Sons and Lovers - Daimon Club

"And what seats are you going in?"
"Circle--three-and-six each!"
"Well, I'm sure!" exclaimed his mother sarcastically.
"It's only once in the bluest of blue moons," he said.
He dressed at Jordan's, put on an overcoat and a cap, and met
Clara in a cafe. She was with one of her suffragette friends.
She wore an old long coat, which did not suit her, and had a little wrap
over her head, which he hated. The three went to the theatre together.
Clara took off her coat on the stairs, and he discovered she
was in a sort of semi-evening dress, that left her arms and neck
and part of her breast bare. Her hair was done fashionably.
The dress, a simple thing of green crape, suited her. She looked
quite grand, he thought. He could see her figure inside the frock,
as if that were wrapped closely round her. The firmness and the
softness of her upright body could almost be felt as he looked at her.
He clenched his fists.
And he was to sit all the evening beside her beautiful naked arm,
watching the strong throat rise from the strong chest, watching the
breasts under the green stuff, the curve of her limbs in the tight dress.
Something in him hated her again for submitting him to this torture
of nearness. And he loved her as she balanced her head and stared
straight in front of her, pouting, wistful, immobile, as if she
yielded herself to her fate because it was too strong for her.
She could not help herself; she was in the grip of something
bigger than herself. A kind of eternal look about her, as if she
were a wistful sphinx, made it necessary for him to kiss her.
He dropped his programme, and crouched down on the floor to get it,
so that he could kiss her hand and wrist. Her beauty was a torture
to him. She sat immobile. Only, when the lights went down,
she sank a little against him, and he caressed her hand and arm
with his fingers. He could smell her faint perfume. All the time
his blood kept sweeping up in great white-hot waves that killed his
consciousness momentarily.
The drama continued. He saw it all in the distance, going on
somewhere; he did not know where, but it seemed far away inside him.
He was Clara's white heavy arms, her throat, her moving bosom.
That seemed to be himself. Then away somewhere the play went on,
and he was identified with that also. There was no himself.
The grey and black eyes of Clara, her bosom coming
down on him, her arm that he held gripped between his hands,
were all that existed. Then he felt himself small and helpless,
her towering in her force above him.
Only the intervals, when the lights came up, hurt him expressibly.
He wanted to run anywhere, so long as it would be dark again.