They might do as they liked -- this she realised as she went to sleep. How could anything that gave one satisfaction be excluded? What was degrading? Who cared? Degrading things were real, with a different reality. And he was so unabashed and unrestrained. Wasn't it rather horrible, a man who could be so soulful and spiritual, now to be so -- she balked at her own thoughts and memories: then she added -- so bestial? So bestial, they two! -- so degraded! She winced. But after all, why not? She exulted as well. Why not be bestial, and go the whole round of experience? She exulted in it. She was bestial. How good it was to be really shameful! There would be no shameful thing she had not experienced. Yet she was unabashed, she was herself. Why not? She was free, when she knew everything, and no dark shameful things were denied her.
Gudrun, who had been watching Gerald in the Reunionsaal, suddenly thought:
`He should have all the women he can -- it is his nature. It is absurd to call him monogamous -- he is naturally promiscuous. That is his nature.'
The thought came to her involuntarily. It shocked her somewhat. It was as if she had seen some new Mene! Mene! upon the wall. Yet it was merely true. A voice seemed to have spoken it to her so clearly, that for the moment she believed in inspiration.
`It is really true,' she said to herself again.
She knew quite well she had believed it all along. She knew it implicitly. But she must keep it dark -- almost from herself. She must keep it completely secret. It was knowledge for her alone, and scarcely even to be admitted to herself.
The deep resolve formed in her, to combat him. One of them must triumph over the other. Which should it be? Her soul steeled itself with strength. Almost she laughed within herself, at her confidence. It woke a certain keen, half contemptuous pity, tenderness for him: she was so ruthless.
Everybody retired early. The Professor and Loerke went into a small lounge to drink. They both watched Gudrun go along the landing by the railing upstairs.
`Ein schones Frauenzimmer,' said the Professor.
`Ja!' asserted Loerke, shortly.
Gerald walked with his queer, long wolf-steps across the bedroom to the window, stooped and looked out, then rose again, and turned to Gudrun, his eyes sharp with an abstract smile. He seemed very tall to her, she saw the glisten of his whitish eyebrows, that met between his brows.
`How do you like it?' he said.
He seemed to be laughing inside himself, quite unconsciously. She looked at him. He was a phenomenon to her, not a human being: a sort of creature, greedy.
`I like it very much,' she replied.
`Who do you like best downstairs?' he asked, standing tall and glistening above her, with his glistening stiff hair erect.
`Who do I like best?' she repeated, wanting to answer his question, and finding it difficult to collect herself. `Why I don't know, I don't know enough about them yet, to be able to say. Who do you like best?'
`Oh, I don't care -- I don't like or dislike any of them. It doesn't matter about me. I wanted to know about you.'