Page 208 - lady-chatterlys-lover

to care about the halfpence and the small things of life. But
among the common people there was no pretence. A penny
more or less on the bacon was worse than a change in the
Gospel. He could not stand it.
And again, there was the wage-squabble. Having lived
among the owning classes, he knew the utter futility of ex-
pecting any solution of the wage-squabble. There was no
solution, short of death. The only thing was not to care, not
to care about the wages.
Yet, if you were poor and wretched you HAD to care.
Anyhow, it was becoming the only thing they did care
about. The CARE about money was like a great cancer, eat-
ing away the individuals of all classes. He refused to CARE
about money.
And what then? What did life offer apart from the care
of money? Nothing.
Yet he could live alone, in the wan satisfaction of being
alone, and raise pheasants to be shot ultimately by fat men
after breakfast. It was futility, futility to the NTH power.
But why care, why bother? And he had not cared nor
bothered till now, when this woman had come into his life.
He was nearly ten years older than she. And he was a thou-
sand years older in experience, starting from the bottom.
The connexion between them was growing closer. He could
see the day when it would clinch up and they would have to
make a life together. ‘For the bonds of love are ill to loose!’
And what then? What then? Must he start again, with
nothing to start on? Must he entangle this woman? Must
he have the horrible broil with her lame husband? And also

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