Page 367 - lady-chatterlys-lover

What liars poets and everybody were! They made one
think one wanted sentiment. When what one supremely
wanted was this piercing, consuming, rather awful sen-
suality. To find a man who dared do it, without shame or
sin or final misgiving! If he had been ashamed afterwards,
and made one feel ashamed, how awful! What a pity most
men are so doggy, a bit shameful, like Clifford! Like Mi-
chaelis even! Both sensually a bit doggy and humiliating.
The supreme pleasure of the mind! And what is that to a
woman? What is it, really, to the man either! He becomes
merely messy and doggy, even in his mind. It needs sheer
sensuality even to purify and quicken the mind. Sheer fiery
sensuality, not messiness.
Ah, God, how rare a thing a man is! They are all dogs
that trot and sniff and copulate. To have found a man who
was not afraid and not ashamed! She looked at him now,
sleeping so like a wild animal asleep, gone, gone in the re-
moteness of it. She nestled down, not to be away from him.
Till his rousing waked her completely. He was sitting up
in bed, looking down at her. She saw her own nakedness in
his eyes, immediate knowledge of her. And the fluid, male
knowledge of herself seemed to flow to her from his eyes
and wrap her voluptuously. Oh, how voluptuous and lovely
it was to have limbs and body half-asleep, heavy and suf-
fused with passion.
’Is it time to wake up?’ she said.
’Half past six.’
She had to be at the lane-end at eight. Always, always, al-
ways this compulsion on one!

Lady Chatterly’s Lover