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SONS AND LOVERS
sure; with some of his young freshness gone, perhaps, but
cured of his desire for the lesser things which other women
than herself could give him. She could bear all if he were inwardly true to her and must come back.
He saw none of the anomaly of his position. Miriam was
his old friend, lover, and she belonged to Bestwood and home
and his youth. Clara was a newer friend, and she belonged to
Nottingham, to life, to the world. It seemed to him quite plain.
Mrs. Dawes and he had many periods of coolness, when
they saw little of each other; but they always came together
again.
“Were you horrid with Baxter Dawes?” he asked her. It was
a thing that seemed to trouble him.
“In what way? “
“Oh, I don’t know. But weren’t you horrid with him?
Didn’t you do something that knocked him to pieces?”
“What, pray? “
“Making him feel as if he were nothing – I know, “ Paul declared. “You are so clever, my friend, “ she said coolly.
The conversation broke off there. But it made her cool
with him for some time.
She very rarely saw Miriam now. The friendship between the two women was not broken off, but considerably
weakened.
“Will you come in to the concert on Sunday afternoon?”
Clara asked him just after Christmas.
“I promised to go up to Willey Farm, “ he replied. “Oh, very
well. “
“You don’t mind, do you?” he asked. “Why should I? “ she
answered. Which almost annoyed him.
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DAVID HERBERT LAWRENCE
“You know, “ he said, “Miriam and I have been a lot to each
other ever since I was sixteen – that’s seven years now.”
“It’s a long time, “ Clara replied.
“Yes; but somehow she – it doesn’t go right – ” “How? “
asked Clara.
“She seems to draw me and draw me, and she wouldn’t
leave a single hair of me free to fall out and blow away – she’d
keep it.”
“But you like to be kept. “
“No, “ he said, “I don’t. Iwish it could be normal, give
and take like me and you. Iwant a woman to keep me, but not
in her pocket. “
“But if you love her, it couldn’t be normal, like me and
you.”
“Yes; I should love her better then. She sort of wants me
so much that Ican’t give myself.”
“Wants you how? “
“Wants the soul out of my body. Ican’t help shrinking
back from her.”
“And yet you love her! “
“No, I don’t love her. I never even kiss her.” “Why not?”
Clara asked.
“I don’t know.”
“I suppose you’re afraid,” she said.
‘Tm not. Something in me shrinks from her like hell –
she’s so good, when I’m not good. “
“How do you know what she is? “
“I do! I know she wants a sort of soul union. “ “But how do
you know what she wants? “ “I’ve been with her for seven
years.”
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SONS AND LOVERS
“And you haven’t found out the very first thing about her.”
“What’s that? “
“That she doesn’t want any of your soul communion.
That’s your own imagination. She wants you. “
He pondered over this. Perhaps he was wrong. “But she
seems – ” he began.
“You’ve never tried,” she answered.
393
CHAPTER XI
The test on miriam
WITH the spring came again the old madness and battle. Now he knew he would have to go to Miriam. But what
was his reluctance? He told himself it was only a sort of overstrong virginity in her and him which neither could break
through. He might have married her; but his circumstances
at home made it difficult, and, moreover, he did not want to
marry. Marriage was for life, and because they had become
close companions, he and she, he did not see that it should
inevitably follow they should be man and wife. He did not
feel that he wanted marriage with Miriam. He wished he did.
He would have given his head to have felt a joyous desire to
marry her and to have her. Then why couldn’t he bring it off?
There was some obstacle; and what was the obstacle? It lay in
the physical bondage. He shrank from the physical contact.
But why? With her he felt bound up inside himself. He could
not go out to her. Something struggled in him, but he could
not get to her. Why? She loved him. Clara said she even
wanted him; then why couldn’t he go to her, make love to
her, kiss her? Why, when she put her arm in his, timidly, as
they walked, did he feel he would burst forth in brutality and
recoil? He owed himself to her; he wanted to belong to her.
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SONS AND LOVERS
Perhaps the recoil and the shrinking from her was love in
its first fierce modesty. He had no aversion for her. No, it
was the opposite; it was a strong desire battling with a still
stronger shyness and virginity. It seemed as if virginity were
a positive force, which fought and won in both of them.
And with her he felt it so hard to overcome; yet he was nearest to her, and with her alone could he deliberately break
through. And he owed himself to her. Then, if they could
get things right, they could marry; but he would not marry
unless he could feel strong in the joy of it – never. He could
not have faced his mother. It seemed to him that to sacrifice
himself in a marriage he did not want would be degrading,
and would undo all his life, make it a nullity. He would try
what he COULD do.
And he had a great tenderness for Miriam. Always, she
was sad, dreaming her religion; and he was nearly a religion
to her. He could not bear to fail her. It would all come right
if they tried.
He looked round. A good many of the nicest men he
knew were like himself, bound in by their own virginity,
which they could not break out of. They were so sensitive
to their women that they would go without them for ever
rather than do them a hurt, an injustice. Being the sons of
mothers whose husbands had blundered rather brutally
through their feminine sanctities, they were themselves too
diffident and shy. They could easier deny themselves than incur any reproach from a woman; for a woman was like their
mother, and they were full of the sense of their mother. They
preferred themselves to suffer the misery of celibacy, rather
than risk the other person.
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DAVID HERBERT LAWRENCE
He went back to her. Something in her, when he looked
at her, brought the tears almost to his eyes. One day he stood
behind her as she sang. Annie was playing a song on the
piano. As Miriam sang her mouth seemed hopeless. She sang
like a nun singing to heaven. It reminded him so much of
the mouth and eyes of one who sings beside a Botticelli
Madonna, so spiritual. Again, hot as steel, came up the pain
in him. Why must he ask her for the other thing? Why was
there his blood battling with her? If only he could have
been always gentle, tender with her, breathing with her the
atmosphere of reverie and religious dreams, he would give
his right hand. It was not fair to hurt her. There seemed an
eternal maidenhood about her; and when he thought of her
mother, he saw the great brown eyes of a maiden who was
nearly scared and shocked out of her virgin maidenhood,
but not quite, in spite of her seven children. They had
been born almost leaving her out of count, not of her, but
upon her. So she could never let them go, because she never
had possessed them.
Mrs. Morel saw him going again frequently to Miriam,
and was astonished. He said nothing to his mother. He did
not explain nor excuse himself. If he came home late, and
she reproached him, he frowned and turned on her in an
overbearing way:
“I shall come home when I like, he said; “I am old enough.
“Must she keep you till this time? “
“It is I who stay, “ he answered.
“And she lets you? But very well, “ she said.
And she went to bed, leaving the door unlocked for him;
but she lay listening until he came, often long after. It was a
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SONS AND LOVERS
great bitterness to her that he had gone back to Miriam. She
recognised, however, the uselessness of any further interference. He went to Willey Farm as a man now, not as a youth.
She had no right over him. There was a coldness between
him and her. He hardly told her anything. Discarded, she
waited on him, cooked for him still, and loved to slave for
him; but her face closed again like a mask. There was nothing for her to do now but the housework; for all the rest he
had gone to Miriam. She could not forgive him. Miriam killed
the joy and the warmth in him. He had been such a jolly
lad, and full of the warmest affection; now he grew colder,
more and more irritable and gloomy. It reminded her of William; but Paul was worse. He did things with more intensity,
and more realisation of what he was about. His mother knew
how he was suffering for want of a woman, and she saw him
going to Miriam. If he had made up his mind, nothing on
earth would alter him. Mrs. Morel was tired. She began to
give up at last; she had finished. She was in the way.
He went on determinedly. He realised more or less what
his mother felt. It only hardened his soul. He made himself
callous towards her; but it was like being callous to his own
health. It undermined him quickly; yet he persisted.
He lay back in the rocking – chair at Willey Farm one
evening. He had been talking to Miriam for some weeks, but
had not come to the point. Now he said suddenly:
“I am twenty – four, almost. “
She had been brooding. She looked up at him suddenly in
surprise. “Yes. What makes you say it?”
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DAVID HERBERT LAWRENCE
There was something in the charged atmosphere that
she dreaded. “Sir Thomas More says one can marry at twenty – four. “
She laughed quaintly, saying:
“Does it need Sir Thomas More’s sanction?” “No; but one
ought to marry about then.”
“Ay,” she answered broodingly; and she waited.
“I can’t marry you,” he continued slowly, “not now, because we’ve no money, and they depend on me at home. “
She sat half – guessing what was coming. “But I want to marry now – ”
“You want to marry? “ she repeated. “A woman – you know
what I mean. “ She was silent.
“Now, at last, I must,” he said. “Ay,” she answered.
“And you love me?” She laughed bitterly.
“Why are you ashamed of it, “ he answered. “You
wouldn’t be ashamed before your God, why are you before
people?”
“Nay, “ she answered deeply, “I am not ashamed. “
“You are, “ he replied bitterly; “and it’s my fault. But you
know I can’t help being – as I am – don’t you?”
“I know you can’t help it,” she replied.
“I love you an awful lot – then there is something short.”
“Where? “ she answered, looking at him.
“Oh, in me! It is I who ought to be ashamed – like a spiritual
cripple. And I am ashamed. It is misery. Why is it?”
“I don’t know,” replied Miriam.
“And I don’t know, “ he repeated. “Don’t you think we
have been too fierce in our what they call purity? Don’t you
think that to be so much afraid and averse is a sort of dirtiness? “
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SONS AND LOVERS
She looked at him with startled dark eyes.
“Yau recoiled away from anything of the sort, and I took the
motion from you, and recoiled also, perhaps worse.
There was silence in the room for some time. “Yes, she said,
“it is so.
“There is between us, he said, “all these years of intimacy.
I feel naked enough before you. Do you understand?
“I think so, she answered. “And you love me?
She laughed.
“Don’t be bitter, he pleaded.
She looked at him and was sorry for him; his eyes were
dark with torture. She was sorry for him; it was worse for
him to have this deflated love than for herself, who could
never be properly mated. He was restless, for ever urging
forward and trying to find a way out. He might do as he
liked, and have what he liked of her.
“Nay, she said softly, “I am not bitter.
She felt she could bear anything for him; she would
suffer for him. She put her hand on his knee as he leaned
forward in his chair. He took it and kissed it; but it hurt to
do so. He felt he was putting himself aside. He sat there
sacrificed to her purity, which felt more like nullity. How
could he kiss her hand passionately, when it would drive her
away, and leave nothing but pain? Yet slowly he drew her to
him and kissed her.
They knew each other too well to pretend anything. As
she kissed him, she watched his eyes; they were staring across
the room, with a peculiar dark blaze in them that fascinated
her. He was perfectly still. She could feel his heart throbbing
heavily in his breast.
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DAVID HERBERT LAWRENCE
“What are you thinking about?” she asked.
The blaze in his eyes shuddered, became uncertain.
“I was thinking, all the while, I love you. I have been obstinate.
She sank her head on his breast. “Yes, she answered.
“That’s all, he said, and his voice seemed sure, and his
mouth was kissing her throat.
Then she raised her head and looked into his eyes with
her full gaze of love. The blaze struggled, seemed to try to get
away from her, and then was quenched. He turned his head
quickly aside. It was a moment of anguish.
“Kiss me, she whispered.
He shut his eyes, and kissed her, and his arms folded her
closer and closer.
When she walked home with him over the fields, he said:
“I am glad I came back to you. I feel so simple with you – as
if there was nothing to hide. We will be happy?
“Yes, she murmured, and the tears came to her eyes.
“Some sort of perversity in our souls, he said, “makes us not
want, get away from, the very thing we want. We have to
fight against that.
“Yes,” she said, and she felt stunned.
As she stood under the drooping – thorn tree, in the
darkness by the roadside, he kissed her, and his fingers
wandered over her face. In the darkness, where he could not
see her but only feel her, his passion flooded him. He clasped
her very close.
“Sometime you will have me? he murmured, hiding his face
on her shoulder. It was so difficult.
“Not now, she said.
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