The First Lady Chatterley's Lover

by D. H. Lawrence

  ‘Monkey or no monkey, he’s going to climb down,’ said Parkin grimly.

  ‘You think you can make him?’

  The two men eyed one another narrowly.

  ‘Ay!’ said Parkin. ‘An’ goin’ to.’

  ‘Oh well!’ said Duncan. ‘That’s all there is in it, really. — And do you think the lady in question would live with you if she knew this?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Why haven’t you told her?’

  ‘She never asked me. She’s only told me her plans. She’d never think of mine. Do you think she’d live with me, at that?’

  ‘Knowing you were secretary for the Communist league? I doubt it. She’d have to be a Communist herself. Which she isn’t, not by any means.’

  ‘She’s not far off.’ There was a wistful note in his voice.

  ‘You think not? Well, I’ve not sounded her.’

  ‘What’s your own opinions, might I ask?’

  ‘Mine? I haven’t any. I should be a Communist if I were a working man. As I’m one of the privileged classes — at least I enjoy some of the privileges — I’m nothing.’

  Parkin, bright eyed, watched him steadily.

  ‘No!’ he said.

  ‘Then there’s this!’ said Duncan. ‘Supposing she did feel herself in sympathy with your Communist thing — really in sympathy — and would come and live with you somewhere just outside Sheffield — you never know what a woman night do — would you be glad?’

  Parkin’s eyes shone with alarming brightness.

  ‘Do yer think as ’appen she might?’ he asked.

  ‘I wouldn’t answer for her for a second. She might, and just as easily, she mightn’t. But if she did it would please you?’

  ‘Ay, it would please me,’ said Parkin, pushing his moustache from his mouth with a curious motion. ‘If I could have times again with her like in the cottage — an’ if I thought she’d back me up i’ th’ t’other — eh! Eh lad! eh!’

  His face flickered with an unconscious smile, and from his eyes came the flashes only Constance had seen before.

  ‘Do you think she might?’ he asked with sudden gravity.

  ‘Live with you — and back you up as a Communist? She wouldn’t just at the moment. But in the future she might.’

  ‘’Appen a man, no matter how lucky he is, never gets but half of what he wants,’ said Parkin. ‘An’ I’ve had my half — this spring. Eh, but I shouldn’t like to think as I shall never have her again! I’d give my life to stroke her and feel her open out to me — stroke her at the sides of the belly — ’ His eyes opened in a wide flash, then darkened in a kind of swoon.

  Duncan emptied his glass again. ‘Yet you won’t go and live with her on her own terms?’ he said.

  ‘Eh! She’d niver open to me proper — niver the last bit. If I gave in to her she’d hold the last bit back. She couldn’t help it.’

  Duncan rang violently for more whiskey.

  ‘And you don’t mind if Clifford gets this child?’ he said, changing the subject.

  Parkin frowned.

  ‘If she doesn’t. It’s her business —’ he said impatiently.

  He too drank his whiskey. Flushed, with eyes dilated, he was handsome, and there came forth from him a sort of power: a glow of soft, human power which made Duncan suddenly see democracy in a new light, men kindled to this glow of human beauty and awareness, opened glowing to another sort of contact.

  ‘Why don’t you get those two teeth put in?’ he said.

  ‘Eh?’ The dilated eyes flashed with resentment and as instantly changed again. ‘Ay, I will one day,’ he said. ‘Bill’s wife is always at me about it.’

  ‘Well!’ said Duncan. ‘There’s nothing to be done at present.’

  ‘No!’ said Parkin.

  ‘Leave her alone for a time — till she gives you some sign — or till you feel you need to see her. Then tell her about this Communist thing. It does matter to you, I suppose?’

  ‘What? Our Communist club? Ay! It’s something as I’ve laid hold of, an’ I can’t let go — like an electric thing. Ay, it’s a sure thing.’

  ‘Then tell her about it, some time in the future — and about the house outside Sheffield — and just see.’

  ‘Ay! That’s what I s’ll have to do. — It’s not so bad waitin’ a bit, while she’s havin’ a child. Though mind yer, if I had her and could sleep with her held up to me, inside my arm — Eh well, ’appen I should only forget other things, an’ do what she wanted an’ repent it later. — I’ll wait! I’ll wait! I know it’s best.’

  His bright, dilated eyes seemed full of strange, unborn things. Duncan looked at him and rose, a little unsteadily.

  ‘Shall we be going — before they shout “Time”?’

  ‘Ay!’ Parkin rose, squaring his shoulders against the hostile atmosphere of the hotel. It was not his own element. The peculiar physical glow of his presence made him conspicuous among the many men there drinking, and the hostility of the place was evident in him. Duncan laughed. He had long learned to be almost unaware of strangers in hotels.

  Duncan insisted on driving the other man to his door, but would not go in.

  ‘Goodbye!’ he said. ‘I’ll see you again one day.’

  ‘Ay! I hope so. And thank yer, yer know.’

  ‘Right!’

  Duncan drove away, feeling peculiarly lonely, as if some fire had gone out in him.

  ‘If she feels like this she’ll never let him go,’ he said to himself as he drove out of the town and into the lurid night of the furnaces. The clouds were low, with a red glare. What did it matter! What did anything matter! Let the world end if it liked to end!

  But Duncan enjoyed this sort of reckless, surging despair. It was so much more passionate and alive than his usual nervous tension. He rushed through the industrial night like Lucifer, smelling the sulphur far out in the country under the low sky.

  And he enjoyed slipping to his room at Wragby without seeing anybody. When he had shut and locked his bedroom door he looked round in an exultation of triumph. He was alone! No one could come at him! This room was his own small inviolate world.

  He left a few days later without having had any serious talk with Constance. He only teased her.

  ‘Do you remember, Constance, when we were such warm socialists — or were we the last rose of the Fabian summer?’

  ‘It was fun,’ said she.

  ‘Oh, fun for a time: till it became a bit too Webby. Do you feel anything that way now?’

  ‘I?’ she looked up at him. ‘I suppose I feel very much the same. I’m a socialist as far as the County are concerned — especially after they’ve called on me — or on Clifford rather — and been sweet. I’m a sea-green Robespierre for an hour or two. Then it fades. I’m afraid politics don’t interest me any longer.’

  ‘They aren’t interesting. — And how about Communism and the “downright bolshies” as people call them?’

  ‘Well! They aren’t inspiring, are they?’

  ‘Not to me. Yet perhaps they’ve got a sense of genuine injustice. And for an unsubmissive people that’s a very real thing.’

  ‘Yes! Yes! Only somehow I can’t bother very much about big vague injustices that don’t hit me personally. Life is always unjust. It is unjust for Clifford to be paralysed — and unjust for me as his wife. Fate and injustice seem very much the same thing. Everybody must bear their own injustice.’

  ‘But what if they feel they can shake it off?’

  ‘Then they’ll have to do it, I suppose.’

  He pondered for a time.

  ‘You’re frightened of Communism?’ he asked.

  She looked up, and pondered herself.

  ‘Yes!’ she admitted slowly. ‘I suppose I am. I’m afraid of anything which is materialism — wages and state ownership — and nothing else.’

  ‘What is it but materialism today?’

  ‘I know. But today it leaves a margin for everybody not to be materialistic if they
don’t want to be. Clifford and I needn’t be materialists just because a certain amount of material ease is assured us. It seems to me the only way not to have materialism.’

  ‘And you and Clifford aren’t materialists?’

  ‘I don’t think so. Are we?’

  ‘Not far off, I should say.’

  She paused, thinking something over. ‘Anyhow,’ she said, nettled. ‘We aren’t even then as materialistic, atavistically materialistic, as we should be if we were in Russia today. — Or do you believe in Russia?’

  ‘No, I’m afraid I don’t. Not that I know anything about it. But I feel it is atavistic materialism, just as America is progressive materialism. I’m perfectly willing to be shown otherwise though.’

  ‘Quite,’ she said. ‘But one has a sinking of the soul at the thought of the Russia there is now. And in the same way, one has a sinking of the soul at the thought of Communism.’

  ‘One does,’ he said. ‘I do myself. Yet I can see, the working people will have to do something about it sooner or later. And after all, England isn’t Russia. A Tevershall collier isn’t a Russian moujik. I can’t see English working men battering your brains out just because you live in Wragby Hall. Can you?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I can’t. And I don’t think they would. They’re much too human.’

  ‘Quite! But they’re becoming less human every year, it seems to me. Hopeless! I get an awful feeling of hopelessness, of death, in your part of the country here. — Do you know what I think the English really want?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Contact! Some sort of passionate human contact among themselves. And perhaps if the Communists did smash the famous “system” there might emerge a new relationship between men: really not caring about money, really caring for life, and the life-flow with one another.’

  There was a silence. Constance stitched slowly.

  ‘It might be,’ she said. ‘Only I don’t see how it’s going to come out of socialism — or Communism. Why don’t we start it now?’

  ‘Because we know perfectly well we’re all being carried around by the “system”. We’re all of us on a bus, or a merry-go-round, or a tram, or a train, or a pit-trolley, or in a private car, being conveyed around by the mechanisms of a materialist system. We never meet because we’ve only just got off some sort of conveyance, and we’re going to get on another in half an hour. And so on, till it’s the hearse. — It’s the system. I believe the English, a sufficient quantity of them, are weary of materialism and weary of hardening their hearts to keep it going. — No, I’ve hated democracy since the war. But now I see I’m wrong calling for an aristocracy. What we want is a flow of life from one to another — to release some natural flow in us that urges to be released. Only we’re all afraid we’re going to be run over by the bus, so we hop on it and are carried away —’

  Constance was not sorry when he hopped on his little automobile and let it carry him away to London. She felt he was trying to force her in some way. Ever since their broken-off engagement he had been trying to compel her to give up something in herself which she did not intend to give up. She said goodbye to him with relief.

  Already October was coming in, in full yellow leaf. And she didn’t want to bother about anything or anybody. A deep, voluptuous, almost lascivious indolence and contentment had come over her, a strange female contentment that had something vindictive in it. She was with child, and she felt well. She felt exceedingly sleepy and full of life, like a cat that has been out for a long night and now drowsily, lasciviously licks its own fur before the fire. Let no one disturb her! Particularly let no man try to disturb her or lay his thoughts on her. She felt she could tear him open with one stroke of her paw if he tried. Parkin or Duncan — à la bonne heure! Let them keep out of her way. It was her own hour now, absolutely her own womb-filled female hour.

  Clifford left her alone. And this which made her hate him when she needed life and response made her appreciate him coldly now. He wanted nothing of her except certain appearances and certain housekeeping activities. She ran his house carefully and well. He was comfortable. He could go his own weird way unthwarted. And she wanted nobody. Let him turn on his radio and get Madrid or get heaven itself, she did not care. She was a good deal alone in her own room, with sewing and books, silks and writing materials. And she wanted nobody.

  One Sunday evening when the radio did not interest him he asked her to stay down and sing something to him.

  ‘Do sing something, Connie! It’s so long since I’ve heard you.’

  ‘It’s so long since you’ve wanted to,’ she said.

  ‘Well, never mind that,’ he said deprecatingly. ‘I feel you’re too much away in that room up two flights of stairs. Do sing — and I’ll try to join in. Shall I?’

  ‘Very well!’ she said. And she went over to the piano.

  She had a rather small but pleasant voice that tended to go flat. She tried their old favorites from Brahms, Schubert, Schumann —but they all seemed so sloppy now. She liked the more ordinary songs better. ‘Oh can ye sew cushions, and can ye sew sheets!’ Suddenly that became full of feeling for her. And suddenly even the ‘Keel Row’ was real to her.

  ‘Oh wha is like my Johnny

  So leish so blithe so bonny

  He’s foremost ’mangst the mony

  Keel lads o’ coaly Tyne —’

  There she was, lilting away, and never realising it was cruel to Clifford. ‘And well may the keel row —’ It delighted her. She rocked herself liltingly at the piano.

  ‘I think blithe is such a nice word,’ she said, not looking round.

  ‘Connie!’ he said.

  She turned from the piano. And to her amazement there were tears in his eyes.

  ‘Why?’ she asked, astonished.

  ‘It’s not much of a gay life for you, is it, with me!’ he said. ‘I don’t wonder you keep away from me as much as you do.’

  She realised she had been unconsciously cruel, and her heart contracted. But she felt also the monotony of his self-centred thought. He was thinking of his own misfortune.

  ‘Oh, but I’m perfectly all right,’ she said. ‘My life is what I want it to be.’

  ‘Really! I’m so afraid you’re moping — up there in your room.’

  ‘Oh no — quite the contrary,’ she said.

  He looked at her strangely.

  ‘I’ve not told you I think I’m going to have a child,’ she said, suffocating a little in her throat.

  There was dead silence. He looked down at his hands.

  ‘I wondered if that might be the case,’ he said quietly.

  It was her turn now to be silent.

  ‘When do you expect it?’ he said in a strained, distant voice.

  ‘Well! In the spring. March, I think.’

  She sat on the piano seat, retired into her own pregnant self. He sat in his chair, his head dropped.

  ‘I wondered if that might be the case,’ he repeated in a musing voice in which she could read nothing.

  ‘Aren’t you pleased?’ she said.

  He looked up with an ironical smile. ‘Vicariously, I suppose,’ he said. ‘I hope the man was at least —, His eyes flickered on her face.

  She did not answer.

  ‘It’s not Duncan Forbes’ child, is it?’ he said.

  ‘It’s horrid of you to ask questions,’ she said, retiring on to her dignity of maternity. ‘Why must you?’

  ‘That one popped out,’ he said. ‘It’s such an obvious one —’ And he smiled satirically.

  ‘No, it’s not Duncan’s child,’ she said calmly. ‘If you ask any more I must go away.’

  ‘One more mild one, dear! — At least it will have an English father—?’

  ‘English! Yes!’

  She rose.

  ‘No! Don’t go! I won’t ask anything further. I take what’s given. Gather ye rosebuds while ye may — And you? You’re feeling rather bucked about it, aren’t you?’

  ‘Rather.’r />
  ‘You look blooming. Curzon was saying what a beautiful womanly bloom you have. — Tell me this, Con. It’s not really a question. Did you — did you do it for my sake, at all? I know it sounds egoistic. But if I felt you had just a bit of desire to do it for my sake—’

  ‘I hoped it would make you happy,’ she said swiftly, the blood dyeing her throat and face.

  His eyes shone curiously, and he smiled with emotion.

  ‘How beautiful you are!’ he said. ‘You are a virgin mother. A Madonna like a rose instead of like a lily. By God, I hope the child will be worthy of you. I’ll get my paints out and try to paint you: the modern Madonna! — and I the Joseph! I shall fall into mariolatry —Mary-worship! What a wonderful woman you are! Give me your hand a moment, will you?’

  She rose and gave him her hand. He kissed it and pressed it to his face. Then he kissed her wedding-ring. And she, as she stood, was thinking to herself: ‘What a scene! What a scene! How one loathes being called a wonderful woman. But I suppose it’s part of the divine justice that I must hear it from Clifford.’

  Then he said to her: ‘I hope it’ll be a boy, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes! But we mustn’t be disappointed if it’s a girl.’

  ‘Disappointed! My darling, wonderful woman, if it’s a girl I can worship it as I worship you.’

  Constance felt her skin going goose-flesh at this. ‘Don’t worship!’ she said. ‘It puts me in such a false position. Let us be sensible, whatever else we are. I’m awfully glad if you’re pleased. But don’t let us make a thing out of it. Let’s be quiet about it. It’s so lovely being quite quiet and letting Nature flow in one like a full river.’

  ‘You’re right! You’re absolutely right!’

  Constance went upstairs to her room as soon as possible after this scene. She had always an excuse now to be as selfish as she wished. And Clifford could not get up two flights of stairs without a great fuss of men to carry him. Indeed he never went upstairs.

  Constance felt curiously sick, sick in her stomach, after the little scene with him. A deadly inward nausea came up in her. She could not bear him and his behaviour. No, she could not bear him to kiss her hand and her wedding-ring in that ghastly semi-insane manner. He was semi-insane. And of all diseases, insanity was most horrifying and repulsive to her. It seemed to her to proceed from evil: the soul being evil, the mind went mad. It went mad in order to fit the evil of the soul. For the first time in her life she wished he would die. She had never wished it before. And even now she shrank from herself. But yes, out of the remote depths of herself she felt a voiceless desire emanating. It was the wish, now, for his death.