he asked.

Birkin shook his head.

‘I’ve not got there yet, so I don’t know. Ask Loerke, he’s pretty near. He is a good many stages further than either you or I can go.’

‘Yes, but stages further in what?’ cried Gerald, irritated.

Birkin sighed, and gathered his brows into a knot of anger.

‘Stages further in social hatred,’ he said. ‘He lives like a rat, in the river of corruption, just where it falls over into the bottomless pit. He’s further on than we are. He hates the ideal more acutely. He HATES the ideal utterly, yet it still dominates him. I expect he is a Jew — or part Jewish.’