Sons and Lovers (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) by D. H. Lawrence Read Free Book Online Page A

But they stop to have their pint at Ellen‘s, an’ they get talkin’, an’ there you are! Dinner stone cold—an’ it serves ’em right.”
    “But Mr. Morel does not take any drink.”
    The woman dropped the clothes, looked at Mrs. Morel, then went on with her work, saying nothing.
    Gertrude Morel was very ill when the boy was born. Morel was good to her, as good as gold. But she felt very lonely, miles away from her own people. She felt lonely with him now, and his presence only made it more intense.
    The boy was small and frail at first, but he came on quickly. He was a beautiful child, with dark gold ringlets, and dark-blue eyes which changed gradually to a clear grey. His mother loved him passionately. He came just when her own bitterness of disillusion was hardest to bear; when her faith in life was shaken, and her soul felt dreary and lonely. She made much of the child, and the father was jealous.
    At last Mrs. Morel despised her husband. She turned to the child; she turned from the father. He had begun to neglect her; the novelty of his own home was gone. He had no grit, she said bitterly to herself. What he felt just at the minute, that was all to him. He could not abide by anything. There was nothing at the back of all his show.
    There began a battle between the husband and wife—a fearful, bloody battle that ended only with the death of one. She fought to make him undertake his own responsibilities, to make him fulfil his obligations. But he was too different from her. His nature was purely sensuous, and she strove to make him moral, religious. She tried to force him to face things. He could not endure it—it drove him out of his mind.
    While the baby was still tiny, the father’s temper had become so irritable that it was not to be trusted. The child had only to give a little trouble when the man began to bully. A little more, and the hard hands of the collier hit the baby. Then Mrs. Morel loathed her husband, loathed him for days; and he went out and drank; and she cared very little what he did. Only, on his return, she scathed him with her satire.
    The estrangement between them caused him, knowingly or unknowingly, grossly to offend her where he would not have done.
    William was only one year old, and his mother was proud of him, he was so pretty. She was not well off now, but her sisters kept the boy in clothes. Then, with his little white hat curled with an ostrich feather, and his white coat, he was a joy to her, the twining wisps of hair clustering round his head. Mrs. Morel lay listening, one Sunday morning, to the chatter of the father and child downstairs. Then she dozed off. When she came downstairs, a great fire glowed in the grate, the room was hot, the breakfast was roughly laid, and seated in his arm-chair, against the chimney-piece, sat Morel, rather timid; and standing between his legs, the child—cropped like a sheep, with such an odd round poll—looking wondering at her; and on a newspaper spread out upon the hearthrug, a myriad of crescent-shaped curls, like the petals of a marigold scattered in the reddening firelight.
    Mrs. Morel stood still. It was her first baby. She went very white, and was unable to speak.
    “What dost think o”im?” Morel laughed uneasily.
    She gripped her two fists, lifted them, and came forward. Morel shrank back.
    “I could kill you, I could!” she said. She choked with rage, her two fists uplifted.
    “Yer non want ter make a wench on ’im,” Morel said, in a frightened tone, bending his head to shield his eyes from hers. His attempt at laughter had vanished.
    The mother looked down at the jagged, close-clipped head of her child. She put her hands on his hair, and stroked and fondled his head.
    “Oh—my boy!” she faltered. Her lip trembled, her face broke, and, snatching up the child, she buried her face in his shoulder and cried painfully. She was one of those women who cannot cry; whom it hurts as it hurts a man. It was like ripping something