Women in Love (Barnes & Noble Classics S - D. H. Lawrence [55]
“He’s very dirty,” said the young Russian swiftly and silently.
Directly, the man appeared in the doorway.
“What is it?” said Halliday.
The Hindu grinned, and murmured shyly:
“Want to speak to master.”
Gerald watched curiously. The fellow in the doorway was good-looking and clean-limbed, his bearing was calm, he looked elegant, aristocratic. Yet he was half a savage, grinning foolishly. Halliday went out into the corridor to speak with him.
“What?” they heard his voice. “What? What do you say? Tell me again. What? Want money? Want more money? But what do you want money for?” There was the confused sound of the Hindu’s talking, then Halliday appeared in the room, smiling also foolishly, and saying:
“He says he wants money to buy underclothing. Can anybody lend me a shilling? Oh thanks, a shilling will do to buy all the underclothes he wants.” He took the money from Gerald and went out into the passage again, where they heard him saying, “You can’t want more money, you had three and six yesterday. You mustn’t ask for any more. Bring the tea in quickly.”
Gerald looked round the room. It was an ordinary London sitting-room in a flat, evidently taken furnished, rather common and ugly. But there were several negro statues, wood-carvings from West Africa, strange and disturbing,3 the carved negroes looked almost like the foetus of a human being. One was a woman sitting naked in a strange posture, and looking tortured, her abdomen stuck out. The young Russian explained that she was sitting in child-birth, clutching the ends of the band that hung from her neck, one in each hand, so that she could bear down, and help labour. The strange, transfixed, rudimentary face of the woman again reminded Gerald of a foetus, it was also rather wonderful, conveying the suggestion of the extreme of physical sensation, beyond the limits of mental consciousness.
“Aren’t they rather obscene?” he asked, disapproving.
“I don’t know,” murmured the other rapidly. “I have never defined the obscene. I think they are very good.”
Gerald turned away. There were one or two new pictures in the room, in the Futuristx manner; there was a large piano. And these, with some ordinary London lodging-house furniture of the better sort, completed the whole.
The Pussum had taken off her hat and coat, and was seated on the sofa. She was evidently quite at home in the house, but uncertain, suspended. She did not quite know her position. Her alliance for the time being was with Gerald, and she did not know how far this was admitted by any of the men. She was considering how she should carry off the situation. She was determined to have her experience. Now, at this eleventh hour, she was not to be baulked. Her face was flushed as with battle, her eye was brooding but inevitable.
The man came in with tea and a bottle of Kümmel. He set the tray on a little table before the couch.
“Pussum,” said Halliday, “pour out the tea.”
She did not move.
“Won’t you do it?” Halliday repeated, in a state of nervous apprehension.
“I’ve not come back here as it was before,” she said. “I only came because the others wanted me to, not for your sake.”
“My dear Pussum, you know you are your own mistress. I don’t want you to do anything but use the flat for your own convenience—you know it, I’ve told you so many times.”
She did not reply, but silently, reservedly reached for the tea-pot. They all sat round and drank tea. Gerald could feel the electric connection between him and her so strongly, as she sat there quiet and withheld, that another set of conditions altogether had come to pass. Her silence and her immutability perplexed him. How was he going to come to her? And yet he felt it quite inevitable. He trusted completely to the current that held them. His perplexity was only superficial, new conditions reigned, the old were surpassed; here one did as one was possessed to do, no matter what it was.
Birkin rose. It was nearly one o.’clock.