Sons and Lovers - Daimon Club

life lay outside their mother's house. They came home for holiday
and for rest. So there was that strange, half-empty feeling about
the house, as if the birds had flown. Paul became more and more
unsettled. Annie and Arthur had gone. He was restless to follow.
Yet home was for him beside his mother. And still there was
something else, something outside, something he wanted.
He grew more and more restless. Miriam did not satisfy him.
His old mad desire to be with her grew weaker. Sometimes he met
Clara in Nottingham, sometimes he went to meetings with her,
sometimes he saw her at Willey Farm. But on these last occasions
the situation became strained. There was a triangle of antagonism
between Paul and Clara and Miriam. With Clara he took on a smart,
worldly, mocking tone very antagonistic to Miriam. It did not
matter what went before. She might be intimate and sad with him.
Then as soon as Clara appeared, it all vanished, and he played to
the newcomer.
Miriam had one beautiful evening with him in the hay.
He had been on the horse-rake, and having finished, came to help
her to put the hay in cocks. Then he talked to her of his hopes
and despairs, and his whole soul seemed to lie bare before her.
She felt as if she watched the very quivering stuff of life in him.
The moon came out: they walked home together: he seemed to have
come to her because he needed her so badly, and she listened to him,
gave him all her love and her faith. It seemed to her he brought
her the best of himself to keep, and that she would guard it all
her life. Nay, the sky did not cherish the stars more surely and
eternally than she would guard the good in the soul of Paul Morel.
She went on home alone, feeling exalted, glad in her faith.
And then, the next day, Clara came. They were to have tea
in the hayfield. Miriam watched the evening drawing to gold
and shadow. And all the time Paul was sporting with Clara.
He made higher and higher heaps of hay that they were jumping over.
Miriam did not care for the game, and stood aside. Edgar and Geoffrey
and Maurice and Clara and Paul jumped. Paul won, because he
was light. Clara's blood was roused. She could run like an Amazon.
Paul loved the determined way she rushed at the hay-cock and leaped,
landed on the other side, her breasts shaken, her thick hair
come undone.
"You touched!" he cried. "You touched!"
"No!" she flashed, turning to Edgar. "I didn't touch, did I?
Wasn't I clear?"
"I couldn't say," laughed Edgar.
None of them could say.
"But you touched," said Paul. "You're beaten."