John Thomas and Lady Jane

by D. H. Lawrence

  ‘And look as handsome as cardinals!’ said Connie.

  ‘Quite!’

  He lapsed into inscrutable silence.

  ‘Some of the people here seem to enjoy themselves,’ said Connie.

  ‘Pah! Eating putrefaction! Their loathsome happiness!

  They’re as cold-blooded as crabs!’ They’re crustaceans. There’s not a mammal among them. Even tigresses have milk. But crabs have only crab-juice, like these people here.’

  ‘It seems a pity,’ said Connie.

  Suddenly he looked at her, really alert.

  ‘It’s because we are really all proletarian,’ he said. ‘A German once made that plain to me. The proletariat is a state of mind, it’s not really a class at all. You’re proletarian when you are cold like a crab, greedy like a crab, lustful with the ricketty egoism of a crab, and shambling like a crab. The people in this house are all proletarian. The Duchess of Toadstool is an arch proletarian. It’s obvious. And the Bolshevists are proletarian. The proletarian haves against the proletarian have-nots will destroy the human world entirely. A coalminer is a proletarian have-not! Sir Andrew is a proletarian have! They are the two halves of the scissors that will shear off the head of the human race.’

  ‘And then what?’ said Connie.

  ‘There’ll be no human race.’

  ‘Perhaps it will be a good thing.’

  ‘Oh, assuredly. — But I, being one of the lice in the head of the human race, see my own extinction absolute.’

  To Connie, however, there seemed a real truth in what he said. There was no longer any such thing as class. The world was one vast proletariat. Everything else had gone. The true working class was gone, as much as the honorable bourgeoisie, or the proud aristocracy. Bolshevist or Fascist, the world was proletarian, a vast homogeneous proletariat made up the whole of humanity.

  But the homogeneity of the proletariat was divided between haves and have-nots, owners and wage-earners, capitalists and workers. It was a polarised homogeneous proletariat. It was all Robot. And it was the suicide of the human race.

  ‘They’re individualists, they’re egoists, and they are cold-blooded. Their righteousness and their unrighteousness alike are cold-blooded. And when the Lord sent to Sodom and Gomorrah for ten righteous men, he meant ten warm-blooded, hot-hearted men. And he didn’t find ’em. The Sodomites and the Gomorrahites were cold-blooded to a man. So the Lord dropped the curtain of fire. — Myself, I see the extinction of the white race in sixty years: because by that time, the last warm-souled man will be dead, and the last gentle, warm-bodied woman.’

  A new truth seemed to have entered Connie’s soul, when she realized that there was no real class-distinction any more. In spite of herself, she had been obliged to think in terms of upper and lower class. And Parkin had been lower class, she herself had been upper class. And unconsciously, she had been forced to feel a certain class hatred. The ugly humanlessness which was killing the world, she had been forced, with helpless automatism, to identify with the lower class, the working class, the so-called proletariat.

  Now she suddenly realised what the little man Archie Blood said: that the proletariat was a state of mind. Even Clifford, with his central insistence on the mines, and on his own position as employer and boss, was really proletarian. That was why his immortality troubled him: and his happiness. To trouble about happiness or immortality was a proletarian symptom, because the proletariat has neither immortality nor happiness, being in essence Robot. And Mrs Bolton was proletarian: so were most, perhaps, of the colliers.

  But Parkin wasn’t. He was hot-blooded and single, and he wasn’t at all absorbed in himself. She had held back from him with a certain grudge, because he was lower class. Now the barrier broke, and her soul flooded free. Class is an anachronism. It finished in 1914. Nothing remains but a vast proletariat, including kings, aristocrats, squires, millionaires and working-people, men and women alike. And then a few individuals who have not been proletarianised.

  Ah the mistake, the mistake she had made! She had held herself aloof, just a little contemptuous of Parkin, because he was lower class, a working-man, and therefore she had identified him with the proletariat. Now she realised, the proletariat was a state of mind, embracing Clifford and the gambling Lady Eva, and Mrs Bolton and the beastly Bertha Coutts, but missing Parkin, and missing herself. She had been merging into the proletarian frame of mind. But thank God, she had escaped!

  She felt a great relief, when she was no longer forced to think, and feel in terms of class. The warm-blooded were the warm-blooded, they were sons and daughters of god, in all the world. And the cold-blooded and the cold-willed were the proletariat, the world over, from colliers to kings. A release flooded her heart and her bowels, as she felt her soul flow out towards the warm-blooded ones in all the world. Against the proletariat she could bear to fight. But her heart-flow must flow somewhere.

  And at last it flowed free to Parkin, to the thing he was, in his solitary self, and the thing he stood for. She had a great yearning, now, to unite herself to him in some way: not necessarily to live with him, but to be married to him forever, in an intrinsic marriage. She was weary of the trammels of extrinsic marriage. But she wanted to meet him, and pledge her heart to him, finally, forever.

  She would have to leave Clifford. This, too, she realised.

  She had a letter from Mrs Bolton: — ‘You will be pleased I am sure, My Lady, when you see Sir Clifford. He has made great strides, and seems greatly improving in health and strength, and looking forward to seeing you among us again. It is a dull house without My Lady, and we shall all welcome her bright presence among us once more, as I can truly say for all at Wragby, from highest to lowest, for you are quite loved by everyone. Everything has gone on very quietly. Sir Clifford has been very busy at the mines, in fact it is wonderful what a lot of work he gets through, and he has had consultations with several experts and other gentlemen about the new plant, which he will start on in the autumn. I am sure, I wish him every success, for he deserves it. The new work means the life and death of Tevershall, and I’m sure the miners ought to be very grateful to him. But one must not look for much gratitude on this earth, and Sir Clifford knows it.

  ‘About Mr Parkin, I don’t know how much Sir Clifford told you. It seems his wife came back all of a sudden one afternoon, the miner at Stacks Gate had thrown her out. So Mr Parkin found her sitting on the doorstep when he came in from the wood. But he wouldn’t have her in the house, and she went to her brother Dan’s at the Crosshill turnpike, though Mrs Dan Coutts didn’t want her either. However, it was a force-put, though Mr Parkin had offered her money to pay for lodgings for herself, but she wouldn’t take it. She said that was her home, meaning the cottage. But he wouldn’t have her in. So she went to her Brother Dan’s, and Dan said she could stop, but Dan’s wife didn’t want her. Well they thought she’d gone to bed, but she came down with her things on, and said she was going out, and it appears what did she do but walk to the cottage in the dark, and start knocking at the door. It must have been late, because Mr Parkin was in bed, but he shouted who was it, and she said it’s me, and she’d nowhere to go, Dan’s wife wouldn’t have her, and Swain had turned her out. Well, Mr Parkin said he wouldn’t have her neither, but she went on knocking and crying, and the dog barking and yelping, so Mr Parkin got up and slipped out into the wood by the back door, and left her to knock, as it was a fine night. Well, when he got back in the morning, he could see she’d got in. She’d broken a pane in the back-kitchen window, and got in that way, but there was no signs of her about. So he went upstairs, and there she was in bed with no nightdress on nor nothing. I don’t know what happened, but she says he got in bed with her, and he says he didn’t. Anyhow he went and fetched his mother to make her go. But old Mrs Parkin couldn’t do anything with her, and no one could have thrown her out, short of killing her, for she’s as strong as a bull. She swore Mr Parkin had been in bed with her, and he swore he hadn’t. And she swore he’d been
having women in the cottage, because the postman had heard something, and there was a smell of scent in the bedroom, and his things were’ scented, and he never used scent. Anyhow there she lay in bed with not a stitch on her, till old Mrs Parkin said it fair made you sick, and there was nothing to be done. So Parkin and his mother took all they could carry with them, his things and food, what there was in the house, and he unscrewed the handle of the pump, so she had no water, and they left her in bed, lying there without a stitch on, and a bare house, and both doors locked on her. But I suppose she must have got up sometime, for she was at her brother Dan’s in the afternoon and swearing and raving and carrying on, calling Mr Parkin all the blaggards and the b’s, and saying he’d been in bed with her, and she’d have the law on him. Then she went to the police-station, to kick up a shine there, so they threatened to lock her up. Then she changed her tactics, and went to Mr Burroughs, who is J.P. now, pleading with him to make Mr Parkin take her back, and crying and weeping, and saying she only wanted to be taken back and live a straight life. Mr Burroughs sent for Mr Parkin and asked him if he’d take her back, and he said he wouldn’t, he’d die rather than live with her again. So Mr Burroughs said why hadn’t he got a legal separation, and protected himself that way, and he said he never wanted no legal separation, he wanted to be rid of her. So Mr Burroughs said he must apply for a divorce, and he said he would. And she said she’d show him up, afore he ever got a divorce, as he’d been in bed with her and was carrying on with other women. So Mr Burroughs asked her, was she destitute, and she said she’d money of her own enough to keep her, she wasn’t beholden to a dirty gamekeeper. But her home was her home, and nobody was going to turn her out. So Mr Burroughs said Mr Parkin had better apply for a divorce, and live at his mother’s, and let her provide for herself. This was a week last Wednesday, and Mr Parkin’s been at his mother’s ever since to sleep. But he says he’ll have to leave, so Sir Clifford is looking for another keeper. Mr Parkin has put in for a divorce, and his wife goes about saying the most awful things about him, but awful, you have to stop your ears. And she kept on going to the cottage to sleep, and managing goodness knows how. But Sir Clifford put a stop to that. Old Mrs Parkin took a cart and two men and fetched away all the furniture and things, and Sir Clifford had the house sealed, and let her know he’d have her arrested for house-breaking, if she got in. So she went and got lodgings with a woman down Beggarlee. But she’s like a mad-woman, and keeps going to the wood for Mr Parkin, raving at him and weeping and carrying on, till he threatens he’ll shoot her. But Sir Clifford got the policeman to tell her he would take her up for trespass and interference with a man’s duty, if she was found in the wood again, and the only place she seems to fear is the lock-up. She even came weeping and wailing to the Hall, to get Sir Clifford to make Parkin take her back. But Sir Clifford wouldn’t see her, and he was quite right. He sent word he’d have her arrested if she trespassed on his property or interfered with his servants. So since then she’s been more quiet, but she spends her time at the Three Tuns, and does nothing but talk and get the men to sympathize with her. The things she says about Mr Parkin are something awful, the things he did to her when they were married, why it’s shameful for a woman to open her mouth about such things. And yet she says she was a true and faithful wife to him, and never even thought of another man, till he drove her to it, and told her to go, and made her go off with this Swain. When everybody knows Swain wasn’t the first, by any means. The way she carried on with those woodmen during the war, who were taking timber for the trenches. Why, even Sir Geoffrey had to tell her he wouldn’t have her in the wood round the men. But the worst is the things she says about Mr Parkin, because they’re awful, and some of it’s sure to stick, and everybody looks on him quite different from what they did. I think he’s quite right to go away from the parts. She isn’t allowed in the Three Tuns any more, since Mr Burroughs warned Mrs Anthony, the landlady. But she goes around, living a life of ease, dressed up to the eyes, and telling everybody about Mr Parkin, till he’s almost worse looked on, nowadays, than she is. I’m sure everybody seems to think her badness is his fault. And her brother Dan is that worked up, he says he’ll break every bone in the little b’s body, for the things he did to his sister. She vows if Mr Parkin goes for a divorce, she’ll tell the judge all she knows about him. But Sir Clifford says she won’t be allowed to open her mouth as wide as she likes, to vilify anybody, in court.

  ‘I’m sure, My Lady, you are lucky to be away from this scandal, for it’s upset me more than I can tell you. There’s more talk in Tevershall than ever there has been, as long as I can remember, and all so nasty. As for the woman, she is evil-mad, and as I tell them, it is her time of life. A woman who has lived in a wrong way, as she has, almost always goes wrong when her change of life comes. These low sexual women, who always have low things on their mind, even when they don’t do them, they always seem to go evil-mad when they get between forty and fifty. It is a kind of hysteria, no doubt, but to my mind it is more evil than anything, and comes from having lived wrong —’

  Connie read this long letter with a sinking heart. How squalid! oh how awful and squalid! Why on earth had he ever taken up with such a woman! — Yet, as a woman herself, she knew well enough. It was a passion, even if an impure one, that had existed between Parkin and Bertha Coutts. But how squalid, how awful! She felt, for a time, that death is the only clean thing, for human beings.

  And herself! As far as she could make out, her name had not been suggested in the scandal. Which seemed to her, a mercy, and almost a miracle. Hilda was right: how careful one had to be, in this world of hyaenas! He seemed to have been careful. There was no mention of the torn nightdress. And the perfume was her own folly. She herself had put scent on his three or four handkerchieves, in the little drawer of the dressing table.

  She was depressed utterly, and didn’t want to think. He seemed to have stirred up so much mud. Yet when she shut her eyes to sleep, she saw the image of him, naked white and with tanned face and hands, a tiny image, small as a flake of bright light on a convex mirror, but vivid and untouched. That was still pure, among all the impurity.

  She had to fight hard to rise above her jealousy for Bertha Coutts, and to master her hate for him, for being connected with Bertha Coutts. What made it worse was her fear, amounting almost to hate, that the other woman loved him, and perhaps had a right to him: and that perhaps she herself had no right to, his love. This thought lay icy in her soul. Bertha Coutts would not hate him so, like a mad dog, if she had not cared for him, if she had not felt her whole being possessed by him. Poor woman! the extent of her reckless defamation, and the fact that she talked about her indecent conjugal intimacies with him, showed the extent of her morbid love for him. It was a love gone mad. But it was like a dog with hydrophobia, insane at the sight of water for which she had been thirsty.

  Why? Why had Bertha Coutts lost his love? Because Connie knew she had. His heart was dead, as far as his wife was concerned. It was exhausted and dead. Poor Bertha Coutts! what annihilation for her. No wonder she was evil-mad.

  Yet she had brought it on deliberately. She had deliberately fought against even the love in her own soul, and had taken a long, evil pleasure in humiliating him. He had never fully respected her, never felt in his heart at one with her, in destiny. So she in revenge had tried all in her power to humiliate him. Because he had never felt that he and she shared, in some way, a destiny.

  Yet, surely, in the beginning, there had been the beginnings of a mutual destiny, even between Bertha Coutts and him. But Bertha Coutts had already formed the habit of behaving more ignobly than was her real nature; and once having put herself in the wrong, she had run on to frenzy in her wrongness, always, from worse to worse, behaving more ignobly than the best spark in her nature. Till she had come to this madness, and there was nothing but death and madness for her ahead.

  For him, too, unless something was done. Connie felt that, just as he had a mutual destiny with
his wife, because she behaved perversely, so was she herself inclined to deny a mutual destiny for herself and him, because he was not of her world. And she realised, with the sternness of fate, that no man and no woman can have a full destiny to be alone. There are men and women, plenty, destined to be alone. But for them, a certain fulness is denied. For warm-souled men and women, the lonely destiny is death. Real men and women are destiny to one another.

  Connie realized that she had been trying to avoid her destiny with him. She wanted the selfish pleasure of the contact, but not the submission to the subtle interweaving of her life with his, in creative fate. She had wanted to have her cake, and to eat it. She had wanted to keep Clifford and Wragby and her ladyship, if she liked. But Parkin would not be the cream to the pudding. He would be the pivotal point of her life. Clifford, Wragby, and her ladyship were circumstances, and circumstances are a vast concatenation over which the individual has not very much immediate control. When circumstances and destiny do not pull in the same way, then it is no use tearing oneself in two. The thing to do is to follow the resultant of the two forces, and swerve in the unknown curve that will emerge from the diverse pull of circumstances and of destiny. If there has to be a break, break with circumstance rather than with destiny, even if you are left a cripple. But if there is an honest resultant of the forces of fate and things, then follow that.

  Connie wrote a letter to Parkin, enclosing it in one to Duncan Forbes, who was back in London. She put only Forbes’ London address — and she began without any preliminary: ‘Clifford and Mrs Bolton have written to me about your trouble with Bertha Coutts. I am awfully upset about it. You mustn’t altogether blame Bertha Coutts, perhaps in her way she loved you more than you loved her, and so she despised herself for being the one who had to love more than she was loved, and she went wrong, trying to get even. But now it is terrible, and you are quite right to go away and to try to get a divorce. One must not let oneself be dragged back, if one wants to go on. But remember there is something between you and me, which I hope will never break. I hope you feel the same. I hope you want me to stay in your life always. I want you to stay in my life till I die, and I want to stay in your life till you die. But we needn’t try to force anything. Write to me to tell me how you feel. I shall be home at the end of next week but there is time for you to write a letter, if you write at once. Write to me. I will do whatever you truly wish me to do, because I would always trust you, when you sincerely wished anything. It is different, when one is just hasty. Try not to go before I come back. I can’t be back before the end of next week. And I do trust you. So write to me, and tell me. — C.’