Aaron's Rod - D. H. Lawrence (poetry books to read .TXT) 📗

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said. And she went to the bar.

“Well,” said the little Hindu doctor, “and how are things going now, with the men?”

“The same as ever,” said Aaron.

“Yes,” said the stately voice of the landlady. “And I’m afraid they will always be the same as ever. When will they learn wisdom?”

“But what do you call wisdom?” asked Sherardy, the Hindu. He spoke with a little, childish lisp.

“What do I call wisdom?” repeated the landlady. “Why all acting together for the common good. That is wisdom in my idea.”

“Yes, very well, that is so. But what do you call the common good?” replied the little doctor, with childish pertinence.

“Ay,” said Aaron, with a laugh, “that’s it.” The miners were all stirring now, to take part in the discussion.

“What do I call the common good?” repeated the landlady. “That all people should study the welfare of other people, and not only their own.”

“They are not to study their own welfare?” said the doctor.

“Ah, that I did not say,” replied the landlady. “Let them study their own welfare, and that of others also.”

“Well then,” said the doctor, “what is the welfare of a collier?”

“The welfare of a collier,” said the landlady, “is that he shall earn sufficient wages to keep himself and his family comfortable, to educate his children, and to educate himself; for that is what he wants, education.”

“Ay, happen so,” put in Brewitt, a big, fine, good-humoured collier. “Happen so, Mrs. Houseley. But what if you haven’t got much education, to speak of?”

“You can always get it,” she said patronizing.

“Nay—I’m blest if you can. It’s no use tryin’ to educate a man over forty—not by book-learning. That isn’t saying he’s a fool, neither.”

“And what better is them that’s got education?” put in another man. “What better is the manager, or th’ under-manager, than we are?— Pender’s yaller enough i’ th’ face.”

“He is that,” assented the men in chorus.

“But because he’s yellow in the face, as you say, Mr. Kirk,” said the landlady largely, “that doesn’t mean he has no advantages higher than what you have got.”

“Ay,” said Kirk. “He can ma’e more money than I can—that’s about a’ as it comes to.”

“He can make more money,” said the landlady. “And when he’s made it, he knows better how to use it.”

“‘Appen so, an’ a’!—What does he do, more than eat and drink and work?—an’ take it out of hisself a sight harder than I do, by th’ looks of him.—What’s it matter, if he eats a bit more or drinks a bit more—”

No,” reiterated the landlady. “He not only eats and drinks. He can read, and he can converse.”

“Me an’ a’,” said Tom Kirk, and the men burst into a laugh. “I can read—an’ I’ve had many a talk an’ conversation with you in this house, Mrs. Houseley—am havin’ one at this minute, seemingly.”

“SEEMINGLY, you are,” said the landlady ironically. “But do you think there would be no difference between your conversation, and Mr. Pender’s, if he were here so that I could enjoy his conversation?”

“An’ what difference would there be?” asked Tom Kirk. “He’d go home to his bed just the same.”

“There, you are mistaken. He would be the better, and so should I, a great deal better, for a little genuine conversation.”

“If it’s conversation as ma’es his behind drop—” said Tom Kirk. “An’ puts th’ bile in his face—” said Brewitt. There was a general laugh.

“I can see it’s no use talking about it any further,” said the landlady, lifting her head dangerously.

“But look here, Mrs. Houseley, do you really think it makes much difference to a man, whether he can hold a serious conversation or not?” asked the doctor.

“I do indeed, all the difference in the world—To me, there is no greater difference, than between an educated man and an uneducated man.”

“And where does it come in?” asked Kirk.

“But wait a bit, now,” said Aaron Sisson. “You take an educated man— take Pender. What’s his education for? What does he scheme for?—What does he contrive for? What does he talk for?—”

“For all the purposes of his life,” replied the landlady.

“Ay, an’ what’s the purpose of his life?” insisted Aaron Sisson.

“The purpose of his life,” repeated the landlady, at a loss. “I should think he knows that best himself.”

“No better than I know it—and you know it,” said Aaron.

“Well,” said the landlady, “if you know, then speak out. What is it?”

“To make more money for the firm—and so make his own chance of a rise better.”

The landlady was baffled for some moments. Then she said:

“Yes, and suppose that he does. Is there any harm in it? Isn’t it his duty to do what he can for himself? Don’t you try to earn all you can?”

“Ay,” said Aaron. “But there’s soon a limit to what I can earn.—It’s like this. When you work it out, everything comes to money. Reckon it as you like, it’s money on both sides. It’s money we live for, and money is what our lives is worth—nothing else. Money we live for, and money we are when we’re dead: that or nothing. An’ it’s money as is between the masters and us. There’s a few educated ones got hold of one end of the rope, and all the lot of us hanging on to th’ other end, an’ we s’ll go on pulling our guts out, time in, time out—”

“But they’ve got th’ long end o’ th’ rope, th’ masters has,” said Brewitt.

“For as long as one holds, the other will pull,” concluded Aaron Sisson philosophically.

“An’ I’m almighty sure o’ that,” said Kirk. There was a little pause.

“Yes, that’s all there is in the minds of you men,” said the landlady. “But what can be done with the money, that you never think of—the education of the children, the improvement of conditions—”

“Educate the children, so that they can lay hold of the long end of the rope, instead of the short end,” said the doctor, with a little giggle.

“Ay, that’s it,” said Brewitt. “I’ve pulled at th’ short end, an’ my lads may do th’ same.”

“A selfish policy,” put in the landlady.

“Selfish or not, they may do it.”

“Till the crack o’ doom,” said Aaron, with a glistening smile.

“Or the crack o’ th’ rope,” said Brewitt.

“Yes, and THEN WHAT?” cried the landlady.

“Then we all drop on our backsides,” said Kirk. There was a general laugh, and an uneasy silence.

“All I can say of you men,” said the landlady, “is that you have a narrow, selfish policy.—Instead of thinking of the children, instead of thinking of improving the world you live in—”

“We hang on, British bulldog breed,” said Brewitt. There was a general laugh.

“Yes, and little wiser than dogs, wrangling for a bone,” said the landlady.

“Are we to let t’ other side run off wi’ th’ bone, then, while we sit on our stunts an’ yowl for it?” asked Brewitt.

“No indeed. There can be wisdom in everything.—It’s what you DO with the money, when you’ve got it,” said the landlady, “that’s where the importance lies.”

It’s Missis as gets it,” said Kirk. “It doesn’t stop wi’ us.” “Ay, it’s the wife as gets it, ninety per cent,” they all concurred.

“And who SHOULD have the money, indeed, if not your wives? They have everything to do with the money. What idea have you, but to waste it!”

“Women waste nothing—they couldn’t if they tried,” said Aaron Sisson.

There was a lull for some minutes. The men were all stimulated by drink. The landlady kept them going. She herself sipped a glass of brandy—but slowly. She sat near to Sisson—and the great fierce warmth of her presence enveloped him particularly. He loved so to luxuriate, like a cat, in the presence of a violent woman. He knew that tonight she was feeling very nice to him—a female glow that came out of her to him. Sometimes when she put down her knitting, or took it up again from the bench beside him, her fingers just touched his thigh, and the fine electricity ran over his body, as if he were a cat tingling at a caress.

And yet he was not happy—nor comfortable. There was a hard, opposing core in him, that neither the whiskey nor the woman could dissolve or soothe, tonight. It remained hard, nay, became harder and more deeply antagonistic to his surroundings, every moment. He recognised it as a secret malady he suffered from: this strained, unacknowledged opposition to his surroundings, a hard core of irrational, exhausting withholding of himself. Irritating, because he still WANTED to give himself. A woman and whiskey, these were usually a remedy—and music. But lately these had begun to fail him. No, there was something in him that would not give in—neither to the whiskey, nor the woman, nor even the music. Even in the midst of his best music, it sat in the middle of him, this invisible black dog, and growled and waited, never to be cajoled. He knew of its presence—and was a little uneasy. For of course he wanted to let himself go, to feel rosy and loving and all that. But at the very thought, the black dog showed its teeth.

Still he kept the beast at bay—with all his will he kept himself as it were genial. He wanted to melt and be rosy, happy.

He sipped his whiskey with gratification, he luxuriated in the presence of the landlady, very confident of the strength of her liking for him. He glanced at her profile—that fine throw-back of her hostile head, wicked in the midst of her benevolence; that subtle, really very beautiful delicate curve of her nose, that moved him exactly like a piece of pure sound. But tonight it did not overcome him. There was a devilish little cold eye in his brain that was not taken in by what he saw.

A terrible obstinacy located itself in him. He saw the fine, rich- coloured, secretive face of the Hebrew woman, so loudly self- righteous, and so dangerous, so destructive, so lustful—and he waited for his blood to melt with passion for her. But not tonight. Tonight his innermost heart was hard and cold as ice. The very danger and lustfulness of her, which had so pricked his senses, now made him colder. He disliked her at her tricks. He saw her once too often. Her and all women. Bah, the love game! And the whiskey that was to help in the game! He had drowned himself once too often in whiskey and in love. Now he floated like a corpse in both, with a cold, hostile eye.

And at least half of his inward fume was anger because he could no longer drown. Nothing would have pleased him better than to feel his senses melting and swimming into oneness with the dark. But impossible! Cold, with a white fury inside him, he floated wide eyed and apart as a corpse. He thought