Sons and Lovers, D. H. Lawrence [best fiction books to read TXT] 📗

watched his hand, firm and warm, rigorously scoring her work. He was reading only the French, ignoring her soul that was there. But gradually his hand forgot its work. He read in silence, motionless. She quivered.

“ ‘Ce matin les oiseaux m’ont eveille,’ ” he read. “ ‘Il faisait encore un crépuscule. Mais la petite fenêtre de ma chambre était blême, et puis, jaune, et tous les oiseaux du bois éclatèrent dans un chanson vif et resonnant. Toute l’aube tressaillit. J’avais rêvé de vous. Est-ce que vous voyez aussi l’aube? Les oiseaux m’éveillent presque tous les matins, et toujours il y a quelque chose de terreur dans le cri des grives. Il est si clair⁠—’ ”

Miriam sat tremulous, half ashamed. He remained quite still, trying to understand. He only knew she loved him. He was afraid of her love for him. It was too good for him, and he was inadequate. His own love was at fault, not hers. Ashamed, he corrected her work, humbly writing above her words.

“Look,” he said quietly, “the past participle conjugated with avoir agrees with the direct object when it precedes.”

She bent forward, trying to see and to understand. Her free, fine curls tickled his face. He started as if they had been red hot, shuddering. He saw her peering forward at the page, her red lips parted piteously, the black hair springing in fine strands across her tawny, ruddy cheek. She was coloured like a pomegranate for richness. His breath came short as he watched her. Suddenly she looked up at him. Her dark eyes were naked with their love, afraid, and yearning. His eyes, too, were dark, and they hurt her. They seemed to master her. She lost all her self-control, was exposed in fear. And he knew, before he could kiss her, he must drive something out of himself. And a touch of hate for her crept back again into his heart. He returned to her exercise.

Suddenly he flung down the pencil, and was at the oven in a leap, turning the bread. For Miriam he was too quick. She started violently, and it hurt her with real pain. Even the way he crouched before the oven hurt her. There seemed to be something cruel in it, something cruel in the swift way he pitched the bread out of the tins, caught it up again. If only he had been gentle in his movements she would have felt so rich and warm. As it was, she was hurt.

He returned and finished the exercise.

“You’ve done well this week,” he said.

She saw he was flattered by her diary. It did not repay her entirely.

“You really do blossom out sometimes,” he said. “You ought to write poetry.”

She lifted her head with joy, then she shook it mistrustfully.

“I don’t trust myself,” she said.

“You should try!”

Again she shook her head.

“Shall we read, or is it too late?” he asked.

“It is late⁠—but we can read just a little,” she pleaded.

She was really getting now the food for her life during the next week. He made her copy Baudelaire’s “Le Balcon.” Then he read it for her. His voice was soft and caressing, but growing almost brutal. He had a way of lifting his lips and showing his teeth, passionately and bitterly, when he was much moved. This he did now. It made Miriam feel as if he were trampling on her. She dared not look at him, but sat with her head bowed. She could not understand why he got into such a tumult and fury. It made her wretched. She did not like Baudelaire, on the whole⁠—nor Verlaine.

“Behold her singing in the field
Yon solitary highland lass.”

That nourished her heart. So did “Fair Ines.” And⁠—

“It was a beauteous evening, calm and pure,
And breathing holy quiet like a nun.”

These were like herself. And there was he, saying in his throat bitterly:

“Tu te rappelleras la beauté des caresses.”

The poem was finished; he took the bread out of the oven, arranging the burnt loaves at the bottom of the pancheon, the good ones at the top. The desiccated loaf remained swathed up in the scullery.

“Mater needn’t know till morning,” he said. “It won’t upset her so much then as at night.”

Miriam looked in the bookcase, saw what postcards and letters he had received, saw what books were there. She took one that had interested him. Then he turned down the gas and they set off. He did not trouble to lock the door.

He was not home again until a quarter to eleven. His mother was seated in the rocking-chair. Annie, with a rope of hair hanging down her back, remained sitting on a low stool before the fire, her elbows on her knees, gloomily. On the table stood the offending loaf unswathed. Paul entered rather breathless. No one spoke. His mother was reading the little local newspaper. He took off his coat, and went to sit down on the sofa. His mother moved curtly aside to let him pass. No one spoke. He was very uncomfortable. For some minutes he sat pretending to read a piece of paper he found on the table. Then⁠—

“I forgot that bread, mother,” he said.

There was no answer from either woman.

“Well,” he said, “it’s only twopence ha’penny. I can pay you for that.”

Being angry, he put three pennies on the table and slid them towards his mother. She turned away her head. Her mouth was shut tightly.

“Yes,” said Annie, “you don’t know how badly my mother is!”

The girl sat staring glumly into the fire.

“Why is she badly?” asked Paul, in his overbearing way.

“Well!” said Annie. “She could scarcely get home.”

He looked closely at his mother. She looked ill.

“Why could you scarcely get home?” he asked her, still sharply. She would not answer.

“I found her as white as a sheet sitting here,” said Annie, with a suggestion of tears in her voice.

“Well, why?” insisted Paul. His brows were knitting, his eyes dilating passionately.

“It was enough to upset anybody,” said Mrs. Morel, “hugging those