'She oughtn't.
Why?'
'She's a queer child—a special child, more special even than you.
And in my opinion special children should never be sent away to school.
Only moderately ordinary children should be sent to school—so it seems to me.'
'I'm inclined to think just the opposite.
I think it would probably make her more normal if she went away and mixed with other children.'
'She wouldn't mix, you see. YOU never really mixed, did you?
And she wouldn't be willing even to pretend to.
She's proud, and solitary, and naturally apart.
If she has a single nature, why do you want to make her gregarious?'
'No, I don't want to make her anything.
But I think school would be good for her.'
'Was it good for you?'
Gerald's eyes narrowed uglily.
School had been torture to him.
Yet he had not questioned whether one should go through this torture.
He seemed to believe in education through subjection and torment.
'I hated it at the time, but I can see it was necessary,' he said. 'It brought me into line a bit—and you can't live unless you do come into line somewhere.'
'Well,' said Birkin, 'I begin to think that you can't live unless you keep entirely out of the line.
It's no good trying to toe the line, when your one impulse is to smash up the line.
Winnie is a special nature, and for special natures you must give a special world.'
'Yes, but where's your special world?' said Gerald.
'Make it.
Instead of chopping yourself down to fit the world, chop the world down to fit yourself.
As a matter of fact, two exceptional people make another world.
You and I, we make another, separate world.
You don't WANT a world same as your brothers-in-law.
It's just the special quality you value.
Do you WANT to be normal or ordinary!
It's a lie.
You want to be free and extraordinary, in an extraordinary world of liberty.'
Gerald looked at Birkin with subtle eyes of knowledge.
But he would never openly admit what he felt.
He knew more than Birkin, in one direction—much more.
And this gave him his gentle love for the other man, as if Birkin were in some way young, innocent, child-like: so amazingly clever, but incurably innocent.
'Yet you are so banal as to consider me chiefly a freak,' said Birkin pointedly.
'A freak!' exclaimed Gerald, startled.
And his face opened suddenly, as if lighted with simplicity, as when a flower opens out of the cunning bud.
'No—I never consider you a freak.'
And he watched the other man with strange eyes, that Birkin could not understand.
'I feel,' Gerald continued, 'that there is always an element of uncertainty about you—perhaps you are uncertain about yourself.
But I'm never sure of you.
You can go away and change as easily as if you had no soul.'
He looked at Birkin with penetrating eyes.
Birkin was amazed.
He thought he had all the soul in the world.
He stared in amazement.
And Gerald, watching, saw the amazing attractive goodliness of his eyes, a young, spontaneous goodness that attracted the other man infinitely, yet filled him with bitter chagrin, because he mistrusted it so much.
He knew Birkin could do without him—could forget, and not suffer.