Page:Women in Love, Lawrence, 1920.djvu/71

 WOMEN IN LOVE 63 Gerald also looked now at the country. And Birkin, who, for some reason was now tired and dispirited, said to him: "I always feel doomed when the train is running into London. I feel such a despair, so hopeless, as if it were the end of the world." "Really!" said Gerald. "And does the end of the world frighten you?" Birkin lifted his shoulders in a slow shrug. "I don't know," he said. "It does while it hangs immi- nent and doesn't fall. But people give me a bad feeling — very bad." There was a roused glad smile in Gerald's eyes. "Do they?" he said. And he watched the other man critically. In a few minutes the train was running through the dis- grace of outspread London. Everybody in the carriage was on the alert, waiting to escape. At last they were under the huge arch of the station, in the tremendous shadow of the town. Birkin shut himself together — he was in now. The two men went together in a taxi-cab. "Don't you feel like one of the damned?" asked Birkin, as they sat in the little, swiftly running enclosure, and watched the hideous great street. "No," laughed Gerald. "It is real death," said Birkin.