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Sons and Lovers

In the morning he had considerable peace, and was happy in himself. It seemed almost as if he had known the baptism of fire in passion, and it left him at rest. But it was not Clara. It was something that happened because of her, but it was not her. They were scarcely any nearer each other. It was as if they had been blind agents of a great force. When she saw him that day at the factory her heart melted like a drop of fire. It was his body, his brows. The drop of fire grew more intense in her breast; she must hold him. But he, very quiet, very subdued this morning, went on giving his instruction. She followed him into the dark, ugly basement, and lifted her arms to him. He kissed her, and the intensity of passion began to burn him again. Somebody was at the door. He ran upstairs; she returned to her room, moving as if in a trance. After that the fire slowly went down. He felt more and more that his experience had been impersonal, and not Clara. He loved her. There was a big tenderness, as after a strong emotion they had known together; but it was not she who could keep his soul steady. He had wanted her to be something she could not be. And she was mad with desire of him. She could not see him without touching him. In the factory, as he talked to her about Spiral hose, she ran her hand secretly along his side. She followed him out into the basement for a quick kiss; her eyes, always mute and yearning, full of unrestrained passion, she kept fixed on his. He was afraid of her, lest she should too flagrantly give herself away before the other girls. She invariably waited for him at dinnertime for him to embrace her before she went. He felt as if she were helpless, almost a burden to him, and it irritated him. "But what do you always want to be kissing and embracing for?" he said. "Surely there's a time for everything." She looked up at him, and the hate came into her eyes. "DO I always want to be kissing you?" she said. "Always, even if I come to ask you about the work. I don't want anything to do with love when I'm at work. Work's work—" "And what is love?" she asked. "Has it to have special hours?" "Yes; out of work hours." "And you'll regulate it according to Mr. Jordan's closing time?" "Yes; and according to the freedom from business of any sort." "It is only to exist in spare time?" "That's all, and not always then—not the kissing sort of love." "And that's all you think of it?" "It's quite enough." "I'm glad you think so." And she was cold to him for some time—she hated him; and while she was cold and contemptuous, he was uneasy till she had forgiven him again. But when they started afresh they were not any nearer. He kept her because he never satisfied her. In the spring they went together to the seaside. They had rooms at a little cottage near Theddlethorpe, and lived as man and wife. Mrs. Radford sometimes went with them. It was known in Nottingham that Paul Morel and Mrs. Dawes were going together, but as nothing was very obvious, and Clara always a solitary person, and he seemed so simple and innocent, it did not make much difference. He loved the Lincolnshire coast, and she loved the sea. In the early morning they often went out together to bathe. The grey of the dawn, the far, desolate reaches of the fenland smitten with winter, the sea-meadows rank with herbage, were stark enough to rejoice his soul. As they stepped on to the highroad from their plank bridge, and looked round at the endless monotony of levels, the land a little darker than the sky, the sea sounding small beyond the sandhills, his heart filled strong with the sweeping relentlessness of life. She loved him then. He was solitary and strong, and his eyes had a beautiful light. They shuddered with cold; then he raced her down the road to the green turf bridge. She could run well. Her colour soon came, her throat was bare, her eyes shone. He loved her for being so luxuriously heavy, and yet so quick. Himself was light; she went with a beautiful rush. They grew warm, and walked hand in hand. A flush came into the sky, the wan moon, half-way down the west, sank into insignificance. On the shadowy land things began to take life, plants with great leaves became distinct. They came through a pass in the big, cold sandhills on to the beach. The long waste of foreshore lay moaning under the dawn and the sea; the ocean was a flat dark strip with a white edge. Over the gloomy sea the sky grew red. Quickly the fire spread among the clouds and scattered them. Crimson burned to orange, orange to dull gold, and in a golden glitter the sun came up, dribbling fierily over the waves in little splashes, as if someone had gone along and the light had spilled from her pail as she walked. The breakers ran down the shore in long, hoarse strokes. Tiny seagulls, like specks of spray, wheeled above the line of surf. Their crying seemed larger than they. Far away the coast reached out, and melted into the morning, the tussocky sandhills seemed to sink to a level with the beach. Mablethorpe was tiny on their right. They had alone the space of all this level shore, the sea, and the upcoming sun, the faint noise of the waters, the sharp crying of the gulls. They had a warm hollow in the sandhills where the wind did not come. He stood looking out to sea. "It's very fine," he said. "Now don't get sentimental," she said. It irritated her to see him standing gazing at the sea, like a solitary and poetic person. He laughed. She quickly undressed. "There are some fine waves this morning," she said triumphantly. She was a better swimmer than he; he stood idly watching her. "Aren't you coming?" she said. "In a minute," he answered. She was white and velvet skinned, with heavy shoulders. A little wind, coming from the sea, blew across her body and ruffled her hair. The morning was of a lovely limpid gold colour. Veils of shadow seemed to be drifting away on the north and the south. Clara stood shrinking slightly from the touch of the wind, twisting her hair. The sea-grass rose behind the white stripped woman. She glanced at the sea, then looked at him. He was watching her with dark eyes which she loved and could not understand. She hugged her breasts between her arms, cringing, laughing: "Oo, it will be so cold!" she said. He bent forward and kissed her, held her suddenly close, and kissed her again. She stood waiting. He looked into her eyes, then away at the pale sands. "Go, then!" he said quietly. She flung her arms round his neck, drew him against her, kissed him passionately, and went, saying: "But you'll come in?" "In a minute." She went plodding heavily over the sand that was soft as velvet. He, on the sandhills, watched the great pale coast envelop her. She grew smaller, lost proportion, seemed only like a large white bird toiling forward. "Not much more than a big white pebble on the beach, not much more than a clot of foam being blown and rolled over the sand," he said to himself. She seemed to move very slowly across the vast sounding shore. As he watched, he lost her. She was dazzled out of sight by the sunshine. Again he saw her, the merest white speck moving against the white, muttering sea-edge. "Look how little she is!" he said to himself. "She's lost like a grain of sand in the beach—just a concentrated speck blown along, a tiny white foam-bubble, almost nothing among the morning. Why does she absorb me?" The morning was altogether uninterrupted: she was gone in the water. Far and wide the beach, the sandhills with their blue marrain, the shining water, glowed together in immense, unbroken solitude. "What is she, after all?" he said to himself. "Here's the seacoast morning, big and permanent and beautiful; there is she, fretting, always unsatisfied, and temporary as a bubble of foam. What does she mean to me, after all? She represents something, like a bubble of foam represents the sea. But what is she? It's not her I care for." Then, startled by his own unconscious thoughts, that seemed to speak so distinctly that all the morning could hear, he undressed and ran quickly down the sands. She was watching for him. Her arm flashed up to him, she heaved on a wave, subsided, her shoulders in a pool of liquid silver. He jumped through the breakers, and in a moment her hand was on his shoulder. He was a poor swimmer, and could not stay long in the water. She played round him in triumph, sporting with her superiority, which he begrudged her. The sunshine stood deep and fine on the water. They laughed in the sea for a minute or two, then raced each other back to the sandhills. When they were drying themselves, panting heavily, he watched her laughing, breathless face, her bright shoulders, her breasts that swayed and made him frightened as she rubbed them, and he thought again: "But she is magnificent, and even bigger than the morning and the sea. Is she—? Is she—" She, seeing his dark eyes fixed on her, broke off from her drying with a laugh. "What are you looking at?" she said. "You," he answered, laughing. Her eyes met his, and in a moment he was kissing her white "goose-fleshed" shoulder, and thinking: "What is she? What is she?" She loved him in the morning. There was something detached, hard, and elemental about his kisses then, as if he were only conscious of his own will, not in the least of her and her wanting him. Later in the day he went out sketching. "You," he said to her, "go with your mother to Sutton. I am so dull." She stood and looked at him. He knew she wanted to come with him, but he preferred to be alone. She made him feel imprisoned when she was there, as if he could not get a free deep breath, as if there were something on top of him. She felt his desire to be free of her. In the evening he came back to her. They walked down the shore in the darkness, then sat for a while in the shelter of the sandhills. "It seems," she said, as they stared over the darkness of the sea, where no light was to be seen—"it seemed as if you only loved me at night—as if you didn't love me in the daytime." He ran the cold sand through his fingers, feeling guilty under the accusation. "The night is free to you," he replied. "In the daytime I want to be by myself." "But why?" she said. "Why, even now, when we are on this short holiday?" "I don't know. Love-making stifles me in the daytime." "But it needn't be always love-making," she said. "It always is," he answered, "when you and I are together." She sat feeling very bitter. "Do you ever want to marry me?" he asked curiously. "Do you me?" she replied. "Yes, yes; I should like us to have children," he answered slowly. She sat with her head bent, fingering the sand. "But you don't really want a divorce from Baxter, do you?" he said. It was some minutes before she replied. "No," she said, very deliberately; "I don't think I do." "Why?" "I don't know." "Do you feel as if you belonged to him?" "No; I don't think so." "What, then?" "I think he belongs to me," she replied. He was silent for some minutes, listening to the wind blowing over the hoarse, dark sea. "And you never really intended to belong to ME?" he said. "Yes, I do belong to you," she answered. "No," he said; "because you don't want to be divorced." It was a knot they could not untie, so they left it, took what they could get, and what they could not attain they ignored. "I consider you treated Baxter rottenly," he said another time. He half-expected Clara to answer him, as his mother would: "You consider your own affairs, and don't know so much about other people's." But she took him seriously, almost to his own surprise. "Why?" she said. "I suppose you thought he was a lily of the valley, and so you put him in an appropriate pot, and tended him according. You made up your mind he was a lily of the valley and it was no good his being a cow-parsnip. You wouldn't have it." "I certainly never imagined him a lily of the valley." "You imagined him something he wasn't. That's just what a woman is. She thinks she knows what's good for a man, and she's going to see he gets it; and no matter if he's starving, he may sit and whistle for what he needs, while she's got him, and is giving him what's good for him." "And what are you doing?" she asked. "I'm thinking what tune I shall whistle," he laughed. And instead of boxing his ears, she considered him in earnest. "You think I want to give you what's good for you?" she asked. "I hope so; but love should give a sense of freedom, not of prison. Miriam made me feel tied up like a donkey to a stake. I must feed on 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 passersby 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 the bigger man like a wild cat, till at last Dawes fell with a crash, losing his presence of mind. Paul went down with him. Pure instinct brought his hands to the man's neck, and before Dawes, in frenzy and agony, could wrench him free, he had got his fists twisted in the scarf and his knuckles dug in the throat of the other man. He was a pure instinct, without reason or feeling. His body, hard and wonderful in itself, cleaved against the struggling body of the other man; not a muscle in him relaxed. He was quite unconscious, only his body had taken upon itself to kill this other man. For himself, he had neither feeling nor reason. He lay pressed hard against his adversary, his body adjusting itself to its one pure purpose of choking the other man, resisting exactly at the right moment, with exactly the right amount of strength, the struggles of the other, silent, intent, unchanging, gradually pressing its knuckles deeper, feeling the struggles of the other body become wilder and more frenzied. Tighter and tighter grew his body, like a screw that is gradually increasing in pressure, till something breaks. Then suddenly he relaxed, full of wonder and misgiving. Dawes had been yielding. Morel felt his body flame with pain, as he realised what he was doing; he was all bewildered. Dawes's struggles suddenly renewed themselves in a furious spasm. Paul's hands were wrenched, torn out of the scarf in which they were knotted, and he was flung away, helpless. He heard the horrid sound of the other's gasping, but he lay stunned; then, still dazed, he felt the blows of the other's feet, and lost consciousness. Dawes, grunting with pain like a beast, was kicking the prostrate body of his rival. Suddenly the whistle of the train shrieked two fields away. He turned round and glared suspiciously. What was coming? He saw the lights of the train draw across his vision. It seemed to him people were approaching. He made off across the field into Nottingham, and dimly in his consciousness as he went, he felt on his foot the place where his boot had knocked against one of the lad's bones. The knock seemed to re-echo inside him; he hurried to get away from it. Morel gradually came to himself. He knew where he was and what had happened, but he did not want to move. He lay still, with tiny bits of snow tickling his face. It was pleasant to lie quite, quite still. The time passed. It was the bits of snow that kept rousing him when he did not want to be roused. At last his will clicked into action. "I mustn't lie here," he said; "it's silly." But still he did not move. "I said I was going to get up," he repeated. "Why don't I?" And still it was some time before he had sufficiently pulled himself together to stir; then gradually he got up. Pain made him sick and dazed, but his brain was clear. Reeling, he groped for his coats and got them on, buttoning his overcoat up to his ears. It was some time before he found his cap. He did not know whether his face was still bleeding. Walking blindly, every step making him sick with pain, he went back to the pond and washed his face and hands. The icy water hurt, but helped to bring him back to himself. He crawled back up the hill to the tram. He wanted to get to his mother—he must get to his mother—that was his blind intention. He covered his face as much as he could, and struggled sickly along. Continually the ground seemed to fall away from him as he walked, and he felt himself dropping with a sickening feeling into space; so, like a nightmare, he got through with the journey home. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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