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SONS AND LOVERS
Clara – and two from some. But I shan’t tell you how many I put.”
“Oh, I know, you’re spooney,” he said.
“There you ARE mistaken! “ she cried, indignant. “I could
never be so soft. “ Her voice was strong and contralto.
“You always pretend to be such a hard – hearted hussy, “
he laughed. “And you know you’re as sentimental – ”
‘Td rather be called sentimental than frozen meat, “ Fanny blurted. Paul knew she referred to Clara, and he smiled.
“Do you say such nasty things about me?” he laughed.
“No, my duck, “ the hunchback woman answered, lavishly tender. She was thirty – nine. “No, my duck, because
you don’t think yourself a fine figure in marble and us
nothing but dirt. I’m as good as you, aren’t I, Paul?” and the
question delighted her.
“Why, we’re not better than one another, are we?” he
replied. “But I’m as good as you, aren’t I, Paul?” she persisted
daringly. “Of course you are. If it comes to goodness, you’re
better.”
She was rather afraid of the situation. She might get hysterical.
“I thought I’d get here before the others – won’t they say
I’m deep! Now shut your eyes – ” she said.
“And open your mouth, and see what God sends you, “
he continued, suiting action to words, and expecting a piece
of chocolate. He heard the rustle of the apron, and a faint
clink of metal. ‘Tm going to look, “ he said.
He opened his eyes. Fanny, her long cheeks flushed, her
blue eyes shining, was gazing at him. There was a little bundle of paint – tubes on the bench before him. He turned pale.
“No, Fanny,” he said quickly.
“From us all,” she answered hastily. “No, but – ”
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DAVID HERBERT LAWRENCE
“Are they the right sort?” she asked, rocking herself with
delight. “Jove! they’re the best in the catalogue. “
“But they’re the right sorts?” she cried.
“They’re off the little list I’d made to get when my ship came
in. “ He bit his lip.
Fanny was overcome with emotion. She must turn the
conversation. “They was all on thorns to do it; they all paid
their shares, all except the Queen of Sheba. “
The Queen of Sheba was Clara.
“And wouldn’t she join?” Paul asked.
“She didn’t get the chance; we never told her; we wasn’t
going to have HER bossing THIS show. We didn’t WANT her
to join. “
Paul laughed at the woman. He was much moved. At last
he must go. She was very close to him. Suddenly she flung her
arms round his neck and kissed him vehemently.
“I can give you a kiss to – day, “ she said apologetically.
“You’ve looked so white, it’s made my heart ache. “
Paul kissed her, and left her. Her arms were so pitifully
thin that his heart ached also.
That day he met Clara as he ran downstairs to wash his
hands at dinner – time.
“You have stayed to dinner! “ he exclaimed. It was unusual
for her. “Yes; and I seem to have dined on old surgical –
appliance stock. I
MUST go out now, or I shall feel stale india – rubber right
through. “
She lingered. He instantly caught at her wish. “You are
going anywhere?” he asked.
They went together up to the Castle. Outdoors she dressed
very plainly, down to ugliness; indoors she always looked
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SONS AND LOVERS
nice. She walked with hesitating steps alongside Paul, bowing and turning away from him. Dowdy in dress, and drooping, she showed to great disadvantage. He could scarcely recognise her strong form, that seemed to slumber with power.
She appeared almost insignificant, drowning her stature in
her stoop, as she shrank from the public gaze.
The Castle grounds were very green and fresh. Climbing
the precipitous ascent, he laughed and chattered, but she was
silent, seeming to brood over something. There was scarcely
time to go inside the squat, square building that crowns the
bluff of rock. They leaned upon the wall where the cliff
runs sheer down to the Park. Below them, in their holes in
the sandstone, pigeons preened themselves and cooed softly.
Away down upon the boulevard at the foot of the rock, tiny
trees stood in their own pools of shadow, and tiny people
went scurrying about in almost ludicrous importance.
“You feel as if you could scoop up the folk like tadpoles,
and have a handful of them, “ he said.
She laughed, answering:
“Yes; it is not necessary to get far off in order to see us
proportionately. The trees are much more significant.”
“Bulk only, “ he said. She laughed cynically.
Away beyond the boulevard the thin stripes of the metals showed upon the railway – track, whose margin was
crowded with little stacks of timber, beside which smoking
toy engines fussed. Then the silver string of the canal lay at
random among the black heaps. Beyond, the dwellings, very
dense on the river flat, looked like black, poisonous herbage, in thick rows and crowded beds, stretching right away,
broken now and then by taller plants, right to where the
river glistened in a hieroglyph across the country. The steep
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DAVID HERBERT LAWRENCE
scarp cliffs across the river looked puny. Great stretches of
country darkened with trees and faintly brightened with
corn – land, spread towards the haze, where the hills rose
blue beyond grey.
“It is comforting, “ said Mrs. Dawes, “to think the town
goes no farther. It is only a LITTLE sore upon the country yet. “
“A little scab, “ Paul said.
She shivered. She loathed the town. Looking drearily
across at the country which was forbidden her, her impassive
face, pale and hostile, she reminded Paul of one of the bitter,
remorseful angels.
“But the town’s all right,” he said; “it’s only temporary.
This is the crude, clumsy make – shift we’ve practised on, till
we find out what the idea is. The town will come all right. “
The pigeons in the pockets of rock, among the perched
bushes, cooed comfortably. To the left the large church of St.
Mary rose into space, to keep close company with the Castle,
above the heaped rubble of the town. Mrs. Dawes smiled
brightly as she looked across the country.
“I feel better, “ she said.
“Thank you, “ he replied. “Great compliment! “ “Oh, my
brother! “ she laughed.
“H’m! that’s snatching back with the left hand what you
gave with the right, and no mistake, “ he said.
She laughed in amusement at him.
“But what was the matter with you? “ he asked. “I know
you were brooding something special. I can see the stamp of
it on your face yet.,
“I think I will not tell you, “ she said. “All right, hug it, “ he
answered.
She flushed and bit her lip.
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SONS AND LOVERS
“No,” she said, “it was the girls.” “What about ‘em?” Paul
asked.
“They have been plotting something for a week now,
and to – day they seem particularly full of it. All alike; they
insult me with their secrecy.”
“Do they? “ he asked in concern.
“I should not mind, “ she went on, in the metallic, angry
tone, “if they did not thrust it into my face – the fact that they
have a secret.”
“Just like women, “ said he.
“It is hateful, their mean gloating, “ she said intensely.
Paul was silent. He knew what the girls gloated over. He
was sorry to be the cause of this new dissension.
“They can have all the secrets in the world, “ she went on,
brooding bitterly; “but they might refrain from glorying in
them, and making me feel more out of it than ever. It is – it is
almost unbearable.”
Paul thought for a few minutes. He was much perturbed.
“I will tell you what it’s all about, “ he said, pale and
nervous. “It’s my birthday, and they’ve bought me a fine lot
of paints, all the girls. They’re jealous of you” – he felt her
stiffen coldly at the word ‘jealous’ – ”merely because I sometimes bring you a book, “ he added slowly. “But, you see, it’s
only a trifle. Don’t bother about it, will you – because” – he
laughed quickly – ”well, what would they say if they saw
us here now, in spite of their victory? “
She was angry with him for his clumsy reference to
their present intimacy. It was almost insolent of him. Yet
he was so quiet, she forgave him, although it cost her an effort.
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DAVID HERBERT LAWRENCE
Their two hands lay on the rough stone parapet of the
Castle wall. He had inherited from his mother a fineness of
mould, so that his hands were small and vigorous. Hers were
large, to match her large limbs, but white and powerful looking.
As Paul looked at them he knew her. “She is wanting somebody to take her hands – for all she is so contemptuous of us,
“ he said to himself. And she saw nothing but his two hands, so
warm and alive, which seemed to live for her. He was brooding
now, staring out over the country from under sullen brows.
The little, interesting diversity of shapes had vanished from the
scene; all that remained was a vast, dark matrix of sorrow and
tragedy, the same in all the houses and the river – flats and
the people and the birds; they were only shapen differently.
And now that the forms seemed to have melted away, there remained the mass from which all the landscape was composed,
a dark mass of struggle and pain. The factory, the girls, his
mother, the large, uplifted church, the thicket of the town,
merged into one atmosphere – dark, brooding, and sorrowful,
every bit.
“Is that two o’clock striking? “ Mrs. Dawes said in surprise.
Paul started, and everything sprang into form, regained
its individuality, its forgetfulness, and its cheerfulness.
They hurried back to work.
When he was in the rush of preparing for the night’s post,
examining the work up from Fanny’s room, which smelt of
ironing, the evening postman came in.
“’Mr. Paul Morel,“’ he said, smiling, handing Paul a package. “A lady’s handwriting! Don’t let the girls see it.”
The postman, himself a favourite, was pleased to make
fun of the girls’ affection for Paul.
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SONS AND LOVERS
It was a volume of verse with a brief note: “You will allow me
to send you this, and so spare me my isolation. I also sympathise
and wish you well. – C. D.” Paul flushed hot.
“Good Lord! Mrs. Dawes. She can’t afford it. Good Lord, who
ever’d have thought it! “
He was suddenly intensely moved. He was filled with the
warmth of her. In the glow he could almost feel her as if she
were present – her arms, her shoulders, her bosom, see them,
feel them, almost contain them.
This move on the part of Clara brought them into closer
intimacy. The other girls noticed that when Paul met Mrs.
Dawes his eyes lifted and gave that peculiar bright greeting
which they could interpret. Knowing he was unaware, Clara
made no sign, save that occasionally she turned aside her face
from him when he came upon her.
They walked out together very often at dinner – time; it
was quite open, quite frank. Everybody seemed to feel that
he was quite unaware of the state of his own feeling, and
that nothing was wrong. He talked to her now with some
of the old fervour with which he had talked to Miriam,
but he cared less about the talk; he did not bother about
his conclusions.
One day in October they went out to Lambley for tea.
Suddenly they came to a halt on top of the hill. He climbed
and sat on a gate, she sat on the stile. The afternoon was
perfectly still, with a dim haze, and yellow sheaves glowing
through. They were quiet.
“How old were you when you married?” he asked quietly.
“Twenty – two. “
Her voice was subdued, almost submissive. She would tell
him now.
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DAVID HERBERT LAWRENCE
“It is eight years ago?” “Yes.”
“And when did you leave him? “ “Three years ago. “
“Five years! Did you love him when you married him?” She
was silent for some time; then she said slowly:
“I thought I did – more or less. I didn’t think much about
it. And he wanted me. I was very prudish then. “
“And you sort of walked into it without thinking?” “Yes. I
seemed to have been asleep nearly all my life.” “Somnambule?
But – when did you wake up?”
“I don’t know that I ever did, or ever have – since I was a child.
“
“You went to sleep as you grew to be a woman? How
queer! And he didn’t wake you?”
“No; he never got there,” she replied, in a monotone.
The brown birds dashed over the hedges where the
rose – hips stood naked and scarlet.
“Got where?” he asked.
“At me. He never really mattered to me. “
The afternoon was so gently warm and dim. Red roofs
of the cottages burned among the blue haze. He loved the
day. He could feel, but he could not understand, what Clara
was saying.
“But why did you leave him? Was he horrid to you?” She
shuddered lightly.
“He – he sort of degraded me. He wanted to bully me
because he hadn’t got me. And then I felt as if I wanted to
run, as if I was fastened and bound up. And he seemed dirty.”
“I see.”
He did not at all see.
“And was he always dirty? “ he asked.
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“A bit, “ she replied slowly. “And then he seemed as if he
couldn’t get AT me, really. And then he got brutal – he WAS
brutal! “
“And why did you leave him finally? “ “Because – because he
was unfaithful to me – ”
They were both silent for some time. Her hand lay on
the gate – post as she balanced. He put his own over it. His
heart beat quickly.
“But did you – were you ever – did you ever give him a
chance?” “Chance? How? “
“To come near to you.”
“I married him – and I was willing – ”
They both strove to keep their voices steady. “I believe he
loves you, “ he said.
“It looks like it, “ she replied.
He wanted to take his hand away, and could not. She
saved him by removing her own. After a silence, he began
again:
“Did you leave him out of count all along? “ “He left me, “
she said.
“And I suppose he couldn’t MAKE himself mean everything to you?”
“He tried to bully me into it. “
But the conversation had got them both out of their
depth. Suddenly Paul jumped down.
“Come on, “ he said. “Let’s go and get some tea. “
They found a cottage, where they sat in the cold parlour.
She poured out his tea. She was very quiet. He felt she had
withdrawn again from him. After tea, she stared broodingly
into her tea – cup, twisting her wedding ring all the time. In
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DAVID HERBERT LAWRENCE
her abstraction she took the ring off her finger, stood it up, and
spun it upon the table. The gold became a diaphanous, glittering globe. It fell, and the ring was quivering upon the table. She
spun it again and again. Paul watched, fascinated.
But she was a married woman, and he believed in simple
friendship. And he considered that he was perfectly honourable with regard to her. It was only a friendship between man
and woman, such as any civilised persons might have.
He was like so many young men of his own age. Sex had
become so complicated in him that he would have denied
that he ever could want Clara or Miriam or any woman whom
he knew. Sex desire was a sort of detached thing, that did not
belong to a woman. He loved Miriam with his soul. He grew
warm at the thought of Clara, he battled with her, he knew
the curves of her breast and shoulders as if they had been
moulded inside him; and yet he did not positively desire
her. He would have denied it for ever. He believed himself
really bound to Miriam. If ever he should marry, some time
in the far future, it would be his duty to marry Miriam. That
he gave Clara to understand, and she said nothing, but left
him to his courses. He came to her, Mrs. Dawes, whenever
he could. Then he wrote frequently to Miriam, and visited
the girl occasionally. So he went on through the winter; but
he seemed not so fretted. His mother was easier about him.
She thought he was getting away from Miriam.
Miriam knew now how strong was the attraction of Clara
for him; but still she was certain that the best in him would
triumph. His feeling for Mrs. Dawes – who, moreover, was
a married woman was shallow and temporal, compared with
his love for herself. He would come back to her, she was
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