,
she raised her face like the pythoness inspired with oracles, and went
on, in rhapsodic manner: 'Il Sandro mi scrive che ha accolto il piu
grande entusiasmo, tutti i giovani, e fanciulle e ragazzi, sono
tutti--' She went on in Italian, as if, in thinking of the Italians she
thought in their language.
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