Page 386 - lady-chatterlys-lover

of the great oar. He was a man as Mellors was a man, un-
prostituted. Connie pitied the wife of the easily-overflowing
Giovanni. But Daniele’s wife would be one of those sweet
Venetian women of the people whom one still sees, modest
and flower-like in the back of that labyrinth of a town.
Ah, how sad that man first prostitutes woman, then
woman prostitutes man. Giovanni was pining to prostitute
himself, dribbling like a dog, wanting to give himself to a
woman. And for money!
Connie looked at Venice far off, low and rose-coloured
upon the water. Built of money, blossomed of money, and
dead with money. The money-deadness! Money, money,
money, prostitution and deadness.
Yet Daniele was still a man capable of a man’s free al-
legiance. He did not wear the gondolier’s blouse: only the
knitted blue jersey. He was a little wild, uncouth and proud.
So he was hireling to the rather doggy Giovanni who was
hireling again to two women. So it is! When Jesus refused
the devil’s money, he left the devil like a Jewish banker,
master of the whole situation.
Connie would come home from the blazing light of the
lagoon in a kind of stupor, to lind letters from home. Clif-
ford wrote regularly. He wrote very good letters: they might
all have been printed in a book. And for this reason Connie
found them not very interesting.
She lived in the stupor of the light of the lagoon, the lap-
ping saltiness of the water, the space, the emptiness, the
nothingness: but health, health, complete stupor of health.
It was gratifying, and she was lulled away in it, not caring