Page 210 - lady-chatterlys-lover

sound save the noise, the faint shuffling noise from Stacks
Gate colliery, that never ceased working: and there were
hardly any lights, save the brilliant electric rows at the
works. The world lay darkly and fumily sleeping. It was half
past two. But even in its sleep it was an uneasy, cruel world,
stirring with the noise of a train or some great lorry on the
road, and flashing with some rosy lightning flash from the
furnaces. It was a world of iron and coal, the cruelty of iron
and the smoke of coal, and the endless, endless greed that
drove it all. Only greed, greed stirring in its sleep.
It was cold, and he was coughing. A fine cold draught
blew over the knoll. He thought of the woman. Now he
would have given all he had or ever might have to hold her
warm in his arms, both of them wrapped in one blanket,
and sleep. All hopes of eternity and all gain from the past
he would have given to have her there, to be wrapped warm
with him in one blanket, and sleep, only sleep. It seemed the
sleep with the woman in his arms was the only necessity.
He went to the hut, and wrapped himself in the blanket
and lay on the floor to sleep. But he could not, he was cold.
And besides, he felt cruelly his own unfinished nature. He
felt his own unfinished condition of aloneness cruelly. He
wanted her, to touch her, to hold her fast against him in one
moment of completeness and sleep.
He got up again and went out, towards the park gates
this time: then slowly along the path towards the house. It
was nearly four o’clock, still clear and cold, but no sign of
dawn. He was used to the dark, he could see well.
Slowly, slowly the great house drew him, as a magnet. He

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