capture for a time the vast populace.
It was strange...the prostitution to the bitch-goddess. To Connie,
since she was really outside of it, and since she had grown numb to the
thrill of it, it was again nothingness. Even the prostitution to the
bitch-goddess was nothingness, though the men prostituted themselves
innumerable times. Nothingness even that.
Michaelis wrote to Clifford about the play. Of course she knew about it
long ago. And Clifford was again thrilled. He was going to be displayed
again this time, somebody was going to display him, and to advantage. He
invited Michaelis down to Wragby with Act I.
Michaelis came: in summer, in a pale-coloured suit and white suede
gloves, with mauve orchids for Connie, very lovely, and Act I was a great
success. Even Connie was thrilled...thrilled to what bit of marrow she had
left. And Michaelis, thrilled by his power to thrill, was really
wonderful...and quite beautiful, in Connie's eyes. She saw in him that
ancient motionlessness of a race that can't be disillusioned any more, an
extreme, perhaps, of impurity that is pure. On the far side of his supreme
prostitution to the bitch-goddess he seemed pure, pure as an African ivory
mask that dreams impurity into purity, in its ivory curves and planes.
His moment of sheer thrill with the two Chatterleys, when he simply
carried Connie and Clifford away, was one of the supreme moments of
Michaelis' life. He had succeeded: he had carried them away. Even Clifford
was temporarily in love with him...if that is the way one can put it.
So next morning Mick was more uneasy than ever; restless, devoured,
with his hands restless in his trousers pockets. Connie had not visited him
in the night...and he had not known where to find her. Coquetry!...at his
moment of triumph.
He went up to her sitting-room in the morning. She knew he would come.
And his restlessness was evident. He asked her about his play...did she
think it good? He had to hear it praised: that affected him with the last
thin thrill of passion beyond any sexual orgasm. And she praised it
rapturously. Yet all the while, at the bottom of her soul, she knew it was
nothing.
`Look here!' he said suddenly at last. `Why don't you and I make a
clean thing of it? Why don't we marry?'
`But I am married,' she said, amazed, and yet feeling nothing.
`Oh that!...he'll divorce you all right...Why don't you and I marry? I
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