The Complete Novels. D. H. Lawrence

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      Chapter 3

       The Irony of Inspired Moments

       Table of Contents

      It happened, the next day after the funeral, I came upon reproductions of Aubrey Beardsley’s Atalanta, and of the tailpiece to Salome, and others. I sat and looked and my soul leaped out upon the new thing. I was bewildered, wondering, grudging, fascinated. I looked a long time, but my mind, or my soul, would come to no state of coherence. I was fascinated and overcome, but yet full of stubbornness and resistance.

      Lettie was out, so, although it was dinner-time, even because it was dinner-time, I took the book and went down to the mill.

      The dinner was over; there was the fragrance of cooked rhubarb in the room. I went straight to Emily, who was leaning back in her chair, and put the Salome before her.

      “Look,” said I, “look here!”

      She looked; she was short-sighted, and peered close. I was impatient for her to speak. She turned slowly at last and looked at me, shrinking, with questioning.

      “Well?” I said.

      “Isn’t it — fearful!” she replied softly.

      “No! — why is it?”

      “It makes you feel — Why have you brought it?”

      “I wanted you to see it.”

      Already I felt relieved, seeing that she too was caught in the spell.

      George came and bent over my shoulder. I could feel the heavy warmth of him.

      “Good Lord!” he drawled, half amused. The children came crowding to see, and Emily closed the book.

      “I shall be late — Hurry up, Dave!” and she went to wash her hands before going to school.

      “Give it me, will you?” George asked, putting out his hand for the book. I gave it him, and he sat down to look at the drawings. When Mollie crept near to look, he angrily shouted to her to get away. She pulled a mouth, and got her hat over her wild brown curls. Emily came in ready for school.

      “I’m going — good-bye,” she said, and she waited hesitatingly. I moved to get my cap. He looked up with a new expression in his eyes, and said:

      “Are you going? — wait a bit — I’m coming.”

      I waited.

      “Oh, very well — good-bye,” said Emily bitterly, and she departed.

      When he had looked long enough he got up and we went out. He kept his finger between the pages of the book as he carried it. We went towards the fallow land without speaking. There he sat down on a bank, leaning his back against a holly tree, and saying, very calmly:

      “There’s no need to be in any hurry now —” whereupon he proceeded to study the illustrations.

      “You know,” he said at last, “I do want her.”

      I started at the irrelevance of this remark, and said, “Who?”

      “Lettie. We’ve got notice, did you know?”

      I started to my feet this time with amazement.

      “Notice to leave? — What for?”

      “Rabbits I expect. I wish she’d have me, Cyril.”

      “To leave Strelley Mill!” I repeated.

      “That’s it — and I’m rather glad. But do you think she might have me, Cyril?”

      “What a shame! Where will you go? And you lie there joking —!”

      “I don’t. Never mind about the damned notice. I want her more than anything. — And the more I look at these naked lines, the more I want her. It’s a sort of fine sharp feeling, like these curved lines. I don’t know what I’m saying — but do you think she’d have me? Has she seen these pictures?”

      “No.”

      “If she did perhaps she’d want me — I mean she’d feel it clear and sharp coming through her.”

      “I’ll show her and see.”

      “I’d been sort of thinking about it — since Father had that notice. It seemed as if the ground was pulled from under our feet. I never felt so lost. Then I began to think of her, if she’d have me — but not clear, till you showed me those pictures. I must have her if I can — and I must have something. It’s rather ghostish to have the road suddenly smudged out, and all the world anywhere, nowhere for you to go. I must get something sure soon, or else I feel as if I should fall from somewhere and hurt myself. I’ll ask her.”

      I looked at him as he lay there under the holly tree, his face all dreamy and boyish, very unusual.

      “You’ll ask Lettie?” said I. “When — how?”

      “I must ask her quick, while I feel as if everything had gone, and I was ghostish. I think I must sound rather a lunatic.”

      He looked at me, and his eyelids hung heavy over his eyes as if he had been drinking, or as if he were tired.

      “Is she at home?” he said.

      “No, she’s СКАЧАТЬ