RELATIONS OF DOMINANCE AND EQUALITY IN D. H. LAWRENCE

vigorously his head and body implies the presence of a Nemesis,
a strong conscience reminding him of his guilt, his compulsion
to punish himself. So he drops asleep. That is, he consciously
wants punishment otherwise he would look for a place to hide
himself from the pain caused by being exposed to the sunlight.
Helena looks for shade, i.e., she does not want self-punishment.
(The curious thing is that in the beginning of the book, six
months after Siegmund's suicide, Helena has her arm inflamed
by the sun.
This inflammation, according to the narrative,
Helena has got in her holiday with Siegmund on the Isle of Wight).
Being exposed to the sun leads Helena to feel more guilty for
she thinks about the future as being beyond reach:
'No more sea, no more anything,' she thought
dazedly, as she sat in the midst of this fierce
welter of sunshine. It seemed to her as if all
the lightness of her fance and her hope were being
burned away in this tremendous furnace, leaving
her, Helena, like a heavy piece of slag seamed
with metal...
'It is impossible,' she said; 'it is impossible!
What shall I be when I come out of this? I shall
not come out, except as metal to be cast in another
shape. No more the same Siegmund, no more the
same life. What will become of us — what will
happen?' (p.92).
When Siegmund wakes up he tells Helena he is happy.
She,
although seeming very sad, decides not to spoil his mood of
sunny happiness, the happiness of a victim. Again they are
separate.
He does not notice her preoccupation and she does not
want to destroy his mood:
She saw him lying in a royal case, his eyes
naive as a boy's, his whole being careless.
Although very glad to see him thus happy, for
herself she felt very lonely. Being listless
with sun weariness, and heavy with a sense of
impending fate, she felt a great yearning for
his sympathy, his.fellow suffering. Instead
of receiving this, so as not to shrivel one
petal of his flower, or spoil one minute of
his consumate hour (p.93).