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Lady Chatterlys Lover PDF
Lady Chatterlys Lover PDF
By D. H. Lawrence
’Why don’t men and women really like one another nowa-
days?’ Connie asked Tommy Dukes, who was more or less
her oracle.
’Oh, but they do! I don’t think since the human species
was invented, there has ever been a time when men and
women have liked one another as much as they do today.
Genuine liking! Take myself. I really like women better than
men; they are braver, one can be more frank with them.’
Connie pondered this.
’Ah, yes, but you never have anything to do with them!’
she said.
’I? What am I doing but talking perfectly sincerely to a
woman at this moment?’
’Yes, talking...’
’And what more could I do if you were a man, than talk
perfectly sincerely to you?’
’Nothing perhaps. But a woman...’
’A woman wants you to like her and talk to her, and at the
same time love her and desire her; and it seems to me the
two things are mutually exclusive.’
’But they shouldn’t be!’
’No doubt water ought not to be so wet as it is; it overdoes
it in wetness. But there it is! I like women and talk to them,
and therefore I don’t love them and desire them. The two
W hen she got near the park-gate, she heard the click of
the latch. He was there, then, in the darkness of the
wood, and had seen her!
’You are good and early,’ he said out of the dark. ‘Was ev-
erything all right?’
’Perfectly easy.’
He shut the gate quietly after her, and made a spot of
light on the dark ground, showing the pallid flowers still
standing there open in the night. They went on apart, in
silence.
’Are you sure you didn’t hurt yourself this morning with
that chair?’ she asked.
’No, no!’
’When you had that pneumonia, what did it do to you?’
’Oh nothing! it left my heart not so strong and the lungs
not so elastic. But it always does that.’
’And you ought not to make violent physical efforts?’
’Not often.’
She plodded on in an angry silence.
’Did you hate Clifford?’ she said at last.
’Hate him, no! I’ve met too many like him to upset myself
hating him. I know beforehand I don’t care for his sort, and
I let it go at that.’
’What is his sort?’
’You see, Hilda,’ said Connie after lunch, when they were
nearing London, ‘you have never known either real tender-
ness or real sensuality: and if you do know them, with the
same person, it makes a great difference.’
’For mercy’s sake don’t brag about your experiences!’
said Hilda. ‘I’ve never met the man yet who was capable of
intimacy with a woman, giving himself up to her. That was
what I wanted. I’m not keen on their self-satisfied tender-
ness, and their sensuality. I’m not content to be any man’s
little petsy-wetsy, nor his CHAIR · PLAISIR either. I want-
ed a complete intimacy, and I didn’t get it. That’s enough
for me.
Connie pondered this. Complete intimacy! She supposed
that meant revealing everything concerning yourself to
the other person, and his revealing everything concerning
himself. But that was a bore. And all that weary self-con-
sciousness between a man and a woman! a disease!
’I think you’re too conscious of yourself all the time, with
everybody,’ she said to her sister.
’I hope at least I haven’t a slave nature,’ said Hilda.
’But perhaps you have! Perhaps you are a slave to your
own idea of yourself.’
Hilda drove in silence for some time after this piece of
unheard of insolence from that chit Connie.