Lady Chatterley's Lover

e another nowadays?' Connie asked Tommy

me when men and women have liked one another as much as they do today. Genuine liking! Take my

pondere

r have anything to do

lking perfectly sincerely

talkin

you were a man, than talk p

rhaps. But

at the same time love her and desire her; and it s

y should

But there it is! I like women and talk to them, and therefore I don't love

they ou

ught to be something else than wha

e women and talk to them. I don't see how they can love them wi

em, though it makes me intimate in one direction, sets me poles apart from them as far as kissing is concerned. So there you are! But don't take me as a general example, pr

't it make

I don't envy them a bit! If fate sent me a woman I wanted, well and good. Since I don't know any

u like

ere's no question of kissi

d Connie. `But oug

lifford, but what would you s

there a d

the male and female business is in abeyance. Just in abeyance. How would you like me

uld ha

the female of my species. And I don't miss her, I just like women. Who's going

But isn't some

feel it,

etween men and women. A woman has

an for a

e other side of

she said t

simple, like proper human beings with one another. Be

so forlorn, so forlorn and stray. Like a chip on a drear

seemed old and cold. And Michaelis let one down so; he was no good. The men

y did, and started working the sex

nothing to it. She understood perfectly well why people had cocktail parties, and jazzed, and Charlestoned till they were ready to drop. You had to take it out some way or other, your youth, or it ate you up. But what a ghastly thing, this youth! You felt as old as Methuselah, a

, ponderously, heeding nothing, not even noticing where she w

other sound, and she roused; it was a child sobbing. At once she attended; someone was ill-treating a child. S

drive beyond her: the keeper, and a little gi

bitch!' came the man's angry voi

s. The man turned and looked at her, salu

rying?' demanded Constance, pere

man's face. `Nay, yo mun ax 'er,' he

changed colour. Then she gathered her defiance, and lo

you,' she

' he said; then, with a return to the vernacular: `but I canna tell y

, dear? Tell me why you're crying!' she said, with the conventionalized sweetness s

'...an intense tenderness of tone. At the same time she felt in

, bending in front of the chil

ond on the sixpence. Then more sobs, but subduing. `There, tell me what's the matter, tel

..it's the

of subsid

pussy,

, clenching on sixpence, poi

ere

h, was a big black cat, stretched ou

said in

adyship,' said the

e child cried,' she said, `if you shot it

hiding his feelings. And again Connie flushed; she felt s

d playfully to the child. `W

ctedly in a piping voi

And did you come out with your Daddy, and

old, dark eyes of scrutiny, siz

with my Gran,' sai

ut where is

, pointing down the dri

nd would you like

quivers of remini

Gran? Then your Daddy can do what he has to do.' She

slight movement of th

ke her to the cotta

Ladyship

hat calm, searching detached glance.

with me to the cottage

up again. `Yes!

female. Nevertheless she wiped her face and

ning!' sa

or by the time the game-keeper's picturesque little home was in sight. The child w

was a rattling heard inside. Connie lingered

n! G

yer back

. She came to the door in her sacking apron, a blacklead-brush in her ha

wiping her arm across her face as

ie. `She was crying, so I

ooked around swif

eer was

to her grandmother's

`but he'd shot a poaching c

, but you shouldn't 'ave bothered. Why, did ever you see!'---and the old woman turned to the ch

just a walk,' sai

afore they got far. She's frightened of 'im, that's wheer it is. Seems 'e's almost a stranger to '

n't know w

!' simpered

wn at the sixpence in t

n't, you shouldn't. Why, isn't Lady Chatterley good

ood to you!'---Connie couldn't help looking at the old woman's nose, and the latt

o much, Lady Chat'ley, I'm sure. Say thank you

,' piped t

moved away, saying `Good morning', heart

hin, proud man should have that l

ery, and looked at her face. Seeing it, she stamped her foot with impatience. `Of cours

, dynamic words were half dead now, and dying from day to day. Home was a place you lived in, love was a thing you didn't fool yourself about, joy was a word you applied to a good Charleston, happiness was a term of hypocrisy used to bluff other people, a father was an individual who enjoyed his own existence, a hus

ess of life, phase after phase, étape after étape, there was a certain grisly satisfaction. So that's that! Always this was the la

s a permanent necessity. You couldn't spend your last sou, and say finally: So that's that! No, if you lived even another ten minutes, you wanted a few more sous for somethin

, money is a necessity, and the only absolute necessity. All the rest you c

fford to make by his writing. That she actually helped to make.---`Clifford and I together, we make twelve hundred a year out of writing'; so she put it

eant money. Clifford seemed to care very much whether his stories were considered first-class literature or not. Strict

, subtle, powerful emanation of will out of yourself brought back to you the mysterious nothingness of money a word on a bit of paper. It was a sort of magic, certainly it was triu

really good was what actually caught on. It was no good being really good and getting left with it. It seemed as if most of the `really good' men just

, next winter. He and she had caught the bus all right, s

wound to his psyche coming out. But it made Connie want to scream. Oh God, if the mechanism of the consciousness itse

pt she was saying to herself: Silly fool, wetti

rd, the stories, Wragby, the Lady-Chatterley business, money and fame, such as it was...she wanted to go ahead with it all. Love, sex, all that sort of stuff, just water-ices! Lick it up and forget it. If you don't hang on to

pulsive thought! As lief have a child to a rabbit! Tommy Dukes? he was very nice, but somehow you couldn't associate him with a baby, another generation. He ended in himself. And out of all the rest of Clifford's pretty wide acquaintance, t

t was

if she couldn't find one who would do.---`Go ye into the streets and by ways of Jerusalem, and see if you can find a man.' It had been

be a foreigner: not an Englishman, sti

er, female way, she was serious to the bottom of her soul. She was not going to risk any chance comer, not she! One might take a lover almost at any moment, but a man who should beget a child on one...wait! wait! it's a very different matter.---`Go ye into

chair, but Connie would go out. She went out alone every day now, m

and as the boy was laid up with influenza, somebody always seemed to

my and silent, even from the shuffling of the collieries, for the pits were wor

the bare boughs, with a hollow little crash. For the rest, among the old tr

king reticence of the old trees. They seemed a very power of silence, and yet a vital presence. They, too, were waiting: obstinately, stoically waiting, and giving off a potency of silence. Perhaps they were on

les and a handsome chimney, looked uninhabited, it was so silent and alone. But a thread of smoke rose from the c

nd felt like going away again. She knocked softly, no one came. She knocked again, but still not loudly. There was no answer

ds from the back of the cottage. Having failed to make hers

. He was naked to the hips, his velveteen breeches slipping down over his slender loins. And his white slim back was curved over a big bowl of soapy water, in which he ducked his head, shaking his head with a queer, quick little motion, lifting his slender white arms, and pressing the s

a little, and the sense of aloneness, of a creature purely alone, overwhelmed her. Perfect, white, solitary nudity of a creature that lives alone, and inwardly alone. And beyond that, a certain b

r mind she was inclined to ridicule. A man washing himself in a back yard! No doubt with evil-smelli

in the coil of her confusion, she was determined to deliver her message to the fellow. She would not he balked.

the cottage looked just the same. A dog barked, and she k

ed the door quickly, and startled her. He looked une

!' he said. `Wil

good, she stepped over the threshol

om Sir Clifford,' she said in he

made her turn her face aside a little. He thought her comely, almost beaut

' he asked, presuming she wo

e, looking unconsciously into his eyes again. And now his eyes looked warm

adyship. I will se

ness and distance. Connie hesitated, she ought to go. But she looked round t

ere quite alon

ne, your L

ur moth

er own cottage

child?' as

the ch

an indefinable look of derision. It was

loss, `my mother comes and cleans up for

ousers and flannel shirt and a grey tie, his hair soft and damp, his face rather pale and worn-looking. When the eyes ceased to laugh they looked a

and she said nothing. Only she loo

didn't dis

of mockery nar

dn't a coat on, but then I had no idea who was knocking.

coat, she saw again how slender he was, thin, stooping a little. Yet, as she passed him, there was somet

ng he was looking after her; he ups

thinking: `She's nice, she's rea

per, so unlike a working-man anyhow; although he had something i

us kind of person,' she said to Cliff

d Clifford. `I

thing special about h

m India, I rather think. He may have picked up certain tricks out there, perhaps he was an officer's servant, and improved on his posi

iar tight rebuff against anyone of the lower classes who might be

ere is something specia

! Nothing I

e real truth; he wasn't telling himself the real truth, that was it. He disliked any suggestio

rdliness of the men of her generation.