情与欲 》 戀愛中的女人 Women in Love 》
第一章 姐妹倆-1 CHAPTER I. SISTERS Page 1
勞倫斯 David Herbert Lawrence
CHAPTER I. SISTERS Page 1
《戀愛中的女人》是D．H .勞倫斯最偉大、最有代表性、最臉炙人口的兩部長篇小說之一（另一部是《虹》），他本人也認為它是他的“最佳作品”；它以英國小說中沒有先例的熱情與深度探索了有關戀愛的心理問題，代表了勞倫斯作品的最高成就，因此它同《虹》成為了現代小說的先驅。
D．H．勞倫斯是英國小說傢、詩人、散文傢，20世紀英國最重要和最有爭議的小說傢之一，20世紀世界文壇上最有天分與影響力的人物之一。他與福斯特、喬伊斯、理查森、伍爾芙同是20世紀英國小說的創始人，是中國讀者最熟悉與喜愛的西方作傢之一。
第一章 姐妹倆-1
在貝多弗父親的房子裏，布朗溫傢兩姐妹厄秀拉和戈珍坐在凸肚窗窗臺上，一邊綉花、 繪畫，一邊聊着。厄秀拉正綉一件色彩鮮豔的東西，戈珍膝蓋上放着一塊畫板在畫畫兒。
她們默默地綉着、畫着，想到什麽就說點什麽。
“厄秀拉，”戈珍說，“你真想結婚嗎？”厄秀拉把刺綉攤在膝上擡起頭來，神情平 靜、若有所思地說：
“我不知道，這要看怎麽講了。”
戈珍有點吃驚地看着姐姐，看了好一會兒。
“這個嘛，”戈珍調侃地說，“一般來說指的就是那回事！但是，你不覺得你應該， 嗯，”她有點神色黯然地說，“不應該比現在的處境更好一點嗎？”
厄秀拉臉上閃過一片陰影。
“應該，”她說，“不過我沒把握。”
戈珍又不說話了，有點不高興了，她原本要得到一個確切的答復。
“你不認為一個人需要結婚的經驗嗎？”她問。
“你認為結婚是一種經驗嗎？”厄秀拉反問。
“肯定是，不管怎樣都是。”戈珍冷靜地說，“可能這經驗讓人不愉快，但肯定是一種 經驗。”
“那不見得，”厄秀拉說，“也許倒是經驗的結束呢。”
戈珍筆直地坐着，認真聽厄秀拉說這話。
“當然了，”她說，“是要想到這個。”說完後，她們不再說話了。戈珍幾乎是氣呼呼 地抓起橡皮，開始擦掉畫上去的東西。厄秀拉專心地綉她的花兒。
“有象樣的人求婚你不考慮接受嗎？”戈珍問。
“我都回絶了好幾個了。”厄秀拉說。
“真的！？”戈珍緋紅了臉問：“什麽值得你這麽幹？你真有什麽想法嗎？”
“一年中有好多人求婚，我喜歡上了一個非常好的人，太喜歡他了。”厄秀拉說。
“真的！是不是你讓人傢引誘了？”
“可以說是，也可以說不是。”厄秀拉說，“一到那時候，壓根兒就沒了引誘這一說。 要是我讓人傢引誘了，我早立即結婚了。我受的是不結婚的引誘。”說到這裏，兩姐妹的臉 色明朗起來，感到樂不可支。
“太棒了，”戈珍叫道，“這引誘力也太大了，不結婚！”她們兩人相對大笑起來，但 她們心裏感到可怕。
這以後她們沉默了好久，厄秀拉仍舊綉花兒，戈珍照舊畫她的素描。姐妹倆都是大姑娘 了，厄秀拉二十六，戈珍二十五。但她們都象現代女性那樣，看上去冷漠、純潔，不象青春 女神，反倒更象月神。戈珍很漂亮、皮膚柔嫩，體態婀娜，人也溫順。她身着一件墨緑色綢 上衣，領口和袖口上都鑲着藍色和緑色的亞麻布褶邊兒；腳上穿的襪子則是翠緑色的。她看 上去與厄秀拉正相反。她時而自信，時而羞赦，而厄秀拉則敏感，充滿信心。本地人被戈珍 那泰然自若的神態和毫無掩飾的舉止所驚詫，說她是個“伶俐的姑娘。”她剛從倫敦回來， 在那兒住了幾年，在一所藝術學校邊工作邊學習，儼然是個藝術傢。
“我現在在等一個男人的到來，”戈珍說着，突然咬住下嘴唇，一半是狡猾的笑，一半 是痛苦相，做了個奇怪的鬼臉。
厄秀拉被嚇了一跳。
“你回傢來，就是為了在這兒等他？”她笑道。
“得了吧，”戈珍刺耳地叫道，“我纔不會犯神經去找他呢。不過嘛，要是真有那麽一 個人，相貌出衆、丰采照人，又有足夠的錢，那——”戈珍有點不好意思，話沒說完。然後 她盯着厄秀拉，好象要看透她似的。“你不覺得你都感到厭煩了嗎？”她問姐姐，“你是否 發現什麽都無法實現？什麽都實現不了！一切都還未等開花兒就凋謝了。”
“什麽沒開花就凋謝了？”厄秀拉問。
“嗨，什麽都是這樣，自己一般的事情都這樣。”姐妹倆不說話了，都在朦朦朧朧地考 慮着自己的命運。
“這是夠可怕的。”厄秀拉說，停了一會兒又說：“不過你想通過結婚達到什麽目的 嗎？”
“那是下一步的事兒，不可避免。”戈珍說。厄秀拉思考着這個問題，心中有點發苦。 她在威利·格林中學教書，工作好幾年了。
“我知道，”她說，“人一空想起來似乎都那樣，可要是設身處地地想想就好了，想想 吧，想想你瞭解的一個男人，每天晚上回傢來，對你說聲‘哈羅’，然後吻你——”
誰都不說話了。
“沒錯，”戈珍小聲說，“這不可能。男人不可能這樣。”
“當然還有孩子——”厄秀拉遲疑地說。
戈珍的表情嚴峻起來。
“你真想要孩子嗎，厄秀拉？”她冷冷地問。聽她這一問，厄秀拉臉上露出了迷惑不解 的表情。
“我覺得這個問題離我還太遠，”她說。
“你是這種感受嗎？”戈珍問，“我從來沒想過生孩子，沒那感受。”
戈珍毫無表情地看着厄秀拉。厄秀拉皺起了眉頭。
“或許這並不是真的，”她支吾道，“或許人們心裏並不想要孩子，衹是表面上這樣而 已。”戈珍的神態嚴肅起來。她並不需要太肯定的說法。
“可有時一個人會想到別人的孩子。”厄秀拉說。
戈珍又一次看看姐姐，目光中幾乎有些敵意。
“是這樣。”她說完不再說話了。
姐妹兩人默默地綉花、繪畫兒。厄秀拉總是那麽精神抖擻，心中燃着一團撲撲作響、熊 熊騰騰的火。她自己獨立生活很久了，潔身自好，工作着，日復一日，總想把握住生活，照 自己的想法去把握生活。表面上她停止了活躍的生活，可實際上，在冥冥中卻有什麽在生長 出來。要是她能夠衝破那最後的一層殼皮該多好啊！她似乎象一個胎兒那樣伸出了雙手，可 是，她不能，還不能。她仍有一種奇特的預感，感到有什麽將至。
她放下手中的刺綉，看看妹妹。她覺得戈珍太漂亮、實在太迷人了，她柔美、豐腴、綫 條纖細。她還有點頑皮、淘氣、出言辛辣，真是個毫無修飾的處女。厄秀拉打心眼兒裏羨慕 她。
“你為什麽回傢來？”
戈珍知道厄秀拉羨慕她了。她直起腰來，綫條優美的眼睫毛下目光凝視着厄秀拉。
“問我為什麽回來嗎，厄秀拉？”她重複道：“我自己已經問過自己一千次了。”
“你知道了嗎？”
“知道了，我想我明白了。我覺得我退一步是為了更好地前進。”
說完她久久地盯着厄秀拉，目光尋問着她。
“我知道！”厄秀拉叫道，那神情有些迷茫，象是在說謊，好象她不明白一樣。“可你 要跳到哪兒去呢？”
“哦，無所謂，”戈珍說，口氣有點超然。“一個人如果跳過了籬笆，他總能落到一個 什麽地方的。”
“可這不是在冒險嗎？”厄秀拉說。
戈珍臉上漸漸掠過一絲嘲諷的笑意。
“嗨！”她笑道：“我們盡吵些什麽呀！”她又不說話了，可厄秀拉仍然鬱悶地沉思着。
“你回來了，覺得傢裏怎麽樣？”她問。
戈珍沉默了片刻，有點冷漠。然後冷冷地說：
“我發現我完全不是這兒的人了。”
“那爸爸呢？”
戈珍幾乎有點反感地看看厄秀拉，有些的樣子，說：
“我還沒想到他呢，我不讓自己去想。”她的話很冷漠。
“好啊，”厄秀拉吞吞吐吐地說。她倆的對話的確進行不下去了。姐妹兩人發現自己遇 到了一條黑洞洞的深淵，很可怕，好象她們就在邊上窺視一樣。
她們又默默地做着自己的活兒。一會兒，戈珍的臉因為控製着情緒而通紅起來。她不願 讓臉紅起來。
“我們出去看看人傢的婚禮吧。”她終於說話了，口氣很隨便。
“好啊！”厄秀拉叫道，急切地把針綫扔到一邊，跳了起來，似乎要逃離什麽東西一 樣。這麽一來，反倒弄得很緊張，令戈珍感到不高興。
往樓上走着，厄秀拉註意地看着這座房子，這是她的傢。可是她討厭這兒，這塊骯髒、 太讓人熟習的地方！也許她內心深處對這個傢是反感的，這周圍的環境，整個氣氛和這種陳 腐的生活都讓她反感。這種感覺令她恐怖。
兩個姑娘很快就來到了貝多弗的主幹道上，匆匆走着。這條街很寬，路旁有商店和住 房，佈局散亂，街面上也很髒，不過倒不顯得貧寒。戈珍剛從徹西區①和蘇塞剋斯②來，對 中部這座小小的礦區城十分厭惡，這兒真是又亂又髒。她朝前走着，穿過長長的礫石街道， 把個混亂不堪、骯髒透頂、小氣十足的場面盡收眼底。人們的目光都盯着她，她感到很難 受。真不知道她為什麽要回來，為什麽要嘗嘗這亂七八糟、醜陋不堪的小城滋味。她為什麽 要嚮這些令人難以忍受的折磨，這些毫無意義的人和這座毫無光彩的農村小鎮屈服呢？為什 麽她仍然要嚮這些東西屈服？她感到自己就象一隻在塵土中蠕動的甲殼蟲，這真令人反感。
①徹西區是倫敦聚集了文學藝術傢的一個區。
②英國的一個郡。——譯者註。以後所有的註釋均為譯者註。
她們走下主幹道，從一座黑乎乎的公傢菜園旁走過，園子裏沾滿煤炭的白菜根不識羞恥 地散落着。沒人感到難看，沒人為這個感到不好意思。
“這地獄中的農村。”戈珍說，“礦工們把煤炭帶到地面上來，帶來這麽多呀。厄 秀拉，這可真太好玩了，太好了，真是太妙了，這兒又是一個世界。這兒的人全是些吃屍 鬼，這兒什麽東西都沾着鬼氣。全是真實世界的鬼影，是鬼影、食屍鬼，全是些骯髒、齷齪 的東西。厄秀拉，這簡直讓人發瘋。”
姐妹倆穿過一片黑黝黝、骯髒不堪的田野。左邊是散落着一座座煤礦的𠔌地，𠔌地上面 的山坡上是小麥田和森林，遠遠一片黝黑，就象罩着一層黑紗一樣。敦敦實實的煙窗裏冒着 白煙黑煙，象黑沉沉天空上在變魔術一樣。近處是一排排的住房，順山坡而上，一直通嚮山 頂。這些房子用暗紅磚砌成，房頂鋪着石板，看上去很不結實。姐妹二人走的這條路也是黑 乎乎的。路是讓礦工們的腳一步步踩出來的，路旁圍着鐵柵欄，柵門也讓進出的礦工們的厚 毛布褲磨亮了。現在姐妹二人走在幾排房屋中間的路上，這裏可就寒酸了。女人們戴着圍 裙，雙臂交叉着抱在胸前，站在遠處竊竊私語，她們用一種不開化人的目光目不轉睛地盯着 布朗溫姐妹；孩子們在叫駡着。
戈珍走着，被眼前的東西驚呆了。如果說這是人的生活，如果說這些是生活在一個完整 世界中的人，那麽她自己那個世界算什麽呢？她意識到自己穿着緑草般鮮緑的襪子，戴着緑 色的天鵝絨帽，柔軟的長大衣也是緑的，顔色更深一點。她感到自己騰雲駕霧般地走着，一 點都不穩，她的心縮緊了，似乎她隨時都會猝然摔倒在地。她怕了。
她緊緊偎依着厄秀拉，她對這個黑暗、粗鄙、充滿敵意的世界早習以為常了。儘管有厄 秀拉，戈珍還感到象是在受着苦刑，心兒一直在呼喊：“我要回去，要走，我不想知道這 兒，不想知道這些東西。”可她不得不繼續朝前走。
厄秀拉可以感覺到戈珍是在受罪。
“你討厭這些，是嗎？”她問。
“這兒讓我吃驚。”戈珍結結巴巴地說。
“你別在這兒呆太久。”厄秀拉說。
戈珍鬆了一口氣，繼續朝前走。
她們離開了礦區，翻過山，進入了山後寧靜的鄉村，朝威利·格林中學走去。田野上仍 有些煤炭，但好多了，山上的林子裏也這樣，似乎在閃着黑色的光芒。這是春天，春寒料 峭，但尚有幾許陽光。籬笆下冒出些黃色的花來，威利·格林的農傢菜園裏，覆盆子已經長 出了葉子，伏種在石墻上的油菜，灰葉中已綻出些小白花兒。
她們轉身走下了高高的田梗，中間是通嚮教堂的主幹道。在轉彎的低處，樹下站着一群 等着看婚禮的人們。這個地區的礦業主托瑪斯·剋裏奇的女兒與一位海軍軍官的婚禮將要舉 行。
“咱們回去吧，”戈珍轉過身說着，“全是些這種人。”
她在路上猶豫着。
“別管他們，”厄秀拉說，“他們都不錯，都認識我，沒事兒。”
“我們非得從他們當中穿過去嗎？”戈珍問。
“他們都不錯，真的。”厄秀拉說着繼續朝前走。這姐妹兩人一起接近了這群躁動不 安、眼巴巴盯着看的人。這當中大多數是女人，礦工們的妻子，更是些混日子的人，她們臉 上透着警覺的神色，一看就是下層人。
姐妹兩人提心吊膽地直朝大門走去。女人們為她們讓路，可讓出來的就那麽窄窄的一條 縫，好象是在勉強放棄自己的地盤兒一樣。姐妹倆默默地穿過石門踏上臺階，站在紅色地毯 上的一個盯着她們往前行進的步伐。
“這雙襪子可夠值錢的！”戈珍後面有人說。一聽這話，戈珍渾身就燃起一股怒火，一 股兇猛、可怕的火。她真恨不得把這些人全幹掉，從這個世界上清除幹淨。她真討厭在這些 人註視下穿過教堂的院子沿着地毯往前走。
“我不進教堂了。”戈珍突然做出了最後的决定。她的話讓厄秀拉立即停住腳步，轉過 身走上了旁邊一條通嚮中學旁門的小路，中學就在教堂隔壁。
穿過學校與教堂中間的灌木叢進到學校裏，厄秀拉坐在月桂樹下的矮石墻上歇息。她身 後學校高大的紅樓靜靜地伫立着，假日裏窗戶全敞開着，面前灌木叢那邊就是教堂淡淡的屋 頂和塔樓。姐妹兩人被掩映在樹木中。
戈珍默默地坐了下來，緊閉着嘴，頭扭嚮一邊。她真後悔回到傢來。厄秀拉看看她，覺 得她漂亮極了，自己認輸了，臉都紅了。可她讓厄秀拉感到緊張得有點纍了。厄秀拉希望單 獨自處，脫離戈珍給她造成的透不過氣來的緊張感。
“我們還要在這兒呆下去嗎？”戈珍問。
“我就歇一小會兒，”厄秀拉說着站起身，象是受到戈珍的斥責一樣。“咱們就站在隔 壁球場的角落裏，從那兒什麽都看得見。”
太陽正輝煌地照耀着教堂墓地，空氣中淡淡地彌漫着樹脂的清香，那是春天的氣息，或 許是墓地黑紫羅蘭散發着幽香的緣故。一些雛菊已綻開了潔白的花朵，象小天使一樣漂亮。 空中銅色山毛櫸上舒展出血紅色的樹葉。
十一點時，馬車準時到達。一輛車駛過來，門口人群擁擠起來，産生了一陣騷動。出席 婚禮的賓客們徐徐走上臺階，沿着紅地毯走嚮教堂。這天陽光明媚，人們個個興高采烈。
戈珍用外來人那種好奇的目光仔細觀察着這些人。她把每個人都整體地觀察一通，或把 他們看作書中的一個個人物，一幅畫中的人物或劇院中的活動木偶，總之，完整地觀察他 們。她喜歡辨別他們不同的性格，將他們還其本來面目，給他們設置自我環境，在他們從她 眼前走過的當兒就給他們下了個永久的定論。她瞭解他們了，對她來說他們是些完整的人， 已經打上了烙印的完整的人。等到剋裏奇傢的人開始露面時，再也沒有什麽未知、不能解决 的問題了。她的興趣被激發起來了，她發現這裏有點什麽東西是不那麽容易提前下結論的。
那邊走過來剋裏奇太太和她的兒子傑拉德。儘管她為了今天這個日子明顯地修飾裝扮了 一番，但仍看得出她這人是不修邊幅的。她臉色蒼白，有點發黃，皮膚潔淨透明，有點前傾 的身體，綫條分明，很健壯，看上去象是要鼓足力氣不顧一切地去捕捉什麽。她一頭的白發 一點都不整齊，幾縷頭髮從緑綢帽裏掉出來，飄到罩着墨緑綢衣的褶皺紗上。一看就知道她 是個患偏執狂的女人，狡猾而傲慢。
她兒子本是個膚色白淨的人，但讓太陽曬黑了。他個頭中等偏高，身材很好，穿着似乎 有些過分的講究。但他的神態卻是那麽奇異、警覺，臉上情不自禁地閃爍着光芒，似乎他同 周圍的這些人有着根本的不同。戈珍的目光在打量他，他身上某種北方人的東西迷住了戈 珍。他那北方人純淨的肌膚和金色的頭髮象透過水晶折射的陽光一樣在閃爍。他看上去是那 麽新奇的一個人，沒有任何做作的痕跡，象北極的東西一樣純潔。他或許有三十歲了，或許 更大些。他丰采照人，男子氣十足，恰象一隻脾氣溫和、微笑着的幼狼一樣。但這副外表無 法令她變得盲目，她還是冷靜地看出他靜態中存在着危險，他那撲食的習性是無法改變的。 “他的圖騰是狼，”她自己重複着這句話。“他母親是一隻毫不屈服的老狼。”想到此，她 一陣狂喜，好象她有了一個全世界都不知道的令人難以置信的發現。一陣狂喜攫住了她，全 身的血管一時間猛烈激動起來。“天啊！”她自己大叫着，“這是怎麽一回事啊？”一會 兒，她又自信地說，“我會更多地瞭解那個人的。”她要再次見到他，她被這種欲望折磨 着，一定要再次見到他，這心情如同一種鄉戀一樣。她清楚，她沒有錯，她沒有自欺欺人， 她的確因為見到了他纔産生了這種奇特而振奮人心的感覺。她從本質上瞭解了他，深刻地理 解他，“難道我真地選中了他嗎？難道真有一道蒼白、金色的北極光把我們兩人拴在一起了 嗎？”她對自己發問。她無法相信自己，她仍然沉思着，幾乎意識不到周圍都發生了什麽事。
女儐相來了，但新娘還遲遲未到。厄秀拉猜想可能出了點差錯，這場婚禮弄不好就辦不 成了。她為此感到憂慮，似乎婚禮成功與否是取决於她。主要的女儐相們都到了，厄秀拉看 着她們走上臺階。她認識她們當中的一個，這人高高的個子，行動緩慢，長着一頭金發，長 長的臉，臉色蒼白，一看就知道是個難以駕馭的人。她是剋裏奇傢的朋友，叫赫麥妮·羅迪 斯。她走過來了，昂着頭，戴着一頂淺黃色天鵝絨寬沿帽，帽子上插着幾根天然灰色鴕鳥羽 毛。她飄然而過，似乎對周圍視而不見，蒼白的長臉嚮上揚起，並不留意周圍。她很富有， 今天穿了一件淺黃色軟天鵝絨上衣，亮閃閃的，手上捧一束玫瑰色仙客來花兒；鞋和襪子的 顔色很象帽子上羽毛的顔色，也是灰色的。她這人汗毛很重呢。走起路來臀部收得很緊，這 是她的一大特點，那種悠悠然的樣子跟衆人就是不同，她的衣着由淺黃和暗灰搭配而成，衣 服漂亮，人也很美，但有點可怕，有點讓人生厭。她走過時，人們都靜了下來，看來讓她迷 住了，繼而人們又激動起來，想調侃幾句，但終究不敢，又沉默了。她高揚着蒼白的長臉， 樣子頗象羅塞蒂①，似乎有點麻木，似乎她黑暗的內心深處聚集了許許多多奇特的思想令她 永遠無法從中解脫。
①羅塞蒂（１８３０—１８９４），英國拉斐爾前派著名女詩人。她的詩多以田園 牧歌詩為主，富有神秘宗教色彩。
厄秀拉出神地看着赫麥妮。她瞭解一點她的情況。赫麥妮是中原地區最出色的女人，父 親是德比郡的男爵，是個舊派人物，而她則全然新派，聰明過人且極有思想。她對改革充滿 熱情，心思全用在社會事業上。可她還是終歸嫁了人，仍然得受男性世界的左右。
她同各路有地位的男人都有神交。厄秀拉衹知道其中有一位是學校監察員，名叫盧伯 特·伯金。倒是戈珍在倫敦認識人更多些。她同搞藝術的朋友們出入各種社交圈子，已經認 識了不少知名人士。她與赫麥妮打過兩次交道，但她們兩人話不投機。她們在倫敦城裏各類 朋友傢以平等的身份相識，現在如果以如此懸殊的社會地位在中原相會將會令人很不舒服。 戈珍在社會上一直是個佼佼者，與貴族中搞點藝術的有閑者交往密切。
赫麥妮知道自己穿得很漂亮，她知道自己在威利·格林可以平等地同任何她想認識的人 打交道，或許想擺擺架子就擺擺架子。她知道她的地位在文化知識界的圈子裏是得到認可 的，她是文化意識的傳播媒介。無論在社會上還是在思想意識方面甚至在藝術上，她都處在 最高層次上，木秀於林，在這些方面她顯得左右逢源。沒誰能把她比下去，沒誰能夠讓她出 醜，因為她總是高居一流，而那些與她作對的人都在她之下，無論在等級上、財力上或是在 高層次的思想交流，思想發展及領悟能力上都不如她。因此她是冒犯不得的人物。她一生中 都努力不受人傷害或侵犯，要讓人們無法判斷她。
但是她的心在受折磨，這一點她無法掩飾。別看她在通往教堂的路上如此信步前行，確 信庸俗的對她毫無損傷，深信自己的形象完美無缺、屬於第一流。但是她忍受着折磨， 自信和傲慢衹是表面現象而已，其實她感到自己傷痕纍纍，受着人們的嘲諷與蔑視。她總感 到自己容易受到傷害，在她的盔甲下總有一道隱秘的傷口。她不知道這是怎麽回事。其實這 是因為她缺乏強健的自我，不具備天然的自負感。她有的衹是一個可怕空洞的靈魂，缺乏生 命的底藴。
她需要有個人來充溢她生命的底藴，永遠這樣。於是她極力追求盧伯特·伯金。當伯金 在她身邊時，她就感到自己是完整的，底氣很足。而在其它時間裏，她就感到搖搖欲跌，就 象建立在斷裂帶之上的房屋一樣。儘管她愛面子，掩飾自己，但任何一位自信、脾氣倔犟的 普通女傭都可以用輕微的嘲諷和蔑視舉止將她拋入無底的深淵，令她感到自己無能。但是， 這位憂鬱、忍受着折磨的女人一直在進取，用美學、文化、上流社會的態度和大公無私的行 為來保護自己。可她怎麽也無法越過這道可怕的溝壑，總感到自己沒有底氣。
Women in Love is a novel by British author D. H. Lawrence published in 1920. It is a sequel to his earlier novel The Rainbow (1915), and follows the continuing loves and lives of the Brangwen sisters, Gudrun and Ursula. Gudrun Brangwen, an artist, pursues a destructive relationship with Gerald Crich, an industrialist. Lawrence contrasts this pair with the love that develops between Ursula and Rupert Birkin, an alienated intellectual who articulates many opinions associated with the author. The emotional relationships thus established are given further depth and tension by a homoerotic attraction between Gerald and Rupert. The novel ranges over the whole of British society at the time of the First World War and eventually ends high up in the snows of the Swiss Alps.
As with most of Lawrence's works, Women in Love caused controversy over its sexual subject matter. One early reviewer said of it, "I do not claim to be a literary critic, but I know dirt when I smell it, and here is dirt in heaps — festering, putrid heaps which smell to high Heaven."
Plot summary
Ursula and Gudrun Brangwen are two sisters living in the Midlands of England in the 1910s. Ursula is a teacher, Gudrun an artist. They meet two men who live nearby, school inspector Rupert Birkin and coal-mine heir Gerald Crich. The four become friends. Ursula and Birkin become involved, and Gudrun eventually begins a love affair with Gerald.
All four are deeply concerned with questions of society, politics, and the relationship between men and women. At a party at Gerald's estate, Gerald's sister Diana drowns. Gudrun becomes the teacher and mentor of his youngest sister. Soon Gerald's coal-mine-owning father dies as well, after a long illness. After the funeral, Gerald goes to Gudrun's house and spends the night with her, while her parents sleep in another room.
Birkin asks Ursula to marry him, and she agrees. Gerald and Gudrun's relationship, however, becomes stormy. The four vacation in the Alps. Gudrun begins an intense friendship with Loerke, a physically puny but emotionally commanding artist from Dresden. Gerald, enraged by Loerke, by Gudrun's verbal abuse, and by his own destructive nature, tries to murder Gudrun. After failing, he retreats back over the mountains and falls to his death in the snow.
Publication
Women in Love was originally published in New York City as a limited edition (1250 books), available only to subscribers; this was due to the controversy caused by his previous work, The Rainbow. Originally, the two books were written as parts of a single novel. The publisher had decided to publish them separately and in rapid succession. The first book's treatment of sexuality, while tame by 21st Century standards, was rather too frank for the Edwardian era. There was an obscenity trial and The Rainbow was banned in the U.K. for 11 years, although it was available in the U.S. The publisher then backed out of publishing the second book in the U.K., so it first appeared in the U.S.
Film adaptation
Screenwriter and producer Larry Kramer and director Ken Russell adapted the novel in the Academy Award-winning 1969 film, Women in Love, (for which Glenda Jackson won for Best Actress). It was one of the first theatrical movies to show male genitals, when Gerald Crich (Oliver Reed) and Rupert Birkin (Alan Bates) wrestle in the nude in front of a roaring fireplace, in addition to several early skinny dipping shots and an explicit sequence of Birkin running naked in the forest after being hit on the head by his spurned former mistress, Hermione Roddice (Eleanor Bron).
Editions
* Women in Love (New York: Privately Printed by Thomas Seltzer, 1920).
* Women in Love (London: Martin Seeker, 1921).
* Women in Love, ed. Charles L. Ross (Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin, 1982).
* Women in Love, ed. David Farmer, Lindeth Vasey, and John Worthen (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987). This edition is a volume in The Cambridge Edition of the Letters and Works of D. H. Lawrence
* Women in Love, ed. David Farmer, Lindeth Vasey, and John Worthen [with an Introduction and Notes by Mark Kinkead-Weekes] (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1995).
* Women in Love, ed.David Bradshaw (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998)
* The First Women in Love (1916-17) edited by John Worthen and Lindeth Vasey,Cambridge University Press, 1998, ISBN 0-521-37326-3. This edition is a volume in The Cambridge Edition of the Letters and Works of D. H. Lawrence and displays significant differences to the final published version
* The 'Prologue' to Women in Love is a discarded section of an early version of the novel and is set four years after Gerald and Birkin have returned from a skiing holiday in Tyrol. It is published as an appendix to the Cambridge edition, pp489-506
* The First Women in Love Oneworld Classics, 2007, ISBN 978-1-84749-005-6
Literary criticism
* Richard Beynon, (ed.), D. H. Lawrence: The Rainbow and Women in Love (Cambridge: Icon Books, 1997).
* Michael Black (2001) Lawrence's England: The Major Fiction, 1913 - 1920 (Palgrave-MacMillan)
* Paul Delaney (1979) D. H. Lawrence's Nightmare: The Writer and his Circle in the Years of the Great War (Hassocks: Harvester Press)
* F. R. Leavis (1955) D. H. Lawrence: Novelist (London, Chatto and Windus)
* F. R. Leavis (1976) Thought, Words and Creativity: Art and Thought in D. H. Lawrence (London, Chatto and Windus)
* Joyce Carol Oates (1978) "Lawrence's Götterdämmerung: The Apocalyptic Vision of Women in Love"
* Charles L. Ross (1991) Women in Love: A Novel of Mythic Realism (Boston, Mass.: Twayne)
* John Worthen, The Restoration of Women in Love, in Peter Preston and Peter Hoare (eds.)(1989), D. H. Lawrence in the Modern World (London and Basingstoke: Macmillan), pp 7-26
CHAPTER I. SISTERS Page 1
Ursula and Gudrun Brangwen sat one morning in the window-bay of their father's house in Beldover, working and talking. Ursula was stitching a piece of brightly-coloured embroidery, and Gudrun was drawing upon a board which she held on her knee. They were mostly silent, talking as their thoughts strayed through their minds.
'Ursula,' said Gudrun, 'don't you REALLY WANT to get married?' Ursula laid her embroidery in her lap and looked up. Her face was calm and considerate.
'I don't know,' she replied. 'It depends how you mean.'
Gudrun was slightly taken aback. She watched her sister for some moments.
'Well,' she said, ironically, 'it usually means one thing! But don't you think anyhow, you'd be--' she darkened slightly--'in a better position than you are in now.'
A shadow came over Ursula's face.
'I might,' she said. 'But I'm not sure.'
Again Gudrun paused, slightly irritated. She wanted to be quite definite.
'You don't think one needs the EXPERIENCE of having been married?' she asked.
'Do you think it need BE an experience?' replied Ursula.
'Bound to be, in some way or other,' said Gudrun, coolly. 'Possibly undesirable, but bound to be an experience of some sort.'
'Not really,' said Ursula. 'More likely to be the end of experience.'
Gudrun sat very still, to attend to this.
'Of course,' she said, 'there's THAT to consider.' This brought the conversation to a close. Gudrun, almost angrily, took up her rubber and began to rub out part of her drawing. Ursula stitched absorbedly.
'You wouldn't consider a good offer?' asked Gudrun.
'I think I've rejected several,' said Ursula.
'REALLY!' Gudrun flushed dark--'But anything really worth while? Have you REALLY?'
'A thousand a year, and an awfully nice man. I liked him awfully,' said Ursula.
'Really! But weren't you fearfully tempted?'
'In the abstract but not in the concrete,' said Ursula. 'When it comes to the point, one isn't even tempted--oh, if I were tempted, I'd marry like a shot. I'm only tempted NOT to.' The faces of both sisters suddenly lit up with amusement.
'Isn't it an amazing thing,' cried Gudrun, 'how strong the temptation is, not to!' They both laughed, looking at each other. In their hearts they were frightened.
There was a long pause, whilst Ursula stitched and Gudrun went on with her sketch. The sisters were women, Ursula twenty-six, and Gudrun twenty-five. But both had the remote, virgin look of modern girls, sisters of Artemis rather than of Hebe. Gudrun was very beautiful, passive, soft-skinned, soft-limbed. She wore a dress of dark-blue silky stuff, with ruches of blue and green linen lace in the neck and sleeves; and she had emerald-green stockings. Her look of confidence and diffidence contrasted with Ursula's sensitive expectancy. The provincial people, intimidated by Gudrun's perfect sang-froid and exclusive bareness of manner, said of her: 'She is a smart woman.' She had just come back from London, where she had spent several years, working at an art-school, as a student, and living a studio life.
'I was hoping now for a man to come along,' Gudrun said, suddenly catching her underlip between her teeth, and making a strange grimace, half sly smiling, half anguish. Ursula was afraid.
'So you have come home, expecting him here?' she laughed.
'Oh my dear,' cried Gudrun, strident, 'I wouldn't go out of my way to look for him. But if there did happen to come along a highly attractive individual of sufficient means--well--' she tailed off ironically. Then she looked searchingly at Ursula, as if to probe her. 'Don't you find yourself getting bored?' she asked of her sister. 'Don't you find, that things fail to materialise? NOTHING MATERIALISES! Everything withers in the bud.'
'What withers in the bud?' asked Ursula.
'Oh, everything--oneself--things in general.' There was a pause, whilst each sister vaguely considered her fate.
'It does frighten one,' said Ursula, and again there was a pause. 'But do you hope to get anywhere by just marrying?'
'It seems to be the inevitable next step,' said Gudrun. Ursula pondered this, with a little bitterness. She was a class mistress herself, in Willey Green Grammar School, as she had been for some years.
'I know,' she said, 'it seems like that when one thinks in the abstract. But really imagine it: imagine any man one knows, imagine him coming home to one every evening, and saying "Hello," and giving one a kiss--'
There was a blank pause.
'Yes,' said Gudrun, in a narrowed voice. 'It's just impossible. The man makes it impossible.'
'Of course there's children--' said Ursula doubtfully.
Gudrun's face hardened.
'Do you REALLY want children, Ursula?' she asked coldly. A dazzled, baffled look came on Ursula's face.
'One feels it is still beyond one,' she said.
'DO you feel like that?' asked Gudrun. 'I get no feeling whatever from the thought of bearing children.'
Gudrun looked at Ursula with a masklike, expressionless face. Ursula knitted her brows.
'Perhaps it isn't genuine,' she faltered. 'Perhaps one doesn't really want them, in one's soul--only superficially.' A hardness came over Gudrun's face. She did not want to be too definite.
'When one thinks of other people's children--' said Ursula.
Again Gudrun looked at her sister, almost hostile.
'Exactly,' she said, to close the conversation.
The two sisters worked on in silence, Ursula having always that strange brightness of an essential flame that is caught, meshed, contravened. She lived a good deal by herself, to herself, working, passing on from day to day, and always thinking, trying to lay hold on life, to grasp it in her own understanding. Her active living was suspended, but underneath, in the darkness, something was coming to pass. If only she could break through the last integuments! She seemed to try and put her hands out, like an infant in the womb, and she could not, not yet. Still she had a strange prescience, an intimation of something yet to come.
She laid down her work and looked at her sister. She thought Gudrun so CHARMING, so infinitely charming, in her softness and her fine, exquisite richness of texture and delicacy of line. There was a certain playfulness about her too, such a piquancy or ironic suggestion, such an untouched reserve. Ursula admired her with all her soul.
'Why did you come home, Prune?' she asked.
Gudrun knew she was being admired. She sat back from her drawing and looked at Ursula, from under her finely-curved lashes.
'Why did I come back, Ursula?' she repeated. 'I have asked myself a thousand times.'
'And don't you know?'
'Yes, I think I do. I think my coming back home was just RECULER POUR MIEUX SAUTER.'
And she looked with a long, slow look of knowledge at Ursula.
'I know!' cried Ursula, looking slightly dazzled and falsified, and as if she did NOT know. 'But where can one jump to?'
'Oh, it doesn't matter,' said Gudrun, somewhat superbly. 'If one jumps over the edge, one is bound to land somewhere.'
'But isn't it very risky?' asked Ursula.
A slow mocking smile dawned on Gudrun's face.
'Ah!' she said laughing. 'What is it all but words!' And so again she closed the conversation. But Ursula was still brooding.
'And how do you find home, now you have come back to it?' she asked.
Gudrun paused for some moments, coldly, before answering. Then, in a cold truthful voice, she said:
'I find myself completely out of it.'
'And father?'
Gudrun looked at Ursula, almost with resentment, as if brought to bay.
'I haven't thought about him: I've refrained,' she said coldly.
'Yes,' wavered Ursula; and the conversation was really at an end. The sisters found themselves confronted by a void, a terrifying chasm, as if they had looked over the edge.
They worked on in silence for some time, Gudrun's cheek was flushed with repressed emotion. She resented its having been called into being.
'Shall we go out and look at that wedding?' she asked at length, in a voice that was too casual.
'Yes!' cried Ursula, too eagerly, throwing aside her sewing and leaping up, as if to escape something, thus betraying the tension of the situation and causing a friction of dislike to go over Gudrun's nerves.
As she went upstairs, Ursula was aware of the house, of her home round about her. And she loathed it, the sordid, too-familiar place! She was afraid at the depth of her feeling against the home, the milieu, the whole atmosphere and condition of this obsolete life. Her feeling frightened her.
The two girls were soon walking swiftly down the main road of Beldover, a wide street, part shops, part dwelling-houses, utterly formless and sordid, without poverty. Gudrun, new from her life in Chelsea and Sussex, shrank cruelly from this amorphous ugliness of a small colliery town in the Midlands. Yet forward she went, through the whole sordid gamut of pettiness, the long amorphous, gritty street. She was exposed to every stare, she passed on through a stretch of torment. It was strange that she should have chosen to come back and test the full effect of this shapeless, barren ugliness upon herself. Why had she wanted to submit herself to it, did she still want to submit herself to it, the insufferable torture of these ugly, meaningless people, this defaced countryside? She felt like a beetle toiling in the dust. She was filled with repulsion.
They turned off the main road, past a black patch of common-garden, where sooty cabbage stumps stood shameless. No one thought to be ashamed. No one was ashamed of it all.
'It is like a country in an underworld,' said Gudrun. 'The colliers bring it above-ground with them, shovel it up. Ursula, it's marvellous, it's really marvellous--it's really wonderful, another world. The people are all ghouls, and everything is ghostly. Everything is a ghoulish replica of the real world, a replica, a ghoul, all soiled, everything sordid. It's like being mad, Ursula.'
The sisters were crossing a black path through a dark, soiled field. On the left was a large landscape, a valley with collieries, and opposite hills with cornfields and woods, all blackened with distance, as if seen through a veil of crape. White and black smoke rose up in steady columns, magic within the dark air. Near at hand came the long rows of dwellings, approaching curved up the hill-slope, in straight lines along the brow of the hill. They were of darkened red brick, brittle, with dark slate roofs. The path on which the sisters walked was black, trodden-in by the feet of the recurrent colliers, and bounded from the field by iron fences; the stile that led again into the road was rubbed shiny by the moleskins of the passing miners. Now the two girls were going between some rows of dwellings, of the poorer sort. Women, their arms folded over their coarse aprons, standing gossiping at the end of their block, stared after the Brangwen sisters with that long, unwearying stare of aborigines; children called out names.
Gudrun went on her way half dazed. If this were human life, if these were human beings, living in a complete world, then what was her own world, outside? She was aware of her grass-green stockings, her large grass-green velour hat, her full soft coat, of a strong blue colour. And she felt as if she were treading in the air, quite unstable, her heart was contracted, as if at any minute she might be precipitated to the ground. She was afraid.
She clung to Ursula, who, through long usage was inured to this violation of a dark, uncreated, hostile world. But all the time her heart was crying, as if in the midst of some ordeal: 'I want to go back, I want to go away, I want not to know it, not to know that this exists.' Yet she must go forward.
Ursula could feel her suffering.
'You hate this, don't you?' she asked.
'It bewilders me,' stammered Gudrun.
'You won't stay long,' replied Ursula.
And Gudrun went along, grasping at release.
They drew away from the colliery region, over the curve of the hill, into the purer country of the other side, towards Willey Green. Still the faint glamour of blackness persisted over the fields and the wooded hills, and seemed darkly to gleam in the air. It was a spring day, chill, with snatches of sunshine. Yellow celandines showed out from the hedge-bottoms, and in the cottage gardens of Willey Green, currant-bushes were breaking into leaf, and little flowers were coming white on the grey alyssum that hung over the stone walls.
Turning, they passed down the high-road, that went between high banks towards the church. There, in the lowest bend of the road, low under the trees, stood a little group of expectant people, waiting to see the wedding. The daughter of the chief mine-owner of the district, Thomas Crich, was getting married to a naval officer.
'Let us go back,' said Gudrun, swerving away. 'There are all those people.'
And she hung wavering in the road.
'Never mind them,' said Ursula, 'they're all right. They all know me, they don't matter.'
'But must we go through them?' asked Gudrun.
'They're quite all right, really,' said Ursula, going forward. And together the two sisters approached the group of uneasy, watchful common people. They were chiefly women, colliers' wives of the more shiftless sort. They had watchful, underworld faces.
The two sisters held themselves tense, and went straight towards the gate. The women made way for them, but barely sufficient, as if grudging to yield ground. The sisters passed in silence through the stone gateway and up the steps, on the red carpet, a policeman estimating their progress.
'What price the stockings!' said a voice at the back of Gudrun. A sudden fierce anger swept over the girl, violent and murderous. She would have liked them all annihilated, cleared away, so that the world was left clear for her. How she hated walking up the churchyard path, along the red carpet, continuing in motion, in their sight.
'I won't go into the church,' she said suddenly, with such final decision that Ursula immediately halted, turned round, and branched off up a small side path which led to the little private gate of the Grammar School, whose grounds adjoined those of the church.
Just inside the gate of the school shrubbery, outside the churchyard, Ursula sat down for a moment on the low stone wall under the laurel bushes, to rest. Behind her, the large red building of the school rose up peacefully, the windows all open for the holiday. Over the shrubs, before her, were the pale roofs and tower of the old church. The sisters were hidden by the foliage.
Gudrun sat down in silence. Her mouth was shut close, her face averted. She was regretting bitterly that she had ever come back. Ursula looked at her, and thought how amazingly beautiful she was, flushed with discomfiture. But she caused a constraint over Ursula's nature, a certain weariness. Ursula wished to be alone, freed from the tightness, the enclosure of Gudrun's presence.
'Are we going to stay here?' asked Gudrun.
'I was only resting a minute,' said Ursula, getting up as if rebuked. 'We will stand in the corner by the fives-court, we shall see everything from there.'
For the moment, the sunshine fell brightly into the churchyard, there was a vague scent of sap and of spring, perhaps of violets from off the graves. Some white daisies were out, bright as angels. In the air, the unfolding leaves of a copper-beech were blood-red.
Punctually at eleven o'clock, the carriages began to arrive. There was a stir in the crowd at the gate, a concentration as a carriage drove up, wedding guests were mounting up the steps and passing along the red carpet to the church. They were all gay and excited because the sun was shining.
Gudrun watched them closely, with objective curiosity. She saw each one as a complete figure, like a character in a book, or a subject in a picture, or a marionette in a theatre, a finished creation. She loved to recognise their various characteristics, to place them in their true light, give them their own surroundings, settle them for ever as they passed before her along the path to the church. She knew them, they were finished, sealed and stamped and finished with, for her. There was none that had anything unknown, unresolved, until the Criches themselves began to appear. Then her interest was piqued. Here was something not quite so preconcluded.
There came the mother, Mrs Crich, with her eldest son Gerald. She was a queer unkempt figure, in spite of the attempts that had obviously been made to bring her into line for the day. Her face was pale, yellowish, with a clear, transparent skin, she leaned forward rather, her features were strongly marked, handsome, with a tense, unseeing, predative look. Her colourless hair was untidy, wisps floating down on to her sac coat of dark blue silk, from under her blue silk hat. She looked like a woman with a monomania, furtive almost, but heavily proud.
Her son was of a fair, sun-tanned type, rather above middle height, well-made, and almost exaggeratedly well-dressed. But about him also was the strange, guarded look, the unconscious glisten, as if he did not belong to the same creation as the people about him. Gudrun lighted on him at once. There was something northern about him that magnetised her. In his clear northern flesh and his fair hair was a glisten like sunshine refracted through crystals of ice. And he looked so new, unbroached, pure as an arctic thing. Perhaps he was thirty years old, perhaps more. His gleaming beauty, maleness, like a young, good-humoured, smiling wolf, did not blind her to the significant, sinister stillness in his bearing, the lurking danger of his unsubdued temper. 'His totem is the wolf,' she repeated to herself. 'His mother is an old, unbroken wolf.' And then she experienced a keen paroxyism, a transport, as if she had made some incredible discovery, known to nobody else on earth. A strange transport took possession of her, all her veins were in a paroxysm of violent sensation. 'Good God!' she exclaimed to herself, 'what is this?' And then, a moment after, she was saying assuredly, 'I shall know more of that man.' She was tortured with desire to see him again, a nostalgia, a necessity to see him again, to make sure it was not all a mistake, that she was not deluding herself, that she really felt this strange and overwhelming sensation on his account, this knowledge of him in her essence, this powerful apprehension of him. 'Am I REALLY singled out for him in some way, is there really some pale gold, arctic light that envelopes only us two?' she asked herself. And she could not believe it, she remained in a muse, scarcely conscious of what was going on around.
The bridesmaids were here, and yet the bridegroom had not come. Ursula wondered if something was amiss, and if the wedding would yet all go wrong. She felt troubled, as if it rested upon her. The chief bridesmaids had arrived. Ursula watched them come up the steps. One of them she knew, a tall, slow, reluctant woman with a weight of fair hair and a pale, long face. This was Hermione Roddice, a friend of the Criches. Now she came along, with her head held up, balancing an enormous flat hat of pale yellow velvet, on which were streaks of ostrich feathers, natural and grey. She drifted forward as if scarcely conscious, her long blanched face lifted up, not to see the world. She was rich. She wore a dress of silky, frail velvet, of pale yellow colour, and she carried a lot of small rose-coloured cyclamens. Her shoes and stockings were of brownish grey, like the feathers on her hat, her hair was heavy, she drifted along with a peculiar fixity of the hips, a strange unwilling motion. She was impressive, in her lovely pale-yellow and brownish-rose, yet macabre, something repulsive. People were silent when she passed, impressed, roused, wanting to jeer, yet for some reason silenced. Her long, pale face, that she carried lifted up, somewhat in the Rossetti fashion, seemed almost drugged, as if a strange mass of thoughts coiled in the darkness within her, and she was never allowed to escape.
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