Любовник леди Чаттерлей / Lady Chatterley's Lover. Дэвид Герберт ЛоуренсЧитать онлайн книгу.
I altogether a lonely bird?’ he asked, with his queer grin of a smile.
‘Why?’ she said, as she looked at him. ‘You are, aren’t you?’
She felt a terrible appeal coming to her from him that made her almost lose her balance.
‘Oh, you’re quite right!’ he said, turning his head away, and looking sideways, downwards.
He looked up at her with the full glance that saw everything, registered everything.
‘It’s awfully nice of you to think of me,’ he said laconically.
‘Why shouldn’t I think of you?’ she exclaimed.
He gave the quick laugh.
‘Oh, in that way!..May I hold your hand for a minute?’ he asked suddenly, fixing his eyes on her with almost hypnotic power, and sending out an appeal that affected her directly.
She stared at him, and he went over and kneeled beside her, and took her two feet close in his two hands, and buried his face in her lap, remaining motionless. She was perfectly shocked, looking down in a sort of amazement at the back of his neck, feeling his face pressing her thighs. She could not help putting her hand, with tenderness and compassion, on the defenceless back of his neck, and he trembled.
Then he looked up at her with that awful appeal in his glowing eyes. She was utterly incapable of resisting it; she must give him anything, anything.
He was a very gentle lover, very gentle with the woman, and yet at the same time aware of every sound outside.
To her it meant nothing except that she gave herself to him. And at length he ceased to quiver any more, and lay quite still. Then, she stroked his head that lay on her breast.
When he rose, he kissed both her hands, then both her feet, and in silence went away to the end of the room, where he stood with his back to her. There was silence for some minutes. Then he turned and came to her again as she sat in her old place by the fire.
‘And now, I suppose you’ll hate me!’ he said in a quiet way. She looked up at him quickly.
‘Why should I?’ she asked.
‘They mostly do,’ he said; then he caught himself up. ‘I mean…a woman is supposed to.’
‘This is the last moment when I ought to hate you,’ she said.
‘I know! It should be so! You’re frightfully good to me…’ he cried miserably.
She wondered why he should be miserable. ‘Won’t you sit down again?’ she said. He glanced at the door.
‘Sir Clifford!’ he said, ‘won’t he…won’t he be…?’
She paused a moment to consider. ‘Perhaps!’ she said. And she looked up at him. ‘I don’t want Clifford to know not even to suspect. It would hurt him so much. But I don’t think it’s wrong, do you?’
‘Wrong! Good God, no! You’re only too good to me…I can hardly bear it.’
He turned aside, and she saw that in another moment he would be sobbing.
‘But we needn’t let Clifford know, need we?’ she pleaded. ‘It would hurt him so. And if he never knows, never suspects, it hurts nobody.’
‘Me!’ he said, almost fiercely; ‘he’ll know nothing from me! You see if he does. Me give myself away! Ha! Ha!’ he laughed cynically, at such an idea. She watched him in wonder. He said to her: ‘May I kiss your hand and go? I’ll run into Shefifeld I think, and lunch there, if I may, and be back to tea. May I do anything for you? May I be sure you don’t hate me? – and that you won’t?’—he ended desperately.
‘No, I don’t hate you,’ she said. ‘I think you’re nice.’
‘Ah!’ he said to her, ‘I’d rather you said that to me than said you love me[19]! It means such a lot more…Till afternoon then. I’ve plenty to think about till then.’ He kissed her hands humbly and was gone.
‘I don’t think I can stand that young man,’ said Clifford at lunch.
‘Why?’ asked Connie.
‘He’s such a bounder underneath his veneer.’
‘I think people have been so unkind to him,’ said Connie.
‘Do you wonder? And do you think he wastes time doing deeds of kindness?’
‘I think he has a certain sort of generosity.’
‘Towards whom?’
‘I don’t quite know.’
‘Naturally you don’t. I’m afraid you mistake unscrupulousness for generosity.[20]’
Connie paused. Did she? It was just possible. In his way Michaelis had conquered the world, which was what Clifford wanted to do. Ways and means…? The goddess of Success was hunted by thousands of dogs. The one that got her first was the real dog among dogs, if you go by success! So Michaelis could keep his tail up[21].
Which he didn’t. He came back towards tea-time with a large handful of violets and lilies, and the same sad expression. Connie wondered sometimes if it were a sort of mask, because it was almost too fixed. Was he really such a sad dog?
Connie was in love with him, but she managed to sit with her embroidery and let the men talk, and not give herself away. As for Michaelis, he was perfect; exactly the same melancholic, attentive young fellow of the previous evening. Connie felt he must have forgotten the morning. He had not forgotten. But he knew where he was…in the same old place outside.
He didn’t take the love-making altogether personally. He knew it would not change him from an ownerless dog into a comfortable society dog. His isolation was a necessity to him; just as the mixing-in with the smart people was also a necessity.
But occasional love, as a comfort and soothing, was also a good thing, and he was not ungrateful. On the contrary, he was very grateful for a piece of natural, spontaneous kindness: almost to tears. His child’s soul was sobbing with gratitude to the woman, and burning to come to her again.
He found an opportunity to say to her, as they were lighting the candles in the hall:
‘May I come?’
‘I’ll come to you,’ she said.
‘Oh, good!’
He waited for her a long time…but she came.
He was the trembling excited sort of lover, whose crisis soon came, and was finished. There was something curiously childlike and defenceless about his naked body: as children are naked. He roused in the woman a wild sort of compassion and yearning, and a wild physical desire. The physical desire he did not satisfy in her; he was always come and finished so quickly, while she lay disappointed, lost.
But then she soon learnt to hold him, to keep him there inside her when his crisis was over. And there he was generous and curiously potent; he stayed firm inside her, while she was active… wildly, passionately active, coming to her own crisis. And as he felt her achieving her own satisfaction, he had a curious sense of pride.
‘Ah, how good!’ she whispered, and she became quite still, clinging to him. And he lay there in his own isolation, but somehow proud.
He stayed that time only the three days, and to Clifford was exactly the same as on the first evening; to Connie also.
He wrote to Connie with the same melancholy note as ever, sometimes witty. A kind of hopeless affection
Хорошо, что вы не сказали, что любите меня!
Боюсь, ты принимаешь беспринципность за благородство.
мог не унывать