Page 267 - sons-and-lovers

of the soul, all thought and weary struggle into conscious-
ness, that he saw it only as a platonic friendship. He stoutly
denied there was anything else between them. Miriam was
silent, or else she very quietly agreed. He was a fool who did
not know what was happening to himself. By tacit agree-
ment they ignored the remarks and insinuations of their
acquaintances.
‘We aren’t lovers, we are friends,’ he said to her. ‘WE
know it. Let them talk. What does it matter what they say.’
Sometimes, as they were walking together, she slipped
her arm timidly into his. But he always resented it, and she
knew it. It caused a violent conflict in him. With Miriam
he was always on the high plane of abstraction, when his
natural fire of love was transmitted into the fine stream of
thought. She would have it so. If he were jolly and, as she
put it, flippant, she waited till he came back to her, till the
change had taken place in him again, and he was wrestling
with his own soul, frowning, passionate in his desire for
understanding. And in this passion for understanding her
soul lay close to his; she had him all to herself. But he must
be made abstract first.
Then, if she put her arm in his, it caused him almost tor-
ture. His consciousness seemed to split. The place where she
was touching him ran hot with friction. He was one inter-
necine battle, and he became cruel to her because of it.
One evening in midsummer Miriam called at the house,
warm from climbing. Paul was alone in the kitchen; his
mother could be heard moving about upstairs.
‘Come and look at the sweet-peas,’ he said to the girl.

Sons and Lovers