第 35 页

her, so strong, as if it would uphold all the world. Then he

taught her to swim.

She was a fearless little thing, when he dared her. And he

had a curious craving to frighten her, to see what she would do

with him. He said, would she ride on his back whilst he jumped

off the canal bridge down into the water beneath.

She would. He loved to feel the naked child clinging on to

his shoulders. There was a curious fight between their two

wills. He mounted the parapet of the canal bridge. The water was

a long way down. But the child had a deliberate will set upon

his. She held herself fixed to him.

He leapt, and down they went. The crash of the water as they

went under struck through the child's small body, with a sort of

unconsciousness. But she remained fixed. And when they came up

again, and when they went to the bank, and when they sat on the

grass side by side, he laughed, and said it was fine. And the

dark-dilated eyes of the child looked at him wonderingly,

darkly, wondering from the shock, yet reserved and unfathomable,

so he laughed almost with a sob.

In a moment she was clinging safely on his back again, and he

was swimming in deep water. She was used to his nakedness, and

to her mother's nakedness, ever since she was born. They were

clinging to each other, and making up to each other for the

strange blow that had been struck at them. Yet still, on other

days, he would leap again with her from the bridge, daringly,

almost wickedly. Till at length, as he leapt, once, she dropped

forward on to his head, and nearly broke his neck, so that they

fell into the water in a heap, and fought for a few moments with

death. He saved her, and sat on the bank, quivering. But his

eyes were full of the blackness of death. It was as if death had

cut between their two lives, and separated them.

Still they were not separate. There was this curious taunting

intimacy between them. When the fair came, she wanted to go in

the swing-boats. He took her, and, standing up in the boat,

holding on to the irons, began to drive higher, perilously

higher. The child clung fast on her seat.

"Do you want to go any higher?" he said to her, and she

laughed with her mouth, her eyes wide and dilated. They were

rushing through the air.

"Yes," she said, feeling as if she would turn into vapour,

lose hold of everything, and melt away. The boat swung far up,

then down like a stone, only to be caught sickeningly up

again.

"Any higher?" he called, looking at her over his shoulder,

his face evil and beautiful to her.

She laughed with white lips.

He sent the swing-boat sweeping through the air in a great

semi-circle, till it jerked and swayed at the high horizontal.

The child clung on, pale, her eyes fixed on him. People below

were calling. The jerk at the top had almost shaken them both

out. He had done what he could--and he was attracting

censure. He sat down, and let the swingboat swing itself

out.

People in the crowd cried shame on him as he came out of the

swingboat. He laughed. The child clung to his hand, pale and

mute. In a while she was violently sick. He gave her lemonade,

and she gulped a little.

"Don't tell your mother you've been sick," he said. There was

no need to ask that. When she got home, the child crept away

under the parlour sofa, like a sick little animal, and was a

long time before she crawled out.

But Anna got to know of this escapade, and was passionately

angry and contemptuous of him. His golden-brown eyes glittered,

he had a strange, cruel little smile. And as the child watched

him, for the first time in her life a disillusion came over her,

something cold and isolating. She went over to her mother. Her

soul was dead towards him. It made her sick.

Still she forgot and continued to love him, but ever more

coldly. He was at this time, when he was about twenty-eight

years old, strange and violent in his being, sensual. He

acquired some power over Anna, over everybody he came into

contact with.

After a long bout of hostility, Anna at last closed with him.

She had now four children, all girls. For seven years she had

been absorbed in wifehood and motherhood. For years he had gone

on beside her, never really encroaching upon her. Then gradually

another self seemed to assert its being within him. He was still

silent and separate. But she could feel him all the while coming

near upon her, as if his breast and his body were threatening

her, and he was always coming closer. Gradually he became

indifferent of responsibility. He would do what pleased him, and

no more.

He began to go away from home. He went to Nottingham on

Saturdays, always alone, to the football match and to the

music-hall, and all the time he was watching, in readiness. He

never cared to drink. But with his hard, golden-brown eyes, so

keen seeing with their tiny black pupils, he watched all the

people, everything that happened, and he waited.

In the Empire one evening he sat next to two girls. He was

aware of the one beside him. She was rather small, common, with

a fresh complexion and an upper lip that lifted from her teeth,

so that, when she was not conscious, her mouth was slightly open

and her lips pressed outwards in a kind of blind appeal. She was

strongly aware of the man next to her, so that all her body was

still, very still. Her face watched the stage. Her arms went

down into her lap, very self-conscious and still.

A gleam lit up in him: should he begin with her? Should he

begin with her to live the other, the unadmitted life of his

desire? Why not? He had always been so good. Save for his wife,

he was a virgin. And why, when all women were different? Why,

when he would only live once? He wanted the other life. His own

life was barren, not enough. He wanted the other.

Her open mouth, showing the small, irregular, white teeth,

appealed to him. It was open and ready. It was so vulnerable.

Why should he not go in and enjoy what was there? The slim arm

that went down so still and motionless to the lap, it was

pretty. She would be small, he would be able almost to hold her

in his two hands. She would be small, almost like a child, and

pretty. Her childishness whetted him keenly. She would he

helpless between his hands.

"That was the best turn we've had," he said to her, leaning

over as he clapped his hands. He felt strong and unshakeable in

himself, set over against all the world. His soul was keen and

watchful, glittering with a kind of amusement. He was perfectly

self-contained. He was himself, the absolute, the rest of the

world was the object that should contribute to his being.

The girl started, turned round, her eyes lit up with an

almost painful flash of a smile, the colour came deeply in her

cheeks.

"Yes, it was," she said, quite meaninglessly, and she covered

her rather prominent teeth with her lips. Then she sat looking

straight before her, seeing nothing, only conscious of the

colour burning in her cheeks.

It pricked him with a pleasant sensation. His veins and his

nerves attended to her, she was so young and palpitating.

"It's not such a good programme as last week's," he said.

Again she half turned her face to him, and her clear, bright

eyes, bright like shallow water, filled with light, frightened,

yet involuntarily lighting and shaking with response.

"Oh, isn't it! I wasn't able to come last week."

He noted the common accent. It pleased him. He knew what

class she came of. Probably she was a warehouse-lass. He was

glad she was a common girl.

He proceeded to tell her about the last week's programme. She

answered at random, very confusedly. The colour burned in her

cheek. Yet she always answered him. The girl on the other side

sat remotely, obviously silent. He ignored her. All his address

was for his own girl, with her bright, shallow eyes and her

vulnerably opened mouth.

The talk went on, meaningless and random on her part, quite

deliberate and purposive on his. It was a pleasure to him to

make this conversation, an activity pleasant as a fine game of

chance and skill. He was very quiet and pleasant-humoured, but

so full of strength. She fluttered beside his steady pressure of

warmth and his surety.

He saw the performance drawing to a close. His senses were

alert and wilful. He would press his advantages. He followed her

and her plain friend down the stairs to the street. It was

raining.

"It's a nasty night," he said. "Shall you come and have a

drink of something--a cup of coffee--it's early

yet."

"Oh, I don't think so," she said, looking away into the

night.

"I wish you would," he said, putting himself as it were at

her mercy. There was a moment's pause.

"Come to Rollins?" he said.

"No--not there."

"To Carson's, then?"

There was a silence. The other girl hung on. The man was the

centre of positive force.

"Will your friend come as well?"

There was another moment of silence, while the other girl

felt her ground.

"No, thanks," she said. "I've promised to meet a friend."

"Another time, then?" he said.

"Oh, thanks," she replied, very awkward.

"Good night," he said.

"See you later," said his girl to her friend.

"Where?" said the friend.

"You know, Gertie," replied his girl.

"All right, Jennie."

The friend was gone into the darkness. He turned with his

girl to the tea-shop. They talked all the time. He made his

sentences in sheer, almost muscular pleasure of exercising

himself with her. He was looking at her all the time, perceiving

her, appreciating her, finding her out, gratifying himself with

her. He could see distinct attractions in her; her eyebrows,

with their particular curve, gave him keen aesthetic pleasure.

Later on he would see her bright, pellucid eyes, like shallow

water, and know those. And there remained the open, exposed

mouth, red and vulnerable. That he reserved as yet. And all the

while his eyes were on the girl, estimating and handling with

pleasure her young softness. About the girl herself, who or what

she was, he cared nothing, he was quite unaware that she was

anybody. She was just the sensual object of his attention.

"Shall we go, then?" he said.

She rose in silence, as if acting without a mind, merely

physically. He seemed to hold her in his will. Outside it was

still raining.

"Let's have a walk," he said. "I don't mind the rain, do

you?"

"No, I don't mind it," she said.

He was alert in every sense and fibre, and yet quite sure and

steady, and lit up, as if transfused. He had a free sensation of

walking in his own darkness, not in anybody else's world at all.

He was purely a world to himself, he had nothing to do with any

general consciousness. Just his own senses were supreme. All the

rest was external, insignificant, leaving him alone with this

girl whom he wanted to absorb, whose properties he wanted to

absorb into his own senses. He did not care about her, except

that he wanted to overcome her resistance, to have her in his

power, fully and exhaustively to enjoy her.

They turned into the dark streets. He held her umbrella over

her, and put his arm round her. She walked as if she were

unaware. But gradually, as he walked, he drew her a little

closer, into the movement of his side and hip. She fitted in

there very well. It was a real good fit, to walk with her like

this. It made him exquisitely aware of his own muscular self.

And his hand that grasped her side felt one curve of her, and it

seemed like a new creation to him, a reality, an absolute, an

existing tangible beauty of the absolute. It was like a star.

Everything in him was absorbed in the sensual delight of this

one small, firm curve in her body, that his hand, and his whole

being, had lighted upon.

He led her into the Park, where it was almost dark. He

noticed a corner between two walls, under a great overhanging

bush of ivy.

"Let us stand here a minute," he said.

He put down the umbrella, and followed her into the corner,

retreating out of the rain. He needed no eyes to see. All he

wanted was to know through touch. She was like a piece of

palpable darkness. He found her in the darkness, put his arms

round her and his hands upon her. She was silent and

inscrutable. But he did not want to know anything about her, he

only wanted to discover her. And through her clothing, what

absolute beauty he touched.

"Take your hat off," he said.

Silently, obediently, she shook off her hat and gave herself

to his arms again. He liked her--he liked the feel of

her--he wanted to know her more closely. He let his fingers

subtly seek out her cheek and neck. What amazing beauty and

pleasure, in the dark! His fingers had often touched Anna on the

face and neck like that. What matter! It was one man who touched

Anna, another who now touched this girl. He liked best his new

self. He was given over altogether to the sensuous knowledge of

this woman, and every moment he seemed to be touching absolute

beauty, something beyond knowledge.

Very close, marvelling and exceedingly joyful in their

discoveries, his hands pressed upon her, so subtly, so

seekingly, so finely and desirously searching her out, that she

too was almost swooning in the absolute of sensual knowledge. In

utter sensual delight she clenched her knees, her thighs, her

loins together! It was an added beauty to him.

But he was patiently working for her relaxation, patiently,

his whole being fixed in the smile of latent gratification, his

whole body electric with a subtle, powerful, reducing force upon

her. So he came at length to kiss her, and she was almost

betrayed by his insidious kiss. Her open mouth was too helpless