Page 297 - lady-chatterlys-lover

at Butterley because I thought I was a weed, clerking there:
and I got on as overhead blacksmith at Tevershall: shoe-
ing horses mostly. It had been my dad’s job, and I’d always
been with him. It was a job I liked: handling horses: and it
came natural to me. So I stopped talking ‘’fine’’, as they call
it, talking proper English, and went back to talking broad.
I still read books, at home: but I blacksmithed and had a
pony-trap of my own, and was My Lord Duckfoot. My dad
left me three hundred pounds when he died. So I took on
with Bertha, and I was glad she was common. I wanted her
to be common. I wanted to be common myself. Well, I mar-
ried her, and she wasn’t bad. Those other ‘’pure’’ women had
nearly taken all the balls out of me, but she was all right that
way. She wanted me, and made no bones about it. And I was
as pleased as punch. That was what I wanted: a woman who
WANTED me to fuck her. So I fucked her like a good un.
And I think she despised me a bit, for being so pleased about
it, and bringin’ her her breakfast in bed sometimes. She sort
of let things go, didn’t get me a proper dinner when I came
home from work, and if I said anything, flew out at me. And
I flew back, hammer and tongs. She flung a cup at me and I
took her by the scruff of the neck and squeezed the life out
of her. That sort of thing! But she treated me with insolence.
And she got so’s she’d never have me when I wanted her:
never. Always put me off, brutal as you like. And then when
she’d put me right off, and I didn’t want her, she’d come all
lovey-dovey, and get me. And I always went. But when I had
her, she’d never come off when I did. Never! She’d just wait.
If I kept back for half an hour, she’d keep back longer. And

Lady Chatterly’s Lover