Complete Works of D.H. Lawrence

by D. H. Lawrence

  He wandered uneasily to and fro, no one taking any particular notice of him. And he realized that there was a whole vast country spreading, a sort of underworld country, spreading away beyond him. He wandered from vast apartment to apartment, down narrow corridors like the roads in a mine. In one of the great square rooms, the men were going to eat. And it seemed to him that what they were going to eat was a man, naked man. But his second self knew that what appeared to his eyes as a man was really a man’s skin stuffed tight with prepared meat, as the skin of a Bologna sausage. This did not prevent his seeing the naked man who was to be eaten walk slowly and stiffly across the gangway and down the corridor. He saw him from behind. It was a big handsome man in the prime of life, quite naked and perhaps stupid. But of course he was only a skin stuffed with meat, whom the grey tin-miners were going to eat.

  Aaron, the dream-Aaron, turned another way, and strayed along the vast square rooms, cavern apartments. He came into one room where there were many children, all in white gowns. And they were all busily putting themselves to bed, in the many beds scattered about the room at haphazard. And each child went to bed with a wreath of flowers on its head, white flowers and pink, so it seemed. So there they all lay, in their flower-crowns in the vast space of the rooms. And Aaron went away.

  He could not remember the following part. Only he seemed to have passed through many grey domestic apartments, where were all women, all greyish in their clothes and appearance, being wives of the underground tin-miners. The men were away and the dream-Aaron remembered with fear the food they were to eat.

  The next thing he could recall was, that he was in a boat. And now he was most definitely two people. His invisible, conscious self, what we have called his second self, hovered as it were before the prow of the boat, seeing and knowing, but unseen. His other self, the palpable Aaron, sat as a passenger in the boat, which was being rowed by the unknown people of this underworld. They stood up as they thrust the boat along. Other passengers were in the boat too, women as well, but all of them unknown people, and not noticeable.

  The boat was upon a great lake in the underworld country, a lake of dark blue water, but crystal clear and very beautiful in colour. The second or invisible Aaron sat in the prow and watched the fishes swimming suspended in the clear, beautiful dark-blue water. Some were pale fish, some frightening-looking, like centipedes swimming, and some were dark fish, of definite form, and delightful to watch.

  The palpable or visible Aaron sat at the side of the boat, on the end of the middle seat, with his naked right elbow leaning out over the side. And now the boat entered upon shallows. The impalpable Aaron in the bows saw the whitish clay of the bottom swirl up in clouds at each thrust of the oars, whitish-clayey clouds which would envelope the strange fishes in a sudden mist. And on the right hand of the course stakes stood up in the water, at intervals, to mark the course.

  The boat must pass very near these stakes, almost touching. And Aaron’s naked elbow was leaning right over the side. As they approached the first stake, the boatmen all uttered a strange cry of warning, in a foreign language. The flesh-and-blood Aaron seemed not even to hear. The invisible Aaron heard, but did not comprehend the words of the cry.

  So the naked elbow struck smartly against the stake as the boat passed.

  The rowers rowed on. And still the flesh-and-blood Aaron sat with his arm over the side. Another stake was nearing. “Will he heed, will he heed?” thought the anxious second self. The rowers gave the strange warning cry. He did not heed, and again the elbow struck against the stake as the boat passed. And yet the flesh-and-blood Aaron sat on and made no sign. There were stakes all along this shallow part of the lake. Beyond was deep water again. The invisible Aaron was becoming anxious. “Will he never hear? Will he never heed? Will he never understand?” he thought. And he watched in pain for the next stake. But still the flesh-and-blood Aaron sat on, and though the rowers cried so acutely that the invisible Aaron almost understood their very language, still the Aaron seated at the side heard nothing, and his elbow struck against the third stake.

  This was almost too much. But after a few moments, as the boat rowed on, the palpable Aaron changed his position as he sat, and drew in his arm: though even now he was not aware of any need to do so. The invisible Aaron breathed with relief in the bows, the boat swung steadily on, into the deep, unfathomable water again.

  They were drawing near a city. A lake-city, like Mexico. They must have reached a city, because when Aaron woke up and tried to piece together the dream of which these are mere fragments, he could remember having just seen an idol. An Astarte he knew it as, seated by the road, and in her open lap, were some eggs: smallish hen’s eggs, and one or two bigger eggs, like swan’s, and one single little roll of bread. These lay in the lap of the roadside Astarte.... And then he could remember no more.

  He woke, and for a minute tried to remember what he had been dreaming, and what it all meant. But he quickly relinquished the effort. So he looked at his watch: it was only half-past three. He had one of those American watches with luminous, phosphorescent figures and fingers. And tonight he felt afraid of its eerily shining face.

  He was awake a long time in the dark — for two hours, thinking and not thinking, in that barren state which is not sleep, nor yet full wakefulness, and which is a painful strain. At length he went to sleep again, and did not wake till past eight o’clock. He did not ring for his coffee till nine.

  Outside was a bright day — but he hardly heeded it. He lay profitlessly thinking. With the breaking of the flute, that which was slowly breaking had finally shattered at last. And there was nothing ahead: no plan, no prospect. He knew quite well that people would help him: Francis Dekker or Angus Guest or the Marchese or Lilly. They would get him a new flute, and find him engagements. But what was the good? His flute was broken, and broken finally. The bomb had settled it. The bomb had settled it and everything. It was an end, no matter how he tried to patch things up. The only thing he felt was a thread of destiny attaching him to Lilly. The rest had all gone as bare and bald as the dead orb of the moon. So he made up his mind, if he could, to make some plan that would bring his life together with that of his evanescent friend.

  Lilly was a peculiar bird. Clever and attractive as he undoubtedly was, he was perhaps the most objectionable person to know. It was stamped on his peculiar face. Aaron thought of Lilly’s dark, ugly face, which had something that lurked in it as a creature under leaves. Then he thought of the wide-apart eyes, with their curious candour and surety. The peculiar, half-veiled surety, as if nothing, nothing could overcome him. It made people angry, this look of silent, indifferent assurance. “Nothing can touch him on the quick, nothing can really GET at him,” they felt at last. And they felt it with resentment, almost with hate. They wanted to be able to get at him. For he was so open-seeming, so very outspoken. He gave himself away so much. And he had no money to fall back on. Yet he gave himself away so easily, paid such attention, almost deference to any chance friend. So they all thought: Here is a wise person who finds me the wonder which I really am. — And lo and behold, after he had given them the trial, and found their inevitable limitations, he departed and ceased to heed their wonderful existence. Which, to say the least of it, was fraudulent and damnable. It was then, after his departure, that they realised his basic indifference to them, and his silent arrogance. A silent arrogance that knew all their wisdom, and left them to it.

  Aaron had been through it all. He had started by thinking Lilly a peculiar little freak: gone on to think him a wonderful chap, and a bit pathetic: progressed, and found him generous, but overbearing: then cruel and intolerant, allowing no man to have a soul of his own: then terribly arrogant, throwing a fellow aside like an old glove which is in holes at the finger-ends. And all the time, which was most beastly, seeing through one. All the time, freak and outsider as he was, Lilly knew. He knew, and his soul was against the whole world.

  Driven to bay, and forced to choose. Forced
to choose, not between life and death, but between the world and the uncertain, assertive Lilly. Forced to choose, and yet, in the world, having nothing left to choose. For in the world there was nothing left to choose, unless he would give in and try for success. Aaron knew well enough that if he liked to do a bit of buttering, people would gladly make a success of him, and give him money and success. He could become quite a favourite.

  But no! If he had to give in to something: if he really had to give in, and it seemed he had: then he would rather give in to the little Lilly than to the beastly people of the world. If he had to give in, then it should be to no woman, and to no social ideal, and to no social institution. No! — if he had to yield his wilful independence, and give himself, then he would rather give himself to the little, individual man than to any of the rest. For to tell the truth, in the man was something incomprehensible, which had dominion over him, if he chose to allow it.

  As he lay pondering this over, escaping from the cul de sac in which he had been running for so long, by yielding to one of his pursuers: yielding to the peculiar mastery of one man’s nature rather than to the quicksands of woman or the stinking bogs of society: yielding, since yield he must, in some direction or other: yielding in a new direction now, to one strange and incalculable little individual: as Aaron lay so relaxing, finding a peculiar delight in giving his soul to his mind’s hero, the self-same hero tapped and entered.

  “I wondered,” he said, “if you’d like to walk into the country with me: it is such a nice day. I thought you might have gone out already. But here you are in bed like a woman who’s had a baby. — You’re all right, are you?”

  “Yes,” said Aaron. “I’m all right.”

  “Miserable about your flute? — Ah, well, there are more flutes. Get up then.” And Lilly went to the window, and stood looking out at the river.

  “We’re going away on Thursday,” he said.

  “Where to?” said Aaron.

  “Naples. We’ve got a little house there for the winter — in the country, not far from Sorrento — I must get a bit of work done, now the winter is coming. And forget all about everything and just live with life. What’s the good of running after life, when we’ve got it in us, if nobody prevents us and obstructs us?”

  Aaron felt very queer.

  “But for how long will you settle down — ?” he asked.

  “Oh, only the winter. I am a vagrant really: or a migrant. I must migrate. Do you think a cuckoo in Africa and a cuckoo in Essex is one AND the same bird? Anyhow, I know I must oscillate between north and south, so oscillate I do. It’s just my nature. All people don’t have the same needs.”

  “Perhaps not,” said Aaron, who had risen and was sitting on the side of the bed.

  “I would very much like to try life in another continent, among another race. I feel Europe becoming like a cage to me. Europe may be all right in herself. But I find myself chafing. Another year I shall get out. I shall leave Europe. I begin to feel caged.”

  “I guess there are others that feel caged, as well as you,” said Aaron.

  “I guess there are.”

  “And maybe they haven’t a chance to get out.”

  Lilly was silent a moment. Then he said:

  “Well, I didn’t make life and society. I can only go my own way.”

  Aaron too was silent. A deep disappointment was settling over his spirit.

  “Will you be alone all winter?”

  “Just myself and Tanny,” he answered. “But people always turn up.”

  “And then next year, what will you do?”

  “Who knows? I may sail far off. I should like to. I should like to try quite a new life-mode. This is finished in me — and yet perhaps it is absurd to go further. I’m rather sick of seekers. I hate a seeker.”

  “What,” said Aaron rather sarcastically — ”those who are looking for a new religion?”

  “Religion — and love — and all that. It’s a disease now.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” said Aaron. “Perhaps the lack of love and religion is the disease.”

  “Ah — bah! The grinding the old millstones of love and God is what ails us, when there’s no more grist between the stones. We’ve ground love very small. Time to forget it. Forget the very words religion, and God, and love — then have a shot at a new mode. But the very words rivet us down and don’t let us move. Rivets, and we can’t get them out.”

  “And where should we be if we could?” said Aaron.

  “We might begin to be ourselves, anyhow.”

  “And what does that mean?” said Aaron. “Being yourself — what does it mean?”

  “To me, everything.”

  “And to most folks, nothing. They’ve got to have a goal.”

  “There is no goal. I loathe goals more than any other impertinence. Gaols, they are. Bah — jails and jailers, gaols and gaolers — -”

  “Wherever you go, you’ll find people with their noses tied to some goal,” said Aaron.

  “Their wagon hitched to a star — which goes round and round like an ass in a gin,” laughed Lilly. “Be damned to it.”

  Aaron got himself dressed, and the two men went out, took a tram and went into the country. Aaron could not help it — Lilly put his back up. They came to a little inn near a bridge, where a broad stream rustled bright and shallow. It was a sunny warm day, and Aaron and Lilly had a table outside under the thin trees at the top of the bank above the river. The yellow leaves were falling — the Tuscan sky was turquoise blue. In the stream below three naked boys still adventurously bathed, and lay flat on the shingle in the sun. A wagon with two pale, loving, velvety oxen drew slowly down the hill, looking at each step as if they were going to come to rest, to move no more. But still they stepped forward. Till they came to the inn, and there they stood at rest. Two old women were picking the last acorns under three scrubby oak-trees, whilst a girl with bare feet drove her two goats and a sheep up from the water-side towards the women. The girl wore a dress that had been blue, perhaps indigo, but which had faded to the beautiful lavender-purple colour which is so common, and which always reminded Lilly of purple anemones in the south.

  The two friends sat in the sun and drank red wine. It was midday. From the thin, square belfry on the opposite hill the bells had rung. The old women and the girl squatted under the trees, eating their bread and figs. The boys were dressing, fluttering into their shirts on the stream’s shingle. A big girl went past, with somebody’s dinner tied in a red kerchief and perched on her head. It was one of the most precious hours: the hour of pause, noon, and the sun, and the quiet acceptance of the world. At such a time everything seems to fall into a true relationship, after the strain of work and of urge.

  Aaron looked at Lilly, and saw the same odd, distant look on his face as on the face of some animal when it lies awake and alert, yet perfectly at one with its surroundings. It was something quite different from happiness: an alert enjoyment of rest, an intense and satisfying sense of centrality. As a dog when it basks in the sun with one eye open and winking: or a rabbit quite still and wide-eyed, with a faintly-twitching nose. Not passivity, but alert enjoyment of being central, life-central in one’s own little circumambient world.

  They sat thus still — or lay under the trees — for an hour and a half. Then Lilly paid the bill, and went on.

  “What am I going to do this winter, do you think?” Aaron asked.

  “What do you want to do?”

  “Nay, that’s what I want to know.”

  “Do you want anything? I mean, does something drive you from inside?”

  “I can’t just rest,” said Aaron.

  “Can’t you settle down to something? — to a job, for instance?”

  “I’ve not found the job I could settle down to, yet,” said Aaron.

  “Why not?”

  “It’s just my nature.”

  “Are you a seeker? Have you got a divine urge, or need?”

  “How do I know?” laughed Aaro
n. “Perhaps I’ve got a DAMNED urge, at the bottom of me. I’m sure it’s nothing divine.”

  “Very well then. Now, in life, there are only two great dynamic urges — do you believe me — ?”

  “How do I know?” laughed Aaron. “Do you want to be believed?”

  “No, I don’t care a straw. Only for your own sake, you’d better believe me.”

  “All right then — what about it?”

  “Well, then, there are only two great dynamic urges in LIFE: love and power.”

  “Love and power?” said Aaron. “I don’t see power as so very important.”

  “You don’t see because you don’t look. But that’s not the point. What sort of urge is your urge? Is it the love urge?”

  “I don’t know,” said Aaron.

  “Yes, you do. You know that you have got an urge, don’t you?”

  “Yes — ” rather unwillingly Aaron admitted it.

  “Well then, what is it? Is it that you want to love, or to be obeyed?”

  “A bit of both.”

  “All right — a bit of both. And what are you looking for in love? — A woman whom you can love, and who will love you, out and out and all in all and happy ever after sort of thing?”

  “That’s what I started out for, perhaps,” laughed Aaron.

  “And now you know it’s all my eye!” Aaron looked at Lilly, unwilling to admit it. Lilly began to laugh.

  “You know it well enough,” he said. “It’s one of your lost illusions, my boy. Well, then, what next? Is it a God you’re after? Do you want a God you can strive to and attain, through love, and live happy ever after, countless millions of eternities, immortality and all that? Is this your little dodge?”

  Again Aaron looked at Lilly with that odd double look of mockery and unwillingness to give himself away.

  “All right then. You’ve got a love-urge that urges you to God; have you? Then go and join the Buddhists in Burmah, or the newest fangled Christians in Europe. Go and stick your head in a bush of Nirvana or spiritual perfection. Trot off.”

  “I won’t,” said Aaron.