Sons and Lovers

would sub­mit, re­li­giously, to the sac­ri­fice.

she waited on him, cooked for him still, and loved to slave for him

was nearly a re­li­gion to her.

Now he knew he would have to go to Miriam. But what was his re­luct­ance? He told him­self it was only a sort of over­strong vir­gin­ity in her and him which neither could break through. He might have mar­ried her; but his cir­cum­stances at home made it dif­fi­cult, and, moreover, he did not want to marry. Mar­riage was for life, and be­cause they had be­come close com­pan­ions, he and she, he did not see that it should in­ev­it­ably fol­low they should be man and wife. He did not feel that he wanted mar­riage with Miriam. He wished he did. He would have given his head to have felt a joy­ous de­sire to marry her and to have her. Then why couldn’t he bring it off? There was some obstacle; and what was the obstacle? It lay in the phys­ical bond­age. He shrank from the phys­ical con­tact. But why? With her he felt bound up in­side him­self. He could not go out to her. So­mething struggled in him, but he could not get to her. Why? She loved him. Clara said she even wanted him; then why couldn’t he go to her, make love to her, kiss her? Why, when she put her arm in his, tim­idly, as they walked, did he feel he would burst forth in bru­tal­ity and re­coil? He owed him­self to her; he wanted to be­long to her. Per­haps the re­coil and the shrink­ing from her was love in its first fierce mod­esty. He had no aver­sion for her. No, it was the op­pos­ite; it was a strong de­sire bat­tling with a still stronger shy­ness and vir­gin­ity. It seemed as if vir­gin­ity were a pos­it­ive force, which fought and won in both of them. And with her he felt it so hard to over­come; yet he was nearest to her, and with her alone could he de­lib­er­ately break through. And he owed him­self to her. Then, if they could get things right, they could marry; but he would not marry un­less he could feel strong in the joy of it—never. He could not have faced his mother. It seemed to him that to sac­ri­fice him­self in a mar­riage he did not want would be de­grad­ing, and would undo all his life, make it a nullity. He would try what he could do.

Wants the soul out of my body.

He was like so many young men of his own age. Sex had be­come so com­plic­ated in him that he would have denied that he ever could want Clara or Miriam or any wo­man whom he knew. Sex de­sire was a sort of de­tached thing, that did not be­long to a wo­man. He loved Miriam with his soul. He grew warm at the thought of Clara, he battled with her, he knew the curves of her breast and shoulders as if they had been moul­ded in­side him; and yet he did not pos­it­ively de­sire her. He would have denied it forever. He be­lieved him­self really bound to Miriam. If ever he should marry, some time in the far fu­ture, it would be his duty to marry Miriam. That he gave Clara to un­der­stand, and she said noth­ing, but left him to his courses.

He seemed to like Mrs. Dawes. At any rate that feel­ing was whole­some.

His mother prayed and prayed for him, that he might not be wasted. That was all her prayer—not for his soul or his right­eous­ness, but that he might not be wasted. And while he slept, for hours and hours she thought and prayed for him.

Be­cause—the dif­fer­ence between people isn’t in their class, but in them­selves. Only from the middle classes one gets ideas, and from the com­mon people—life it­self, warmth. You feel their hates and loves.”

feel­ing sick to death.