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发信人: fzx (化石), 信区: English
标 题: Women In Love 9
发信站: 紫 丁 香 (Thu May 20 15:28:23 1999), 转信
CHAPTER IX
Coal-dust
GOING HOME from school in the afternoon, the Brangwen girls descended the
hill between thepicturesque cottages of Willey Green till they came to
the railway crossing. There they found thegate shut, because the colliery
train was rumbling nearer. They could hear the small locomotivepanting
hoarsely as it advanced with caution between the embankments. The
one-legged man in thelittle signal-hut by the road stared out from his
security, like a crab from a snail-shell.
Whilst the two girls waited, Gerald Crich trotted up on a red Arab mare.
He rode well and softly,pleased with the delicate quivering of the
creature between his knees. And he was very picturesque,at least in
Gudrun's eyes, sitting soft and close on the slender red mare, whose long
tail flowed onthe air. He saluted the two girls, and drew up at the crossing
to wait for the gate, looking down therailway for the approaching train.
In spite of her ironic smile at his picturesqueness, Gudrun liked tolook
at him. He was well-set and easy, his face with its warm tan showed up
his whitish, coarsemoustache, and his blue eyes were full of sharp light
as he watched the distance.
The locomotive chuffed slowly between the banks, hidden. The mare did not
like it. She began towince away, as if hurt by the unknown noise. But Gerald
pulled her back and held her head to thegate. The sharp blasts of the
chuffing engine broke with more and more force on her. The repeatedsharp
blows of unknown, terrifying noise struck through her till she was rocking
with terror. Sherecoiled like a spring let go. But a glistening,
half-smiling look came into Gerald's face. He broughther back again,
inevitably.
The noise was released, the little locomotive with her clanking steel
connecting-rod emerged on thehighroad, clanking sharply. The mare
rebounded like a drop of water from hot iron. Ursula andGudrun pressed
back into the hedge, in fear. But Gerald was heavy on the mare, and forced
herback. It seemed as if he sank into her magnetically, and could thrust
her back against herself.
`The fool!' cried Ursula loudly. `Why doesn't he ride away till it's gone
by?'
Gudrun was looking at him with black-dilated, spellbound eyes. But he sat
glistening and obstinate,forcing the wheeling mare, which spun and
swerved like a wind, and yet could not get out of thegrasp of his will,
nor escape from the mad clamour of terror that resounded through her, as
thetrucks thumped slowly, heavily, horrifying, one after the other, one
pursuing the other, over the railsof the crossing.
The locomotive, as if wanting to see what could be done, put on the brakes,
and back came thetrucks rebounding on the iron buffers, striking like
horrible cymbals, clashing nearer and nearer infrightful strident
concussions. The mare opened her mouth and rose slowly, as if lifted up
on a windof terror. Then suddenly her fore feet struck out, as she
convulsed herself utterly away from thehorror. Back she went, and the two
girls clung to each other, feeling she must fall backwards on topof him.
But he leaned forward, his face shining with fixed amusement, and at last
he brought herdown, sank her down, and was bearing her back to the mark.
But as strong as the pressure of hiscompulsion was the repulsion of her
utter terror, throwing her back away from the railway, so thatshe spun
round and round, on two legs, as if she were in the centre of some whirlwind.
It madeGudrun faint with poignant dizziness, which seemed to penetrate
to her heart.
`No -- ! No -- ! Let her go! Let her go, you fool, you fool -- !' cried
Ursula at the top of her voice,completely outside herself. And Gudrun
hated her bitterly for being outside herself. It wasunendurable that
Ursula's voice was so powerful and naked.
A sharpened look came on Gerald's face. He bit himself down on the mare
like a keen edge bitinghome, and forced her round. She roared as she
breathed, her nostrils were two wide, hot holes,her mouth was apart, her
eyes frenzied. It was a repulsive sight. But he held on her unrelaxed,
withan almost mechanical relentlessness, keen as a sword pressing in to
her. Both man and horse weresweating with violence. Yet he seemed calm
as a ray of cold sunshine.
Meanwhile the eternal trucks were rumbling on, very slowly, treading one
after the other, one afterthe other, like a disgusting dream that has no
end. The connecting chains were grinding andsqueaking as the tension
varied, the mare pawed and struck away mechanically now, her
terrorfulfilled in her, for now the man encompassed her; her paws were
blind and pathetic as she beat theair, the man closed round her, and
brought her down, almost as if she were part of his ownphysique.
`And she's bleeding! She's bleeding!' cried Ursula, frantic with
opposition and hatred of Gerald.She alone understood him perfectly, in
pure opposition.
Gudrun looked and saw the trickles of blood on the sides of the mare, and
she turned white. Andthen on the very wound the bright spurs came down,
pressing relentlessly. The world reeled andpassed into nothingness for
Gudrun, she could not know any more.
When she recovered, her soul was calm and cold, without feeling. The trucks
were still rumbling by,and the man and the mare were still fighting. But
she herself was cold and separate, she had nomore feeling for them. She
was quite hard and cold and indifferent.
They could see the top of the hooded guard's-van approaching, the sound
of the trucks wasdiminishing, there was hope of relief from the
intolerable noise. The heavy panting of thehalf-stunned mare sounded
automatically, the man seemed to be relaxing confidently, his will
brightand unstained. The guard's-van came up, and passed slowly, the guard
staring out in his transitionon the spectacle in the road. And, through
the man in the closed wagon, Gudrun could see thewhole scene spectacularly,
isolated and momentary, like a vision isolated in eternity.
Lovely, grateful silence seemed to trail behind the receding train. How
sweet the silence is! Ursulalooked with hatred on the buffers of the
diminishing wagon. The gatekeeper stood ready at the doorof his hut, to
proceed to open the gate. But Gudrun sprang suddenly forward, in front
of thestruggling horse, threw off the latch and flung the gates asunder,
throwing one-half to the keeper,and running with the other half, forwards.
Gerald suddenly let go the horse and leaped forwards,almost on to Gudrun.
She was not afraid. As he jerked aside the mare's head, Gudrun cried, in
astrange, high voice, like a gull, or like a witch screaming out from the
side of the road:
`I should think you're proud.'
The words were distinct and formed. The man, twisting aside on his dancing
horse, looked at her insome surprise, some wondering interest. Then the
mare's hoofs had danced three times on thedrum-like sleepers of the
crossing, and man and horse were bounding springily, unequally up theroad.
The two girls watched them go. The gate-keeper hobbled thudding over the
logs of the crossing,with his wooden leg. He had fastened the gate. Then
he also turned, and called to the girls:
`A masterful young jockey, that; 'll have his own road, if ever anybody
would.'
`Yes,' cried Ursula, in her hot, overbearing voice. `Why couldn't he take
the horse away, till thetrucks had gone by? He's a fool, and a bully. Does
he think it's manly, to torture a horse? It's aliving thing, why should
he bully it and torture it?'
There was a pause, then the gate-keeper shook his head, and replied:
`Yes, it's as nice a little mare as you could set eyes on -- beautiful
little thing, beautiful. Now youcouldn't see his father treat any animal
like that -- not you. They're as different as they welly can be,Gerald
Crich and his father -- two different men, different made.'
Then there was a pause.
`But why does he do it?' cried Ursula, `why does he? Does he think he's
grand, when he's bullied asensitive creature, ten times as sensitive as
himself?'
Again there was a cautious pause. Then again the man shook his head, as
if he would say nothing,but would think the more.
`I expect he's got to train the mare to stand to anything,' he replied.
`A pure-bred Harab -- not thesort of breed as is used to round here -
- different sort from our sort altogether. They say as he gother from
Constantinople.'
`He would!' said Ursula. `He'd better have left her to the Turks, I'm sure
they would have had moredecency towards her.'
The man went in to drink his can of tea, the girls went on down the lane,
that was deep in soft blackdust. Gudrun was as if numbed in her mind by
the sense of indomitable soft weight of the man,bearing down into the
living body of the horse: the strong, indomitable thighs of the blond
manclenching the palpitating body of the mare into pure control; a sort
of soft white magneticdomination from the loins and thighs and calves,
enclosing and encompassing the mare heavily intounutterable
subordination, soft blood-subordination, terrible.
On the left, as the girls walked silently, the coal-mine lifted its great
mounds and its patternedhead-stocks, the black railway with the trucks
at rest looked like a harbour just below, a large bayof railroad with
anchored wagons.
Near the second level-crossing, that went over many bright rails, was a
farm belonging to thecollieries, and a great round globe of iron, a disused
boiler, huge and rusty and perfectly round,stood silently in a paddock
by the road. The hens were pecking round it, some chickens werebalanced
on the drinking trough, wagtails flew away in among trucks, from the water.
On the other side of the wide crossing, by the road-side, was a heap of
pale-grey stones formending the roads, and a cart standing, and a
middle-aged man with whiskers round his face wasleaning on his shovel,
talking to a young man in gaiters, who stood by the horse's head. Both
menwere facing the crossing.
They saw the two girls appear, small, brilliant figures in the near
distance, in the strong light of thelate afternoon. Both wore light, gay
summer dresses, Ursula had an orange-coloured knitted coat,Gudrun a pale
yellow, Ursula wore canary yellow stockings, Gudrun bright rose, the
figures of thetwo women seemed to glitter in progress over the wide bay
of the railway crossing, white andorange and yellow and rose glittering
in motion across a hot world silted with coal-dust.
The two men stood quite still in the heat, watching. The elder was a short,
hard-faced energetic manof middle age, the younger a labourer of
twenty-three or so. They stood in silence watching theadvance of the
sisters. They watched whilst the girls drew near, and whilst they passed,
and whilstthey receded down the dusty road, that had dwellings on one side,
and dusty young corn on theother.
Then the elder man, with the whiskers round his face, said in a prurient
manner to the young man:
`What price that, eh? She'll do, won't she?'
`Which?' asked the young man, eagerly, with laugh.
`Her with the red stockings. What d'you say? I'd give my week's wages for
five minutes; what! --just for five minutes.'
Again the young man laughed.
`Your missis 'ud have summat to say to you,' he replied.
Gudrun had turned round and looked at the two men. They were to her sinister
creatures, standingwatching after her, by the heap of pale grey slag. She
loathed the man with whiskers round his face.
`You're first class, you are,' the man said to her, and to the distance.
`Do you think it would be worth a week's wages?' said the younger man,
musing.
`Do I? I'd put 'em bloody-well down this second --'
The younger man looked after Gudrun and Ursula objectively, as if he wished
to calculate whatthere might be, that was worth his week's wages. He shook
his head with fatal misgiving.
`No,' he said. `It's not worth that to me.'
`Isn't?' said the old man. `By God, if it isn't to me!'
And he went on shovelling his stones.
The girls descended between the houses with slate roofs and blackish brick
walls. The heavy goldglamour of approaching sunset lay over all the
colliery district, and the ugliness overlaid with beautywas like a
narcotic to the senses. On the roads silted with black dust, the rich light
fell more warmly,more heavily, over all the amorphous squalor a kind of
magic was cast, from the glowing close ofday.
`It has a foul kind of beauty, this place,' said Gudrun, evidently
suffering from fascination. `Can't youfeel in some way, a thick, hot
attraction in it? I can. And it quite stupifies me.'
They were passing between blocks of miners' dwellings. In the back yards
of several dwellings, aminer could be seen washing himself in the open
on this hot evening, naked down to the loins, hisgreat trousers of moleskin
slipping almost away. Miners already cleaned were sitting on their
heels,with their backs near the walls, talking and silent in pure physical
well-being, tired, and takingphysical rest. Their voices sounded out with
strong intonation, and the broad dialect was curiouslycaressing to the
blood. It seemed to envelop Gudrun in a labourer's caress, there was in
the wholeatmosphere a resonance of physical men, a glamorous thickness
of labour and maleness,surcharged in the air. But it was universal in the
district, and therefore unnoticed by the inhabitants.
To Gudrun, however, it was potent and half-repulsive. She could never tell
why Beldover was soutterly different from London and the south, why one's
whole feelings were different, why oneseemed to live in another sphere.
Now she realised that this was the world of powerful, underworldmen who
spent most of their time in the darkness. In their voices she could hear
the voluptuousresonance of darkness, the strong, dangerous underworld,
mindless, inhuman. They sounded alsolike strange machines, heavy, oiled.
The voluptuousness was like that of machinery, cold and iron.
It was the same every evening when she came home, she seemed to move through
a wave ofdisruptive force, that was given off from the presence of
thousands of vigorous, underworld,half-automatised colliers, and which
went to the brain and the heart, awaking a fatal desire, and afatal
callousness.
There came over her a nostalgia for the place. She hated it, she knew how
utterly cut off it was,how hideous and how sickeningly mindless. Sometimes
she beat her wings like a new Daphne,turning not into a tree but a machine.
And yet, she was overcome by the nostalgia. She struggled toget more and
more into accord with the atmosphere of the place, she craved to get her
satisfactionof it.
She felt herself drawn out at evening into the main street of the town,
that was uncreated and ugly,and yet surcharged with this same potent
atmosphere of intense, dark callousness. There werealways miners about.
They moved with their strange, distorted dignity, a certain beauty,
andunnatural stillness in their bearing, a look of abstraction and half
resignation in their pale, often gauntfaces. They belonged to another
world, they had a strange glamour, their voices were full of anintolerable
deep resonance, like a machine's burring, a music more maddening than the
siren's longago.
She found herself, with the rest of the common women, drawn out on Friday
evenings to the littlemarket. Friday was pay-day for the colliers, and
Friday night was market night. Every woman wasabroad, every man was out,
shopping with his wife, or gathering with his pals. The pavements weredark
for miles around with people coming in, the little market-place on the
crown of the hill, and themain street of Beldover were black with
thickly-crowded men and women.
It was dark, the market-place was hot with kerosene flares, which threw
a ruddy light on the gravefaces of the purchasing wives, and on the pale
abstract faces of the men. The air was full of thesound of criers and of
people talking, thick streams of people moved on the pavements towards
thesolid crowd of the market. The shops were blazing and packed with women,
in the streets weremen, mostly men, miners of all ages. Money was spent
with almost lavish freedom.
The carts that came could not pass through. They had to wait, the driver
calling and shouting, till thedense crowd would make way. Everywhere,
young fellows from the outlying districts were makingconversation with
the girls, standing in the road and at the corners. The doors of the
public-houseswere open and full of light, men passed in and out in a
continual stream, everywhere men werecalling out to one another, or
crossing to meet one another, or standing in little gangs and
circles,discussing, endlessly discussing. The sense of talk, buzzing,
jarring, half-secret, the endless miningand political wrangling,
vibrated in the air like discordant machinery. And it was their voices
whichaffected Gudrun almost to swooning. They aroused a strange,
nostalgic ache of desire, somethingalmost demoniacal, never to be
fulfilled.
Like any other common girl of the district, Gudrun strolled up and down,
up and down the length ofthe brilliant two-hundred paces of the pavement
nearest the market-place. She knew it was a vulgarthing to do; her father
and mother could not bear it; but the nostalgia came over her, she must
beamong the people. Sometimes she sat among the louts in the cinema:
rakish-looking, unattractivelouts they were. Yet she must be among them.
And, like any other common lass, she found her `boy.' It was an electrician,
one of the electriciansintroduced according to Gerald's new scheme. He
was an earnest, clever man, a scientist with apassion for sociology. He
lived alone in a cottage, in lodgings, in Willey Green. He was agentleman,
and sufficiently well-to-do. His landlady spread the reports about him;
he would have alarge wooden tub in his bedroom, and every time he came
in from work, he would have pails andpails of water brought up, to bathe
in, then he put on clean shirt and under-clothing every day, andclean silk
socks; fastidious and exacting he was in these respects, but in every other
way, mostordinary and unassuming.
Gudrun knew all these things. The Brangwen's house was one to which the
gossip came naturallyand inevitably. Palmer was in the first place a
friend of Ursula's. But in his pale, elegant, serious facethere showed
the same nostalgia that Gudrun felt. He too must walk up and down the street
onFriday evening. So he walked with Gudrun, and a friendship was struck
up between them. But hewas not in love with Gudrun; he really wanted Ursula,
but for some strange reason, nothing couldhappen between her and him. He
liked to have Gudrun about, as a fellow-mind -- but that was all.And she
had no real feeling for him. He was a scientist, he had to have a woman
to back him. Buthe was really impersonal, he had the fineness of an elegant
piece of machinery. He was too cold,too destructive to care really for
women, too great an egoist. He was polarised by the men.Individually he
detested and despised them. In the mass they fascinated him, as
machineryfascinated him. They were a new sort of machinery to him -- but
incalculable, incalculable.
So Gudrun strolled the streets with Palmer, or went to the cinema with
him. And his long, pale,rather elegant face flickered as he made his
sarcastic remarks. There they were, the two of them:two elegants in one
sense: in the other sense, two units, absolutely adhering to the people,
teemingwith the distorted colliers. The same secret seemed to be working
in the souls of all alike, Gudrun,Palmer, the rakish young bloods, the
gaunt, middle-aged men. All had a secret sense of power, andof
inexpressible destructiveness, and of fatal half-heartedness, a sort of
rottenness in the will.
Sometimes Gudrun would start aside, see it all, see how she was sinking
in. And then she was filledwith a fury of contempt and anger. She felt
she was sinking into one mass with the rest -- all soclose and intermingled
and breathless. It was horrible. She stifled. She prepared for flight,
feverishlyshe flew to her work. But soon she let go. She started off into
the country -- the darkish, glamorouscountry. The spell was beginning to
work again.
--
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