Page 425 - sons-and-lovers

‘How?’ asked Clara.
‘She seems to draw me and draw me, and she wouldn’t
leave a single hair of me free to fall out and blow away—
she’d keep it.’
‘But you like to be kept.’
‘No,’ he said, ‘I don’t. I wish it could be normal, give and
take— like me and you. I want a woman to keep me, but not
in her pocket.’
‘But if you love her, it couldn’t be normal, like me and
you.’
‘Yes; I should love her better then. She sort of wants me
so much that I can’t give myself.’
‘Wants you how?’
‘Wants the soul out of my body. I can’t help shrinking
back from her.’
‘And yet you love her!’
‘No, I don’t love her. I never even kiss her.’
‘Why not?’ Clara asked.
‘I don’t know.’
‘I suppose you’re afraid,’ she said.
‘I’m not. Something in me shrinks from her like hell—
she’s so good, when I’m not good.’
‘How do you know what she is?’
‘I do! I know she wants a sort of soul union.’
‘But how do you know what she wants?’
‘I’ve been with her for seven years.’
‘And you haven’t found out the very first thing about
her.’
‘What’s that?’

Sons and Lovers