sex and the desire gone. He didn't want it--he hadn't wanted it.
This new pure feeling was so much more wonderful.
He went to her side.
'Forgive me, darling,' he said, 'for having questioned you.'
She looked up at him with the wide eyes, without a word. His face
was good and beautiful. Tears came to her eyes.
'You have the right to question me,' she said sadly.
'No,' he said. 'No, darling. I have no right to question you.
Daphne! Daphne, darling! It shall be as YOU wish, between us.
Shall it? Shall it be as you wish?'
'You are the husband, Basil,' she said sadly.
'Yes, darling. But'--he went on his knees beside her--'perhaps,
darling, something has changed in us. I feel as if I ought never
to touch you again--as if I never WANTED to touch you--in that way.
I feel it was wrong, darling. Tell me what you think.'
'Basil, don't be angry with me.'
'It isn't anger; it's pure love, darling--it is.'
'Let us not come any nearer to one another than this, Basil--
physically--shall we?' she said. 'And don't be angry with me, will
you?'
'Why,' he said. 'I think myself the sexual part has been a
mistake. I had rather love you--as I love now. I KNOW that this
is true love. The other was always a bit whipped up. I KNOW I
love you now, darling: now I'm free from that other. But what if
it comes upon me, that other, Daphne?'
'I am always your wife,' she said quietly. 'I am always your wife.
I want always to obey you, Basil: what you wish.'
'Give me your hand, dear.'
She gave him her hand. But the look in her eyes at the same time
warned him and frightened him. He kissed her hand and left her.
It was to the Count she belonged. This had decided itself in her
down to the depths of her soul. If she could not marry him and be
his wife in the world, it had nevertheless happened to her for
ever. She could no more question it. Question had gone out of
her.
Strange how different she had become--a strange new quiescence.
The last days were slipping past. He would be going away--Dionys:
he with the still remote face, the man she belonged to in the dark
and in the light, for ever. He would be going away. He said it
must be so. And she acquiesced. The grief was deep, deep inside
her. He must go away. Their lives could not be one life, in this
world's day. Even in her anguish she knew it was so. She knew he
was right. He was for her infallible. He spoke the deepest soul
in her.
She never SAW him as a lover. When she saw him, he was the little
officer, a prisoner, quiet, claiming nothing in all the world. And
when she went to him as his lover, his wife, it was always dark.
She only knew his voice and his contact in darkness. 'My wife in
darkness,' he said to her. And in this too she believed him. She
would not have contradicted him, no, not for anything on earth:
lest contradicting him she should lose the dark treasures of
stillness and bliss which she kept in her breast even when her
heart was wrung with the agony of knowing he must go.
No, she had found this wonderful thing after she had heard him
singing: she had suddenly collapsed away from her old self into
this darkness, this peace, this quiescence that was like a full
dark river flowing eternally in her soul. She had gone to sleep
from the nuit blanche of her days. And Basil, wonderful, had
changed almost at once. She feared him, lest he might change back
again. She would always have him to fear. But deep inside her she
only feared for this love of hers for the Count: this dark,
everlasting love that was like a full river flowing for ever inside
her. Ah, let that not be broken.
She was so still inside her. She could sit so still, and feel the
day slowly, richly changing to night. And she wanted nothing, she
was short of nothing. If only Dionys need not go away! If only he
need not go away!
But he said to her, the last morning:
'Don't forget me. Always remember me. I leave my soul in your
hands and your womb. Nothing can ever separate us, unless we
betray one another. If you have to give yourself to your husband,
do so, and obey him. If you are true to me, innerly, innerly true,
he will not hurt us. He is generous, be generous to him. And
never fail to believe in me. Because even on the other side of
death I shall be watching for you. I shall be king in Hades when I
am dead. And you will be at my side. You will never leave me any
more, in the after-death. So don't be afraid in life. Don't be
afraid. If you have to cry tears, cry them. But in your heart of
hearts know that I shall come again, and that I have taken you for
ever. And so, in your heart of hearts be still, be still, since
you are the wife of the ladybird.' He laughed as he left her, with
his own beautiful, fearless laugh. But they were strange eyes that
looked after him.
He went in the car with Basil back to Voynich Hall.
'I believe Daphne will miss you,' said Basil.
The Count did not reply for some moments.
'Well, if she does,' he said, 'there will be no bitterness in it.'
'Are you sure?' smiled Basil.
'Why--if we are sure of anything,' smiled the Count.
'She's changed, isn't she?'
'Is she?'
'Yes, she's quite changed since you came, Count.'
'She does not seem to me so very different from the girl of
seventeen whom I knew.'
'No--perhaps not. I didn't know her then. But she's very
different from the wife I have known.'
'A regrettable difference?'
'Well--no, not as far as she goes. She is much quieter inside
herself. You know, Count, something of me died in the war. I feel
it will take me an eternity to sit and think about it all.'
'I hope you may think it out to your satisfaction, Major.'
'Yes, I hope so too. But that is how it has left me--feeling as if
I needed eternity now to brood about it all, you know. Without the
need to act--or even to love, really. I suppose love is action.'
'Intense action,' said the Count.
'Quite so. I know really how I feel. I only ask of life to spare
me from further effort of action of any sort--even love. And then
to fulfil myself, brooding through eternity. Of course, I don't
mind WORK, mechanical action. That in itself is a form of
inaction.'
'A man can only be happy following his own inmost need,' said the
Count.
'Exactly!' said Basil. 'I will lay down the law for nobody, not
even for myself. And live my day--'
'Then you will be happy in your own way. I find it so difficult to
keep from laying the law down for myself,' said the Count. 'Only
the thought of death and the after life saves me from doing it any
more.'
'As the thought of eternity helps me,' said Basil. 'I suppose it
amounts to the same thing.'
End of this Project Gutenberg of Australia eBook
The Ladybird by D
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D. H. Lawrence, The Ladybird
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