第95章

In the short summer night she learnt so much.She would have thought a woman would have died of shame.Instead of which,the shame died.Shame,which is fear:the deep Organic shame,the old,old physical fear which crouches in the bodily roots of us,and can only be chased away by the sensual fire,at last it was roused up and routed by the phallic hunt of the man,and she came to the very heart of the jungle of herself.She felt,now,she had come to the real bed-rock of her nature,and was essentially shameless.She was her sensual self,naked and unashamed.She felt a triumph,almost a vainglory.So!That was how it was!That was life!That was how oneself really was!There was nothing left to disguise or be ashamed of.

She shared her ultimate nakedness with a man,another being.

And what a reckless devil the man was!really like a devil!One had to be strong to bear him.But it took some getting at,the core of the physical jungle,the last and deepest recess of organic shame.The phallos alone could explore it.And how he had pressed in on her!

And how,in fear,she had hated it.But how she had really wanted it!

She knew now.At the bottom of her soul,fundamentally,she had needed this phallic hunting Out,she had secretly wanted it,and she had believed that she would never get it.Now suddenly there it was,and a man was sharing her last and final nakedness,she was shameless.

What liars poets and everybody were!They made one think one wanted sentiment.When what one supremely wanted was this piercing,consuming,rather awful sensuality.To find a man who dared do it,without shame or sin or final misgiving!If he had been ashamed afterwards,and made one feel ashamed,how awful!What a pity most men are so doggy,a bit shameful,like Clifford!Like Michaelis even!Both sensually a bit doggy and humiliating.

The supreme pleasure of the mind!And what is that to a woman?What is it,really,to the man either!He becomes merely messy and doggy,even in his mind.It needs sheer sensuality even to purify and quicken the mind.

Sheer fiery sensuality,not messiness.

Ah,God,how rare a thing a man is!They are all dogs that trot and sniff and copulate.To have found a man who was not afraid and not ashamed!

She looked at him now,sleeping so like a wild animal asleep,gone,gone in the remoteness of it.She nestled down,not to be away from him.

Till his rousing waked her completely.He was sitting up in bed,looking down at her.She saw her own nakedness in his eyes,immediate knowledge of her.And the fluid,male knowledge of herself seemed to flow to her from his eyes and wrap her voluptuously.Oh,how voluptuous and lovely it was to have limbs and body half-asleep,heavy and suffused with passion.

'Is it time to wake up?'she said.

'Half past six.'

She had to be at the lane-end at eight.Always,always,always this compulsion on one!

'I might make the breakfast and bring it up here;should I?'he said.

'Oh yes!'

Flossie whimpered gently below.He got up and threw off his pyjamas,and rubbed himself with a towel.When the human being is full of courage and full of life,how beautiful it is!So she thought,as she watched him in silence.

'Draw the curtain,will you?'

The sun was shining already on the tender green leaves of morning,and the wood stood bluey-fresh,in the nearness.She sat up in bed,looking dreamily out through the dormer window,her naked arms pushing her naked breasts together.He was dressing himself.She was half-dreaming of life,a life together with him:just a life.

He was going,fleeing from her dangerous,crouching nakedness.

'Have I lost my nightie altogether?'she said.

He pushed his hand down in the bed,and pulled out the bit of flimsy silk.

'I knowed I felt silk at my ankles,'he said.

But the night-dress was slit almost in two.

'Never mind!'she said.'It belongs here,really.I'll leave it.'

'Ay,leave it,I can put it between my legs at night,for company.There's no name nor mark on it,is there?'

She slipped on the torn thing,and sat dreamily looking out of the window.

The window was Open,the air of morning drifted in,and the sound of birds.

Birds flew continuously past.Then she saw Flossie roaming out.It was morning.

Downstairs she heard him making the fire,pumping water,going out at the back door.By and by came the smell of bacon,and at length he came upstairs with a huge black tray that would only just go through the door.

He set the tray on the bed,and poured out the tea.Connie squatted in her torn nightdress,and fell on her food hungrily.He sat on the one chair,with his plate on his knees.