Sons and Lovers - Daimon Club

And again he laughed, in a way that tortured Miriam.
"And I KNEW you couldn't jump that heap," he teased.
She turned her back on him. Yet everybody could see that
the only person she listened to, or was conscious of, was he,
and he of her. It pleased the men to see this battle between them.
But Miriam was tortured.
Paul could choose the lesser in place of the higher, she saw.
He could be unfaithful to himself, unfaithful to the real,
deep Paul Morel. There was a danger of his becoming frivolous, of his
running after his satisfaction like any Arthur, or like his father.
It made Miriam bitter to think that he should throw away his soul
for this flippant traffic of triviality with Clara. She walked
in bitterness and silence, while the other two rallied each other,
and Paul sported.
And afterwards, he would not own it, but he was rather
ashamed of himself, and prostrated himself before Miriam.
Then again he rebelled.
"It's not religious to be religious," he said. "I reckon
a crow is religious when it sails across the sky. But it only
does it because it feels itself carried to where it's going,
not because it thinks it is being eternal."
But Miriam knew that one should be religious in everything,
have God, whatever God might be, present in everything.
"I don't believe God knows such a lot about Himself,"
he cried. "God doesn't KNOW things, He IS things.
And I'm sure He's not soulful."
And then it seemed to her that Paul was arguing God on to his
own side, because he wanted his own way and his own pleasure.
There was a long battle between him and her. He was utterly
unfaithful to her even in her own presence; then he was ashamed,
then repentant; then he hated her, and went off again. Those were
the ever-recurring conditions.
She fretted him to the bottom of his soul. There she
remained--sad, pensive, a worshipper. And he caused her sorrow.
Half the time he grieved for her, half the time he hated her.
She was his conscience; and he felt, somehow, he had got a conscience
that was too much for him. He could not leave her, because in one
way she did hold the best of him. He could not stay with her
because she did not take the rest of him, which was three-quarters.
So he chafed himself into rawness over her.