Page 175 - sons-and-lovers

had to plead her case with Polly.
So the time went along happily enough. The factory had
a homely feel. No one was rushed or driven. Paul always
enjoyed it when the work got faster, towards post-time, and
all the men united in labour. He liked to watch his fellow-
clerks at work. The man was the work and the work was the
man, one thing, for the time being. It was different with the
girls. The real woman never seemed to be there at the task,
but as if left out, waiting.
From the train going home at night he used to watch the
lights of the town, sprinkled thick on the hills, fusing to-
gether in a blaze in the valleys. He felt rich in life and happy.
Drawing farther off, there was a patch of lights at Bulwell
like myriad petals shaken to the ground from the shed stars;
and beyond was the red glare of the furnaces, playing like
hot breath on the clouds.
He had to walk two and more miles from Keston home,
up two long hills, down two short hills. He was often tired,
and he counted the lamps climbing the hill above him, how
many more to pass. And from the hilltop, on pitch-dark
nights, he looked round on the villages five or six miles away,
that shone like swarms of glittering living things, almost a
heaven against his feet. Marlpool and Heanor scattered the
far-off darkness with brilliance. And occasionally the black
valley space between was traced, violated by a great train
rushing south to London or north to Scotland. The trains
roared by like projectiles level on the darkness, fuming and
burning, making the valley clang with their passage. They
were gone, and the lights of the towns and villages glittered

1 Sons and Lovers