Gerald had been on the qui vive, as awaiting his fate. Now he drew back in his chair.
'No,' he said, 'and neither do I, and neither do I.'
'We are different, you and I,' said Birkin. 'I can’t tell your life.'
'No,' said Gerald, 'no more can I. But I tell you—I begin to doubt it!'
'That you will ever love a woman?'
'Well—yes—what you would truly call love—'
'You doubt it?'
'Well—I begin to.'
There was a long pause.
'Life has all kinds of things,' said Birkin. 'There isn’t only one road.'
'Yes, I believe that too. I believe it. And mind you, I don’t care how it is with me—I don’t care how it is—so long as I don’t feel—' he paused, and a blank, barren look passed over his face, to express his feeling—'so long as I feel I’ve lived, somehow—and I don’t care how it is—but I want to feel that—'
'Fulfilled,' said Birkin.
'We–ell, perhaps it is fulfilled; I don’t use the same words as you.'
'It is the same.'
