Chapter 3 Chapter two

In the autumn of 1920, when Connie and Clifford came back to Wragby, Emma, ​​who still hated her brother's dishonesty, had rented a small house in London to live in. Wragby was a long, low old house of brownstone.It was built in the middle of the eighteenth century, and added to it until it was a large, unremarkable house, situated on a high hill, in an old wooded park full of oaks, quite nice enough.It's a pity that from here I can see the smoky chimneys of the nearby coal mines, and the distant village of Davasha on a hill in the misty mist. Long, row upon row of shabby brick-walled huts, black slate roofs, sharp corners, with an air of infinite sadness.

Connie, who was used to living in Roots Hole, and seeing the hills of Scotland, and the coastal dunes of Sussex, was England to her, and with youthful patience she took this soulless, The hideous Midlands of the Coal and Iron District had been skimmed over and dismissed as unbelievably dreadful surroundings which were not to be contemplated.In the gloomy houses of Wragby she could hear the rattling of the sifters in the pit, the snorting of the cranes.The sound of the truck changing tracks, and the hoarse whistle of the locomotive.The coal embankment at Dawascha was burning, and it had been burning for years, and it would take a fortune to extinguish it, so it had to be left to burn.When the wind blows from there—as is often the case—the house is filled with the sulfurous stench of burnt muck.Even when there was no wind, the air smelt of something down in the cellar.Even the yellow flowers are covered with a layer of soot, like black nectar from the evil heaven.

However, the world is like this, everything is destined!It's kind of scary, but why rebel?It's useless to resist, things just go on as they are.This is life, like everything else!At night, in the low, dark cloudy sky, there are some mottled red spots, swollen and contracted, like painful burns; these are some blast furnaces in the coal field.At first this sight terrified Connie deeply, and she felt that she was living in a cellar.After that, she gradually got used to it.In the morning, it started to rain again. Clifford called himself Wragbaby cuter than London.There was a strong will peculiar to the place, a strong desire among the inhabitants, and Connie wondered what else they tried.In any case, insights and ideas they do not have.Like this place, these residents describe it as dry, ugly, gloomy and unfriendly.But in their slurred patois and they dragged the nail-bottomed saddles on the asphalt.In the noise of groups of casual workers returning home, there is something scary and somewhat mysterious.

When the young nobleman returned home, no one came to welcome him.There was no banquet, no representation, not even a single flower.But when his car drove through the humid air in the dark forest, passed the slope of the garden where some gray sheep were grazing, and came to the door of the dark brown house on the high hill, a housekeeper and her The husband waited there, ready to falter a few words of welcome. There is no connection between the villages of Wragbe and Dawasha.The villagers did not take off their hats or bow when they saw them.The miners saw it and just watched.The merchant raised his hat to Connie, and there was as much a silent hatred for Clifford as for any acquaintance.At first, Connie felt very painful at the endless hatred of the villagers.Then she endured it, and felt that it was a tonic, something that gave a kind of life, not because she and Clifford were unpopular, but simply because they were two completely different people from the miners. That's all.South of Tran, this extreme isolation of human beings probably does not exist.But in the industrial regions of the center and north, the isolation between them is indescribable.You go your way.I go mine!Oddly contradictory human emotions!

Although, subconsciously, the villagers still had some sympathy for Clifford and Connie, but deep down, both sides held the attitude of "leave us alone". The pastor here is a diligent, kind man of about sixty.The wordless "leave us alone" attitude of the villagers overcame him to almost insignificance, the wives of the miners were nearly all Methodists, and the miners were irreligious, but even the vicar wore The uniform he wore was enough to make the villagers see him as an anomalous person.Yes, he was an anomaly, he was Mr. Ashby, a machine of preaching and prayer. "Whoever you are, Baroness Chatterley, we won't lose you!" The stubborn and instinctive attitude of the villagers made Connie very disturbed and frustrated at first.When she expressed affection to the wives of the miners, their strange, suspicious, false intimacy did not find her really intolerable.She had often heard these women say in a half-flattering nasal voice: "Ah! don't underestimate me, the Baroness of Chatterley talks to me! But she needn't think that's why I'm not!" Such a strange offense. His attitude also made Connie find it strange and unbearable.This cannot be avoided.These are hopeless apostates.

Clifford paid no attention to them, and Connie did not follow suit.When she passed the village, she didn't look around, and the villagers stared at her blankly, as if she was a wax figure who could walk.When Clifford talked to them on business, his manner was haughty and contemptuous, not the time for dears, and in fact he was always contemptuous and contemptuous of anyone who was not of his class.Sticking to his position, he doesn't want to get along with others at all.They don't like him.Don't hate him either, he's just a part of the world, like the coal mines and Wragby House.

But Clifford had been timid since he was half-crippled.He would not see anyone but his servants.Because he has to sit in a wheelchair or a small car, but his expensive tailor still dresses him very smartly.He was wearing, as usual, the dainty tie he had bought in Bond Street.His top half is as stylish as ever.He has never had the feminine appearance of modern youths; his ruddy complexion and broad shoulders have the stout look of a shepherd.But his quiet and hesitant voice, and his brave but fearful, decisive but doubtful eyes, reveal his innocence.His attitude is often at first hostile and arrogant, followed by humility, self-abased and almost cowering.

Connie and he are attached to each other, but like modern couples, they keep a considerable distance from each other.He had lost his lightness and spontaneity because of the crippling blows which had scarred his heart so much, and he was a wounded man, and Connie loved him passionately. But Connie always felt that he had too little contact with the people.The miners were in a sense his servants, but to him they were objects, not men; they were part of the mine, not life; Human beings like themselves.In a certain situation, he was afraid of them, afraid that they would see his own disability.Their strange, vulgar life seemed to him as unnatural as a life of thorns.

He cared about them from afar, as one watches through a microscope or through a telescope.He has no direct contact with them.Except for being in contact with Wragby because of habit.Except for his family relationship with Emma, ​​he had no real contact with anyone.Nothing can really touch him.Connie herself felt that she hadn't really touched him.Maybe he has nothing to touch at all, and he denies human handover. But he is absolutely dependent on her, he does not need her all the time.Although he is tall and strong, he cannot take care of himself. Although he can roll himself around in a wheelchair, although he has a small automatic car, he can go around slowly in the forest garden, but when he is alone, He is like a thing without master.He needed Connie to be with him to make him believe he was alive.

But he is ambitious.He wrote novels, strange and peculiar novels about people he knew.These novels are written in a tricky, clever, and vicious way, but they are so mysterious that there is no deep meaning.His observations are different from ordinary people and peculiar, but there is nothing that people can touch and really touch.Everything seems to happen in nothingness.Moreover, since the scenes of our life today are mostly artificially lit stages, his novels are all very faithful to modern life.To put it more precisely, it is to blame the modern psychology of loyalty. Clifford was almost morbidly susceptible to the defacement of his novels.He wants everyone to say that his novels are good, unrivaled and the best.His novels were published in the most modern magazines, and were therefore routinely admired and criticized.But blame Clifford.It is torture like stabbing flesh with a knife.It's as if his life is in his novels.

Connie tried to help him.At first, she felt very excited. He explained everything to her monotonously and persistently, and she had to use all her strength to answer and understand.It was as if her whole soul, body and sexuality had to be awakened to pass through his novels.It made her excited and self-forgetful. Their material life is very little.She has to supervise the housework.The housekeeper who had served Baron Zoffrey for many years was a dry, unscrupulous old thing.Not only does she not look like a maid, she doesn't even look like a woman.She has been serving meals here for forty years.Even the other maids are not young anymore.Terrible!In such a place, what else can you do but let nature take its course?All these countless unoccupied houses, all these Demilian habits, mechanical tidying!Everything is very orderly, very clean, very precise, and even very real.However, in Connie's view, this is just an orderly anarchy.There is no interconnection of emotional heat.The whole house is gloomy like a deserted street. What else does she have to do besides letting nature take its course? . . . and she let things take their course.Miss Emma Chatterley, with a thin, haughty face, came up here sometimes to see them.It was a pleasure to see that nothing had changed.She could never forgive Connie for breaking the deep unity she had with her brother.It was she, Emma, ​​who was supposed to help Clifford write his novels, write his books.Chatterley's novel, 'A novelty in the world, produced by the hands of their Chatterleys.This has nothing in common with previous thoughts and speeches, and has no organic connection.There are only Chatterley books in the world that are original and purely personal. Connie's father, when he came to Wragbay for a brief sojourn, said to Connie: "Clifford's work is ingenious, but there is nothing in it. It can't last long! . . . " Connie Her eyes, her big blue eyes of constant amazement, grew dim as she watched the worldly, heavy old Scotch lord. "Nothing!" What does that mean?Critics praised his work, Clifford was almost famous, and his work was making a fortune. . . . Her father said that there was nothing in Clifford's work. What did that mean?What does he want in his work? Because Connie's point of view is the same as that of ordinary young people: everything is in front of the eyes, and the connection between the future and the present does not need to belong to each other. It was her second winter at Wragby, and her father said to her: "Connie, I hope you won't be made a widow by circumstances." "Widow! Why? Why not?" replied Connie indifferently. "Unless you want to, there's nothing to say!" her father said hastily. He said the same words to Clifford when he was alone with Clifford: "I'm afraid widowhood doesn't suit Connie." "A widow!" replied Clifford, making the phrase more definite. After he pondered for a while, his face flushed and became angry. "Why isn't it suitable for her?" He would ask forcefully. "She's getting thinner...gaunt. It's not what she always is. She's not a little sardine, she's a lovely Scottish white bass." "Spotless bass, of course!" said Clifford. Afterwards he wanted to speak to Connie about the widowhood.But he couldn't speak.He and she were simultaneously too close and not close enough, spiritually they were one, but physically they were separate, and the discussion of physical matters was embarrassing for both.They were too close and at the same time too distant. Connie, however, guessed what her father had said to Clifford, and Clifford kept it to himself in silence, knowing that Clifford did not care whether she was a widow or an adulterer. , as long as he does not know exactly, and does not have to know.What is invisible to the eyes and unknown to the mind does not exist. Connie and Clifford had been at Wragby for almost two years, and they lived a life of indifference, absorbed in Clifford and his writings.Their common interest in this kind of work continues to grow.They talked and argued about the structure of the text, as if in that void something was happening, really happening. They were already working together, and that was life—a life in emptiness. Other than that, everything else doesn't exist.Wragby, the servants . . . are ghosts.rather than reality.Connie also often went for a walk in the garden and the forest connected to the garden, admiring the solitude and mystery there, kicking the autumn and fallen leaves, or picking the lotus in spring.It's all a dream, a phantom of reality.The leaves of the oak seemed to her like leaves shaking in a mirror, and she herself was a character in a book, picking lilies, and the flowers were but shadows, or memories, or universes. .She felt like there was nothing, no substance, no touch, no connection!Only this life with Clifford, only these endless talks and psychoanalyses, only these novels, as Sir Malcolm called them, had nothing at all and could not last.Why should there be something in the bottom?Why should it be passed on for a long time?We muddle along until we can no longer live.Let's muddle along until the present day "appears". Clifford's friends--acquaintances really--were quite a number, and he often invited them to Wragby.He invited all kinds of people, critics, writers, people who praised his works.They all felt it an honor to be invited to Wragby, and they sang his praises.Connie knew all this in her heart, why not?This is one of those shadows in the mirror.She didn't think there was anything wrong with it. She entertained the guests—most of them men.She also entertained Clifford's infrequent noble relations.Because she is gentle, with a rosy complexion and a village-like demeanor, with tender skin that is prone to spots, big blue eyes, brown curly hair, a gentle voice and a slightly strong waist.So people regard her as a woman who is not too fashionable, but too "feminine".She wasn't a boyish "little sardine," she had a flat chest and tiny hips.She's too feminine to be very stylish. So men, especially men of any age, paid her great attention.He was, and she knew it would pain poor Clifford if she showed them the slightest contempt, so she never allowed the men to be emboldened.The quiet and indifferent attitude of her guard, she has no close relationship with them, and she has no intention of it.Clifford was therefore very pleased with himself. Clifford's relations, too, were kind to her.She knew that the reason for this kindness was that she did not intimidate anyone.She also knew that if you didn't make these people a little afraid of you, they wouldn't respect you.But she also has no intimate relationship with them.She accepts their kindness and their contempt, and she lets them know that there is no need to raise a sword.She has no real relationship with them. Time passed like this.No matter what happened.It didn't really seem like that was the case, because she was so out of touch with everything.She and Clifford lived in their ideals, in their writings.She entertained guests...there were always visitors in the house.Time goes on like a clock. After seven thirty, it is eight o'clock, and after eight o'clock, it is half past time.