The Complete Novels. D. H. Lawrence

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      “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.

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