Page 639 - sons-and-lovers

nity, she took his head to her bosom, and rocked him softly.
She was not to have him, then! So she could comfort him.
She put her fingers through his hair. For her, the anguished
sweetness of self-sacrifice. For him, the hate and misery of
another failure. He could not bear it—that breast which was
warm and which cradled him without taking the burden of
him. So much he wanted to rest on her that the feint of rest
only tortured him. He drew away.
‘And without marriage we can do nothing?’ he asked.
His mouth was lifted from his teeth with pain. She put
her little finger between her lips.
‘No,’ she said, low and like the toll of a bell. ‘No, I think
not.’
It was the end then between them. She could not take
him and relieve him of the responsibility of himself. She
could only sacrifice herself to him—sacrifice herself every
day, gladly. And that he did not want. He wanted her to hold
him and say, with joy and authority: ‘Stop all this restless-
ness and beating against death. You are mine for a mate.’
She had not the strength. Or was it a mate she wanted? or
did she want a Christ in him?
He felt, in leaving her, he was defrauding her of life. But
he knew that, in staying, stilling the inner, desperate man,
he was denying his own life. And he did not hope to give life
to her by denying his own.
She sat very quiet. He lit a cigarette. The smoke went up
from it, wavering. He was thinking of his mother, and had
forgotten Miriam. She suddenly looked at him. Her bitter-
ness came surging up. Her sacrifice, then, was useless. He

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