Clifford
was not inwardly surprised to get this
letter. Inwardly, he had known for a long time she
was leaving him. But he had absolutely refused any
outward admission of it. Therefore, outwardly, it
came as the most terrible blow and shock to him, He
had kept the surface of his confidence in her quite
serene.
And
that is how we are, By strength of will we cut of
four inner intuitive knowledge from admitted
consciousness. This causes a state of dread, or
apprehension, which makes the blow ten times worse
when it does fall.
Clifford
was like a hysterical child. He gave Mrs Bolton a
terrible shock, sitting up in bed ghastly and blank.
`Why,
Sir Clifford, whatever's the matter?'
No
answer! She was terrified lest he had had a stroke.
She hurried and felt his face, took his pulse.
`Is
there a pain? Do try and tell me where it hurts you.
Do tell me!'
No
answer!
`Oh
dear, oh dear! Then I'll telephone to Sheffield for
Dr Carrington, and Dr Lecky may as well run round
straight away.'
She
was moving to the door, when he said in a hollow
tone:
`No!'
She
stopped and gazed at him. His face was yellow,
blank, and like the face of an idiot.
`Do
you mean you'd rather I didn't fetch the doctor?'
`Yes!
I don't want him,' came the sepulchral voice.
`Oh,
but Sir Clifford, you're ill, and I daren't take the
responsibility. I must send for the doctor,
or I shall be blamed.'
A
pause: then the hollow voice said:
`I'm
not ill. My wife isn't coming back.'---It was as if
an image spoke.
`Not
coming back? you mean her ladyship?' Mrs Bolton
moved a little nearer to the bed. `Oh, don't you
believe it. You can trust her ladyship to come
back.'
The
image in the bed did not change, but it pushed a
letter over the counterpane.
`Read
it!' said the sepulchral voice.
`Why,
if it's a letter from her ladyship, I'm sure her
ladyship wouldn't want me to read her letter to you,
Sir Clifford. You can tell me what she says, if you
wish.'
`Read
it!' repeated the voice.
`Why,
if I must, I do it to obey you, Sir Clifford,' she
said. And she read the letter.
`Well,
I am surprised at her ladyship,' she said.
`She promised so faithfully she'd come back!'
The
face in the bed seemed to deepen its expression of
wild, but motionless distraction. Mrs Bolton looked
at it and was worried. She knew what she was up
against: male hysteria. She had not nursed soldiers
without learning something about that very
unpleasant disease.
She
was a little impatient of Sir Clifford. Any man in
his senses must have known his wife was in
love with somebody else, and was going to leave him.
Even, she was sure, Sir Clifford was inwardly
absolutely aware of it, only he wouldn't admit it to
himself. If he would have admitted it, and prepared
himself for it: or if he would have admitted it, and
actively struggled with his wife against it: that
would have been acting like a man. But no! he knew
it, and all the time tried to kid himself it wasn't
so. He felt the devil twisting his tail, and
pretended it was the angels smiling on him. This
state of falsity had now brought on that crisis of
falsity and dislocation, hysteria, which is a form
of insanity. `It comes', she thought to herself,
hating him a little, `because he always thinks of
himself. He's so wrapped up in his own immortal
self, that when he does get a shock he's like a
mummy tangled in its own bandages. Look at him!'
But
hysteria is dangerous: and she was a nurse, it was
her duty to pull him out. Any attempt to rouse his
manhood and his pride would only make him worse: for
his manhood was dead, temporarily if not finally. He
would only squirm softer and softer, like a worm,
and become more dislocated.
The
only thing was to release his self-pity. Like the
lady in Tennyson, he must weep or he must die.
So
Mrs Bolton began to weep first. She covered her face
with her hand and burst into little wild sobs. `I
would never have believed it of her ladyship, I
wouldn't!' she wept, suddenly summoning up all her
old grief and sense of woe, and weeping the tears of
her own bitter chagrin. Once she started, her
weeping was genuine enough, for she had had
something to weep for.
Clifford
thought of the way he had been betrayed by the woman
Connie, and in a contagion of grief, tears filled
his eyes and began to run down his cheeks. He was
weeping for himself. Mrs Bolton, as soon as she saw
the tears running over his blank face, hastily wiped
her own wet cheeks on her little handkerchief, and
leaned towards him.
`Now,
don't you fret, Sir Clifford!' she said, in a luxury
of emotion. `Now, don't you fret, don't, you'll only
do yourself an injury!'
His
body shivered suddenly in an indrawn breath of
silent sobbing, and the tears ran quicker down his
face. She laid her hand on his arm, and her own
tears fell again. Again the shiver went through him,
like a convulsion, and she laid her arm round his
shoulder. `There, there! There, there! Don't you
fret, then, don't you! Don't you fret!' she moaned
to him, while her own tears fell. And she drew him
to her, and held her arms round his great shoulders,
while he laid his face on her bosom and sobbed,
shaking and hulking his huge shoulders, whilst she
softly stroked his dusky-blond hair and said:
`There! There! There! There then! There then! Never
you mind! Never you mind, then!'
And
he put his arms round her and clung to her like a
child, wetting the bib of her starched white apron,
and the bosom of her pale-blue cotton dress, with
his tears. He had let himself go altogether, at
last.
So at
length she kissed him, and rocked him on her bosom,
and in her heart she said to herself: `Oh, Sir
Clifford! Oh, high and mighty Chatterleys! Is this
what you've come down to!' And finally he even went
to sleep, like a child. And she felt worn out, and
went to her own room, where she laughed and cried at
once, with a hysteria of her own. It was so
ridiculous! It was so awful! Such a come-down! So
shameful! And it was so upsetting as well.
After
this, Clifford became like a child with Mrs Bolton.
He would hold her h, and rest his head on her
breast, and when she once lightly kissed him, he
said! `Yes! Do kiss me! Do kiss me!' And when she
sponged his great blond body, he would say the same!
`Do kiss me!' and she would lightly kiss his body,
anywhere, half in mockery.
And
he lay with a queer, blank face like a child, with a
bit of the wonderment of a child. And he would gaze
on her with wide, childish eyes, in a relaxation of
madonna-worship. It was sheer relaxation on his
part, letting go all his manhood, and sinking back
to a childish position that was really perverse. And
then he would put his hand into her bosom and feel
her breasts, and kiss them in exultation, the
exultation of perversity, of being a child when he
was a man.
Mrs
Bolton was both thrilled and ashamed, she both loved
and hated it. Yet she never rebuffed nor rebuked
him. And they drew into a closer physical intimacy,
an intimacy of perversity, when he was a child
stricken with an apparent candour and an apparent
wonderment, that looked almost like a religious
exaltation: the perverse and literal rendering of:
`except ye become again as a little child'.---While
she was the Magna Mater, full of power and potency,
having the great blond child-man under her will and
her stroke entirely.
The
curious thing was that when this child-man, which
Clifford was now and which he had been becoming for
years, emerged into the world, it was much sharper
and keener than the real man he used to be. This
perverted child-man was now a real
business-man; when it was a question of affairs, he
was an absolute he-man, sharp as a needle, and
impervious as a bit of steel. When he was out among
men, seeking his own ends, and `making good' his
colliery workings, he had an almost uncanny
shrewdness, hardness, and a straight sharp punch. It
was as if his very passivity and prostitution to the
Magna Mater gave him insight into material business
affairs, and lent him a certain remarkable inhuman
force. The wallowing in private emotion, the utter
abasement of his manly self, seemed to lend him a
second nature, cold, almost visionary,
business-clever. In business he was quite inhuman.
And
in this Mrs Bolton triumphed. `How he's getting on!'
she would say to herself in pride. `And that's my
doing! My word, he'd never have got on like this
with Lady Chatterley. She was not the one to put a
man forward. She wanted too much for herself.'
At
the same time, in some corner of her weird female
soul, how she despised him and hated him! He was to
her the fallen beast, the squirming monster. And
while she aided and abetted him all she could, away
in the remotest corner of her ancient healthy
womanhood she despised him with a savage contempt
that knew no bounds. The merest tramp was better
than he.
His
behaviour with regard to Connie was curious. He
insisted on seeing her again. He insisted, moreover,
on her coming to Wragby. On this point he was
finally and absolutely fixed. Connie had promised to
come back to Wragby, faithfully.
`But
is it any use?' said Mrs Bolton. `Can't you let her
go, and be rid of her?'
`No!
She said she was coming back, and she's got to
come.'
Mrs
Bolton opposed him no more. She knew what she was
dealing with.
I
needn't tell you what effect your letter has had
on me [he wrote to Connie to London]. Perhaps you
can imagine it if you try, though no doubt you
won't trouble to use your imagination on my
behalf.
I
can only say one thing in answer: I must see you
personally, here at Wragby, before I can do
anything. You promised faithfully to come back to
Wragby, and I hold you to the promise. I don't
believe anything nor understand anything until I
see you personally, here under normal
circumstances. I needn't tell you that nobody here
suspects anything, so your return would be quite
normal. Then if you feel, after we have talked
things over, that you still remain in the same
mind, no doubt we can come to terms.
Connie
showed this letter to Mellors.
`He
wants to begin his revenge on you,' he said, handing
the letter back.
Connie
was silent. She was somewhat surprised to find that
she was afraid of Clifford. She was afraid to go
near him. She was afraid of him as if he were evil
and dangerous.
`What
shall I do?' she said.
`Nothing,
if you don't want to do anything.'
She
replied, trying to put Clifford off. He answered:
If you
don't come back to Wragby now, I shall consider
that you are coming back one day, and act
accordingly. I shall just go on the same, and wait
for you here, if I wait for fifty years.
She was
frightened. This was bullying of an insidious sort.
She had no doubt he meant what he said. He would not
divorce her, and the child would be his, unless she
could find some means of establishing its
illegitimacy.
After
a time of worry and harassment, she decided to go to
Wragby. Hilda would go with her. She wrote this to
Clifford. He replied:
I
shall not welcome your sister, but I shall not
deity her the door. I have no doubt she has
connived at your desertion of your duties and
responsibilities, so do not expect me to show
pleasure in seeing her.
They
went to Wragby. Clifford was away when they arrived.
Mrs Bolton received them.
`Oh,
your Ladyship, it isn't the happy home-coming we
hoped for, is it!' she said.
`Isn't
it?' said Connie.
So
this woman knew! How much did the rest of the
servants know or suspect?
She
entered the house, which now she hated with every
fibre in her body. The great, rambling mass of a
place seemed evil to her, just a menace over her.
She was no longer its mistress, she was its victim.
`I
can't stay long here,' she whispered to Hilda,
terrified.
And
she suffered going into her own bedroom, re-entering
into possession as if nothing had happened. She
hated every minute inside the Wragby walls.
They
did not meet Clifford till they went down to dinner.
He was dressed, and with a black tie: rather
reserved, and very much the superior gentleman. He
behaved perfectly politely during the meal and kept
a polite sort of conversation going: but it seemed
all touched with insanity.
`How
much do the servants know?' asked Connie, when the
woman was out of the room.
`Of
your intentions? Nothing whatsoever.'
`Mrs
Bolton knows.'
He
changed colour.
`Mrs
Bolton is not exactly one of the servants,' he said.
`Oh,
I don't mind.'
There
was tension till after coffee, when Hilda said she
would go up to her room.
Clifford
and Connie sat in silence when she had gone. Neither
would begin to speak. Connie was so glad that he
wasn't taking the pathetic line, she kept him up to
as much haughtiness as possible. She just sat silent
and looked down at her hands.
`I
suppose you don't at all mind having gone back on
your word?' he said at last.
`I
can't help it,' she murmured.
`But
if you can't, who can?'
`I
suppose nobody.'
He
looked at her with curious cold rage. He was used to
her. She was as it were embedded in his will. How
dared she now go back on him, and destroy the fabric
of his daily existence? How dared she try to cause
this derangement of his personality?
`And
for what do you want to go back on
everything?' he insisted.
`Love!'
she said. It was best to be hackneyed.
`Love
of Duncan Forbes? But you didn't think that worth
having, when you met me. Do you mean to say you now
love him better than anything else in life?'
`One
changes,' she said.
`Possibly!
Possibly you may have whims. But you still have to
convince me of the importance of the change. I
merely don't believe in your love of Duncan Forbes.'
`But
why should you believe in it? You have only
to divorce me, not to believe in my feelings.'
`And
why should I divorce you?'
`Because
I don't want to live here any more. And you really
don't want me.'
`Pardon
me! I don't change. For my part, since you are my
wife, I should prefer that you should stay under my
roof in dignity and quiet. Leaving aside personal
feelings, and I assure you, on my part it is leaving
aside a great deal, it is bitter as death to me to
have this order of life broken up, here in Wragby,
and the decent round of daily life smashed, just for
some whim of yours.'
After
a time of silence she said:
`I
can't help it. I've got to go. I expect I shall have
a child.'
He
too was silent for a time.
`And
is it for the child's sake you must go?' he asked at
length.
She
nodded.
`And
why? Is Duncan Forbes so keen on his spawn?'
`Surely
keener than you would be,' she said.
`But
really? I want my wife, and I see no reason for
letting her go. If she likes to bear a child under
my roof, she is welcome, and the child is welcome:
provided that the decency and order of life is
preserved. Do you mean to tell me that Duncan Forbes
has a greater hold over you? I don't believe it.'
There
was a pause.
`But
don't you see,' said Connie. `I must go away
from you, and I must live with the man I love.'
`No,
I don't see it! I don't give tuppence for your love,
nor for the man you love. I don't believe in that
sort of cant.'
`But
you see, I do.'
`Do
you? My dear Madam, you are too intelligent, I
assure you, to believe in your own love for Duncan
Forbes. Believe me, even now you really care more
for me. So why should I give in to such nonsense!'
She
felt he was right there. And she felt she could keep
silent no longer.
`Because
it isn't Duncan that I do love,' she said,
looking up at him.
`We
only said it was Duncan, to spare your feelings.'
`To
spare my feelings?'
`Yes!
Because who I really love, and it'll make you hate
me, is Mr Mellors, who was our game-keeper here.'
If he
could have sprung out of his chair, he would have
done so. His face went yellow, and his eyes bulged
with disaster as he glared at her.
Then
he dropped back in the chair, gasping and looking up
at the ceiling.
At
length he sat up.
`Do
you mean to say you re telling me the truth?' he
asked, looking gruesome.
`Yes!
You know I am.'
`And
when did you begin with him?'
`In
the spring.'
He
was silent like some beast in a trap.
`And
it was you, then, in the bedroom at the
cottage?'
So he
had really inwardly known all the time.
`Yes!'
He
still leaned forward in his chair, gazing at her
like a cornered beast.
`My
God, you ought to be wiped off the face of the
earth!'
`Why?'
she ejaculated faintly.
But
he seemed not to hear.
`That
scum! That bumptious lout! That miserable cad! And
carrying on with him all the time, while you were
here and he was one of my servants! My God, my God,
is there any end to the beastly lowness of women!'
He
was beside himself with rage, as she knew he would
be.
`And
you mean to say you want to have a child to a cad
like that?'
`Yes!
I'm going to.'
`You're
going to! You mean you're sure! How long have you
been sure?'
`Since
June.'
He
was speechless, and the queer blank look of a child
came over him again.
`You'd
wonder,' he said at last, `that such beings were
ever allowed to be born.'
`What
beings?' she asked.
He
looked at her weirdly, without an answer. It was
obvious, he couldn't even accept the fact of the
existence of Mellors, in any connexion with his own
life. It was sheer, unspeakable, impotent hate.
`And
do you mean to say you'd marry him?---and bear his
foul name?' he asked at length.
`Yes,
that's what I want.'
He
was again as if dumbfounded.
`Yes!'
he said at last. `That proves that what I've always
thought about you is correct: you're not normal,
you're not in your right senses. You're one of those
half-insane, perverted women who must run after
depravity, the nostalgie de la boue.'
Suddenly
he had become almost wistfully moral, seeing himself
the incarnation of good, and people like Mellors and
Connie the incarnation of mud, of evil. He seemed to
be growing vague, inside a nimbus.
`So
don't you think you'd better divorce me and have
done with it?' she said.
`No!
You can go where you like, but I shan't divorce
you,' he said idiotically.
`Why
not?'
He
was silent, in the silence of imbecile obstinacy.
`Would
you even let the child be legally yours, and your
heir?' she said.
`I
care nothing about the child.'
`But
if it's a boy it will be legally your son, and it
will inherit your title, and have Wragby.'
`I
care nothing about that,' he said.
`But
you must! I shall prevent the child from
being legally yours, if I can. I'd so much rather it
were illegitimate, and mine: if it can't be Mellors'.'
`Do
as you like about that.'
He
was immovable.
`And
won't you divorce me?' she said. `You can use Duncan
as a pretext! There'd be no need to bring in the
real name. Duncan doesn't mind.'
`I
shall never divorce you,' he said, as if a nail had
been driven in.
`But
why? Because I want you to?'
`Because
I follow my own inclination, and I'm not inclined
to.'
It
was useless. She went upstairs and told Hilda the
upshot.
`Better
get away tomorrow,' said Hilda, `and let him come to
his senses.'
So
Connie spent half the night packing her really
private and personal effects. In the morning she had
her trunks sent to the station, without telling
Clifford. She decided to see him only to say
good-bye, before lunch.
But
she spoke to Mrs Bolton.
`I
must say good-bye to you, Mrs Bolton, you know why.
But I can trust you not to talk.'
`Oh,
you can trust me, your Ladyship, though it's a sad
blow for us here, indeed. But I hope you'll be happy
with the other gentleman.'
`The
other gentleman! It's Mr Mellors, and I care for
him. Sir Clifford knobs. But don't say anything to
anybody. And if one day you think Sir Clifford may
be willing to divorce me, let me know, will you? I
should like to be properly married to the man I care
for.'
`I'm
sure you would, my Lady. Oh, you can trust me. I'll
be faithful to Sir Clifford, and I'll be faithful to
you, for I can see you're both right in your own
ways.'
`Thank
you! And look! I want to give you this---may I?' So
Connie left Wragby once more, and went on with Hilda
to Scotland. Mellors went into the country and got
work on a farm. The idea was, he should get his
divorce, if possible, whether Connie got hers or
not. And for six months he should work at farming,
so that eventually he and Connie could have some
small farm of their own, into which he could put his
energy. For he would have to have some work, even
hard work, to do, and he would have to make his own
living, even if her capital started him.
So
they would have to wait till spring was in, till the
baby was born, till the early summer came round
again.
The
Grange Farm Old Heanor 29 September
I
got on here with a bit of contriving, because I
knew Richards, the company engineer, in the army.
It is a farm belonging to Butler and Smitham
Colliery Company, they use it for raising hay and
oats for the pit-ponies; not a private concern.
But they've got cows and pigs and all the rest of
it, and I get thirty shillings a week as labourer.
Rowley, the farmer, puts me on to as many jobs as
he can, so that I can learn as much as possible
between now and next Easter. I've not heard a
thing about Bertha. I've no idea why she didn't
show up at the divorce, nor where she is nor what
she's up to. But if I keep quiet till March I
suppose I shall be free. And don't you bother
about Sir Clifford. He'll want to get rid of you
one of these days. If he leaves you alone, it's a
lot.
I've
got lodging in a bit of an old cottage in Engine
Row very decent. The man is engine-driver at High
Park, tall, with a beard, and very chapel. The
woman is a birdy bit of a thing who loves anything
superior. King's English and allow-me! all the
time. But they lost their only son in the war, and
it's sort of knocked a hole in them. There's a
long gawky lass of a daughter training for a
school-teacher, and I help her with her lessons
sometimes, so we're quite the family. But they're
very decent people, and only too kind to me. I
expect I'm more coddled than you are.
I
like farming all right. It's not inspiring, but
then I don't ask to be inspired. I'm used to
horses, and cows, though they are very female,
have a soothing effect on me. When I sit with my
head in her side, milking, I feel very solaced.
They have six rather fine Herefords. Oat-harvest
is just over and I enjoyed it, in spite of sore
hands and a lot of rain. I don't take much notice
of people, but get on with them all right. Most
things one just ignores.
The
pits are working badly; this is a colliery
district like Tevershall. only prettier. I
sometimes sit in the Wellington and talk to the
men. They grumble a lot, but they're not going to
alter anything. As everybody says, the Notts-Derby
miners have got their hearts in the right place.
But the rest of their anatomy must be in the wrong
place, in a world that has no use for them. I like
them, but they don't cheer me much: not enough of
the old fighting-cock in them. They talk a lot
about nationalization, nationalization of
royalties, nationalization of the whole industry.
But you can't nationalize coal and leave all the
other industries as they are. They talk about
putting coal to new uses, like Sir Clifford is
trying to do. It may work here and there, but not
as a general thing. I doubt. Whatever you make
you've got to sell it. The men are very apathetic.
They feel the whole damned thing is doomed, and I
believe it is. And they are doomed along with it.
Some of the young ones spout about a Soviet, but
there's not much conviction in them. There's no
sort of conviction about anything, except that
it's all a muddle and a hole. Even under a Soviet
you've still got to sell coal: and that's the
difficulty.
We've
got this great industrial population, and they've
got to be fed, so the damn show has to be kept
going somehow. The women talk a lot more than the
men, nowadays, and they are a sight more
cock-sure. The men are limp, they feel a doom
somewhere, and they go about as if there was
nothing to be done. Anyhow, nobody knows what
should be done in spite of all the talk, the young
ones get mad because they've no money to spend.
Their whole life depends on spending money, and
now they've got none to spend. That's our
civilization and our education: bring up the
masses to depend entirely on spending money, and
then the money gives out. The pits are working two
days, two and a half days a week, and there's no
sign of betterment even for the winter. It means a
man bringing up a family on twenty-five and thirty
shillings. The women are the maddest of all. But
then they're the maddest for spending, nowadays.
If
you could only tell them that living and spending
isn't the same thing! But it's no good. If only
they were educated to live instead of earn
and spend, they could manage very happily on
twenty-five shillings. If the men wore scarlet
trousers as I said, they wouldn't think so much of
money: if they could dance and hop and skip, and
sing and swagger and be handsome, they could do
with very little cash. And amuse the women
themselves, and be amused by the women. They ought
to learn to be naked and handsome, and to sing in
a mass and dance the old group dances, and carve
the stools they sit on, and embroider their own
emblems. Then they wouldn't need money. And that's
the only way to solve the industrial problem:
train the people to be able to live and live in
handsomeness, without needing to spend. But you
can't do it. They're all one-track minds nowadays.
Whereas the mass of people oughtn't even to try to
think, because they can't. They should be alive
and frisky, and acknowledge the great god Pan.
He's the only god for the masses, forever. The few
can go in for higher cults if they like. But let
the mass be forever pagan.
But
the colliers aren't pagan, far from it. They're a
sad lot, a deadened lot of men: dead to their
women, dead to life. The young ones scoot about on
motor-bikes with girls, and jazz when they get a
chance, But they're very dead. And it needs money.
Money poisons you when you've got it, and starves
you when you haven't.
I'm
sure you're sick of all this. But I don't want to
harp on myself, and I've nothing happening to me.
I don't like to think too much about you, in my
head, that only makes a mess of us both. But, of
course, what I live for now is for you and me to
live together. I'm frightened, really. I feel the
devil in the air, and he'll try to get us. Or not
the devil, Mammon: which I think, after all, is
only the mass-will of people, wanting money and
hating life. Anyhow, I feel great grasping white
hands in the air, wanting to get hold of the
throat of anybody who tries to live, to live
beyond money, and squeeze the life out. There's a
bad time coming. There's a bad time coming, boys,
there's a bad time coming! If things go on as they
are, there's nothing lies in the future but death
and destruction, for these industrial masses. I
feel my inside turn to water sometimes, and there
you are, going to have a child by me. But never
mind. All the bad times that ever have been,
haven't been able to blow the crocus out: not even
the love of women. So they won't be able to blow
out my wanting you, nor the little glow there is
between you and me. We'll be together next year.
And though I'm frightened, I believe in your being
with me. A man has to fend and fettle for the
best, and then trust in something beyond himself.
You can't insure against the future, except by
really believing in the best bit of you, and in
the power beyond it. So I believe in the little
flame between us. For me now, it's the only thing
in the world. I've got no friends, not inward
friends. Only you. And now the little flame is all
I care about in my life. There's the baby, but
that is a side issue. It's my Pentecost, the
forked flame between me and you. The old Pentecost
isn't quite right. Me and God is a bit uppish,
somehow. But the little forked flame between me
and you: there you are! That's what I abide by,
and will abide by, Cliffords and Berthas, colliery
companies and governments and the money-mass of
people all notwithstanding.
That's
why I don't like to start thinking about you
actually. It only tortures me, and does you no
good. I don't want you to be away from me. But if
I start fretting it wastes something. Patience,
always patience. This is my fortieth winter. And I
can't help all the winters that have been. But
this winter I'll stick to my little Pentecost
flame, and have some peace. And I won't let the
breath of people blow it out. I believe in a
higher mystery, that doesn't let even the crocus
be blown out. And if you're in Scotland and I'm in
the Midlands, and I can't put my arms round you,
and wrap my legs round you, yet I've got something
of you. My soul softly Naps in the little
Pentecost flame with you, like the peace of
fucking. We fucked a flame into being. Even the
flowers are fucked into being between the sun and
the earth. But it's a delicate thing, and takes
patience and the long pause.
So
I love chastity now, because it is the peace that
comes of fucking. I love being chaste now. I love
it as snowdrops love the snow. I love this
chastity, which is the pause of peace of our
fucking, between us now like a snowdrop of forked
white fire. And when the real spring comes, when
the drawing together comes, then we can fuck the
little flame brilliant and yellow, brilliant. But
not now, not yet! Now is the time to be chaste, it
is so good to be chaste, like a river of cool
water in my soul. I love the chastity now that it
flows between us. It is like fresh water and rain.
How can men want wearisomely to philander. What a
misery to be like Don Juan, and impotent ever to
fuck oneself into peace, and the little flame
alight, impotent and unable to be chaste in the
cool between-whiles, as by a river.
Well,
so many words, because I can't touch you. If I
could sleep with my arms round you, the ink could
stay in the bottle. We could be chaste together
just as we can fuck together. But we have to be
separate for a while, and I suppose it is really
the wiser way. If only one were sure.
Never
mind, never mind, we won't get worked up. We
really trust in the little flame, and in the
unnamed god that shields it from being blown out.
There's so much of you here with me, really, that
it's a pity you aren't all here.
Never
mind about Sir Clifford. If you don't hear
anything from him, never mind. He can't really do
anything to you. Wait, he will want to get rid of
you at last, to cast you out. And if he doesn't,
we'll manage to keep clear of him. But he will. In
the end he will want to spew you out as the
abominable thing.
Now
I can't even leave off writing to you.
But
a great deal of us is together, and we can but
abide by it, and steer our courses to meet soon.
John Thomas says good-night to Lady Jane, a little
droopingly, but with a hopeful heart.
