The Ladybird

by D. H. Lawrence

  He stood still and made her listen. It was late afternoon. The

  strange laugh of his face made the air seem dark to her. And she

  could easily have believed that she heard a faint, fine shivering,

  cracking, through the air, a delicate crackling noise.

  'You hear it? Yes? Oh, may I live long! May I live long, so that

  my hammer may strike and strike, and the cracks go deeper, deeper!

  Ah, the world of man! Ah, the joy, the passion in every heart-

  beat! Strike home, strike true, strike sure. Strike to destroy

  it. Strike! Strike! To destroy the world of man. Ah, God. Ah,

  God, prisoner of peace. Do I not know you, Lady Daphne? Do I not?

  Do I not?'

  She was silent for some moments, looking away at the twinkling

  lights of a station beyond.

  'Not the white plucked lily of your body. I have gathered no

  flower for my ostentatious life. But in the cold dark, your lily

  root, Lady Daphne. Ah, yes, you will know it all your life, that I

  know where your root lies buried, with its sad, sad quick of life.

  What does it matter!'

  They had walked slowly towards the house. She was silent. Then at

  last she said, in a peculiar voice:

  'And you would never want to kiss me?'

  'Ah, no!' he answered sharply.

  She held out her hand.

  'Good-bye, Count Dionys,' she drawled, fashionably. He bowed over

  her hand, but did not kiss it.

  'Good-bye, Lady Daphne.'

  She went away, with her brow set hard. And henceforth she thought

  only of her husband, of Basil. She made the Count die out of her.

  Basil was coming, he was near. He was coming back from the East,

  from war and death. Ah, he had been through awful fire of

  experience. He would be something new, something she did not know.

  He was something new, a stronger lover who had been through

  terrible fire, and had come out strange and new, like a god. Ah,

  new and terrible his love would be, pure and intensified by the

  awful fire of suffering. A new lover--a new bridegroom--a new,

  supernatural wedding-night. She shivered in anticipation, waiting

  for her husband. She hardly noticed the wild excitement of the

  Armistice. She was waiting for something more wonderful to her.

  And yet the moment she heard his voice on the telephone, her heart

  contracted with fear. It was his well-known voice, deliberate,

  diffident, almost drawling, with the same subtle suggestion of

  deference, and the rather exaggerated Cambridge intonation, up and

  down. But there was a difference, a new icy note that went through

  her veins like death.

  'Is that you, Daphne? I shall be with you in half an hour. Is

  that all right for you? Yes, I've just landed, and shall come

  straight to you. Yes, a taxi. Shall I be too sudden for you,

  darling? No? Good, oh good! Half an hour, then! I say, Daphne?

  There won't be anyone else there, will there? Quite alone! Good!

  I can ring up Dad afterwards. Yes, splendid, splendid. Sure

  you're all right, my darling? I'm at death's door till I see you.

  Yes. Good-bye--half an hour. Good-bye.'

  When Daphne had hung up the receiver she sat down almost in a

  faint. What was it that so frightened her? His terrible, terrible

  altered voice, like cold, blue steel. She had no time to think.

  She rang for her maid.

  'Oh, my lady, it isn't bad news?' cried Millicent, when she caught

  sight of her mistress white as death.

  'No, good news. Major Apsley will be here in half an hour. Help

  me to dress. Ring to Murry's first to send in some roses, red

  ones, and some lilac-coloured iris--two dozen of each, at once.'

  Daphne went to her room. She didn't know what to wear, she didn't

  know how she wanted her hair dressed. She spoke hastily to her

  maid. She chose a violet-coloured dress. She did not know what

  she was doing. In the middle of dressing the flowers came, and she

  left off to put them in the bowls. So that when she heard his

  voice in the hall, she was still standing in front of the mirror

  reddening her lips and wiping it away again.

  'Major Apsley, my lady!' murmured the maid, in excitement.

  'Yes, I can hear. Go and tell him I shall be one minute.'

  Daphne's voice had become slow and sonorous, like bronze, as it

  always did when she was upset. Her face looked almost haggard, and

  in vain she dabbed with the rouge.

  'How does he look?' she asked curtly, when her maid came back.

  'A long scar here,' said the maid, and she drew her finger from the

  left-hand corner of her mouth into her cheek, slanting downwards.

  'Make him look very different?' asked Daphne.

  'Not so VERY different, my lady,' said Millicent gently. 'His eyes

  are the same, I think.' The girl also was distressed.

  'All right,' said Daphne. She looked at herself a long, last look

  as she turned away from the mirror. The sight of her own face made

  her feel almost sick. She had seen so much of herself. And yet

  even now she was fascinated by the heavy droop of her lilac-veined

  lids over her slow, strange, large, green-blue eyes. They WERE

  mysterious-looking. And she gave herself a long, sideways glance,

  curious and Chinese. How was it possible there was a touch of the

  Chinese in her face?--she so purely an English blonde, an Aphrodite

  of the foam, as Basil had called her in poetry. Ah well! She left

  off her thoughts and went through the hall to the drawing-room.

  He was standing nervously in the middle of the room in his uniform.

  She hardly glanced at his face--and saw only the scar.

  'Hullo, Daphne,' he said, in a voice full of the expected emotion.

  He stepped forward and took her in his arms, and kissed her

  forehead.

  'So glad! So glad it's happened at last,' she said, hiding her

  tears.

  'So glad what has happened, darling?' he asked, in his deliberate

  manner.

  'That you're back.' Her voice had the bronze resonance, she spoke

  rather fast.

  'Yes, I'm back, Daphne darling--as much of me as there is to bring

  back.'

  'Why?' she said. 'You've come back whole, surely?' She was

  frightened.

  'Yes, apparently I have. Apparently. But don't let's talk of

  that. Let's talk of you, darling. How are you? Let me look at

  you. You are thinner, you are older. But you are more wonderful

  than ever. Far more wonderful.'

  'How?' said she.

  'I can't exactly say how. You were only a girl. Now you are a

  woman. I suppose it's all that's happened. But you are wonderful

  as a woman, Daphne darling--more wonderful than all that's

  happened. I couldn't have believed you'd be so wonderful. I'd

  forgotten--or else I'd never known. I say, I'm a lucky chap

  really. Here I am, alive and well, and I've got you for a wife.

  It's brought you out like a flower. I say, darling, there is more

  now than Venus of the foam--grander. How beautiful you are! But

  you look like the beauty of all life--as if you were moon-mother of

  the world--Aphrodite. God is
good to me after all, darling. I

  ought never to utter a single complaint. How lovely you are--how

  lovely you are, my darling! I'd forgotten you--and I thought I

  knew you so well. Is it true that you belong to me? Are you

  really mine?'

  They were seated on the yellow sofa. He was holding her hand, and

  his eyes were going up and down, from her face to her throat and

  her breast. The sound of his words, and the strong, cold desire in

  his voice excited her, pleased her, and made her heart freeze. She

  turned and looked into his light blue eyes. They had no longer the

  amused light, nor the young look. They burned with a hard, focused

  light, whitish.

  'It's all right. You are mine, aren't you, Daphne darling?' came

  his cultured, musical voice, that had always the well-bred twang of

  diffidence.

  She looked back into his eyes.

  'Yes, I am yours,' she said, from the lips.

  'Darling! Darling!' he murmured, kissing her hand.

  Her heart beat suddenly so terribly, as if her breast would be

  ruptured, and she rose in one movement and went across the room.

  She leaned her hand on the mantelpiece and looked down at the

  electric fire. She could hear the faint, faint noise of it. There

  was silence for a few moments.

  Then she turned and looked at him. He was watching her intently.

  His face was gaunt, and there was a curious deathly sub-pallor,

  though his cheeks were not white. The scar ran livid from the side

  of his mouth. It was not so very big. But it seemed like a scar

  in him himself, in his brain, as it were. In his eyes was that

  hard, white, focused light that fascinated her and was terrible to

  her. He was different. He was like death; like risen death. She

  felt she dared not touch him. White death was still upon him. She

  could tell that he shrank with a kind of agony from contact.

  'Touch me not, I am not yet ascended unto the Father.' Yet for

  contact he had come. Something, someone seemed to be looking over

  his shoulder. His own young ghost looking over his shoulder. Oh,

  God! She closed her eyes, seeming to swoon. He remained leaning

  forward on the sofa, watching her.

  'Aren't you well, darling?' he asked. There was a strange,

  incomprehensible coldness in his very fire. He did not move to

  come near her.

  'Yes, I'm well. It is only that after all it is so sudden. Let me

  get used to you,' she said, turning aside her face from him. She

  felt utterly like a victim of his white, awful face.

  'I suppose I must be a bit of a shock to you,' he said. 'I hope

  you won't leave off loving me. It won't be that, will it?'

  The strange coldness in his voice! And yet the white, uncanny

  fire.

  'No, I shan't leave off loving you,' she admitted, in a low tone,

  as if almost ashamed. She DARED not have said otherwise. And the

  saying it made it true.

  'Ah, if you're sure of that,' he said. 'I'm a pretty unlovely

  sight to behold, I know, with this wound-scar. But if you can

  forgive it me, darling. Do you think you can?' There was

  something like compulsion in his tone.

  She looked at him, and shivered slightly.

  'I love you--more than before,' she said hurriedly.

  'Even the scar?' came his terrible voice, inquiring.

  She glanced again, with that slow, Chinese side-look, and felt she

  would die.

  'Yes,' she said, looking away at nothingness. It was an awful

  moment to her. A little, slightly imbecile smile widened on his

  face.

  He suddenly knelt at her feet, and kissed the toe of her slipper,

  and kissed the instep, and kissed the ankle in the thin black

  stocking.

  'I knew,' he said in a muffled voice. 'I knew you would make good.

  I knew if I had to kneel, it was before you. I knew you were

  divine, you were the one--Cybele--Isis. I knew I was your slave.

  I knew. It has all been just a long initiation. I had to learn

  how to worship you.'

  He kissed her feet again and again, without the slightest self-

  consciousness, or the slightest misgiving. Then he went back to

  the sofa, and sat there looking at her, saying:

  'It isn't love, it is worship. Love between me and you will be a

  sacrament, Daphne. That's what I had to learn. You are beyond me.

  A mystery to me. My God, how great it all is. How marvellous!'

  She stood with her hand on the mantelpiece, looking down and not

  answering. She was frightened--almost horrified: but she was

  thrilled deep down to her soul. She really felt she could glow

  white and fill the universe like the moon, like Astarte, like Isis,

  like Venus. The grandeur of her own pale power. The man

  religiously worshipped her, not merely amorously. She was ready

  for him--for the sacrament of his supreme worship.

  He sat on the sofa with his hands spread on the yellow brocade and

  pushing downwards behind him, down between the deep upholstery of

  the back and the seat. He had long, white hands with pale

  freckles. And his fingers touched something. With his long white

  fingers he groped and brought it out. It was the lost thimble.

  And inside it was the bit of screwed-up blue paper.

  'I say, is that YOUR thimble?' he asked.

  She started, and went hurriedly forward for it.

  'Where was it?' she said, agitated.

  But he did not give it to her. He turned it round and pulled out

  the bit of blue paper. He saw the faint pencil marks on the

  screwed-up ball, and unrolled the band of paper, and slowly

  deciphered the verse.

  'Wenn ich ein Voglein war'

  Und auch zwei Fluglein hatt'

  Flog' ich zu dir--'

  'How awfully touching that is,' he said. 'A Voglein with two

  little Fluglein! But what a precious darling child you are! Whom

  did you want to fly to, if you were a Voglein?' He looked up at

  her with a curious smile.

  'I can't remember,' she said, turning aside her head.

  'I hope it was to me,' he said. 'Anyhow, I shall consider it was,

  and shall love you all the more for it. What a darling child! A

  Voglein if you please, with two little wings! Why, how beautifully

  absurd of you, darling!'

  He folded the scrap of paper carefully, and put it in his pocket-

  book, keeping the thimble all the time between his knees.

  'Tell me when you lost it, Daphne,' he said, examining the bauble.

  'About a month ago--or two months.'

  'About a month ago--or two months. And what were you sewing? Do

  you mind if I ask? I like to think of you then. I was still in

  that beastly El Hasrun. What were you sewing, darling, two months

  ago, when you lost your thimble?'

  'A shirt.'

  'I say, a shirt! Whose shirt?'

  'Yours.'

  'There. Now we've run it to earth. Were you really sewing a shirt

  for me! Is it finished? Can I put it on at this minute?'

  'That one isn't finished, but the first one is.'

  'I say, darling, let me go and put it on. To think I should have

  it nex
t my skin! I shall feel you all round me, all over me. I

  say how marvellous that will be! Won't you come?'

  'Won't you give me the thimble?' she said.

  'Yes, of course. What a noble thimble too! Who gave it you?'

  'Count Dionys Psanek.'

  'Who was he?'

  'A Bohemian Count, in Dresden. He once stayed with us in

  Thoresway--with a tall wife. Didn't you meet them?'

  'I don't think I did. I don't think I did. I don't remember.

  What was he like?'

  'A little man with black hair and a rather low, dark forehead--

  rather dressy.'

  'No, I don't remember him at all. So he gave it you. Well, I

  wonder where he is now? Probably rotted, poor devil.'

  'No, he's interned in Voynich Hall. Mother and I have been to see

  him several times. He was awfully badly wounded.'

  'Poor little beggar! In Voynich Hall! I'll look at him before he

  goes. Odd thing, to give you a thimble. Odd gift! You were a girl

  then, though. Do you think he had it made, or do you think he

  found it in a shop?'

  'I think it belonged to the family. The ladybird at the top is

  part of their crest--and the snake as well, I think.'

  'A ladybird! Funny thing for a crest. Americans would call it a

  bug. I must look at him before he goes. And you were sewing a

  shirt for me! And then you posted me this little letter into the

  sofa. Well, I'm awfully glad I received it, and that it didn't go

  astray in the post, like so many things. "Wenn ich ein Voglein

  war"--you perfect child! But that is the beauty of a woman like

  you: you are so superb and beyond worship, and then such an

  exquisite naive child. Who could help worshipping you and loving

  you: immortal and mortal together. What, you want the thimble?

  Here! Wonderful, wonderful, white fingers. Ah, darling, you are

  more goddess than child, you long, limber Isis with sacred hands.

  White, white, and immortal! Don't tell me your hands could die,

  darling: your wonderful Proserpine fingers. They are immortal as

  February and snowdrops. If you lift your hands the spring comes.

  I CAN'T help kneeling before you, darling. I am no more than a

  sacrifice to you, an offering. I WISH I could die in giving myself

  to you, give you all my blood on your altar, for ever.'

  She looked at him with a long, slow look, as he turned his face to

  her. His face was white with ecstasy. And she was not afraid.

  Somewhere, saturnine, she knew it was absurd. But she chose not to

  know. A certain swoon-sleep was on her. With her slow, green-blue

  eyes she looked down on his ecstasized face, almost benign. But in

  her right hand unconsciously she held the thimble fast, she only

  gave him her left hand. He took her hand and rose to his feet in

  that curious priestly ecstasy which made him more than a man or a

  soldier, far, far more than a lover to her.

  Nevertheless, his home-coming made her begin to be ill again.

  Afterwards, after his love, she had to bear herself in torment. To

  her shame and her heaviness, she knew she was not strong enough, or

  pure enough, to bear this awful outpouring adoration-lust. It was

  not her fault she felt weak and fretful afterwards, as if she

  wanted to cry and be fretful and petulant, wanted someone to save

  her. She could not turn to Basil, her husband. After his ecstasy

  of adoration-lust for her, she recoiled from him. Alas, she was

  not the goddess, the superb person he named her. She was flawed

  with the fatal humility of her age. She could not harden her heart

  and burn her soul pure of this humility, this misgiving. She could

  not finally believe in her own woman-godhead--only in her own

  female mortality.

  That fierce power of being alone, even with your lover, the fierce

  power of the woman in excelsis--alas, she could not keep it. She