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THE WHITE PEACOCK
“You know we can’t – you know as well as I do,” she replied, and her whole soul challenged him. “We have to consider things,” she added. He dropped his head. He was afraid to
make the struggle, to rouse himself to decide the question for
her. She turned away, and went kicking through the fl owers.
He picked up the blossoms she had left by the nest – they were
still warm from her hands – and followed her. She walked on
towards the end of the fi eld, the long strands of her white scarf
running before her. Then she leaned back to the wind, while
he caught her up.
“Don’t you want your fl owers?” he asked humbly.
“No, thanks – they’d be dead before I got home – throw
them away, you look absurd with a posy.”
He did as he was bidden. They came near the hedge. A crabapple tree blossomed up among the blue.
“You may get me a bit of that blossom,” said she, and
suddenly added, “No, I can reach it myself,” whereupon she
stretched upward and pulled several sprigs of the pink and
white, and put it in her dress.
“Isn’t it pretty?” she said, and she began to laugh ironically,
pointing to the fl owers – “pretty, pink-cheeked petals, and
stamens like yellow hair, and buds like lips promising something nice” – she stopped and looked at him, fl ickering with
a smile. Then she pointed to the ovary beneath the fl ower, and
said, “Result: Crab-apples!”
She continued to look at him, and to smile. He said nothing. So they went on to where they could climb the fence into
the spinney. She climbed to the top rail, holding by an oak
bough. Then she let him lift her down bodily.
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DAVID HERBERT LAWRENCE
“Ah!” she said, “you like to show me how strong you
area veritable Samson!” – she mocked, although she had invited him with her eyes to take her in his arms.
We were entering the spinney of black poplar. In the hedge
was an elm tree, with myriads of dark dots pointed against the
bright sky, myriads of clusters of fl aky green fruit.
“Look at that elm,” she said, “you’d think it was in full leaf,
wouldn’t you? Do you know why it’s so prolifi c?”
“No,” he said, with a curious questioning drawl of the
monosyllable.
“It’s casting its bread upon the winds – no, it is dying, so it
puts out all its strength and loads its boughs with the last fruit
It’ll be dead next year. If you’re here then, come and see. Look
at the ivy, the suave smooth ivy, with its fi ngers in the trees’
throat. Trees know how to die, you see – we don’t.”
With her whimsical moods she tormented him. She was at
the bottom a seething confusion of emotion, and she wanted
to make him likewise.
“If we were trees with ivy – instead of being fi ne humans
with free active life – we should hug our thinning lives,
shouldn’t we?”
“I suppose we should.”
“You, for instance – fancy your sacrifi cing yourself – for
the next generation – that reminds you of Schopenhauer,
doesn’t it? – for the next generation, or love, or anything!”
He did not answer her; she was too swift for him. They
passed on under the poplars, which were hanging strings of
green beads above them. There was a little open space, with
tufts of bluebells. Lettie stooped over a wood-pigeon that lay
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on the ground on its breast, its wings half spread. She took it
up – its eyes were bursten and bloody; she felt its breast, ruffl ing the dimming iris on its throat.
“It’s been fi ghting,” he said.
“What for – a mate?” she asked, looking at him.
“I don’t know,” he answered.
“Cold – he’s quite cold, under the feathers! I think a woodpigeon must enjoy being fought for – and being won; especially if the right one won. It would be a fi ne pleasure to see them
fi ghting – don’t you think?” she said, torturing him.
“The claws are spread – it fell dead off the perch,” he replied.
“Ah, poor thing – it was wounded – and sat and waited for
death – when the other had won. Don’t you think life is very
cruel, George – and love the cruellest of all?”
He laughed bitterly under the pain of her soft, sad tones.
“Let me bury him – and have done with the beaten lover. But
we’ll make him a pretty grave.”
She scooped a hole in the dark soil, and snatching a handful of bluebells, threw them in on top of the dead bird. Then
she smoothed the soil over all, and pressed her white hands on
the black loam.
“There,” she said, knocking her hands one against the other to shake off the soil, “He’s done with. Come on.”
He followed her, speechless with his emotion.
The spinney opened out; the ferns were serenely uncoiling, the bluebells stood grouped with blue curls mingled.
In the freer spaces forget-me-nots fl owered in nebulae, and
dog-violets gave an undertone of dark purple, with primroses
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for planets in the night. There was a slight drift of woodruff,
sweet new-mown hay, scenting the air under the boughs. On
a wet bank was the design of golden saxifrage, glistening unholily as if varnished by its minister, the snail. George and
Lettie crushed the veined belles of wood-sorrel and broke the
silken mosses. What did it matter to them what they broke or
crushed?
Over the fence of the spinney was the hill-side, scattered
with old thorn trees. There the little grey lichens held up ruby
balls to us unnoticed. What did it matter, when all the great
red apples were being shaken from the Tree to be left to rot.
“If I were a man,” said Lettie, “I would go out west and be
free. I should love it.”
She took the scarf from her head and let it wave out on the
wind; the colour was warm in her face with climbing, and her
curls were freed by the wind, sparkling and rippling.
“Well – you’re not a man,” he said, looking at her, and
speaking with timid bitterness.
“No,” she laughed, “if I were, I would shape things – oh,
wouldn’t I have my own way!”
“And don’t you now?”
“Oh – I don’t want it particularly – when I’ve got it. When
I’ve had my way, I do want somebody to take it back from me.”
She put her head back and looked at him sideways, laughing through the glitter of her hair.
They came to the kennels. She sat down on the edge of
the great stone water-trough, and put her hands in the water,
moving them gently like submerged fl owers through the clear
pool.
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THE WHITE PEACOCK
“I love to see myself in the water,” she said, “I don’t mean
on the water, Narcissus – but that’s how I should like to be out
west, to have a little lake of my own, and swim with my limbs
quite free in the water.”
“Do you swim well?” he asked.
“Fairly.”
“I would race you – in your little lake.”
She laughed, took her hands out of the water, and watched
the clear drops trickle off. Then she lifted her head suddenly,
at some thought or other. She looked across the valley, and saw
the red roofs of the Mill.
“Ilion, Ilion Fatalis incestusque judex Et mulier peregrina vertit. In pulverem —”
“What’s that?” he said.
“Nothing.”
“That’s a private trough,” exclaimed a thin voice, high like
a peewit’s cry. We started in surprise to see a tall, black-bearded man looking at us and away from us nervously, fi dgeting
uneasily some ten yards off.
“Is it?” said Lettie, looking at her wet hands, which she proceeded to dry on a fragment of a handkerchief.
“You mustn’t meddle with it,” said the man in the same
reedy, oboe voice. Then he turned his head away, and his pale
grey eyes roved the country-side – when he had courage, he
turned his back to us, shading his eyes to continue his scrutiny. He walked hurriedly, a few steps, then craned his neck,
peering into the valley, and hastened a dozen yards in another
direction, again stretching and peering about. Then he went
indoors.
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DAVID HERBERT LAWRENCE
“He is pretending to look for somebody,” said Lettie, “but
it’s only because he’s afraid we shall think he came out just to
look at us” – and they laughed.
Suddenly a woman appeared at the gate; she had pale eyes
like the mouse-voiced man.
“You’ll get Bright’s disease sitting on that there damp
stone,” she said to Lettie, who at once rose apologetically.
“I ought to know,” continued the mouse-voiced woman,
“my own mother died of it.”
“Indeed,” murmured Lettie, “I’m sorry.”
“Yes,” continued the woman, “it behooves you to be careful.
Do you come from Strelley Mill Farm?” she asked suddenly of
George, surveying his shameful deshabille with bitter reproof.
He admitted the imputation.
“And you’re going to leave, aren’t you?”
Which also he admitted.
“Humph! – we s’ll ‘appen get some neighbours. It’s a dog’s
life for loneliness. I suppose you knew the last lot that was
here.”
Another brief admission.
“A dirty lot – a dirty beagle she must have been. You
should just ha’ seen these grates.”
“Yes,” said Lettie. “I have seen them.”
“Faugh – the state! But come in-come in, you’ll see a difference.”
They entered, out of curiosity.
The kitchen was indeed different. It was clean and sparkling, warm with bright red chintzes on the sofa and on every
chair cushion. Unfortunately the effect was spoiled by green
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THE WHITE PEACOCK
and yellow antimaccassars, and by a profusion of paper and
woollen fl owers. There were three cases of woollen fl owers,
and on the wall, four fans stitched over with ruffl ed green and
yellow paper, adorned with yellow paper roses, carnations,
arum lilies, and poppies; there were also wall pockets full of
paper fl owers; while the wood outside was loaded with blossom.
“Yes,” said Lettie, “there is a difference.”
The woman swelled, and looked round. The black-bearded
man peeped from behind the Christian Herald – those long
blaring trumpets! – and shrank again. The woman darted at
his pipe, which he had put on a piece of newspaper on the hob,
and blew some imaginary ash from it. Then she caught sight of
something – perhaps some dust – on the fi replace.
“There!” she cried, “I knew it; I couldn’t leave him one second! I haven’t work enough burning wood, but he must be
poke – poke –”
“I only pushed a piece in between the bars,” complained
the mouse voice from behind the paper.
“Pushed a piece in!” she re-echoed, with awful scorn, seizing the poker and thrusting it over his paper. “What do you
call that, sitting there telling your stories before folks –”
They crept out and hurried away. Glancing round, Lettie
saw the woman mopping the doorstep after them, and she
laughed. He pulled his watch out of his breeches’ pocket; it
was half-past three.
“What are you looking at the time for?” she asked. “Meg’s
coming to tea,” he replied.
She said no more, and they walked slowly on.
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DAVID HERBERT LAWRENCE
When they came on to the shoulder of the hill, and looked
down on to the mill, and the millpond, she said:
“I will not come down with you – I will go home.”
“Not come down to tea!” he exclaimed, full of reproach and
amazement. “Why, what will they say?”
“No, I won’t come down – let me say farewell – jamque
Vale! Do you remember how Eurydice sank back into Hell?”
“But” – he stammered, “you must come down to tea – how
can I tell them? Why won’t you come?”
She answered him in Latin, with two lines from Virgil. As
she watched him, she pitied his helplessness, and gave him
a last cut as she said, very softly and tenderly:
“It wouldn’t be fair to Meg.”
He stood looking at her; his face was coloured only by the
grey-brown tan; his eyes, the dark, self-mistrustful eyes of the
family, were darker than ever, dilated with misery of helplessness; and she was infi nitely pitiful. She wanted to cry in her
yearning.
“Shall we go into the wood for a few minutes?” she said in
a low, tremulous voice, as they turned aside.
The wood was high and warm. Along the ridings the forget-me-nots were knee deep, stretching, glimmering into the
distance like the Milky Way through the night. They left the
tall, fl ower-tangled paths to go in among the bluebells, breaking through the close-pressed fl owers and ferns till they came
to an oak which had fallen across the hazels, where they sat
half screened. The hyacinths drooped magnifi cently with an
overweight of purple, or they stood pale and erect, like unripe
ears of purple corn. Heavy bees swung down in a blunder of
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extravagance among the purple fl owers. They were intoxicated
even with the sight of so much blue. The sound of their hearty,
wanton humming came clear upon the solemn boom of the
wind overhead. The sight of their clinging, clambering riot
gave satisfaction to the soul. A rosy campion fl ower caught the
sun and shone out. An elm sent down a shower of fl esh-tinted
sheaths upon them.
“If there were fauns and hamadryads!” she said softly, turning to him to soothe his misery. She took his cap from his head,
ruffl ed his hair, saying:
“If you were a faun, I would put guelder roses round your
hair, and make you look Bacchanalian.” She left her hand lying on his knee, and looked up at the sky. Its blue looked pale
and green in comparison with the purple tide ebbing about
the wood. The clouds rose up like towers, and something had
touched them into beauty, and poised them up among the
winds. The clouds passed on, and the pool of sky was clear.
“Look,” she said, “how we are netted down – boughs with
knots of green buds. If we were free on the winds! – But I’m
glad we’re not.” She turned suddenly to him, and with the
same movement, she gave him her hand, and he clasped it in
both his. “I’m glad we’re netted down here; if we were free in
the winds – Ah!”
She laughed a peculiar little laugh, catching her breath.
“Look!” she said, “it’s a palace, with the ash-trunks smooth
like a girl’s arm, and the elm-columns, ribbed and bossed and
fretted, with the great steel shafts of beech, all rising up to
hold an embroidered care-cloth over us; and every thread of
the care-cloth vibrates with music for us, and the little broi-
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dered birds sing; and the hazel-bushes fl ing green spray round
us, and the honeysuckle leans down to pour out scent over
us. Look at the harvest of bluebells – ripened for us! Listen to
the bee, sounding among all the organ-play – if he sounded
exultant for us!” She looked at him, with tears coming up into
her eyes, and a little, winsome, wistful smile hovering round
her mouth. He was very pale, and dared not look at her. She
put her hand in his, leaning softly against him. He watched, as
if fascinated, a young thrush with full pale breast who hopped
near to look at them – glancing with quick, shining eyes.
“The clouds are going on again,” said Lettie.
“Look at that cloud face – see – gazing right up into the
sky. The lips are opening – he is telling us something – now
the form is slipping away – it’s gone – come, we must go too.”
“No,” he cried, “don’t go – don’t go away.”
Her tenderness made her calm. She replied in a voice perfect in restrained sadness and resignation.
“No, my dear, no. The threads of my life were untwined;
they drifted about like fl oating threads of gossamer; and you
didn’t put out your hand to take them and twist them up into
the chord with yours. Now another has caught them up, and
the chord of my life is being twisted, and I cannot wrench it
free and untwine it again – I can’t. I am not strong enough. Besides, you have twisted another thread far and tight into your
chord; could you get free?”
“Tell me what to do – yes, if you tell me.”
“I can’t tell you – so let me go.”
“No, Lettie,” he pleaded, with terror and humility. “No,
Lettie; don’t go. What should I do with my life? Nobody would
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