Sons and Lovers
he looked paltry and insignificant. There was nothing stable about him.
Her husband had more manly dignity. At any rate _he_ did not waft about
with any wind. There was something evanescent about Morel, she thought,
something shifting and false. He would never make sure ground for any
woman to stand on. She despised him rather for his shrinking together,
getting smaller. Her husband at least was manly, and when he was beaten
gave in. But this other would never own to being beaten. He would shift
round and round, prowl, get smaller. She despised him. And yet she
watched him rather than Dawes, and it seemed as if their three fates
lay in his hands. She hated him for it.
She seemed to understand better now about men, and what they could or
would do. She was less afraid of them, more sure of herself. That they
were not the small egoists she had imagined them made her more
comfortable. She had learned a good deal—almost as much as she wanted
to learn. Her cup had been full. It was still as full as she could
carry. On the whole, she would not be sorry when he was gone.
They had dinner, and sat eating nuts and drinking by the fire. Not a
serious word had been spoken. Yet Clara realised that Morel was
withdrawing from the circle, leaving her the option to stay with her
husband. It angered her. He was a mean fellow, after all, to take what
he wanted and then give her back. She did not remember that she herself
had had what she wanted, and really, at the bottom of her heart, wished
to be given back.
Paul felt crumpled up and lonely. His mother had really supported his
life. He had loved her; they two had, in fact, faced the world
together. Now she was gone, and for ever behind him was the gap in
life, the tear in the veil, through which his life seemed to drift
slowly, as if he were drawn towards death. He wanted someone of their
own free initiative to help him. The lesser things he began to let go
from him, for fear of this big thing, the lapse towards death,
following in the wake of his beloved. Clara could not stand for him to
hold on to. She wanted him, but not to understand him. He felt she
wanted the man on top, not the real him that was in trouble. That would
be too much trouble to her; he dared not give it her. She could not
cope with him. It made him ashamed. So, secretly ashamed because he was
in such a mess, because his own hold on life was so unsure, because
nobody held him, feeling unsubstantial, shadowy, as if he did not count
for much in this concrete world, he drew himself together smaller and
smaller. He did not want to die; he would not give in. But he was not
afraid of death. If nobody would help, he would go on alone.
Dawes had been driven to the extremity of life, until he was afraid. He
could go to the brink of death, he could lie on the edge and look in.
Then, cowed, afraid, he had to crawl back, and like a beggar take what
offered. There was a certain nobility in it. As Clara saw, he owned
himself beaten, and he wanted to be taken back whether or not. That she
could do for him. It was three o’clock.
“I am going by the four-twenty,” said Paul again to Clara. “Are you
coming then or later?”
“I don’t know,” she said.
“I’m meeting my father in Nottingham at seven-fifteen,” he said.
“Then,” she answered, “I’ll come later.”
Dawes jerked suddenly, as if he had been held on a strain. He looked
out over the sea, but he saw nothing.
“There are one or two books in the corner,” said Morel. “I’ve done with
’em.”
At about four o’clock he went.
“I shall see you both later,” he said, as he shook hands.
“I suppose so,” said Dawes. “An’ perhaps—one day—I s’ll be able to pay
you back the money as—”
“I shall come for it, you’ll see,” laughed Paul. “I s’ll be on the
rocks before I’m very much older.”
“Ay—well—” said Dawes.
“Good-bye,” he said to Clara.
“Good-bye,” she said, giving him her hand. Then she glanced at him for
the last time, dumb and humble.
He was gone. Dawes and his wife sat down again.
“It’s a nasty day for travelling,” said the man.
“Yes,” she answered.
They talked in a desultory fashion until it grew dark. The landlady
brought in the tea. Dawes drew up his chair to the table without being
invited, like a husband. Then he sat humbly waiting for his cup. She
served him as she would, like a wife, not consulting his wish.
After tea, as it drew near to six o’clock, he went to the window. All
was dark outside. The sea was roaring.
“It’s raining yet,” he said.
“Is it?” she answered.
“You won’t go to-night, shall you?” he said, hesitating.
She did not answer. He waited.
“I shouldn’t go in this rain,” he said.
“Do you _want_ me to stay?” she asked.
His hand as he held the dark curtain trembled.
“Yes,” he said.
He remained with his back to her. She rose and went slowly to him. He
let go the curtain, turned, hesitating, towards her. She stood with her
hands behind her back, looking up at him in a heavy, inscrutable
fashion.
“Do you want me, Baxter?” she asked.
His voice was hoarse as he answered:
“Do you want to come back to me?”
She made a moaning noise, lifted her arms, and put them round his neck,
drawing him to her. He hid his face on her shoulder, holding her
clasped.
“Take me back!” she whispered, ecstatic. “Take me back, take me back!”
And she put her fingers through his fine, thin dark hair, as if she
were only semi-conscious. He tightened his grasp on her.
“Do you want me again?” he murmured, broken.
CHAPTER XV
DERELICT
Clara went with her husband to Sheffield, and Paul scarcely saw her
again. Walter Morel seemed to have let all the trouble go over him, and
there he was, crawling about on the mud of it, just the same. There was
scarcely any bond between father and son, save that each felt he must
not let the other go in any actual want. As there was no one to keep on
the home, and as they could neither of them bear the emptiness of the
house, Paul took lodgings in Nottingham, and Morel went to live with a
friendly family in Bestwood.
Everything seemed to have gone smash for the young man. He could not
paint. The picture he finished on the day of his mother’s death—one
that satisfied him—was the last thing he did. At work there was no
Clara. When he came home he could not take up his brushes again. There
was nothing left.
So he was always in the town at one place or another, drinking,
knocking about with the men he knew. It really wearied him. He talked
to barmaids, to almost any woman, but there was that dark, strained
look in his eyes, as if he were hunting something.
Everything seemed so different, so unreal. There seemed no reason why
people should go along the street, and houses pile up in the daylight.
There seemed no reason why these things should occupy the space,
instead of leaving it empty. His friends talked to him: he heard the
sounds, and he answered. But why there should be the noise of speech he
could not understand.
He was most himself when he was alone, or working hard and mechanically
at the factory. In the latter case there was pure forgetfulness, when
he lapsed from consciousness. But it had to come to an end. It hurt him
so, that things had lost their reality. The first snowdrops came. He
saw the tiny drop-pearls among the grey. They would have given him the
liveliest emotion at one time. Now they were there, but they did not
seem to mean anything. In a few moments they would cease to occupy that
place, and just the space would be, where they had been. Tall,
brilliant tram-cars ran along the street at night. It seemed almost a
wonder they should trouble to rustle backwards and forwards. “Why
trouble to go tilting down to Trent Bridges?” he asked of the big
trams. It seemed they just as well might _not_ be as be.
The realest thing was the thick darkness at night. That seemed to him
whole and comprehensible and restful. He could leave himself to it.
Suddenly a piece of paper started near his feet and blew along down the
pavement. He stood still, rigid, with clenched fists, a flame of agony
going over him. And he saw again the sick-room, his mother, her eyes.
Unconsciously he had been with her, in her company. The swift hop of
the paper reminded him she was gone. But he had been with her. He
wanted everything to stand still, so that he could be with her again.
The days passed, the weeks. But everything seemed to have fused, gone
into a conglomerated mass. He could not tell one day from another, one
week from another, hardly one place from another. Nothing was distinct
or distinguishable. Often he lost himself for an hour at a time, could
not remember what he had done.
One evening he came home late to his lodging. The fire was burning low;
everybody was in bed. He threw on some more coal, glanced at the table,
and decided he wanted no supper. Then he sat down in the arm-chair. It
was perfectly still. He did not know anything, yet he saw the dim smoke
wavering up the chimney. Presently two mice came out, cautiously,
nibbling the fallen crumbs. He watched them as it were from a long way
off. The church clock struck two. Far away he could hear the sharp
clinking of the trucks on the railway. No, it was not they that were
far away. They were there in their places. But where was he himself?
The time passed. The two mice, careering wildly, scampered cheekily
over his slippers. He had not moved a muscle. He did not want to move.
He was not thinking of anything. It was easier so. There was no wrench
of knowing anything. Then, from time to time, some other consciousness,
working mechanically, flashed into sharp phrases.
“What am I doing?”
And out of the semi-intoxicated trance came the answer:
“Destroying myself.”
Then a dull, live feeling, gone in an instant, told him that it was
wrong. After a while, suddenly came the question:
“Why wrong?”
Again there was no answer, but a stroke of hot stubbornness inside his
chest resisted his own annihilation.
There was a sound of a heavy cart clanking down the road. Suddenly the
electric light went out; there was a bruising thud in the
penny-in-the-slot meter. He did not stir, but sat gazing in front of
him. Only the mice had scuttled, and the fire glowed red in the dark
room.
Then, quite mechanically and more distinctly, the conversation began
again inside him.
“She’s dead. What was it all for—her struggle?”
That was his despair wanting to go after her.
“You’re alive.”
“She’s not.”
“She is—in you.”
Suddenly he felt tired with the burden of it.
“You’ve got to keep alive for her sake,” said his will in him.
Something felt sulky, as if it would not rouse.
“You’ve got to carry forward her living, and what she had done, go on
with it.”
But he did not want to. He wanted to give up.
“But you can go on with your painting,” said the will in him. “Or else
you can beget children. They both carry on her effort.”
“Painting is not living.”
“Then live.”
“Marry whom?” came the sulky question.
“As best you can.”
“Miriam?”
But he did not trust that.
He rose suddenly, went straight to bed. When he got inside his bedroom
and closed the door, he stood with clenched fist.
“Mater, my dear—” he began, with the whole force of his soul. Then he
stopped. He would not say it. He would not admit that he wanted to die,
to have done. He would not own that life had beaten him, or that death
had beaten him.
Going straight to bed, he slept at once, abandoning himself to the
sleep.
So the weeks went on. Always alone, his soul oscillated, first on the
side of death, then on the side of life, doggedly. The real agony was
that he had nowhere to go, nothing to do, nothing to say, and _was_
nothing himself. Sometimes he ran down the streets as if he were mad: