Sons and Lovers
her patch, and nowhere else. It’s sickening!”
“And would _you_ let a _woman_ do as she likes?”
“Yes; I’ll see that she _likes_ to love me. If she doesn’t—well, I
don’t hold her.”
“If you were as wonderful as you say—,” replied Clara.
“I should be the marvel I am,” he laughed.
There was a silence in which they hated each other, though they
laughed.
“Love’s a dog in a manger,” he said.
“And which of us is the dog?” she asked.
“Oh well, you, of course.”
So there went on a battle between them. She knew she never fully had
him. Some part, big and vital in him, she had no hold over; nor did she
ever try to get it, or even to realise what it was. And he knew in some
way that she held herself still as Mrs. Dawes. She did not love Dawes,
never had loved him; but she believed he loved her, at least depended
on her. She felt a certain surety about him that she never felt with
Paul Morel. Her passion for the young man had filled her soul, given
her a certain satisfaction, eased her of her self-mistrust, her doubt.
Whatever else she was, she was inwardly assured. It was almost as if
she had gained _herself_, and stood now distinct and complete. She had
received her confirmation; but she never believed that her life
belonged to Paul Morel, nor his to her. They would separate in the end,
and the rest of her life would be an ache after him. But at any rate,
she _knew_ now, she was sure of herself. And the same could almost be
said of him. Together they had received the baptism of life, each
through the other; but now their missions were separate. Where he
wanted to go she could not come with him. They would have to part
sooner or later. Even if they married, and were faithful to each other,
still he would have to leave her, go on alone, and she would only have
to attend to him when he came home. But it was not possible. Each
wanted a mate to go side by side with.
Clara had gone to live with her mother upon Mapperley Plains. One
evening, as Paul and she were walking along Woodborough Road, they met
Dawes. Morel knew something about the bearing of the man approaching,
but he was absorbed in his thinking at the moment, so that only his
artist’s eye watched the form of the stranger. Then he suddenly turned
to Clara with a laugh, and put his hand on her shoulder, saying,
laughing:
“But we walk side by side, and yet I’m in London arguing with an
imaginary Orpen; and where are you?”
At that instant Dawes passed, almost touching Morel. The young man
glanced, saw the dark brown eyes burning, full of hate and yet tired.
“Who was that?” he asked of Clara.
“It was Baxter,” she replied.
Paul took his hand from her shoulder and glanced round; then he saw
again distinctly the man’s form as it approached him. Dawes still
walked erect, with his fine shoulders flung back, and his face lifted;
but there was a furtive look in his eyes that gave one the impression
he was trying to get unnoticed past every person he met, glancing
suspiciously to see what they thought of him. And his hands seemed to
be wanting to hide. He wore old clothes, the trousers were torn at the
knee, and the handkerchief tied round his throat was dirty; but his cap
was still defiantly over one eye. As she saw him, Clara felt guilty.
There was a tiredness and despair on his face that made her hate him,
because it hurt her.
“He looks shady,” said Paul.
But the note of pity in his voice reproached her, and made her feel
hard.
“His true commonness comes out,” she answered.
“Do you hate him?” he asked.
“You talk,” she said, “about the cruelty of women; I wish you knew the
cruelty of men in their brute force. They simply don’t know that the
woman exists.”
“Don’t _I?_” he said.
“No,” she answered.
“Don’t I know you exist?”
“About _me_ you know nothing,” she said bitterly—“about _me!_”
“No more than Baxter knew?” he asked.
“Perhaps not as much.”
He felt puzzled, and helpless, and angry. There she walked unknown to
him, though they had been through such experience together.
“But you know _me_ pretty well,” he said.
She did not answer.
“Did you know Baxter as well as you know me?” he asked.
“He wouldn’t let me,” she said.
“And I have let you know me?”
“It’s what men _won’t_ let you do. They won’t let you get really near
to them,” she said.
“And haven’t I let you?”
“Yes,” she answered slowly; “but you’ve never come near to me. You
can’t come out of yourself, you can’t. Baxter could do that better than
you.”
He walked on pondering. He was angry with her for preferring Baxter to
him.
“You begin to value Baxter now you’ve not got him,” he said.
“No; I can only see where he was different from you.”
But he felt she had a grudge against him.
One evening, as they were coming home over the fields, she startled him
by asking:
“Do you think it’s worth it—the—the sex part?”
“The act of loving, itself?”
“Yes; is it worth anything to you?”
“But how can you separate it?” he said. “It’s the culmination of
everything. All our intimacy culminates then.”
“Not for me,” she said.
He was silent. A flash of hate for her came up. After all, she was
dissatisfied with him, even there, where he thought they fulfilled each
other. But he believed her too implicitly.
“I feel,” she continued slowly, “as if I hadn’t got you, as if all of
you weren’t there, and as if it weren’t _me_ you were taking—”
“Who, then?”
“Something just for yourself. It has been fine, so that I daren’t think
of it. But is it _me_ you want, or is it _It?_”
He again felt guilty. Did he leave Clara out of count, and take simply
women? But he thought that was splitting a hair.
“When I had Baxter, actually had him, then I _did_ feel as if I had all
of him,” she said.
“And it was better?” he asked.
“Yes, yes; it was more whole. I don’t say you haven’t given me more
than he ever gave me.”
“Or could give you.”
“Yes, perhaps; but you’ve never given me yourself.”
He knitted his brows angrily.
“If I start to make love to you,” he said, “I just go like a leaf down
the wind.”
“And leave me out of count,” she said.
“And then is it nothing to you?” he asked, almost rigid with chagrin.
“It’s something; and sometimes you have carried me away—right away—I
know—and—I reverence you for it—but—”
“Don’t ‘but’ me,” he said, kissing her quickly, as a fire ran through
him.
She submitted, and was silent.
It was true as he said. As a rule, when he started love-making, the
emotion was strong enough to carry with it everything—reason, soul,
blood—in a great sweep, like the Trent carries bodily its back-swirls
and intertwinings, noiselessly. Gradually the little criticisms, the
little sensations, were lost, thought also went, everything borne along
in one flood. He became, not a man with a mind, but a great instinct.
His hands were like creatures, living; his limbs, his body, were all
life and consciousness, subject to no will of his, but living in
themselves. Just as he was, so it seemed the vigorous, wintry stars
were strong also with life. He and they struck with the same pulse of
fire, and the same joy of strength which held the bracken-frond stiff
near his eyes held his own body firm. It was as if he, and the stars,
and the dark herbage, and Clara were licked up in an immense tongue of
flame, which tore onwards and upwards. Everything rushed along in
living beside him; everything was still, perfect in itself, along with
him. This wonderful stillness in each thing in itself, while it was
being borne along in a very ecstasy of living, seemed the highest point
of bliss.
And Clara knew this held him to her, so she trusted altogether to the
passion. It, however, failed her very often. They did not often reach
again the height of that once when the peewits had called. Gradually,
some mechanical effort spoilt their loving, or, when they had splendid
moments, they had them separately, and not so satisfactorily. So often
he seemed merely to be running on alone; often they realised it had
been a failure, not what they had wanted. He left her, knowing _that_
evening had only made a little split between them. Their loving grew
more mechanical, without the marvellous glamour. Gradually they began
to introduce novelties, to get back some of the feeling of
satisfaction. They would be very near, almost dangerously near to the
river, so that the black water ran not far from his face, and it gave a
little thrill; or they loved sometimes in a little hollow below the
fence of the path where people were passing occasionally, on the edge
of the town, and they heard footsteps coming, almost felt the vibration
of the tread, and they heard what the passers-by said—strange little
things that were never intended to be heard. And afterwards each of
them was rather ashamed, and these things caused a distance between the
two of them. He began to despise her a little, as if she had merited
it!
One night he left her to go to Daybrook Station over the fields. It was
very dark, with an attempt at snow, although the spring was so far
advanced. Morel had not much time; he plunged forward. The town ceases
almost abruptly on the edge of a steep hollow; there the houses with
their yellow lights stand up against the darkness. He went over the
stile, and dropped quickly into the hollow of the fields. Under the
orchard one warm window shone in Swineshead Farm. Paul glanced round.
Behind, the houses stood on the brim of the dip, black against the sky,
like wild beasts glaring curiously with yellow eyes down into the
darkness. It was the town that seemed savage and uncouth, glaring on
the clouds at the back of him. Some creature stirred under the willows
of the farm pond. It was too dark to distinguish anything.
He was close up to the next stile before he saw a dark shape leaning
against it. The man moved aside.
“Good-evening!” he said.
“Good-evening!” Morel answered, not noticing.
“Paul Morel?” said the man.
Then he knew it was Dawes. The man stopped his way.
“I’ve got yer, have I?” he said awkwardly.
“I shall miss my train,” said Paul.
He could see nothing of Dawes’s face. The man’s teeth seemed to chatter
as he talked.
“You’re going to get it from me now,” said Dawes.
Morel attempted to move forward; the other man stepped in front of him.
“Are yer goin’ to take that top-coat off,” he said, “or are you goin’
to lie down to it?”
Paul was afraid the man was mad.
“But,” he said, “I don’t know how to fight.”
“All right, then,” answered Dawes, and before the younger man knew
where he was, he was staggering backwards from a blow across the face.
The whole night went black. He tore off his overcoat and coat, dodging
a blow, and flung the garments over Dawes. The latter swore savagely.
Morel, in his shirt-sleeves, was now alert and furious. He felt his
whole body unsheath itself like a claw. He could not fight, so he would
use his wits. The other man became more distinct to him; he could see
particularly the shirt-breast. Dawes stumbled over Paul’s coats, then
came rushing forward. The young man’s mouth was bleeding. It was the
other man’s mouth he was dying to get at, and the desire was anguish in
its strength. He stepped quickly through the stile, and as Dawes was
coming through after him, like a flash he got a blow in over the
other’s mouth. He shivered with pleasure. Dawes advanced slowly,
spitting. Paul was afraid; he moved round to get to the stile again.
Suddenly, from out of nowhere, came a great blow against his ear, that
sent him falling helpless backwards. He heard Dawes’s heavy panting,
like a wild beast’s, then came a kick on the knee, giving him such
agony that he got up and, quite blind, leapt clean under his enemy’s
guard. He felt blows and kicks, but they did not hurt. He hung on to