’Blest be the tie that binds Our hearts in kindred something-or-other’
'Ye shall know the tree by its fruit.’
‘Real knowledge comes out
of the whole corpus of the consciousness; out of your belly
and your penis as much as out of your brain and mind. The
mind can only analyse and rationalize. Set the mind and
the reason to cock it over the rest, and all they can do is
to criticize, and make a deadness. I say ALL they can do.
It is vastly important. My God, the world needs criticizing
today...criticizing to death. Therefore let’s live the mental
life, and glory in our spite, and strip the rotten old show.
But, mind you, it’s like this: while you LIVE your life, you
are in some way an Organic whole with all life. But once
you start the mental life you pluck the apple. You’ve severed
the connexion between, the apple and the tree: the organic
connexion. And if you’ve got nothing in your life BUT the
mental life, then you yourself are a plucked apple...you’ve
fallen off the tree. And then it is a logical necessity to be
spiteful, just as it’s a natural necessity for a plucked apple
to go bad.’
'You do believe in love then, Tommy, don't you?'
'You lovely lad!' said Tommy. 'No, my cherub, nine times out of ten,
no! Love's another of those half-witted performances today. Fellows
with swaying waists fucking little jazz girls with small boy buttocks,
like two collar studs! Do you mean that sort of love? Or the
joint-property, make-a-success-of-it, My-husband-my-wife sort of love?
No, my fine fellow, I don't believe in it at all!'
'It would almost be a good thing if you had a child by another man, he
said. 'If we brought it up at Wragby, it would belong to us and to the
place. I don't believe very intensely in fatherhood. If we had the
child to rear, it would be our own, and it would carry on. Don't you
think it's worth considering?'
Connie looked up at him at last. The child, her child, was just an 'it'
to him. It...it...it!
'But what about the other man?' she asked.
'Does it matter very much? Do these things really affect us very
deeply?...You had that lover in Germany...what is it now? Nothing
almost. It seems to me that it isn't these little acts and little
connexions we make in our lives that matter so very much. They pass
away, and where are they? Where...Where are the snows of
yesteryear?...It's what endures through one's life that matters; my own
life matters to me, in its long continuance and development. But what
do the occasional connexions matter? And the occasional sexual
connexions especially! If people don't exaggerate them ridiculously,
they pass like the mating of birds. And so they should. What does it
matter? It's the life-long companionship that matters. It's the living
together from day to day, not the sleeping together once or twice. You
and I are married, no matter what happens to us. We have the habit of
each other. And habit, to my thinking, is more vital than any
occasional excitement. The long, slow, enduring thing...that's what we
live by...not the occasional spasm of any sort. Little by little,
living together, two people fall into a sort of unison, they vibrate so
intricately to one another. That's the real secret of marriage, not
sex; at least not the simple function of sex. You and I are interwoven
in a marriage. If we stick to that we ought to be able to arrange this
sex thing, as we arrange going to the dentist; since fate has given us
a checkmate physically there.'
' ...But you do agree with me, don't you,
that the casual sex thing is nothing, compared to the long life lived
together? Don't you think one can just subordinate the sex thing to the
necessities of a long life? Just use it, since that's what we're driven
to? After all, do these temporary excitements matter? Isn't the whole
problem of life the slow building up of an integral personality,
through the years? living an integrated life? There's no point in a
disintegrated life. If lack of sex is going to disintegrate you, then
go out and have a love-affair. If lack of a child is going to
disintegrate you, then have a child if you possibly can. But only do
these things so that you have an integrated life, that makes a long
harmonious thing. And you and I can do that together...don't you
think?...if we adapt ourselves to the necessities, and at the same time
weave the adaptation together into a piece with our steadily-lived
life. Don't you agree?'
