Sons and Lovers - Daimon Club

with Leonard and Annie. She would meet her own boy.
"Don't forget that bread, our Paul," cried Annie.
"Good-night, Miriam. I don't think it will rain."
When they had all gone, Paul fetched the swathed loaf,
unwrapped it, and surveyed it sadly.
"It's a mess!" he said.
"But," answered Miriam impatiently, "what is it,
after all--twopence, ha'penny."
"Yes, but--it's the mater's precious baking, and she'll take
it to heart. However, it's no good bothering."
He took the loaf back into the scullery. There was a little
distance between him and Miriam. He stood balanced opposite her for
some moments considering, thinking of his behaviour with Beatrice.
He felt guilty inside himself, and yet glad. For some inscrutable
reason it served Miriam right. He was not going to repent.
She wondered what he was thinking of as he stood suspended.
His thick hair was tumbled over his forehead. Why might she not
push it back for him, and remove the marks of Beatrice's comb?
Why might she not press his body with her two hands. It looked
so firm, and every whit living. And he would let other girls,
why not her?
Suddenly he started into life. It made her quiver almost
with terror as he quickly pushed the hair off his forehead and came
towards her.
"Half-past eight!" he said. "We'd better buck up.
Where's your French?"
Miriam shyly and rather bitterly produced her exercise-book.
Every week she wrote for him a sort of diary of her inner life,
in her own French. He had found this was the only way to get her
to do compositions. And her diary was mostly a love-letter. He
would read it now; she felt as if her soul's history were going
to be desecrated by him in his present mood. He sat beside her.
She watched his hand, firm and warm, rigorously scoring her work.
He was reading only the French, ignoring her soul that was there.
But gradually his hand forgot its work. He read in silence, motionless.
She quivered.
"'Ce matin les oiseaux m'ont eveille,'" he read. "'Il faisait
encore un crepuscule. Mais la petite fenetre de ma chambre etait bleme,
et puis, jaune, et tous les oiseaux du bois eclaterent dans un chanson
vif et resonnant. Toute l'aube tressaillit. J'avais reve de vous.