Page 439 - sons-and-lovers

to crimson, and quickly the passion went out of the sky. All
the world was dark grey. Paul scrambled quickly down with
his basket, tearing his shirt-sleeve as he did so.
‘They are lovely,’ said Miriam, fingering the cherries.
‘I’ve torn my sleeve,’ he answered.
She took the three-cornered rip, saying:
‘I shall have to mend it.’ It was near the shoulder. She put
her fingers through the tear. ‘How warm!’ she said.
He laughed. There was a new, strange note in his voice,
one that made her pant.
‘Shall we stay out?’ he said.
‘Won’t it rain?’ she asked.
‘No, let us walk a little way.’
They went down the fields and into the thick plantation
of trees and pines.
‘Shall we go in among the trees?’ he asked.
‘Do you want to?’
‘Yes.’
It was very dark among the firs, and the sharp spines
pricked her face. She was afraid. Paul was silent and
strange.
‘I like the darkness,’ he said. ‘I wish it were thicker—
good, thick darkness.’
He seemed to be almost unaware of her as a person: she
was only to him then a woman. She was afraid.
He stood against a pine-tree trunk and took her in his
arms. She relinquished herself to him, but it was a sacri-
fice in which she felt something of horror. This thick-voiced,
oblivious man was a stranger to her.

Sons and Lovers