查太莱夫人的情人 第一章這大概就是康士丹斯·查太萊夫人的處境了。她曾親嘗世界大戰的災難，因此她瞭解了一個人必要生活，必要求知。
她在一九一七年大戰中和剋利福·查太萊結婚，那時他請了一個月的假回到英國來。他們度了一個月的蜜月後，剋利福回到佛蘭大斯前綫去。六個月後，他一身破碎地被運返英國來，那時康士丹斯二十三歲，他是二十九歲。
他有一種驚奇的生命力。他並沒有死。他的一身破碎似乎重臺了。醫生把他醫治了兩年了，結果僅以身免。可是腰部以下的半身，從此永久成了瘋癱。
一九二零年，剋利福和康士丹斯回到他的世代者傢勒格貝去。他的父親已死了；剋利福承襲了爵位，他是剋利福男爵，康士丹斯便是查太萊男爵夫人了。他們來到這有點零丁的查太萊老傢裏，開始共同的生活，收入是不太充裕的。剋利福除了一個不在一起住的姊妹外，並沒有其他的近親，他的長兄在大戰中陣亡了。剋利福明知自己半身殘疾，生育的希望是絶滅了，因此回到煙霧沉沉的米德蘭傢裏來，盡人事地使查泰萊傢的煙火維持下去。
他實在並不頽喪。他可以坐在一輪椅裏，來去優遊。他還有一個裝了發動機的自動椅，這一來，他可以自己駕駛着，慢慢地繞過花園而到那美麗的凄清的大林園裏去；他對於這個大林園，雖然表示得滿不在乎的樣子，其實他是非常得意的。
他曾飽經苦難，緻他受苦的能力都有點窮乏了。可是他卻依然這樣奇特、活潑、愉快，紅潤的健康的臉容，挑撥人的閃光的灰藍眼睛，他簡直可說是個樂天安命的人。他有寬大強壯的肩膊，兩衹有力的手。他穿的是華貴的衣服，結的是幫德街買來的講究的領帶。可是他的臉上卻仍然表示着一個殘廢者的呆視的狀態和有點空虛的樣子。
他因為曾離死衹間一發，所以這剩下的生命，於他是十分可貴的。他的不安地閃着光的眼睛，流露着死裏生還的非常得意的神情，但是他受的傷是太重了，他裏面的什麽東西已經死滅了，某種感情已經沒有了，剩下的衹是個無知覺的空洞。
康士丹斯是個健康的村姑佯兒的女子，軟軟的褐色的頭髮，強壯的身體，遲緩的舉止，但是富有非常的精力。她有兩衹好奇的大眼睛。溫軟的聲音，好象是個初出鄉廬的人，其實不然。她的父親麥爾·勒德爵士，是個曾經享有鼎鼎大名的皇傢藝術學會的會員。母親是個有教養的費邊社社員。在藝術傢與社會主義者的誼染中，康士丹斯和她的婉妹希爾達，受了一種可以稱為美育地非傳統的教養。她們到過巴黎、羅馬、佛羅倫斯呼吸藝術的空氣，她們也到過海牙、柏林去參加社會主義者的大會，在這些大會裏，演說的人用着所有的文明語言，毫無羞愧。
這樣，這婉妹倆從小就盡情地生活在美術和的氛圍中，她們已習損了。她們一方面是世界的，一方面又是鄉土的。她們這種世界而又鄉土的美術主義，是和純潔的社會理想相吻合的。
她們十五歲的時候，到德國德纍斯頓學習音樂。她們在那裏過的是快活的日子。她們無園無束地生活在學生中間，她們和男子們爭論着哲學、社會學和藝術上的種種問題。她們的學識並不下於男子；因為是女子，所以更勝於他們了。強壯的青年男子們，帶着六弦琴和她們到林中漫遊。她們歌唱着，歌喉動人的青年們，在曠野間，在清晨的林中奔竄，自由地為所欲為，尤其是自由地談所欲談。最要緊的還是談話，熱情的談話，愛情不過是件小小的陪襯品。
希爾達和康士丹斯婉妹倆，都曾在十八歲的時候初試愛情。那些熱情地和她們交談，歡快地和她們歌唱，自由自在地和她們在林中野宿的男子們，不用說都欲望勃勃地想更進一步。她們起初是躊躇着；但是愛情這問題已經過許多的討論，而且被認為是最重要的東西了，況且男子們又是這樣低聲下氣地央求。為什麽一個少女不能以身相就，象一個王後似的賜予思惠呢？
於是她們都賜身與平素最微妙、最親密在一起討論的男子了。辯論是重要的事情，戀愛和性交不過是一種原始的本能；一種反應，事後，她們對於對手的愛情冷挑了，而且有點憎很他們的傾嚮，仿佛他們侵犯了她們的秘密和自由似的。因為一個少女的尊嚴，和她的生存意義，全在獲得絶對的、完全的、純粹的、高尚的自由。要不是擺脫了從前的污穢的兩性關係和可恥的主奴狀態，一個少女的生命還有什麽意義。
無論人怎樣感情用事，性愛總是各種最古老、最宿穢的結合和從屬狀態之一。歌頌性愛的詩人們大都是男子。女子們‘嚮就知道有更好更高尚的東西。現在她們知之更確了。一個人的美麗純潔的自由，是比任何性愛都可愛的。不過男子對於這點的看法太落後了，她們象狗似的堅要性的滿足。
可是女人不得不退讓，男於是象孩子般的嘴饞的，他要什麽女人便得繪什麽，否則他便孩子似的討厭起來，暴躁起來把好事弄糟。，但是個女人可以順從男子，而不恨讓她內在的、自由的自我。那些高談性愛的詩人和其他的人好象不大註意到這點。一個女人是可以有個男子，而不真正委身r讓他支配的。反之，她可以利用這性愛去支配他。在性交的時候，她自己忍持着，讓男子盡先盡情地發泄完了，然而她便可以把性交延長，而把他當作工具去滿足她自目的性欲。
當大戰爆發，她們急忙回傢的時候，婉妹倆都有了愛情的經驗了。她們所以戀愛，全是因為對手是可以親切地、熱烈地談心的男子。和真正聰明的青年男子，一點鐘又一點鐘地，一天又一天地，熱情地談話，這種驚人的、深刻的、意想不到的美妙，是她們在經驗以前所不知道的，天國的諾言：“您將有可以談心的男子。”還沒有吐露，而這奇妙的諾言卻在她們明白其意義之前實現了。
在這些生動的、毫無隱諱的、親密的談心過後，性行為成為不可避免的了，那衹好忍受。那象是一章的結尾，它本身也是令人情熱的；那是肉體深處的一種奇特的、美妙的震顫，最後是一種自我决定的痙攣。宛如最後—個奮激的宇，和一段文字後一行表示題意中斷的小點子一樣。
一九一三年暑假她們回傢的時候，那時希爾達二十歲，康妮①十八歲，她們的父親便看出這婉妹倆已有了愛的經驗了。
①康妮，康士丹斯的呢稱。
好象誰說的：“愛情已在那兒經歷過了。”但是他自已是個過來人，所以他聽其自然。至於她們的母親呢，那時她患着神經上的瘋疾，離死不過幾月了，她但願她的女兒們能夠“自由”，能夠“成就”。但是她自己從沒有成就過什麽，她簡直不能。上代知道那是什麽緣故，因為她是個人進款和意志堅強的人。她埋怨她的丈夫。其實衹是因為她不能擺脫心靈上的某種強有力的壓製罷了。那和麥爾肯爵士是無關的，他不理她的埋怨和仇視，他們各行其事。所以妹妹倆是“自由”的。她們回到德纍斯頓，重度往日學習音樂，在大學聽講，與年青男子們交際的生活。她們各自戀着她們的男子，她們的男子也熱戀着她們。所有青年男子所能想，所能說所能寫的美妙的東西，他們都為這兩個而想、而說、而寫。康妮的情人是愛音樂的，希爾達的情人是技術傢。至少在精神方面，他們全為這兩個生活着。另外的什麽方面，他們是被人厭惡的；但是他們自己並不知道。
狠明顯；愛情——肉體的愛——已在他們身上經過了。肉體的愛，使男子身體發生奇異的、微妙的、顯然的變化。女子是更豔麗了，更微妙地了，少女時代的粗糙處全消失了，臉上露出渴望的或勝利的情態。男子是更沉靜了，更深刻了，即肩膊和臀部也不象從前硬直了。
這姊妹倆在性的快感中，幾乎在男性的奇異的權力下面屈服了。但是很快她們便自撥了，把性的快感看作一種感覺，而保持了她們的自由。至於她們的情人呢，因為感激她們所賜與的性的滿足，便把靈魂交給她們。但是不久，他們又有點覺得得不嘗失了。康妮的男子開始有點負氣的樣子，希爾達的對手也漸漸態度輕衊起來。但是男子們就是這樣的；忘恩負義而永不滿足！你要他們的時候，他們憎恨你，因為你要他們。你不睬他們的時候，他們還是憎恨你，因為旁的什麽理由。或者毫無理由。他們是不知足的孩子，無論得到什麽，無論女子怎樣，都不滿意的。
大戰爆發了。希爾達和康妮又匆匆回傢——她們在五月已經回傢一次，那時是為了母親的喪事。她們的兩個德國情人，在一九一四年聖誕節都死了，姊妹倆戀戀地痛哭了一場，但是心裏卻把他們忘掉了，他們再也不存在了。
她們都住在新根洞她們父親的——其實是她們母親的傢裏。她們和那些擁護“自由”，穿法蘭絨褲和法蘭絨開領襯衣的劍橋大學學生們往來。這些學生是一種上流的感情的無政府主義者，說起話來，聲音又低又濁，儀態力求講究。希爾達突然和一個比她大十歲的人結了婚。她是這劍橋學生團體的一個者前輩，傢財富有，而且在政府裏有個好差事，他也寫點哲學上的文章。她和他住在威士明斯泰的一所小屋裏，來往的是政府人物，他們雖不是了不起的人，卻是——或希望是——國中有權威的知識分子。他們知道自己所說的是什麽或者裝做知道。
康妮得了個戰時輕易的工作，和那些嘲笑一切的，穿法蘭絨褲的劍橋學生常在一塊。她的朋友是剋利福·查太萊，一個二十二歲的青年。他原在德國被恩研究煤礦技術，那時他剛從德國匆匆趕回來，他以前也在劍橋大學待過兩年，現在，他是個堂堂的陸軍中尉，穿上了軍服，更可以目空一切了。
在社會地位上看來，剋利福·查太萊是比康妮高的，康妮是屬於小康的知識階級；但他卻是個貴族。雖不是大貴族，但總是貴族。他的父親是個男爵，母親是個子爵的女兒。
剋利福雖比康妮出身高貴，更其上流，但卻沒有她磊落大方。在地主貴族的狹小的上流社會裏，他便覺得安適，但在其他的中産階級、民衆和外國人所組合的大社會裏，他卻覺得怯懦不安了。說實話，他對於中下層階級的大衆和與自己不同階級的外國人，是有點懼怕的。他自己覺得麻木了似的毫無保障；其實他有着所有優先權的保障。這是可怪的，但這是我們時代的一種稀有的現象。
這是為什麽，一個雍容自在的少女康士丹斯·勒德使他顛倒了。她在那復雜渾沌的社會上，比他自然得多了。
然而，他卻是個叛徒，甚至反叛他自己的階級。也許反叛這字用得過火了，太過火了。他衹是跟着普通一般青年的憤恨潮流，反對舊習慣，反對任何權勢罷了。父輩的人都是可笑的，他自己的頑固的父親，尤其可笑。一切政府都是可笑的，投機主義的英國政府，特別可笑，車隊是可笑的，尤其是那些老而不死的將軍們，至於那紅臉的吉治納將軍②更是可笑之至了。甚至戰爭也是可笑的，雖然戰爭要殺不少人。
②吉治納K(itchener)一九一四一一六年英國陸軍部長。
總之，一切都有點可笑，或十分可笑，一切有權威的東西，無論軍隊、政府或可笑到絶點。自命有統治能力的統治階級，也可笑。佐佛來男爵，剋利福的父親，尤其可笑。砍伐着他園裏的樹木，調撥着他煤礦場裏的礦工，和敗草一般地送到戰場上去，他自己便安然在後方，高喊救國，可是他卻人不敷出地為國花錢。
當剋利福的姊妹愛瑪·查太萊小姐從米德蘭到倫敦去做看護工作的時候，她暗地裏嘲笑着佐佛來男爵和他的剛愎的愛國主義。至於他的長於哈白呢，卻公然大笑，雖然砍給戰壕裏用的樹木是他自己的。但是剋利福衹是有點不安的微笑。一切都可笑，那是真的；但這可笑若挨到自己身上來的時候？其他階級的人們，如康妮，是鄭重其事的；他們是有所信仰的。
他們對於軍隊，對於徵兵的恐嚇，對於兒童們的糖與糖果的缺乏，是頗鄭重其事的。這些事情，當然，都是當局的罪過。但是剋利福卻不關心，在他看來，當局本身就是可笑的，而不是因為糖果或軍隊問題。
當局者自己也覺得可笑，卻有點可笑地行動着，一時紊亂得一塌糊塗。直至前方戰事嚴重起來，路易·佐治出來救了國內的局面，這是超乎可笑的，於是目空一切的青年們不再嘲笑了。
一九—六年，剋利福的哥哥哈白陣亡了。因此剋利福成了唯一的繼承人。甚至這個也使他害怕起來。他早就深知生在這查太萊世傢的勒格貝，作佐佛來男爵兒子，是多麽重要的，他决不能逃避他的命運。可是他知道在這沸騰的外面世界的人看來，也是可笑的。現在他是繼承人，是勒格貝世代老傢的負責人，這可不是駭人的事？這可不是顯赫而同時也許是十分荒唐的事？
佐佛來男爵卻不以為有什麽荒唐的地方。他臉色蒼白地、緊張地固執着要救他的祖國和他的地位，不管在位的是路易·佐治或任何人。他擁護英國和路易。佐治，正如他的祖先們擁護英國和聖佐治一樣；他永不明白那兒有什麽不同的地方。所以佐佛來男爵吹伐他的樹木，擁護英國和路易·佐治。
他要剋利福結婚，好生個嗣於，剋利福覺得他的父親是個不可救藥的者頑固。但是他自己，除了會嘲笑一切，和極端嘲笑他自己的處境外，還有什麽比他父親更新穎的呢？因為不管他心願與否，他是十分鄭重其事地接受這爵銜和勒格貝傢産了。
太戰起初時的狂熱消失了。死滅了。因為死的人太多了，恐怖太大了。男子需要扶持和安慰，需要一個鐵錨把他碇泊在安全地下，需要一個妻子。
從前，查太萊兄弟姊妹三人，雖然認識的人多，卻怪孤獨地住在勒格貝傢裏，他們三人的關係是很密切的，因為他們三人覺得孤獨，雖然有爵位和土地(也許正因為這個)，他們卻覺得地位不堅，毫無保障。他們和生長地的米德蘭工業區完全隔絶；他們甚至和同階級的人也隔絶了，因為佐佛來男爵的性情是古怪的，”固執的，不喜與人交往的。他們嘲笑他們的父親，但是他們卻不願人嘲笑他。
他們說過要永久的住在一塊，但是現在哈白已死了。而佐佛來男爵又要剋利福成婚。父親這欲望並不正式表示，i他是很少說話的人，但是他的無言的、靜默地堅持，是使剋利福難以反抗的。
但是，愛瑪卻反對這事！她比剋利福大十歲，她覺得剋利福如果結婚，那便是離叛他們往日的約言。
然而，剋利福終於娶了康妮，和她過了一個月的蜜月生活。那正在可怕的一九一七那一年；夫婦倆親切得恰如正在沉沒的船上的兩個難人。結婚的時候，他還是個童男，所以性的方面，於他是沒有多大意義的。他們衹知相親相愛，康妮覺得這種超乎性欲的男子不求“滿足”的相親相愛，是可喜的。而剋利福也不象別的男子般的追求“滿足”。不，親情是比性交更深刻，更直接的。性交不過是偶然的、附帶的事，不過是一種笨拙地堅持着的官能作用，並不是真正需要的東西。可是康妮卻希翼着生些孩子，好使自己的地位強國起來，去反抗愛瑪。
然而，一九一八年開始的時候，剋利福傷得一身破碎。被運了回來，孩子沒有生成。佐佛來男爵也憂憤中死去了。
This was more or less Constance Chatterley's position. The war had brought the roof down over her head. And she had realized that one must live and learn.
She married Clifford Chatterley in 1917, when he was home for a month on leave. They had a month's honeymoon. Then he went back to Flanders: to be shipped over to England again six months later, more or less in bits. Constance, his wife, was then twenty-three years old, and he was twenty-nine.
His hold on life was marvellous. He didn't die, and the bits seemed to grow together again. For two years he remained in the doctor's hands. Then he was pronounced a cure, and could return to life again, with the lower half of his body, from the hips down, paralysed for ever.
This was in 1920. They returned, Clifford and Constance, to his home, Wragby Hall, the family `seat'. His father had died, Clifford was now a baronet, Sir Clifford, and Constance was Lady Chatterley. They came to start housekeeping and married life in the rather forlorn home of the Chatterleys on a rather inadequate income. Clifford had a sister, but she had departed. Otherwise there were no near relatives. The elder brother was dead in the war. Crippled for ever, knowing he could never have any children, Clifford came home to the smoky Midlands to keep the Chatterley name alive while he could.
He was not really downcast. He could wheel himself about in a wheeled chair, and he had a bath-chair with a small motor attachment, so he could drive himself slowly round the garden and into the line melancholy park, of which he was really so proud, though he pretended to be flippant about it.
Having suffered so much, the capacity for suffering had to some extent left him. He remained strange and bright and cheerful, almost, one might say, chirpy, with his ruddy, healthy-looking face, arid his pale-blue, challenging bright eyes. His shoulders were broad and strong, his hands were very strong. He was expensively dressed, and wore handsome neckties from Bond Street. Yet still in his face one saw the watchful look, the slight vacancy of a cripple.
He had so very nearly lost his life, that what remained was wonderfully precious to him. It was obvious in the anxious brightness of his eyes, how proud he was, after the great shock, of being alive. But he had been so much hurt that something inside him had perished, some of his feelings had gone. There was a blank of insentience.
Constance, his wife, was a ruddy, country-looking girl with soft brown hair and sturdy body, and slow movements, full of unusual energy. She had big, wondering eyes, and a soft mild voice, and seemed just to have come from her native village. It was not so at all. Her father was the once well-known R. A., old Sir Malcolm Reid. Her mother had been one of the cultivated Fabians in the palmy, rather pre-Raphaelite days. Between artists and cultured socialists, Constance and her sister Hilda had had what might be called an aesthetically unconventional upbringing. They had been taken to Paris and Florence and Rome to breathe in art, and they had been taken also in the other direction, to the Hague and Berlin, to great Socialist conventions, where the speakers spoke in every civilized tongue, and no one was abashed.
The two girls, therefore, were from an early age not the least daunted by either art or ideal politics. It was their natural atmosphere. They were at once cosmopolitan and provincial, with the cosmopolitan provincialism of art that goes with pure social ideals.
They had been sent to Dresden at the age of fifteen, for music among other things. And they had had a good time there. They lived freely among the students, they argued with the men over philosophical, sociological and artistic matters, they were just as good as the men themselves: only better, since they were women. And they tramped off to the forests with sturdy youths bearing guitars, twang-twang! They sang the Wandervogel songs, and they were free. Free! That was the great word. Out in the open world, out in the forests of the morning, with lusty and splendid-throated young fellows, free to do as they liked, and---above all---to say what they liked. It was the talk that mattered supremely: the impassioned interchange of talk. Love was only a minor accompaniment.
Both Hilda and Constance had had their tentative love-affairs by the time they were eighteen. The young men with whom they talked so passionately and sang so lustily and camped under the trees in such freedom wanted, of course, the love connexion. The girls were doubtful, but then the thing was so much talked about, it was supposed to be so important. And the men were so humble and craving. Why couldn't a girl be queenly, and give the gift of herself?
So they had given the gift of themselves, each to the youth with whom she had the most subtle and intimate arguments. The arguments, the discussions were the great thing: the love-making and connexion were only a sort of primitive reversion and a bit of an anti-climax. One was less in love with the boy afterwards, and a little inclined to hate him, as if he had trespassed on one's privacy and inner freedom. For, of course, being a girl, one's whole dignity and meaning in life consisted in the achievement of an absolute, a perfect, a pure and noble freedom. What else did a girl's life mean? To shake off the old and sordid connexions and subjections.
And however one might sentimentalize it, this sex business was one of the most ancient, sordid connexions and subjections. Poets who glorified it were mostly men. Women had always known there was something better, something higher. And now they knew it more definitely than ever. The beautiful pure freedom of a woman was infinitely more wonderful than any sexual love. The only unfortunate thing was that men lagged so far behind women in the matter. They insisted on the sex thing like dogs.
And a woman had to yield. A man was like a child with his appetites. A woman had to yield him what he wanted, or like a child he would probably turn nasty and flounce away and spoil what was a very pleasant connexion. But a woman could yield to a man without yielding her inner, free self. That the poets and talkers about sex did not seem to have taken sufficiently into account. A woman could take a man without really giving herself away. Certainly she could take him without giving herself into his power. Rather she could use this sex thing to have power over him. For she only had to hold herself back in sexual intercourse, and let him finish and expend himself without herself coming to the crisis: and then she could prolong the connexion and achieve her orgasm and her crisis while he was merely her tool.
Both sisters had had their love experience by the time the war came, and they were hurried home. Neither was ever in love with a young man unless he and she were verbally very near: that is unless they were profoundly interested, TALKING to one another. The amazing, the profound, the unbelievable thrill there was in passionately talking to some really clever young man by the hour, resuming day after day for months...this they had never realized till it happened! The paradisal promise: Thou shalt have men to talk to!---had never been uttered. It was fulfilled before they knew what a promise it was.
And if after the roused intimacy of these vivid and soul-enlightened discussions the sex thing became more or less inevitable, then let it. It marked the end of a chapter. It had a thrill of its own too: a queer vibrating thrill inside the body, a final spasm of self-assertion, like the last word, exciting, and very like the row of asterisks that can be put to show the end of a paragraph, and a break in the theme.
When the girls came home for the summer holidays of 1913, when Hilda was twenty and Connie eighteen, their father could see plainly that they had had the love experience.
L'amour avait possé par là, as somebody puts it. But he was a man of experience himself, and let life take its course. As for the mot a nervous invalid in the last few months of her life, she wanted her girls to be `free', and to `fulfil themselves'. She herself had never been able to be altogether herself: it had been denied her. Heaven knows why, for she was a woman who had her own income and her own way. She blamed her husband. But as a matter of fact, it was some old impression of authority on her own mind or soul that she could not get rid of. It had nothing to do with Sir Malcolm, who left his nervously hostile, high-spirited wife to rule her own roost, while he went his own way.
So the girls were `free', and went back to Dresden, and their music, and the university and the young men. They loved their respective young men, and their respective young men loved them with all the passion of mental attraction. All the wonderful things the young men thought and expressed and wrote, they thought and expressed and wrote for the young women. Connie's young man was musical, Hilda's was technical. But they simply lived for their young women. In their minds and their mental excitements, that is. Somewhere else they were a little rebuffed, though they did not know it.
It was obvious in them too that love had gone through them: that is, the physical experience. It is curious what a subtle but unmistakable transmutation it makes, both in the body of men and women: the woman more blooming, more subtly rounded, her young angularities softened, and her expression either anxious or triumphant: the man much quieter, more inward, the very shapes of his shoulders and his buttocks less assertive, more hesitant.
In the actual sex-thrill within the body, the sisters nearly succumbed to the strange male power. But quickly they recovered themselves, took the sex-thrill as a sensation, and remained free. Whereas the men, in gratitude to the woman for the sex experience, let their souls go out to her. And afterwards looked rather as if they had lost a shilling and found sixpence. Connie's man could be a bit sulky, and Hilda's a bit jeering. But that is how men are! Ungrateful and never satisfied. When you don't have them they hate you because you won't; and when you do have them they hate you again, for some other reason. Or for no reason at all, except that they are discontented children, and can't be satisfied whatever they get, let a woman do what she may.
However, came the war, Hilda and Connie were rushed home again after having been home already in May, to their mother's funeral. Before Christmas of 1914 both their German young men were dead: whereupon the sisters wept, and loved the young men passionately, but underneath forgot them. They didn't exist any more.
Both sisters lived in their father's, really their mother's, Kensington housemixed with the young Cambridge group, the group that stood for `freedom' and flannel trousers, and flannel shirts open at the neck, and a well-bred sort of emotional anarchy, and a whispering, murmuring sort of voice, and an ultra-sensitive sort of manner. Hilda, however, suddenly married a man ten years older than herself, an elder member of the same Cambridge group, a man with a fair amount of money, and a comfortable family job in the government: he also wrote philosophical essays. She lived with him in a smallish house in Westminster, and moved in that good sort of society of people in the government who are not tip-toppers, but who are, or would be, the real intelligent power in the nation: people who know what they're talking about, or talk as if they did.
Connie did a mild form of war-work, and consorted with the flannel-trousers Cambridge intransigents, who gently mocked at everything, so far. Her `friend' was a Clifford Chatterley, a young man of twenty-two, who had hurried home from Bonn, where he was studying the technicalities of coal-mining. He had previously spent two years at Cambridge. Now he had become a first lieutenant in a smart regiment, so he could mock at everything more becomingly in uniform.
Clifford Chatterley was more upper-class than Connie. Connie was well-to-do intelligentsia, but he was aristocracy. Not the big sort, but still it. His father was a baronet, and his mother had been a viscount's daughter.
But Clifford, while he was better bred than Connie, and more `society', was in his own way more provincial and more timid. He was at his ease in the narrow `great world', that is, landed aristocracy society, but he was shy and nervous of all that other big world which consists of the vast hordes of the middle and lower classes, and foreigners. If the truth must be told, he was just a little bit frightened of middle-and lower-class humanity, and of foreigners not of his own class. He was, in some paralysing way, conscious of his own defencelessness, though he had all the defence of privilege. Which is curious, but a phenomenon of our day.
Therefore the peculiar soft assurance of a girl like Constance Reid fascinated him. She was so much more mistress of herself in that outer world of chaos than he was master of himself.
Nevertheless he too was a rebel: rebelling even against his class. Or perhaps rebel is too strong a word; far too strong. He was only caught in the general, popular recoil of the young against convention and against any sort of real authority. Fathers were ridiculous: his own obstinate one supremely so. And governments were ridiculous: our own wait-and-see sort especially so. And armies were ridiculous, and old buffers of generals altogether, the red-faced Kitchener supremely. Even the war was ridiculous, though it did kill rather a lot of people.
In fact everything was a little ridiculous, or very ridiculous: certainly everything connected with authority, whether it were in the army or the government or the universities, was ridiculous to a degree. And as far as the governing class made any pretensions to govern, they were ridiculous too. Sir Geoffrey, Clifford's father, was intensely ridiculous, chopping down his trees, and weeding men out of his colliery to shove them into the war; and himself being so safe and patriotic; but, also, spending more money on his country than he'd got.
When Miss Chatterley---Emma---came down to London from the Midlands to do some nursing work, she was very witty in a quiet way about Sir Geoffrey and his determined patriotism. Herbert, the elder brother and heir, laughed outright, though it was his trees that were falling for trench props. But Clifford only smiled a little uneasily. Everything was ridiculous, quite true. But when it came too close and oneself became ridiculous too...? At least people of a different class, like Connie, were earnest about something. They believed in something.
They were rather earnest about the Tommies, and the threat of conscription, and the shortage of sugar and toffee for the children. In all these things, of course, the authorities were ridiculously at fault. But Clifford could not take it to heart. To him the authorities were ridiculous ab ovo, not because of toffee or Tommies.
And the authorities felt ridiculous, and behaved in a rather ridiculous fashion, and it was all a mad hatter's tea-party for a while. Till things developed over there, and Lloyd George came to save the situation over here. And this surpassed even ridicule, the flippant young laughed no more.
In 1916 Herbert Chatterley was killed, so Clifford became heir. He was terrified even of this. His importance as son of Sir Geoffrey, and child of Wragby, was so ingrained in him, he could never escape it. And yet he knew that this too, in the eyes of the vast seething world, was ridiculous. Now he was heir and responsible for Wragby. Was that not terrible? and also splendid and at the same time, perhaps, purely absurd?
Sir Geoffrey would have none of the absurdity. He was pale and tense, withdrawn into himself, and obstinately determined to save his country and his own position, let it be Lloyd George or who it might. So cut off he was, so divorced from the England that was really England, so utterly incapable, that he even thought well of Horatio Bottomley. Sir Geoffrey stood for England and Lloyd George as his forebears had stood for England and St George: and he never knew there was a difference. So Sir Geoffrey felled timber and stood for Lloyd George and England, England and Lloyd George.
And he wanted Clifford to marry and produce an heir. Clifford felt his father was a hopeless anachronism. But wherein was he himself any further ahead, except in a wincing sense of the ridiculousness of everything, and the paramount ridiculousness of his own position? For willy-nilly he took his baronetcy and Wragby with the last seriousness.
The gay excitement had gone out of the war...dead. Too much death and horror. A man needed support arid comfort. A man needed to have an anchor in the safe world. A man needed a wife.
The Chatterleys, two brothers and a sister, had lived curiously isolated, shut in with one another at Wragby, in spite of all their connexions. A sense of isolation intensified the family tie, a sense of the weakness of their position, a sense of defencelessness, in spite of, or because of, the title and the land. They were cut off from those industrial Midlands in which they passed their lives. And they were cut off from their own class by the brooding, obstinate, shut-up nature of Sir Geoffrey, their father, whom they ridiculed, but whom they were so sensitive about.
The three had said they would all live together always. But now Herbert was dead, and Sir Geoffrey wanted Clifford to marry. Sir Geoffrey barely mentioned it: he spoke very little. But his silent, brooding insistence that it should be so was hard for Clifford to bear up against.
But Emma said No! She was ten years older than Clifford, and she felt his marrying would be a desertion and a betrayal of what the young ones of the family had stood for.
Clifford married Connie, nevertheless, and had his month's honeymoon with her. It was the terrible year 1917, and they were intimate as two people who stand together on a sinking ship. He had been virgin when he married: and the sex part did not mean much to him. They were so close, he and she, apart from that. And Connie exulted a little in this intimacy which was beyond sex, and beyond a man's `satisfaction`. Clifford anyhow was not just keen on his `satisfaction', as so many men seemed to be. No, the intimacy was deeper, more personal than that. And sex was merely an accident, or an adjunct, one of the curious obsolete, organic processes which persisted in its own clumsiness, but was not really necessary. Though Connie did want children: if only to fortify her against her sister-in-law Emma.
But early in 1918 Clifford was shipped home smashed, and there was no child. And Sir Geoffrey died of chagrin.
一九二零年的秋天，康妮和剋利福回勒格貝老傢來，愛瑪因為仍然憎惡她弟弟的失信，已到倫敦租了間小房子住去下。 勒格貝是個褐色石築的長而低的老屋。建築於十八世紀中期，後來時加添補，直至成了一座無甚出色的大房屋，它坐落在一高丘上，在一個夠優美的滿是橡樹的老林園中。可惜得很，從這兒看見附近煤礦場的煙霧成雲的煙囪，和遠處濕霧朦朧中的小山上的達娃斯哈村落，這村落差不多挨着園門開始，極其醜惡地蔓延一裏之長，一行行的寒酸肌髒的磚墻小屋，黑石板的屋頂，尖銳的屋角，帶着無限悲他的氣概。
康妮是住慣了根新洞，看慣了蘇格蘭的小山，和蘇色剋斯的海岸沙丘的人，那便是她心目中的英格蘭，她用年輕的忍耐精神，把這無靈魂的、醜惡的煤鐵區的米德蘭瀏覽了一遍，便撇開不顧了，那是令人難信的可怕的環境，是不必加以思索的。以勒格貝那些陰森的房屋裏，她聽得見礦坑裏篩子機的轢轢聲，起重機的噴氣聲。載重車換軌時的響聲，和火車頭粗啞的汽笛聲。達娃斯哈的煤堤在燃燒着，已經燃燒好幾年了，要熄滅它非一宗大款不可，所以衹好任它燒着。風從那邊吹來的時候——這是常事——屋裏便充滿了腐土經焚燒後的硫磺臭味。甚至無風的時候，空氣裏也帶着一種地窖下的什麽惡味。甚至在毛黃花上，也鋪着一層煤灰，好象是惡天降下的黑甘露。
然而，世事就是這樣，一切都是命定的！這是有點可怕的，但是為什麽要反抗呢？反抗是無用的，事情還是一樣繼續下去。這便是生活，和其它一切一樣！在晚上，那低低的黝黑的雲天，浮動着一些斑斑的紅點，腫漲着，收縮着，好象令人痛苦的火傷；那是煤地的一些高爐。起初，這種景色使康妮深深恐怖，她覺得自己生活在地窖裏。以後，她漸漸習慣了。早晨的時候，天又下起雨來。
剋利福自稱勒格貝比倫敦可愛。這地方有一種特有的堅強的意志，居民有一種強大的欲望，康妮奇怪着，他們除此以外，還有什麽嘗試的東西。無論如何，見解和思想他們是沒有的。這些居民和這地方一樣，形容枯搞，醜陋，陰森而不和睦。不過在他們的含糊不清的土話裏和他們在瀝青路上曳着釘底鞍。一群一群的散工回傢時候的嘈雜聲裏，卻有些什麽可怕而有點神秘的東西。
當這年輕的貴族歸傢時，誰也沒有來歡迎他。沒有宴會，沒有代表，甚至一朵花也沒有。衹是當他的汽車在陰森的林中的潮濕空氣裏開過，經過那有些灰色綿羊在那裏吃着草的園圃斜坡，來到那高丘上黑褐色的屋門前時，一個女管傢和她的丈夫在那裏等着，預備支吾幾句歡迎的話。
勒格貝和達娃斯哈村落是毫無來往的。村裏人見了他們，也不脫帽，也不鞠躬。礦工們見了衹是眼睜地望着。商人見了康妮舉舉帽子，和對一個任何熟人一樣，對剋利福相通的深淵，雙方都抱着一種沉靜的仇恨。起初，康妮對於村人這種淫雨似的下個不盡的仇恨，很覺痛苦。後來她忍耐下來了，反而覺得那是一服強身劑，是予人以一種生趣的什麽東西，這並不是因為她和剋利福不孚衆望，僅僅是因為他們和礦工是完全不同的兩種人罷了。在特蘭以南的地方，這種人與人之間的極端隔絶也許是不存在的。但是在中部和北部的工業區，他們間的隔絶是言語所難形容的。你走你的。我走我的！奇怪的相剋的人類感情！
雖然，在無形中，村人對於剋利福和康妮還有點同情，但是在骨子裏，雙方都抱着“別管我們罷”的態度。
這兒的牧師，是個勤於職務的約模六十歲的和藹的人。村人的“別管我們罷”的無言態度把他剋服了，差不多成了無足輕重的人物，礦工的妻子們幾乎都是監理會教徒，面礦工們卻是無所信仰的，但是即使這牧師所穿的那套，也就夠使村人把他看成一個異常的人了。是的，他是個異常的人，他是亞士比先生，一種傳道和祈禱的機械。
“管你是什麽查太萊男爵夫人，我們並不輸你！”村人的這種固執的本能的態度，起初是很使康妮十分不安而沮喪的。當她對礦工的妻子們表示好感的時候，她們那種奇怪的、猜疑的、虛偽的親熱，使她不覺得真難忍受。她常常聽見這些女人們用着半阿諛的鼻音說：“啊！別小看我，查太萊男爵夫人和我說話來着呢！可是她卻不必以為因此我便不如此！”這種奇異的冒犯的態度，也使康妮覺得怪難忍受。這是不能避免的。這些都是不可救藥的離叛國教的人。
剋利福並不留心他們，康妮也不學樣。她經過村裏時，目不旁視，村人呆望着她，好象她是會走的蠟人一樣。當剋利福有事和他們交談的時候，他的態度是很高傲的，很輕衊的，這不是講親愛的時候了，事實上，他對於任何不是同一階級的人，總是很傲慢而輕衊的。堅守着他的地位，一點也不想與人修好。他們不喜歡他。也不討厭他，他衹是世事的一部分，象煤礦場和勒格貝屋予一樣。
但是自從半軀殘廢以來，剋利福實在是很膽怯的。他除了自己的僕人外，誰也不願見。因為他得坐在輪椅或小車裏，可是他的高價的裁縫師，依舊把他穿得怪講究的。他和往日一樣，係着幫德街買來的講究的領帶。他的上半截和從前一樣的時髦動人。他一嚮就沒有近代青年們的那種女性模樣；他的紅潤的臉色，闊大的肩膊，反而有牧人的粗壯神氣。但是他的寧靜而猶豫的聲音，和他的勇敢卻又懼怕，果斷卻又疑惑的眼睛，卻顯示着他的天真性。他的態度常常起初是敵對地傲慢的，跟着又謙遜、自卑而幾乎畏縮下來。
康妮和他互相依戀，但和近代夫妻一樣，各自守着相當的距離。他因為終身殘廢的打擊，給他的內心的刨傷過重，所以失去了他的輕快和自然，他是個負傷的人，因此康妮熱情地憐愛他。
但是康妮總覺得他和民間的來往太少了。礦工們在某種意義上是他的用人，但是在他看來，他們是物件，而不是人；他們是煤礦的一部分，而不是生命的一部分；他們是一些粗卑的怪物，而不是象他自己一樣的人類。在某種情境上，他卻懼怕他們，怕他們看見自己的這種殘廢。他們的奇怪的粗鄙的生活，在他看來，仿佛象刺猖的生活一樣反乎自然。
他遠遠地關心着他們，象一個人在顯微鏡裏或望遠鏡裏望着一樣。他和他們是沒有直接接觸的。除了因為習慣關係和勒格貝接觸。因為傢族關係和愛瑪接觸外，他和誰也沒有真正的接觸。什麽也不能真正接觸他。康妮自己也覺得沒有真正地接觸他。也許他根本就沒有什麽可以接觸的東西，他是否定人類的交接的。
然而他是絶對地依賴於她的，他是無時無刻不需要她的。他雖魁偉壯健，可是卻不能自己照顧自己，他雖可以坐在輪椅裏把自己滾來滾去，他雖有一種小自動車，可以到林園裏慢慢地兜兜圈子，但是獨自的時候，他便象個無主宰的東西了。他需要康妮在一塊，以使他相信自己是生存着的。
可是他是雄心勃勃的。他寫些小說，寫些關於他所知道的人的奇怪特別的小說。這些小說寫得又刁又巧，又惡辣，可是神秘得沒有什麽深意。他的觀察是異於常人的，奇特的，可是卻沒有使人能接觸、能真正地接觸的東西。一切都好象在虛無縹緲中發生。而且，因為我們今日的生活場面大都是人工地照亮起來的一個舞臺，所以他的小說都是怪忠實於現代化生活的。說恰切些，是怪忠實現代心理的。
剋利福對於他的小說毀謄，差不多是病態地易感的。他要人人都說他的小說好，是無出其右的最上作品。他的小說都在最摩登的雜志上發表，因此照例地受人贊美和非難。但是非難於剋利福。是如刀刺肉般的酷刑。仿佛他的生命都在他的小說裏。
康妮極力地幫助他。起初，她覺得很興奮，他單調地、堅持地給她解說一切的事情，她得用全力去回答和瞭解。仿佛她整個的靈魂、肉體和性欲都得蘇醒而穿過他的小說裏。這使她興奮而忘我。
他們的物質生活是很少的。她得監督傢務。那多年服侍過佐佛來男爵的女管傢是個幹枯了的毫無苟且的老東西。她不但不象個女僕，連女人都不象。她在這裏侍候餐事已經四十年了。就是其他的女僕也不年輕了。真可怖！在這樣的地方，你除了聽其自然以外；還有什麽法子呢？所有這些數不盡的無人住的空房子，所有這些德米蘭的習慣，機械式的整齊清潔！一切都很的秩序地、很清潔地、很精密地、甚至很真正的進行着。然而在康妮看來，這衹是有秩序的無政府狀態罷了。那兒並沒有感情的熱力的互相聯繫。整處屋子陰森得象一條冷清的街道。
她除了聽其自然以外，還有什麽方法？……於是她便聽其自然了。愛瑪·查太萊小姐，臉孔清瘦而傲慢，有時也上這兒來看望他們。看見一切都沒有變動，覺得很是得意。她永遠不能寬恕康妮，因為康妮拆散了她和她弟弟的深切的團结。是她——愛瑪，纔應該幫助剋利福寫他的小說，寫他的書的。查太萊的小說，‘世界上一種新穎的東西，由他們姓查泰萊的人經手産生出來。這和從前的思想言論，是毫無共通，毫無有機的聯繫的。世界上衹有查太萊的書，是新穎的，純粹地個人的。
康妮的父親，當他到勒格貝作短促的逗留的時候，對康妮說：“剋利福的作品是巧妙的，但是底子裏空無一物。那是不能長久的！……”康妮望着這老於世故的魁偉的蘇格蘭的老爵士，她的眼睛，她的兩衹老是驚異的藍色的大眼睛，變得模糊起來。“空無一物！”這是什麽意思？批評傢們贊美他的作品，剋利福差不多要出名了，而且他的作品還能賺一筆錢呢。……她的父親卻說剋利福的作品空無一物，這是什麽意思？他要他的作品裏有什麽東西？
因為康妮的觀點是和一般青年一樣的：眼前便是一切，將來與現在的相接，是不必彼此相屬的。
那是她在勒格貝的第二個鼕天了，她的父親對她說：
“康妮，我希望你不要因環境的關係而守活寡。”
“守活寡！為什麽呢？為什麽不呢？”康妮漠然地答道。
“除非你願意，那便沒有話說了！”她的父親忙說。
當他和剋利福在一起而沒有旁人的時候，他把同樣的話對他說：
“我恐怕守活寡的生活不太適合康妮。”
“活活守寡！”剋利福答道，把這短語講得更明確了。
他沉思了一會後，臉孔通紅起來，發怒了。
“怎麽不適合她？”他強硬會問道。
“她漸漸地清瘦了……憔悴了。這並不是她一嚮的樣子。她並不象那瘦小的沙丁，她是動人的蘇格蘭白鱸魚。”
“毫無斑點的自鱸魚，當然了！”，剋利福說。
過後，他想把守活寡這樁事對康妮談談。但是他總不能開口。他和她同時是太親密而又不夠親密了，在精神上，他們是合一的；但在肉體上，他們是隔絶的；關於肉體事件的討論，兩人都要覺得難堪。他們是太親密了同時又太疏遠了。
然而康妮卻猜出了她的父親對無利福說過了什麽，而剋利福緘默地把它守在心裏，她知道，她是否守活寡，或是與人私通，剋利福是不關切的，衹要他不確切地知道，和不必一定去知道。眼所不見，心所不知的事情，是不存在的。
康妮和剋利福在勒格貝差不多兩年了，他們度着一種漠然地生活，全神貫註在剋利福和他的著作上。他們對於這種工作的共同興趣不斷的濃厚。他們談論着，爭執着行文結構，仿佛在那空虛之中有什麽東西在發生，在真正發生似的。
他們已在共同工作着，這便是生活——一種空虛中的生活。
除此之外，其他一切都不存在了。勒格貝，僕人們……都是些鬼影。而不是現實。康妮也常到園和與園圃相連的林中去散步，欣賞着那裏的孤僻和神秘，腳踢着秋天和落葉，或采摘着春天的蓮馨花。這一切都是夢，真實的幻影。橡樹的葉子，在她看來，仿佛是鏡子裏搖動着的葉子，她自己是書本裏的人物，采着蓮馨花，而這些花兒也不過是些影子，或是記憶，或是一些宇。她覺得什麽也沒有，沒有實質，沒有接觸，沒有聯繫！衹有這與剋利福的共同生活，衹有這些無窮無盡的長談和心理分析，衹有這些麥爾肯爵士所謂的底子裏一無所有而不能長久的小說。為什麽底子裏要有什麽東西？為什麽要傳之久遠？我們始且得過且過，直至不能再過之日。我們姑且得過且過，直至現在“出現”之日。
剋利福的朋友——實際上衹是些相識——很不少，他常把他們請到勒格貝來。他請的是各種各樣的人，批評傢，著作傢，一些頌贊他的作品的人們。這些人都覺得被請到勒格貝來是榮幸的，於是他們歌頌他。康妮心裏明白這一切，為什麽不呢？這是鏡中遊影之一。她並不覺得有什麽不好的地方。
她款待着這些客人——其中大部分是些男子。她也款待着剋利福的不常來的貴族親戚們。因為她長得溫柔，臉色紅潤而帶村對的風態，有着那易生色斑的嫩自的皮膚，大大的藍眼睛，褐色捲發，溫和的聲音和微嫌堅強的腰部。所以人傢把她看成一個不太時髦，而太“婦人”的女子。她並不是男孩似的象一條“小沙丁魚”，她胸部扁平，臀部細小。她太女性了，所以不能十分時髦。
因此男子們，尤其是年紀不輕的男子們，都對她很獻殷勤。他是，她知道如果她對他們稍微表示一點輕桃，那便要使可憐的剋利福深感痛苦，所以她從不讓這些男子們膽大起來。她守關那閑靜而淡漠的態度，她和他們毫無密交，而且毫無這個意思。因此剋利福是覺得非常自得的。
剋利福的親戚們，對她也很和藹。她知道這種和藹的原因，是因為她不使人懼怕。她也知道，如果你不使這些人有點怕你，他們是不會尊敬你的。但是她和他們也是毫無密交。她接受他們的和藹和輕衊，她讓他們知道用不着劍撥弩張。她和他們是毫無真正的關係的。
時間便是這樣過着。無論有了什麽事。都象不是真正地’有那麽回事，因為她和一切是太沒有接觸了。她和剋利福在他們的理想裏，在他們的著作裏生活着。她款待着客人……傢裏是常常有客的。時間象鐘一樣地進行着，七點半過了是八點，八點過了是幾點半。
Wragby was a long low old house in brown stone, begun about the middle of the eighteenth century, and added on to, till it was a warren of a place without much distinction. It stood on an eminence in a rather line old park of oak trees, but alas, one could see in the near distance the chimney of Tevershall pit, with its clouds of steam and smoke, and on the damp, hazy distance of the hill the raw straggle of Tevershall village, a village which began almost at the park gates, and trailed in utter hopeless ugliness for a long and gruesome mile: houses, rows of wretched, small, begrimed, brick houses, with black slate roofs for lids, sharp angles and wilful, blank dreariness. Connie was accustomed to Kensington or the Scotch hills or the Sussex downs: that was her England. With the stoicism of the young she took in the utter, soulless ugliness of the coal-and-iron Midlands at a glance, and left it at what it was: unbelievable and not to be thought about. From the rather dismal rooms at Wragby she heard the rattle-rattle of the screens at the pit, the puff of the winding-engine, the clink-clink of shunting trucks, and the hoarse little whistle of the colliery locomotives. Tevershall pit-bank was burning, had been burning for years, and it would cost thousands to put it out. So it had to burn. And when the wind was that way, which was often, the house was full of the stench of this sulphurous combustion of the earth's excrement. But even on windless days the air always smelt of something under-earth: sulphur, iron, coal, or acid. And even on the Christmas roses the smuts settled persistently, incredible, like black manna from the skies of doom.
Well, there it was: fated like the rest of things! It was rather awful, but why kick? You couldn't kick it away. It just went on. Life, like all the rest! On the low dark ceiling of cloud at night red blotches burned and quavered, dappling and swelling and contracting, like burns that give pain. It was the furnaces. At first they fascinated Connie with a sort of horror; she felt she was living underground. Then she got used to them. And in the morning it rained.
Clifford professed to like Wragby better than London. This country had a grim will of its own, and the people had guts. Connie wondered what else they had: certainly neither eyes nor minds. The people were as haggard, shapeless, and dreary as the countryside, and as unfriendly. Only there was something in their deep-mouthed slurring of the dialect, and the thresh-thresh of their hob-nailed pit-boots as they trailed home in gangs on the asphalt from work, that was terrible and a bit mysterious.
There had been no welcome home for the young squire, no festivities, no deputation, not even a single flower. Only a dank ride in a motor-car up a dark, damp drive, burrowing through gloomy trees, out to the slope of the park where grey damp sheep were feeding, to the knoll where the house spread its dark brown facade, and the housekeeper and her husband were hovering, like unsure tenants on the face of the earth, ready to stammer a welcome.
There was no communication between Wragby Hall and Tevershall village, none. No caps were touched, no curtseys bobbed. The colliers merely stared; the tradesmen lifted their caps to Connie as to an acquaintance, and nodded awkwardly to Clifford; that was all. Gulf impassable, and a quiet sort of resentment on either side. At first Connie suffered from the steady drizzle of resentment that came from the village. Then she hardened herself to it, and it became a sort of tonic, something to live up to. It was not that she and Clifford were unpopular, they merely belonged to another species altogether from the colliers. Gulf impassable, breach indescribable, such as is perhaps nonexistent south of the Trent. But in the Midlands and the industrial North gulf impassable, across which no communication could take place. You stick to your side, I'll stick to mine! A strange denial of the common pulse of humanity.
Yet the village sympathized with Clifford and Connie in the abstract. In the flesh it was---You leave me alone!---on either side.
The rector was a nice man of about sixty, full of his duty, and reduced, personally, almost to a nonentity by the silent---You leave me alone!---of the village. The miners' wives were nearly all Methodists. The miners were nothing. But even so much official uniform as the clergyman wore was enough to obscure entirely the fact that he was a man like any other man. No, he was Mester Ashby, a sort of automatic preaching and praying concern.
This stubborn, instinctive---We think ourselves as good as you, if you are Lady Chatterley!---puzzled and baffled Connie at first extremely. The curious, suspicious, false amiability with which the miners' wives met her overtures; the curiously offensive tinge of---Oh dear me! I am somebody now, with Lady Chatterley talking to me! But she needn't think I'm not as good as her for all that!---which she always heard twanging in the women's half-fawning voices, was impossible. There was no getting past it. It was hopelessly and offensively nonconformist.
Clifford left them alone, and she learnt to do the same: she just went by without looking at them, and they stared as if she were a walking wax figure. When he had to deal with them, Clifford was rather haughty and contemptuous; one could no longer afford to be friendly. In fact he was altogether rather supercilious and contemptuous of anyone not in his own class. He stood his ground, without any attempt at conciliation. And he was neither liked nor disliked by the people: he was just part of things, like the pit-bank and Wragby itself.
But Clifford was really extremely shy and self-conscious now he was lamed. He hated seeing anyone except just the personal servants. For he had to sit in a wheeled chair or a sort of bath-chair. Nevertheless he was just as carefully dressed as ever, by his expensive tailors, and he wore the careful Bond Street neckties just as before, and from the top he looked just as smart and impressive as ever. He had never been one of the modern ladylike young men: rather bucolic even, with his ruddy face and broad shoulders. But his very quiet, hesitating voice, and his eyes, at the same time bold and frightened, assured and uncertain, revealed his nature. His manner was often offensively supercilious, and then again modest and self-effacing, almost tremulous.
Connie and he were attached to one another, in the aloof modern way. He was much too hurt in himself, the great shock of his maiming, to be easy and flippant. He was a hurt thing. And as such Connie stuck to him passionately.
But she could not help feeling how little connexion he really had with people. The miners were, in a sense, his own men; but he saw them as objects rather than men, parts of the pit rather than parts of life, crude raw phenomena rather than human beings along with him. He was in some way afraid of them, he could not bear to have them look at him now he was lame. And their queer, crude life seemed as unnatural as that of hedgehogs.
He was remotely interested; but like a man looking down a microscope, or up a telescope. He was not in touch. He was not in actual touch with anybody, save, traditionally, with Wragby, and, through the close bond of family defence, with Emma. Beyond this nothing really touched him. Connie felt that she herself didn't really, not really touch him; perhaps there was nothing to get at ultimately; just a negation of human contact.
Yet he was absolutely dependent on her, he needed her every moment. Big and strong as he was, he was helpless. He could wheel himself about in a wheeled chair, and he had a sort of bath-chair with a motor attachment, in which he could puff slowly round the park. But alone he was like a lost thing. He needed Connie to be there, to assure him he existed at all.
Still he was ambitious. He had taken to writing stories; curious, very personal stories about people he had known. Clever, rather spiteful, and yet, in some mysterious way, meaningless. The observation was extraordinary and peculiar. But there was no touch, no actual contact. It was as if the whole thing took place in a vacuum. And since the field of life is largely an artificially-lighted stage today, the stories were curiously true to modern life, to the modern psychology, that is.
Clifford was almost morbidly sensitive about these stories. He wanted everyone to think them good, of the best, ne plus ultra. They appeared in the most modern magazines, and were praised and blamed as usual. But to Clifford the blame was torture, like knives goading him. It was as if the whole of his being were in his stories.
Connie helped him as much as she could. At first she was thrilled. He talked everything over with her monotonously, insistently, persistently, and she had to respond with all her might. It was as if her whole soul and body and sex had to rouse up and pass into theme stories of his. This thrilled her and absorbed her.
Of physical life they lived very little. She had to superintend the house. But the housekeeper had served Sir Geoffrey for many years, arid the dried-up, elderly, superlatively correct female you could hardly call her a parlour-maid, or even a woman...who waited at table, had been in the house for forty years. Even the very housemaids were no longer young. It was awful! What could you do with such a place, but leave it alone! All these endless rooms that nobody used, all the Midlands routine, the mechanical cleanliness and the mechanical order! Clifford had insisted on a new cook, an experienced woman who had served him in his rooms in London. For the rest the place seemed run by mechanical anarchy. Everything went on in pretty good order, strict cleanliness, and strict punctuality; even pretty strict honesty. And yet, to Connie, it was a methodical anarchy. No warmth of feeling united it organically. The house seemed as dreary as a disused street.
What could she do but leave it alone? So she left it alone. Miss Chatterley came sometimes, with her aristocratic thin face, and triumphed, finding nothing altered. She would never forgive Connie for ousting her from her union in consciousness with her brother. It was she, Emma, who should be bringing forth the stories, these books, with him; the Chatterley stories, something new in the world, that they, the Chatterleys, had put there. There was no other standard. There was no organic connexion with the thought and expression that had gone before. Only something new in the world: the Chatterley books, entirely personal.
Connie's father, where he paid a flying visit to Wragby, and in private to his daughter: As for Clifford's writing, it's smart, but there's nothing in it. It won't last! Connie looked at the burly Scottish knight who had done himself well all his life, and her eyes, her big, still-wondering blue eyes became vague. Nothing in it! What did he mean by nothing in it? If the critics praised it, and Clifford's name was almost famous, and it even brought in money...what did her father mean by saying there was nothing in Clifford's writing? What else could there be?
For Connie had adopted the standard of the young: what there was in the moment was everything. And moments followed one another without necessarily belonging to one another.
It was in her second winter at Wragby her father said to her: `I hope, Connie, you won't let circumstances force you into being a demi-vierge.'
`A demi-vierge!' replied Connie vaguely. `Why? Why not?'
`Unless you like it, of course!' said her father hastily. To Clifford he said the same, when the two men were alone: `I'm afraid it doesn't quite suit Connie to be a demi-vierge.'
`A half-virgin!' replied Clifford, translating the phrase to be sure of it.
He thought for a moment, then flushed very red. He was angry and offended.
`In what way doesn't it suit her?' he asked stiffly.
`She's getting thin...angular. It's not her style. She's not the pilchard sort of little slip of a girl, she's a bonny Scotch trout.'
`Without the spots, of course!' said Clifford.
He wanted to say something later to Connie about the demi-vierge business...the half-virgin state of her affairs. But he could not bring himself to do it. He was at once too intimate with her and not intimate enough. He was so very much at one with her, in his mind and hers, but bodily they were non-existent to one another, and neither could bear to drag in the corpus delicti. They were so intimate, and utterly out of touch.
Connie guessed, however, that her father had said something, and that something was in Clifford's mind. She knew that he didn't mind whether she were demi-vierge or demi-monde, so long as he didn't absolutely know, and wasn't made to see. What the eye doesn't see and the mind doesn't know, doesn't exist.
Connie and Clifford had now been nearly two years at Wragby, living their vague life of absorption in Clifford and his work. Their interests had never ceased to flow together over his work. They talked and wrestled in the throes of composition, and felt as if something were happening, really happening, really in the void.
And thus far it was a life: in the void. For the rest it was non-existence. Wragby was there, the servants...but spectral, not really existing. Connie went for walks in the park, and in the woods that joined the park, and enjoyed the solitude and the mystery, kicking the brown leaves of autumn, and picking the primroses of spring. But it was all a dream; or rather it was like the simulacrum of reality. The oak-leaves were to her like oak-leaves seen ruffling in a mirror, she herself was a figure somebody had read about, picking primroses that were only shadows or memories, or words. No substance to her or anything...no touch, no contact! Only this life with Clifford, this endless spinning of webs of yarn, of the minutiae of consciousness, these stories Sir Malcolm said there was nothing in, and they wouldn't last. Why should there be anything in them, why should they last? Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. Sufficient unto the moment is the appearance of reality.
Clifford had quite a number of friends, acquaintances really, and he invited them to Wragby. He invited all sorts of people, critics and writers, people who would help to praise his books. And they were flattered at being asked to Wragby, and they praised. Connie understood it all perfectly. But why not? This was one of the fleeting patterns in the mirror. What was wrong with it?
She was hostess to these people...mostly men. She was hostess also to Clifford's occasional aristocratic relations. Being a soft, ruddy, country-looking girl, inclined to freckles, with big blue eyes, and curling, brown hair, and a soft voice, and rather strong, female loins she was considered a little old-fashioned and `womanly'. She was not a `little pilchard sort of fish', like a boy, with a boy's flat breast and little buttocks. She was too feminine to be quite smart.
So the men, especially those no longer young, were very nice to her indeed. But, knowing what torture poor Clifford would feel at the slightest sign of flirting on her part, she gave them no encouragement at all. She was quiet and vague, she had no contact with them and intended to have none. Clifford was extraordinarily proud of himself.
His relatives treated her quite kindly. She knew that the kindliness indicated a lack of fear, and that these people had no respect for you unless you could frighten them a little. But again she had no contact. She let them be kindly and disdainful, she let them feel they had no need to draw their steel in readiness. She had no real connexion with them.
Time went on. Whatever happened, nothing happened, because she was so beautifully out of contact. She and Clifford lived in their ideas and his books. She entertained...there were always people in the house. Time went on as the clock does, half past eight instead of half past seven.
康妮是住慣了根新洞，看慣了蘇格蘭的小山，和蘇色剋斯的海岸沙丘的人，那便是她心目中的英格蘭，她用年輕的忍耐精神，把這無靈魂的、醜惡的煤鐵區的米德蘭瀏覽了一遍，便撇開不顧了，那是令人難信的可怕的環境，是不必加以思索的。以勒格貝那些陰森的房屋裏，她聽得見礦坑裏篩子機的轢轢聲，起重機的噴氣聲。載重車換軌時的響聲，和火車頭粗啞的汽笛聲。達娃斯哈的煤堤在燃燒着，已經燃燒好幾年了，要熄滅它非一宗大款不可，所以衹好任它燒着。風從那邊吹來的時候——這是常事——屋裏便充滿了腐土經焚燒後的硫磺臭味。甚至無風的時候，空氣裏也帶着一種地窖下的什麽惡味。甚至在毛黃花上，也鋪着一層煤灰，好象是惡天降下的黑甘露。
然而，世事就是這樣，一切都是命定的！這是有點可怕的，但是為什麽要反抗呢？反抗是無用的，事情還是一樣繼續下去。這便是生活，和其它一切一樣！在晚上，那低低的黝黑的雲天，浮動着一些斑斑的紅點，腫漲着，收縮着，好象令人痛苦的火傷；那是煤地的一些高爐。起初，這種景色使康妮深深恐怖，她覺得自己生活在地窖裏。以後，她漸漸習慣了。早晨的時候，天又下起雨來。
剋利福自稱勒格貝比倫敦可愛。這地方有一種特有的堅強的意志，居民有一種強大的欲望，康妮奇怪着，他們除此以外，還有什麽嘗試的東西。無論如何，見解和思想他們是沒有的。這些居民和這地方一樣，形容枯搞，醜陋，陰森而不和睦。不過在他們的含糊不清的土話裏和他們在瀝青路上曳着釘底鞍。一群一群的散工回傢時候的嘈雜聲裏，卻有些什麽可怕而有點神秘的東西。
當這年輕的貴族歸傢時，誰也沒有來歡迎他。沒有宴會，沒有代表，甚至一朵花也沒有。衹是當他的汽車在陰森的林中的潮濕空氣裏開過，經過那有些灰色綿羊在那裏吃着草的園圃斜坡，來到那高丘上黑褐色的屋門前時，一個女管傢和她的丈夫在那裏等着，預備支吾幾句歡迎的話。
勒格貝和達娃斯哈村落是毫無來往的。村裏人見了他們，也不脫帽，也不鞠躬。礦工們見了衹是眼睜地望着。商人見了康妮舉舉帽子，和對一個任何熟人一樣，對剋利福相通的深淵，雙方都抱着一種沉靜的仇恨。起初，康妮對於村人這種淫雨似的下個不盡的仇恨，很覺痛苦。後來她忍耐下來了，反而覺得那是一服強身劑，是予人以一種生趣的什麽東西，這並不是因為她和剋利福不孚衆望，僅僅是因為他們和礦工是完全不同的兩種人罷了。在特蘭以南的地方，這種人與人之間的極端隔絶也許是不存在的。但是在中部和北部的工業區，他們間的隔絶是言語所難形容的。你走你的。我走我的！奇怪的相剋的人類感情！
雖然，在無形中，村人對於剋利福和康妮還有點同情，但是在骨子裏，雙方都抱着“別管我們罷”的態度。
這兒的牧師，是個勤於職務的約模六十歲的和藹的人。村人的“別管我們罷”的無言態度把他剋服了，差不多成了無足輕重的人物，礦工的妻子們幾乎都是監理會教徒，面礦工們卻是無所信仰的，但是即使這牧師所穿的那套，也就夠使村人把他看成一個異常的人了。是的，他是個異常的人，他是亞士比先生，一種傳道和祈禱的機械。
“管你是什麽查太萊男爵夫人，我們並不輸你！”村人的這種固執的本能的態度，起初是很使康妮十分不安而沮喪的。當她對礦工的妻子們表示好感的時候，她們那種奇怪的、猜疑的、虛偽的親熱，使她不覺得真難忍受。她常常聽見這些女人們用着半阿諛的鼻音說：“啊！別小看我，查太萊男爵夫人和我說話來着呢！可是她卻不必以為因此我便不如此！”這種奇異的冒犯的態度，也使康妮覺得怪難忍受。這是不能避免的。這些都是不可救藥的離叛國教的人。
剋利福並不留心他們，康妮也不學樣。她經過村裏時，目不旁視，村人呆望着她，好象她是會走的蠟人一樣。當剋利福有事和他們交談的時候，他的態度是很高傲的，很輕衊的，這不是講親愛的時候了，事實上，他對於任何不是同一階級的人，總是很傲慢而輕衊的。堅守着他的地位，一點也不想與人修好。他們不喜歡他。也不討厭他，他衹是世事的一部分，象煤礦場和勒格貝屋予一樣。
但是自從半軀殘廢以來，剋利福實在是很膽怯的。他除了自己的僕人外，誰也不願見。因為他得坐在輪椅或小車裏，可是他的高價的裁縫師，依舊把他穿得怪講究的。他和往日一樣，係着幫德街買來的講究的領帶。他的上半截和從前一樣的時髦動人。他一嚮就沒有近代青年們的那種女性模樣；他的紅潤的臉色，闊大的肩膊，反而有牧人的粗壯神氣。但是他的寧靜而猶豫的聲音，和他的勇敢卻又懼怕，果斷卻又疑惑的眼睛，卻顯示着他的天真性。他的態度常常起初是敵對地傲慢的，跟着又謙遜、自卑而幾乎畏縮下來。
康妮和他互相依戀，但和近代夫妻一樣，各自守着相當的距離。他因為終身殘廢的打擊，給他的內心的刨傷過重，所以失去了他的輕快和自然，他是個負傷的人，因此康妮熱情地憐愛他。
但是康妮總覺得他和民間的來往太少了。礦工們在某種意義上是他的用人，但是在他看來，他們是物件，而不是人；他們是煤礦的一部分，而不是生命的一部分；他們是一些粗卑的怪物，而不是象他自己一樣的人類。在某種情境上，他卻懼怕他們，怕他們看見自己的這種殘廢。他們的奇怪的粗鄙的生活，在他看來，仿佛象刺猖的生活一樣反乎自然。
他遠遠地關心着他們，象一個人在顯微鏡裏或望遠鏡裏望着一樣。他和他們是沒有直接接觸的。除了因為習慣關係和勒格貝接觸。因為傢族關係和愛瑪接觸外，他和誰也沒有真正的接觸。什麽也不能真正接觸他。康妮自己也覺得沒有真正地接觸他。也許他根本就沒有什麽可以接觸的東西，他是否定人類的交接的。
然而他是絶對地依賴於她的，他是無時無刻不需要她的。他雖魁偉壯健，可是卻不能自己照顧自己，他雖可以坐在輪椅裏把自己滾來滾去，他雖有一種小自動車，可以到林園裏慢慢地兜兜圈子，但是獨自的時候，他便象個無主宰的東西了。他需要康妮在一塊，以使他相信自己是生存着的。
可是他是雄心勃勃的。他寫些小說，寫些關於他所知道的人的奇怪特別的小說。這些小說寫得又刁又巧，又惡辣，可是神秘得沒有什麽深意。他的觀察是異於常人的，奇特的，可是卻沒有使人能接觸、能真正地接觸的東西。一切都好象在虛無縹緲中發生。而且，因為我們今日的生活場面大都是人工地照亮起來的一個舞臺，所以他的小說都是怪忠實於現代化生活的。說恰切些，是怪忠實現代心理的。
剋利福對於他的小說毀謄，差不多是病態地易感的。他要人人都說他的小說好，是無出其右的最上作品。他的小說都在最摩登的雜志上發表，因此照例地受人贊美和非難。但是非難於剋利福。是如刀刺肉般的酷刑。仿佛他的生命都在他的小說裏。
康妮極力地幫助他。起初，她覺得很興奮，他單調地、堅持地給她解說一切的事情，她得用全力去回答和瞭解。仿佛她整個的靈魂、肉體和性欲都得蘇醒而穿過他的小說裏。這使她興奮而忘我。
他們的物質生活是很少的。她得監督傢務。那多年服侍過佐佛來男爵的女管傢是個幹枯了的毫無苟且的老東西。她不但不象個女僕，連女人都不象。她在這裏侍候餐事已經四十年了。就是其他的女僕也不年輕了。真可怖！在這樣的地方，你除了聽其自然以外；還有什麽法子呢？所有這些數不盡的無人住的空房子，所有這些德米蘭的習慣，機械式的整齊清潔！一切都很的秩序地、很清潔地、很精密地、甚至很真正的進行着。然而在康妮看來，這衹是有秩序的無政府狀態罷了。那兒並沒有感情的熱力的互相聯繫。整處屋子陰森得象一條冷清的街道。
她除了聽其自然以外，還有什麽方法？……於是她便聽其自然了。愛瑪·查太萊小姐，臉孔清瘦而傲慢，有時也上這兒來看望他們。看見一切都沒有變動，覺得很是得意。她永遠不能寬恕康妮，因為康妮拆散了她和她弟弟的深切的團结。是她——愛瑪，纔應該幫助剋利福寫他的小說，寫他的書的。查太萊的小說，‘世界上一種新穎的東西，由他們姓查泰萊的人經手産生出來。這和從前的思想言論，是毫無共通，毫無有機的聯繫的。世界上衹有查太萊的書，是新穎的，純粹地個人的。
康妮的父親，當他到勒格貝作短促的逗留的時候，對康妮說：“剋利福的作品是巧妙的，但是底子裏空無一物。那是不能長久的！……”康妮望着這老於世故的魁偉的蘇格蘭的老爵士，她的眼睛，她的兩衹老是驚異的藍色的大眼睛，變得模糊起來。“空無一物！”這是什麽意思？批評傢們贊美他的作品，剋利福差不多要出名了，而且他的作品還能賺一筆錢呢。……她的父親卻說剋利福的作品空無一物，這是什麽意思？他要他的作品裏有什麽東西？
因為康妮的觀點是和一般青年一樣的：眼前便是一切，將來與現在的相接，是不必彼此相屬的。
那是她在勒格貝的第二個鼕天了，她的父親對她說：
“康妮，我希望你不要因環境的關係而守活寡。”
“守活寡！為什麽呢？為什麽不呢？”康妮漠然地答道。
“除非你願意，那便沒有話說了！”她的父親忙說。
當他和剋利福在一起而沒有旁人的時候，他把同樣的話對他說：
“我恐怕守活寡的生活不太適合康妮。”
“活活守寡！”剋利福答道，把這短語講得更明確了。
他沉思了一會後，臉孔通紅起來，發怒了。
“怎麽不適合她？”他強硬會問道。
“她漸漸地清瘦了……憔悴了。這並不是她一嚮的樣子。她並不象那瘦小的沙丁，她是動人的蘇格蘭白鱸魚。”
“毫無斑點的自鱸魚，當然了！”，剋利福說。
過後，他想把守活寡這樁事對康妮談談。但是他總不能開口。他和她同時是太親密而又不夠親密了，在精神上，他們是合一的；但在肉體上，他們是隔絶的；關於肉體事件的討論，兩人都要覺得難堪。他們是太親密了同時又太疏遠了。
然而康妮卻猜出了她的父親對無利福說過了什麽，而剋利福緘默地把它守在心裏，她知道，她是否守活寡，或是與人私通，剋利福是不關切的，衹要他不確切地知道，和不必一定去知道。眼所不見，心所不知的事情，是不存在的。
康妮和剋利福在勒格貝差不多兩年了，他們度着一種漠然地生活，全神貫註在剋利福和他的著作上。他們對於這種工作的共同興趣不斷的濃厚。他們談論着，爭執着行文結構，仿佛在那空虛之中有什麽東西在發生，在真正發生似的。
他們已在共同工作着，這便是生活——一種空虛中的生活。
除此之外，其他一切都不存在了。勒格貝，僕人們……都是些鬼影。而不是現實。康妮也常到園和與園圃相連的林中去散步，欣賞着那裏的孤僻和神秘，腳踢着秋天和落葉，或采摘着春天的蓮馨花。這一切都是夢，真實的幻影。橡樹的葉子，在她看來，仿佛是鏡子裏搖動着的葉子，她自己是書本裏的人物，采着蓮馨花，而這些花兒也不過是些影子，或是記憶，或是一些宇。她覺得什麽也沒有，沒有實質，沒有接觸，沒有聯繫！衹有這與剋利福的共同生活，衹有這些無窮無盡的長談和心理分析，衹有這些麥爾肯爵士所謂的底子裏一無所有而不能長久的小說。為什麽底子裏要有什麽東西？為什麽要傳之久遠？我們始且得過且過，直至不能再過之日。我們姑且得過且過，直至現在“出現”之日。
剋利福的朋友——實際上衹是些相識——很不少，他常把他們請到勒格貝來。他請的是各種各樣的人，批評傢，著作傢，一些頌贊他的作品的人們。這些人都覺得被請到勒格貝來是榮幸的，於是他們歌頌他。康妮心裏明白這一切，為什麽不呢？這是鏡中遊影之一。她並不覺得有什麽不好的地方。
她款待着這些客人——其中大部分是些男子。她也款待着剋利福的不常來的貴族親戚們。因為她長得溫柔，臉色紅潤而帶村對的風態，有着那易生色斑的嫩自的皮膚，大大的藍眼睛，褐色捲發，溫和的聲音和微嫌堅強的腰部。所以人傢把她看成一個不太時髦，而太“婦人”的女子。她並不是男孩似的象一條“小沙丁魚”，她胸部扁平，臀部細小。她太女性了，所以不能十分時髦。
因此男子們，尤其是年紀不輕的男子們，都對她很獻殷勤。他是，她知道如果她對他們稍微表示一點輕桃，那便要使可憐的剋利福深感痛苦，所以她從不讓這些男子們膽大起來。她守關那閑靜而淡漠的態度，她和他們毫無密交，而且毫無這個意思。因此剋利福是覺得非常自得的。
剋利福的親戚們，對她也很和藹。她知道這種和藹的原因，是因為她不使人懼怕。她也知道，如果你不使這些人有點怕你，他們是不會尊敬你的。但是她和他們也是毫無密交。她接受他們的和藹和輕衊，她讓他們知道用不着劍撥弩張。她和他們是毫無真正的關係的。
時間便是這樣過着。無論有了什麽事。都象不是真正地’有那麽回事，因為她和一切是太沒有接觸了。她和剋利福在他們的理想裏，在他們的著作裏生活着。她款待着客人……傢裏是常常有客的。時間象鐘一樣地進行着，七點半過了是八點，八點過了是幾點半。
Wragby was a long low old house in brown stone, begun about the middle of the eighteenth century, and added on to, till it was a warren of a place without much distinction. It stood on an eminence in a rather line old park of oak trees, but alas, one could see in the near distance the chimney of Tevershall pit, with its clouds of steam and smoke, and on the damp, hazy distance of the hill the raw straggle of Tevershall village, a village which began almost at the park gates, and trailed in utter hopeless ugliness for a long and gruesome mile: houses, rows of wretched, small, begrimed, brick houses, with black slate roofs for lids, sharp angles and wilful, blank dreariness. Connie was accustomed to Kensington or the Scotch hills or the Sussex downs: that was her England. With the stoicism of the young she took in the utter, soulless ugliness of the coal-and-iron Midlands at a glance, and left it at what it was: unbelievable and not to be thought about. From the rather dismal rooms at Wragby she heard the rattle-rattle of the screens at the pit, the puff of the winding-engine, the clink-clink of shunting trucks, and the hoarse little whistle of the colliery locomotives. Tevershall pit-bank was burning, had been burning for years, and it would cost thousands to put it out. So it had to burn. And when the wind was that way, which was often, the house was full of the stench of this sulphurous combustion of the earth's excrement. But even on windless days the air always smelt of something under-earth: sulphur, iron, coal, or acid. And even on the Christmas roses the smuts settled persistently, incredible, like black manna from the skies of doom.
Well, there it was: fated like the rest of things! It was rather awful, but why kick? You couldn't kick it away. It just went on. Life, like all the rest! On the low dark ceiling of cloud at night red blotches burned and quavered, dappling and swelling and contracting, like burns that give pain. It was the furnaces. At first they fascinated Connie with a sort of horror; she felt she was living underground. Then she got used to them. And in the morning it rained.
Clifford professed to like Wragby better than London. This country had a grim will of its own, and the people had guts. Connie wondered what else they had: certainly neither eyes nor minds. The people were as haggard, shapeless, and dreary as the countryside, and as unfriendly. Only there was something in their deep-mouthed slurring of the dialect, and the thresh-thresh of their hob-nailed pit-boots as they trailed home in gangs on the asphalt from work, that was terrible and a bit mysterious.
There had been no welcome home for the young squire, no festivities, no deputation, not even a single flower. Only a dank ride in a motor-car up a dark, damp drive, burrowing through gloomy trees, out to the slope of the park where grey damp sheep were feeding, to the knoll where the house spread its dark brown facade, and the housekeeper and her husband were hovering, like unsure tenants on the face of the earth, ready to stammer a welcome.
There was no communication between Wragby Hall and Tevershall village, none. No caps were touched, no curtseys bobbed. The colliers merely stared; the tradesmen lifted their caps to Connie as to an acquaintance, and nodded awkwardly to Clifford; that was all. Gulf impassable, and a quiet sort of resentment on either side. At first Connie suffered from the steady drizzle of resentment that came from the village. Then she hardened herself to it, and it became a sort of tonic, something to live up to. It was not that she and Clifford were unpopular, they merely belonged to another species altogether from the colliers. Gulf impassable, breach indescribable, such as is perhaps nonexistent south of the Trent. But in the Midlands and the industrial North gulf impassable, across which no communication could take place. You stick to your side, I'll stick to mine! A strange denial of the common pulse of humanity.
Yet the village sympathized with Clifford and Connie in the abstract. In the flesh it was---You leave me alone!---on either side.
The rector was a nice man of about sixty, full of his duty, and reduced, personally, almost to a nonentity by the silent---You leave me alone!---of the village. The miners' wives were nearly all Methodists. The miners were nothing. But even so much official uniform as the clergyman wore was enough to obscure entirely the fact that he was a man like any other man. No, he was Mester Ashby, a sort of automatic preaching and praying concern.
This stubborn, instinctive---We think ourselves as good as you, if you are Lady Chatterley!---puzzled and baffled Connie at first extremely. The curious, suspicious, false amiability with which the miners' wives met her overtures; the curiously offensive tinge of---Oh dear me! I am somebody now, with Lady Chatterley talking to me! But she needn't think I'm not as good as her for all that!---which she always heard twanging in the women's half-fawning voices, was impossible. There was no getting past it. It was hopelessly and offensively nonconformist.
Clifford left them alone, and she learnt to do the same: she just went by without looking at them, and they stared as if she were a walking wax figure. When he had to deal with them, Clifford was rather haughty and contemptuous; one could no longer afford to be friendly. In fact he was altogether rather supercilious and contemptuous of anyone not in his own class. He stood his ground, without any attempt at conciliation. And he was neither liked nor disliked by the people: he was just part of things, like the pit-bank and Wragby itself.
But Clifford was really extremely shy and self-conscious now he was lamed. He hated seeing anyone except just the personal servants. For he had to sit in a wheeled chair or a sort of bath-chair. Nevertheless he was just as carefully dressed as ever, by his expensive tailors, and he wore the careful Bond Street neckties just as before, and from the top he looked just as smart and impressive as ever. He had never been one of the modern ladylike young men: rather bucolic even, with his ruddy face and broad shoulders. But his very quiet, hesitating voice, and his eyes, at the same time bold and frightened, assured and uncertain, revealed his nature. His manner was often offensively supercilious, and then again modest and self-effacing, almost tremulous.
Connie and he were attached to one another, in the aloof modern way. He was much too hurt in himself, the great shock of his maiming, to be easy and flippant. He was a hurt thing. And as such Connie stuck to him passionately.
But she could not help feeling how little connexion he really had with people. The miners were, in a sense, his own men; but he saw them as objects rather than men, parts of the pit rather than parts of life, crude raw phenomena rather than human beings along with him. He was in some way afraid of them, he could not bear to have them look at him now he was lame. And their queer, crude life seemed as unnatural as that of hedgehogs.
He was remotely interested; but like a man looking down a microscope, or up a telescope. He was not in touch. He was not in actual touch with anybody, save, traditionally, with Wragby, and, through the close bond of family defence, with Emma. Beyond this nothing really touched him. Connie felt that she herself didn't really, not really touch him; perhaps there was nothing to get at ultimately; just a negation of human contact.
Yet he was absolutely dependent on her, he needed her every moment. Big and strong as he was, he was helpless. He could wheel himself about in a wheeled chair, and he had a sort of bath-chair with a motor attachment, in which he could puff slowly round the park. But alone he was like a lost thing. He needed Connie to be there, to assure him he existed at all.
Still he was ambitious. He had taken to writing stories; curious, very personal stories about people he had known. Clever, rather spiteful, and yet, in some mysterious way, meaningless. The observation was extraordinary and peculiar. But there was no touch, no actual contact. It was as if the whole thing took place in a vacuum. And since the field of life is largely an artificially-lighted stage today, the stories were curiously true to modern life, to the modern psychology, that is.
Clifford was almost morbidly sensitive about these stories. He wanted everyone to think them good, of the best, ne plus ultra. They appeared in the most modern magazines, and were praised and blamed as usual. But to Clifford the blame was torture, like knives goading him. It was as if the whole of his being were in his stories.
Connie helped him as much as she could. At first she was thrilled. He talked everything over with her monotonously, insistently, persistently, and she had to respond with all her might. It was as if her whole soul and body and sex had to rouse up and pass into theme stories of his. This thrilled her and absorbed her.
Of physical life they lived very little. She had to superintend the house. But the housekeeper had served Sir Geoffrey for many years, arid the dried-up, elderly, superlatively correct female you could hardly call her a parlour-maid, or even a woman...who waited at table, had been in the house for forty years. Even the very housemaids were no longer young. It was awful! What could you do with such a place, but leave it alone! All these endless rooms that nobody used, all the Midlands routine, the mechanical cleanliness and the mechanical order! Clifford had insisted on a new cook, an experienced woman who had served him in his rooms in London. For the rest the place seemed run by mechanical anarchy. Everything went on in pretty good order, strict cleanliness, and strict punctuality; even pretty strict honesty. And yet, to Connie, it was a methodical anarchy. No warmth of feeling united it organically. The house seemed as dreary as a disused street.
What could she do but leave it alone? So she left it alone. Miss Chatterley came sometimes, with her aristocratic thin face, and triumphed, finding nothing altered. She would never forgive Connie for ousting her from her union in consciousness with her brother. It was she, Emma, who should be bringing forth the stories, these books, with him; the Chatterley stories, something new in the world, that they, the Chatterleys, had put there. There was no other standard. There was no organic connexion with the thought and expression that had gone before. Only something new in the world: the Chatterley books, entirely personal.
Connie's father, where he paid a flying visit to Wragby, and in private to his daughter: As for Clifford's writing, it's smart, but there's nothing in it. It won't last! Connie looked at the burly Scottish knight who had done himself well all his life, and her eyes, her big, still-wondering blue eyes became vague. Nothing in it! What did he mean by nothing in it? If the critics praised it, and Clifford's name was almost famous, and it even brought in money...what did her father mean by saying there was nothing in Clifford's writing? What else could there be?
For Connie had adopted the standard of the young: what there was in the moment was everything. And moments followed one another without necessarily belonging to one another.
It was in her second winter at Wragby her father said to her: `I hope, Connie, you won't let circumstances force you into being a demi-vierge.'
`A demi-vierge!' replied Connie vaguely. `Why? Why not?'
`Unless you like it, of course!' said her father hastily. To Clifford he said the same, when the two men were alone: `I'm afraid it doesn't quite suit Connie to be a demi-vierge.'
`A half-virgin!' replied Clifford, translating the phrase to be sure of it.
He thought for a moment, then flushed very red. He was angry and offended.
`In what way doesn't it suit her?' he asked stiffly.
`She's getting thin...angular. It's not her style. She's not the pilchard sort of little slip of a girl, she's a bonny Scotch trout.'
`Without the spots, of course!' said Clifford.
He wanted to say something later to Connie about the demi-vierge business...the half-virgin state of her affairs. But he could not bring himself to do it. He was at once too intimate with her and not intimate enough. He was so very much at one with her, in his mind and hers, but bodily they were non-existent to one another, and neither could bear to drag in the corpus delicti. They were so intimate, and utterly out of touch.
Connie guessed, however, that her father had said something, and that something was in Clifford's mind. She knew that he didn't mind whether she were demi-vierge or demi-monde, so long as he didn't absolutely know, and wasn't made to see. What the eye doesn't see and the mind doesn't know, doesn't exist.
Connie and Clifford had now been nearly two years at Wragby, living their vague life of absorption in Clifford and his work. Their interests had never ceased to flow together over his work. They talked and wrestled in the throes of composition, and felt as if something were happening, really happening, really in the void.
And thus far it was a life: in the void. For the rest it was non-existence. Wragby was there, the servants...but spectral, not really existing. Connie went for walks in the park, and in the woods that joined the park, and enjoyed the solitude and the mystery, kicking the brown leaves of autumn, and picking the primroses of spring. But it was all a dream; or rather it was like the simulacrum of reality. The oak-leaves were to her like oak-leaves seen ruffling in a mirror, she herself was a figure somebody had read about, picking primroses that were only shadows or memories, or words. No substance to her or anything...no touch, no contact! Only this life with Clifford, this endless spinning of webs of yarn, of the minutiae of consciousness, these stories Sir Malcolm said there was nothing in, and they wouldn't last. Why should there be anything in them, why should they last? Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. Sufficient unto the moment is the appearance of reality.
Clifford had quite a number of friends, acquaintances really, and he invited them to Wragby. He invited all sorts of people, critics and writers, people who would help to praise his books. And they were flattered at being asked to Wragby, and they praised. Connie understood it all perfectly. But why not? This was one of the fleeting patterns in the mirror. What was wrong with it?
She was hostess to these people...mostly men. She was hostess also to Clifford's occasional aristocratic relations. Being a soft, ruddy, country-looking girl, inclined to freckles, with big blue eyes, and curling, brown hair, and a soft voice, and rather strong, female loins she was considered a little old-fashioned and `womanly'. She was not a `little pilchard sort of fish', like a boy, with a boy's flat breast and little buttocks. She was too feminine to be quite smart.
So the men, especially those no longer young, were very nice to her indeed. But, knowing what torture poor Clifford would feel at the slightest sign of flirting on her part, she gave them no encouragement at all. She was quiet and vague, she had no contact with them and intended to have none. Clifford was extraordinarily proud of himself.
His relatives treated her quite kindly. She knew that the kindliness indicated a lack of fear, and that these people had no respect for you unless you could frighten them a little. But again she had no contact. She let them be kindly and disdainful, she let them feel they had no need to draw their steel in readiness. She had no real connexion with them.
Time went on. Whatever happened, nothing happened, because she was so beautifully out of contact. She and Clifford lived in their ideas and his books. She entertained...there were always people in the house. Time went on as the clock does, half past eight instead of half past seven.