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THE PLUMED SERPENT
‘When they ARE dead,’ said Kate, ‘then you KNOW it’s no good.’
‘You do! Oh, Señora, if you think you can help me with Ramón,
DO help me, DO! For it means the death either of me or him. And
I shall die, though he is wrong. Unless he gets killed.’
‘Tell me what he wants to do,’ said Kate. ‘What does he THINK
he wants to do, anyhow? – Like my husband thought he wanted to
make a free Ireland and a great Irish people. But I knew all the time,
the Irish aren’t a great people any more, and you CAN’T make them
free. They are only good at destroying – just mere stupid destroying.
How can you make a people free, if they AREN’T free? If something
inside them compels them to go on destroying!’
‘I know! I know! And that is Ramón. He wants to destroy even
Jesus and the Blessed Virgin, for this people. Imagine it! To destroy
Jesus and the Blessed Virgin! the last thing they’ve got!’
‘But what does he say himself, that he wants to do?’
‘He says he wants to make a new connection between the people
and God. He says himself, God is always God. But man loses his connection with God. And then he can never recover it again, unless
some new Saviour comes to give him his new connection. And every
new connection is different from the last, though God is always God.
And now, Ramón says, the people have lost God. And the Saviour
cannot lead them to Him any more. There must be a new Saviour
with a new vision. But ah, Señora, that is not true for me. God is
love, and if Ramón would only submit to love, he would know that
he had found God. But he is perverse. Ah, if we could be together,
quietly loving, and enjoying the beautiful world, and WAITING IN
THE LOVE OF GOD! Ah, Señora, WHY, why, why can’t he see it?
Oh, why can’t he see it! Instead of doing all these –’
The tears came to Doña Carlota’s eyes, and spilled over her
cheeks. Kate also was in tears, mopping her face.
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DAVID HERBERT LAWRENCE
‘It’s no good!’ she said, sobbing. ‘I know it’s no good, no matter what we do. They don’t WANT to be happy and peaceful. They
WANT this strife and these other false, horrible connections. It’s no
good whatever we do! That’s what’s so bitter, so bitter!’
The two women sat in their bent-wood rocking-chairs and just
sobbed. And as they sobbed, they heard a step coming along the terrace, the faint swish of the sandals of the people.
It was Don Ramón, drawn unconsciously by the emotional disturbance of the two women.
Doña Carlota hastily dabbed her eyes, and her sniffi ng nose,
Kate blew her nose like a trumpet, and Don Ramón stood in the
doorway.
He was dressed in white, dazzling, in the costume of the peons,
the white blouse jacket and the white, wide pantaloon trousers.
But the white was linen, slightly starched, and brilliant, almost unnatural in its whiteness. From under his blouse, in front, hung the
ends of a narrow woollen sash, white, with blue and black bars, and
a fringe of scarlet. And on his naked feet were the plaited huaraches, of blue and black strips of leather, with thick, red-dyed soles.
His loose trousers were bound round the ankles with blue, red, and
black woollen braids.
Kate glanced at him as he stood in the sun, so dazzingly white,
that his black hair and dark face looked like a hole in the atmosphere. He came forward, the ends of his sash swinging against his
thighs, his sandals slightly swishing.
‘I am pleased to see you,’ he said, shaking hands with Kate. ‘How
did you come?’
He dropped into a chair, and sat quite still. The two women hung
their heads, hiding their faces. The presence of the man seemed to
put their emotion out of joint. He ignored all the signs of their dis-
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THE PLUMED SERPENT
comfort, overlooking it with a powerful will. There was a certain
strength in his presence. They all cheered up a bit.
‘You didn’t know my husband had become one of the people – a real peon – a Señor Peon, like Count Tolstoy became a Señor Moujik?’ said Doña Carlota, with an attempt at raillery.
‘Anyway it suits him,’ said Kate.
‘There!’ said Don Ramón. ‘Give the devil his dues.’
But there was something unyielding, unbending about him. He
laughed and spoke to the women only from a surface self. Underneath, powerful and inscrutable, he made no connection with them.
So it was at lunch. There was a fl itting conversation, with intervals of silence. It was evident that Ramón was thinking in another
world, in the silence. And the ponderous stillness of his will, working in another sphere, made the women feel overshadowed.
‘The Señora is like me, Ramón,’ said Doña Carlota. ‘She cannot
bear the sound of that drum. Must it play any more this afternoon?’
There was a moment’s pause, before he answered:
‘After four o’clock only.’
‘MUST we have that noise to-day?’ Carlota persisted.
‘Why not to-day like other days!’ he said. But a certain darkness
was on his brow, and it was evident he wanted to leave the presence
of the two women.
‘Because the Señora is here: and I am here: and we neither of
us like it. And to-morrow the Señora will not be here, and I shall
be gone back to Mexico. So why not spare us to-day! Surely you can
show us this consideration.’
Ramón looked at her, and then at Kate. There was anger in his
eyes. And Kate could almost feel, in his powerful chest, the big heart
swelling with a suffocation of anger. Both women kept mum. But it
pleased them, anyhow, that they could make him angry.
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DAVID HERBERT LAWRENCE
‘Why not row with Mrs Leslie on the lake!’ he said, with quiet
control.
But under his dark brows was a level, indignant anger.
‘We may not want to,’ said Carlota.
Then he did what Kate had not known anyone to do before. He
withdrew his consciousness away from them as they all three sat
at table, leaving the two women, as it were, seated outside a closed
door, with nothing more happening. Kate felt for the time startled
and forlorn, then a slow anger burned in her warm ivory cheek.
‘Oh, yes,’ she said. ‘I can start home before then.’
‘No! No!’ said Doña Carlota, with a Spanish wail. ‘Don’t leave me.
Stay with me till evening, and help me to amuse Don Cipriano. He
is coming to supper.’
CHAPTER XI
LORDS OF THE DAY
AND NIGHT
When lunch was over, Ramón went to his room, to sleep for an
hour. It was a hot, still afternoon. Clouds were standing erect and
splendid, at the west end of the lake, like messengers. Ramón went
into his room and closed the window-doors and the shutters, till it
was quite dark, save for yellow pencils of light that stood like substance on the darkness, from the cracks of the shutters.
He took off his clothes, and in the darkness thrust his clenched
fi sts upwards above his head, in a terrible tension of stretched, upright prayer. In his eyes was only darkness, and slowly the darkness
revolved in his brain, too, till he was mindless. Only a powerful will
stretched itself and quivered from his spine in an immense tension
of prayer. Stretched the invisible bow of the body in the darkness
with inhuman tension, erect, till the arrows of the soul, mindless,
shot to the mark, and the prayer reached its goal.
Then, suddenly, the clenched and quivering arms dropped, the
body relaxed into softness. The man had reached his strength again.
He had broken the cords of the world, and was free in the other
strength.
Softly, delicately, taking great care not to think, not to remember, not to disturb the poisonous snakes of mental consciousness, he
picked up a thin, fi ne blanket, wrapped it round him, and lay down
on the pile of mats on the fl oor. In an instant he was asleep.
215
DAVID HERBERT LAWRENCE
He slept in complete oblivion for about an hour. Then suddenly
he opened his eyes wide. He saw the velvety darkness, and the pencils of light gone frail. The sun had moved. Listening, there seemed
not a sound in the world: there was no world.
Then he began to hear. He heard the faint rumble of an ox-wagon: then leaves in a wind: then a faint tapping noise: then the creak
of some bird calling.
He rose and quickly dressed in the dark, and threw open the
doors. It was mid-afternoon, with a hot wind blowing, and clouds
reared up dark and bronze in the west, the sun hidden. But the rain
would not fall yet. He took a big straw hat and balanced it on his
head. It had a round crest of black and white and blue feathers, like
an eye, or a sun, in front. He heard the low sound of women talking.
Ah, the strange woman! He had forgotten her. And Carlota! Carlota was here! He thought of her for a moment, and of her curious
opposition. Then, before he could be angry, he lifted his breast again
in the black, mindless prayer, his eyes went dark, and the sense of
opposition left him.
He went quickly, driftingly along the terrace to the stone stairs
that led down to the inner entrance-way. Going through to the
courtyard, he saw two men packing bales of bananas upon donkeys,
under a shed. The soldiers were sleeping in the zaguán. Through
the open doors, up the avenue of trees, he could see an ox-wagon
slowly retreating. Within the courtyard there was the sharp ringing
of metal hammered on an anvil. It came from a corner where was
a smithy, where a man and a boy were working. In another shed
a carpenter was planing wood.
Don Ramón stood a moment to look around. This was his own
world. His own spirit was spread over it like a soft, nourishing shadow, and the silence of his own power gave it peace.
216
THE PLUMED SERPENT
The men working were almost instantly aware of his presence.
One after the other the dark, hot faces glanced up at him, and glanced
away again. They were men, and his presence was wonderful to them;
but they were afraid to approach him, even by staring at him. They
worked the quicker for having seen him, as if it gave them new life.
He went across to the smithy, where the boy was blowing the
old-fashioned bellows, and the man was hammering a piece of metal, with quick, light blows. The man worked on without lifting his
head, as the patrón drew near.
‘It is the bird?’ said Ramón, standing watching the piece of metal,
now cold upon the anvil.
‘Yes, Patrón! It is the bird. Is it right?’ And the man looked up
with black, bright, waiting eyes.
The smith lifted with the tongs the black, fl at, tongue-shaped
piece of metal, and Ramón looked at it a long time.
‘I put the wings on after,’ said the smith.
Ramón traced with his dark, sensitive hand an imaginary line,
outside the edge of the iron. Three times he did it. And the movement fascinated the smith.
‘A little more slender – so!’ said Ramón.
‘Yes, Patrón! Yes! Yes! I understand,’ said the man eagerly.
‘And the rest?’
‘Here it is!’ The man pointed to two hoops of iron, one smaller
than the other, and to some fl at discs of iron, triangular in shape.
‘Lay them on the ground.’
The man put the hoops on the ground, one within the other.
Then, taking the triangular discs, he placed them with quick, sensitive hands, so that their bases were upon the outer circle, and their
apices touched the inner. There were seven. And thus they made
a seven-pointed sun of the space inside.
‘Now the bird,’ said Ramón.
217
DAVID HERBERT LAWRENCE
The man quickly took the long piece of iron: it was the rudimentary form of a bird, with two feet, but, as yet without wings. He
placed it in the centre of the inner circle, so that the feet touched
the circle and the crest of the head touched opposite.
‘So! It fi ts,’ said the man.
Ramón stood looking at the big iron symbol on the ground. He
heard the doors of the inner entrance: Kate and Carlota walking
across the courtyard.
‘I take it away?’ asked the workman quickly.
‘Never mind,’ Ramón answered quietly.
Kate stood and stared at the great wreath of iron on the ground.
‘What is it?’ she asked brightly.
‘The bird within the sun.’
‘Is that a bird?’
‘When it has wings.’
‘Ah, yes! When it has wings. And what is it for?’
‘For a symbol to the people.’
‘It is pretty.’
‘Yes.’
‘Ramón!’ said Doña Carlota, ‘will you give me the key for the
boat? Martin will row us out.’
He produced the key from under his sash.
‘Where did you get that beautiful sash?’ asked Kate.
It was the white sash with blue and brown-black bars, and with
a heavy red fringe.
‘This?’ he said. ‘We wove it here.’
‘And did you make the sandals too?’
‘Yes! They were made by Manuel. Later I will show you.’
‘Oh, I should like to see! – They are beautiful, don’t you think,
Doña Carlota?’
218
THE PLUMED SERPENT
‘Yes! Yes! It is true. But whether beautiful things are wise things,
I don’t know. So much I don’t know, Señora. Ay, so much! – And you,
do you know what is wise?’
‘I?’ said Kate. ‘I don’t care very much.’
‘Ah! You don’t care! – You think Ramón is wise, to wear the
peasants’ clothes, and the huaraches?’ For once Doña Carlota was
speaking in slow English.
‘Oh, yes!’ cried Kate. ‘He looks so handsome! – Men’s clothes are
so hideous, and Don Ramón looks so handsome in those!’ With the
big hat poised on his head, he had a certain air of nobility and authority.
‘Ah!’ cried Doña Carlota, looking at the other woman with intelligent, half-scared eyes, and swinging the key of the boat. ‘Shall we
go to the lake?’
The two women departed. Ramón, laughing to himself, went out
of the gate and across the outer yard, to where a big, barn-like building stood near the trees. He entered the barn, and gave a low whistle.
It was answered from the loft above, and a trap-door opened. Don
Ramón went up the steps, and found himself in a sort of studio and
carpenter’s shop. A fattish young man with curly hair, wearing an
artist’s blouse, and with mallet and chisels in his hand, greeted him.
‘How is it going?’ asked Ramón.
‘Yes – well –’
The artist was working on a head, in wood. It was larger than life,
conventionalized. Yet under the conventional lines the likeness to
Ramón revealed itself.
‘Sit for me for half an hour,’ said the sculptor.
Ramón sat in silence, while the other man bent over his model,
working in silent concentration. And all the time, Ramón sat erect,
almost motionless, with a great stillness of repose and concentra-
219
DAVID HERBERT LAWRENCE
tion, thinking about nothing, but throwing out the dark aura of
power, in the spell of which the artist worked.
‘That is enough,’ he said at last, quietly rising.
‘But give me the pose before you go,’ said the artist.
Ramón slowly took off his blouse-skirt, and stood with naked
torso, the sash with its blue and black bars tight round his naked
waist. For some moments he stood gathering himself together. Then
suddenly, in a concentration of intense, proud prayer, he fl ung his
right arm up above his head, and stood transfi xed, his left arm hanging softly by his side, the fi ngers touching his thigh. And on his face
that fi xed, intense look of pride which was at once a prayer.
The artist gazed with wonder, and with an appreciation touched
with fear. The other man, large and intense, with big dark eyes staring with intense pride, yet prayerful, beyond the natural horizons,
sent a thrill of dread and of joy through the artist. He bowed his
head as he looked.
Don Ramón turned to him.
‘Now you!’ he said.
The artist was afraid. He seemed to quail. But he met Ramón’s
eyes. And instantly, that stillness of concentration came over him, like
a trance. And then suddenly, out of the trance, he shot his arm aloft,
and his fat, pale face took on an expression of peace, a noble, motionless transfi guration, the blue-grey eyes calm, proud, reaching into the
beyond, with prayer. And though he stood in his blouse, with a rather
pudgy fi gure and curly hair, he had the perfect stillness of nobility.
‘It is good!’ said Ramón, bowing his head.
The artist suddenly changed; Ramón held out his two hands;
the artist took them in his two hands. Then he lifted Ramón’s right
hand and placed the back of it on his brow.
‘Adiós!’ said Ramón, taking his blouse again.
‘Adiós, Señor!’ said the artist.
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