Page 320 - lady-chatterlys-lover

I was with him. I sort of let him run my life. And I never
regret it.’
’And did you mind very much when he died?’
’I was as near death myself. But when I came to, I knew
another part of me was finished. But then I had always
known it would finish in death. All things do, as far as that
goes.’
She sat and ruminated. The thunder crashed outside. It
was like being in a little ark in the Flood.
’You seem to have such a lot BEHIND you,’ she said.
’Do I? It seems to me I’ve died once or twice already. Yet
here I am, pegging on, and in for more trouble.’
She was thinking hard, yet listening to the storm.
’And weren’t you happy as an officer and a gentleman,
when your Colonel was dead?’
’No! They were a mingy lot.’ He laughed suddenly. ‘The
Colonel used to say: Lad, the English middle classes have
to chew every mouthful thirty times because their guts are
so narrow, a bit as big as a pea would give them a stoppage.
They’re the mingiest set of ladylike snipe ever invented: full
of conceit of themselves, frightened even if their boot-laces
aren’t correct, rotten as high game, and always in the right.
That’s what finishes me up. Kow-tow, kow-tow, arse-licking
till their tongues are tough: yet they’re always in the right.
Prigs on top of everything. Prigs! A generation of ladylike
prigs with half a ball each—’
Connie laughed. The rain was rushing down.
’He hated them!’
’No,’ said he. ‘He didn’t bother. He just disliked them.

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