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SONS AND LOVERS
“Yes, an’ that other lad ‘ud ‘a done as much if they hadna
ha’ killed ‘im, “he said quietly.
The thought of William went through Mrs. Morel like a cold
blade. It left her feeling she was tired, and wanted rest.
Paul was invited to dinner at Mr. Jordan’s. Afterwards he
said:
“Mother, I want an evening suit. “
“Yes, I was afraid you would, “ she said. She was glad.
There was a moment or two of silence. “There’s that one of
William’s, “ she continued, “that I know cost four pounds
ten and which he’d only worn three times. “
“Should you like me to wear it, mother? “ he asked.
“Yes. I think it would fit you – at least the coat. The trousers would want shortening. “
He went upstairs and put on the coat and vest. Coming
down, he looked strange in a flannel collar and a flannel
shirt – front, with an evening coat and vest. It was rather
large.
“The tailor can make it right, “ she said, smoothing her
hand over his shoulder. “It’s beautiful stuff. I never could
find in my heart to let your father wear the trousers, and
very glad I am now.”
And as she smoothed her hand over the silk collar she
thought of her eldest son. But this son was living enough
inside the clothes. She passed her hand down his back to
feel him. He was alive and hers. The other was dead.
He went out to dinner several times in his evening suit
that had been William’s. Each time his mother’s heart was
firm with pride and joy. He was started now. The studs she
and the children had bought for William were in his shirt –
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DAVID HERBERT LAWRENCE
front; he wore one of William’s dress shirts. But he had an
elegant figure. His face was rough, but warm – looking and
rather pleasing. He did not look particularly a gentleman,
but she thought he looked quite a man.
He told her everything that took place, everything that
was said. It was as if she had been there. And he was dying
to introduce her to these new friends who had dinner at
seven – thirty in the evening.
“Go along with you! she said. “What do they want to
know me for?”
“They do! he cried indignantly. “If they want to know
me – and they say they do – then they want to know you,
because you are quite as clever as I am. “
“Go along with you, child! “ she laughed.
But she began to spare her hands. They, too, were work –
gnarled now. The skin was shiny with so much hot water, the
knuckles rather swollen. But she began to be careful to keep
them out of soda. She regretted what they had been – so
small and exquisite. And when Annie insisted on her having more stylish blouses to suit her age, she submitted. She
even went so far as to allow a black velvet bow to be placed
on her hair. Then she sniffed in her sarcastic manner, and
was sure she looked a sight. But she looked a lady, Paul declared, as much as Mrs. Major Moreton, and far, far nicer.
The family was coming on. Only Morel remained unchanged,
or rather, lapsed slowly.
Paul and his mother now had long discussions about
life. Religion was fading into the background. He had shovelled away an the beliefs that would hamper him, had
cleared the ground, and come more or less to the bedrock
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SONS AND LOVERS
of belief that one should feel inside oneself for right and
wrong, and should have the patience to gradually realise
one’s God. Now life interested him more.
“You know, “ he said to his mother, “I don’t want to
belong to the well – to – do middle class. I like my common
people best. I belong to the common people. “
“But if anyone else said so, my son, wouldn’t you be in a
tear. YOU know you consider yourself equal to any gentleman. “
“In myself, “ he answered, “not in my class or my education or my manners. But in myself I am. “
“Very well, then. Then why talk about the common people?” “Because – the difference between people isn’t in
their class, but in themselves. Only from the middle classes
one gets ideas, and from the common people – life itself,
warmth. You feel their hates and loves.
“It’s all very well, my boy. But, then, why don’t you go and
talk to your father’s pals?
“But they’re rather different.
“Not at all. They’re the common people. After all, whom
do you mix with now – among the common people? Those
that exchange ideas, like the middle classes. The rest don’t
interest you.”
“But – there’s the life – ”
“I don’t believe there’s a jot more life from Miriam than you
could get from any educated girl – say Miss Moreton. It is YOU
who are snobbish about class. “
She frankly WANTED him to climb into the middle
classes, a thing not very difficult, she knew. And she wanted
him in the end to marry a lady.
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DAVID HERBERT LAWRENCE
Now she began to combat him in his restless fretting. He
still kept up his connection with Miriam, could neither break
free nor go the whole length of engagement. And this indecision seemed to bleed him of his energy. Moreover, his
mother suspected him of an unrecognised leaning towards
Clara, and, since the latter was a married woman, she wished
he would fall in love with one of the girls in a better station
of life. But he was stupid, and would refuse to love or even to
admire a girl much, just because she was his social superior.
“My boy, “ said his mother to him, “all your cleverness,
your breaking away from old things, and taking life in your
own hands, doesn’t seem to bring you much happiness.”
“What is happiness! “ he cried. “It’s nothing to me! How
AM I to be happy?”
The plump question disturbed her.
“That’s for you to judge, my lad. But if you could meet some
GOOD woman who would MAKE you happy – and you
began to think of settling your life – when you have the
means – so that you could work without all this fretting – it
would be much better for you.”
He frowned. His mother caught him on the raw of his
wound of Miriam. He pushed the tumbled hair off his forehead, his eyes full of pain and fire.
“You mean easy, mother, “ he cried. “That’s a woman’s
whole doctrine for life – ease of soul and physical comfort.
And I do despise it. “
“Oh, do you! “ replied his mother. “And do you call yours
a divine discontent? “
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SONS AND LOVERS
“Yes. I don’t care about its divinity. But damn your happiness! So long as life’s full, it doesn’t matter whether it’s happy
or not. I’m afraid your happiness would bore me. “
“You never give it a chance, “ she said. Then suddenly
all her passion of grief over him broke out. “But it does matter!
“ she cried. “And you OUGHT to be happy, you ought to try to
be happy, to live to be happy. How could I bear to think your
life wouldn’t be a happy one!”
“Your own’s been bad enough, mater, but it hasn’t left you
so much worse off than the folk who’ve been happier. I reckon you’ve done well. And I am the same. Aren’t I well enough
off?”
“You’re not, my son. Battle – battle – and suffer.lt’s about
all you do, as far as I can see.”
“But why not, my dear? I tell you it’s the best – ”
“It isn’t. And one OUGHT to be happy, one OUGHT. “
By this time Mrs. Morel was trembling violently. Struggles of this kind often took place between her and her son,
when she seemed to fight for his very life against his own
will to die. He took her in his arms. She was ill and pitiful.
“Never mind, Little,” he murmured. “So long as you don’t
feel life’s paltry and a miserable business, the rest doesn’t matter, happiness or unhappiness. “
She pressed him to her.
“But I want you to be happy,” she said pathetically. “Eh,
my dear – say rather you want me to live.”
Mrs. Morel felt as if her heart would break for him. At
this rate she knew he would not live. He had that poignant
carelessness about himself, his own suffering, his own life,
which is a form of slow suicide. It almost broke her heart.
With all the passion of her strong nature she hated Miriam
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DAVID HERBERT LAWRENCE
for having in this subtle way undermined his joy. It did not
matter to her that Miriam could not help it. Miriam did it,
and she hated her.
She wished so much he would fall in love with a girl
equal to be his mate – educated and strong. But he would
not look at anybody above him in station. He seemed to
like Mrs. Dawes. At any rate that feeling was wholesome. His
mother prayed and prayed for him, that he might not be
wasted. That was all her prayer – not for his soul or his
righteousness, but that he might not be wasted. And while
he slept, for hours and hours she thought and prayed for
him.
He drifted away from Miriam imperceptibly, without
knowing he was going. Arthur only left the army to be
married. The baby was born six months after his wedding.
Mrs. Morel got him a job under the firm again, at twenty –
one shillings a week. She furnished for him, with the help
of Beatrice’s mother, a little cottage of two rooms. He was
caught now. It did not matter how he kicked and struggled,
he was fast. For a time he chafed, was irritable with his
young wife, who loved him; he went almost distracted
when the baby, which was delicate, cried or gave trouble.
He grumbled for hours to his mother. She only said: “Well,
my lad, you did it yourself, now you must make the best
of it. “ And then the grit came out in him. He buckled to
work, undertook his responsibilities, acknowledged that he
belonged to his wife and child, and did make a good best of
it. He had never been very closely inbound into the family.
Now he was gone altogether.
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SONS AND LOVERS
The months went slowly along. Paul had more or less got
into connection with the Socialist, Suffragette, Unitarian
people in Nottingham, owing to his acquaintance with Clara.
One day a friend of his and of Clara’s, in Bestwood, asked
him to take a message to Mrs. Dawes. He went in the evening
across Sneinton Market to Bluebell Hill. He found the house
in a mean little street paved with granite cobbles and having
causeways of dark blue, grooved bricks. The front door went
up a step from off this rough pavement, where the feet of
the passersby rasped and clattered. The brown paint on the
door was so old that the naked wood showed between the
rents. He stood on the street below and knocked. There
came a heavy footstep; a large, stout woman of about sixty
towered above him. He looked up at her from the pavement.
She had a rather severe face.
She admitted him into the parlour, which opened on to
the street. It was a small, stuffy, defunct room, of mahogany,
and deathly enlargements of photographs of departed people
done in carbon. Mrs. Radford left him. She was stately, almost
martial. In a moment Clara appeared. She flushed deeply,
and he was covered with confusion. It seemed as if she did
not like being discovered in her home circumstances.
“I thought it couldn’t be your voice, “ she said.
But she might as well be hung for a sheep as for a lamb.
She invited him out of the mausoleum of a parlour into the
kitchen.
That was a little, darkish room too, but it was smothered in white lace. The mother had seated herself again by
the cupboard, and was drawing thread from a vast web of
lace. A clump of fluff and ravelled cotton was at her right
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DAVID HERBERT LAWRENCE
hand, a heap of three – quarter – inch lace lay on her left,
whilst in front of her was the mountain of lace web, piling
the hearthrug. Threads of curly cotton, pulled out from
between the lengths of lace, strewed over the fender and
the fireplace. Paul dared not go forward, for fear of treading
on piles of white stuff.
On the table was a jenny for carding the lace. There was
a pack of brown cardboard squares, a pack of cards of lace, a
little box of pins, and on the sofa lay a heap of drawn lace.
The room was all lace, and it was so dark and warm that
the white, snowy stuff seemed the more distinct.
“If you’re coming in you won’t have to mind the work,
said Mrs. Radford. “I know we’re about blocked up. But sit you
down.
Clara, much embarrassed, gave him a chair against the
wall opposite the white heaps. Then she herself took her
place on the sofa, shamedly.
“Will you drink a bottle of stout? Mrs. Radford asked.
“Clara, get him a bottle of stout. “
He protested, but Mrs. Radford insisted.
“You look as if you could do with it,” she said. “Haven’t you
never any more colour than that? “
“It’s only a thick skin I’ve got that doesn’t show the blood
through,” he answered.
Clara, ashamed and chagrined, brought him a bottle of
stout and a glass. He poured out some of the black stuff.
“Well, “ he said, lifting the glass, “here’s health! “ “And thank
you, “ said Mrs. Radford.
He took a drink of stout.
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SONS AND LOVERS
“And light yourself a cigarette, so long as you don’t set
the house on fire, “ said Mrs. Radford.
“Thank you, “ he replied.
“Nay, you needn’t thank me,” she answered. “I s’ll be
glad to smell a bit of smoke in th’ ‘ouse again. A house o’
women is as dead as a house wi’ no fire, to my thinkin’. I’m
not a spider as likes a corner to myself. I like a man about, if
he’s only something to snap at. “
Clara began to work. Her jenny spun with a subdued
buzz; the white lace hopped from between her fingers on
to the card. It was filled; she snipped off the length, and
pinned the end down to the banded lace. Then she put a
new card in her jenny. Paul watched her. She sat square and
magnificent. Her throat and arms were bare. The blood
still mantled below her ears; she bent her head in shame
of her humility. Her face was set on her work. Her arms
were creamy and full of life beside the white lace; her large,
well – kept hands worked with a balanced movement, as if
nothing would hurry them. He, not knowing, watched her
all the time. He saw the arch of her neck from the shoulder, as she bent her head; he saw the coil of dun hair; he
watched her moving, gleaming arms.
“I’ve heard a bit about you from Clara, “ continued the
mother. “You’re in Jordan’s, aren’t you? “ She drew her lace
unceasing.
“Yes.”
“Ay, well, and I can remember when Thomas Jordan used
to ask ME for one of my toffies. “
“Did he? “ laughed Paul. “And did he get it? “
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DAVID HERBERT LAWRENCE
“Sometimes he did, sometimes he didn’t – which was latterly. For he’s the sort that takes all and gives naught, he is – or
used to be.”
“I think he’s very decent, “ said Paul. “Yes; well, I’m glad to
hear it. “
Mrs. Radford looked across at him steadily. There was
something determined about her that he liked. Her face
was falling loose, but her eyes were calm, and there was
something strong in her that made it seem she was not old;
merely her wrinkles and loose cheeks were an anachronism.
She had the strength and sang – froid of a woman in the
prime of life. She continued drawing the lace with slow,
dignified movements. The big web came up inevitably over
her apron; the length of lace fell away at her side. Her
arms were finely shapen, but glossy and yellow as old ivory.
They had not the peculiar dull gleam that made Clara’s so
fascinating to him.
“And you’ve been going with Miriam Leivers? “ the mother asked him.
“Well – ” he answered.
“Yes, she’s a nice girl, “ she continued. “She’s very nice, but
she’s a bit too much above this world to suit my fancy. “
“She is a bit like that,” he agreed.
“She’ll never be satisfied till she’s got wings and can fly
over everybody’s head, she won’t,” she said.
Clara broke in, and he told her his message. She spoke
humbly to him. He had surprised her in her drudgery. To
have her humble made him feel as if he were lifting his head
in expectation.
“Do you like jennying? “ he asked.
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