Page 97 - sons-and-lovers

The sense of his sitting in all his pit-dirt, drinking, after a
long day’s work, not coming home and eating and wash-
ing, but sitting, getting drunk, on an empty stomach, made
Mrs. Morel unable to bear herself. From her the feeling was
transmitted to the other children. She never suffered alone
any more: the children suffered with her.
Paul went out to play with the rest. Down in the great
trough of twilight, tiny clusters of lights burned where
the pits were. A few last colliers straggled up the dim field
path. The lamplighter came along. No more colliers came.
Darkness shut down over the valley; work was done. It was
night.
Then Paul ran anxiously into the kitchen. The one candle
still burned on the table, the big fire glowed red. Mrs. Morel
sat alone. On the hob the saucepan steamed; the dinner-
plate lay waiting on the table. All the room was full of the
sense of waiting, waiting for the man who was sitting in his
pit-dirt, dinnerless, some mile away from home, across the
darkness, drinking himself drunk. Paul stood in the door-
way.
‘Has my dad come?’ he asked.
‘You can see he hasn’t,’ said Mrs. Morel, cross with the
futility of the question.
Then the boy dawdled about near his mother. They
shared the same anxiety. Presently Mrs. Morel went out and
strained the potatoes.
‘They’re ruined and black,’ she said; ‘but what do I
care?’
Not many words were spoken. Paul almost hated his

Sons and Lovers