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 Continuous Deployment with Argo CD, Jenkins X, and Flux

Billy Yuen
Alexander Matyushentsev
Todd Ekenstam
Jesse Suen

MANNING
Part 1: Background Part 2: Patterns and processes Part 3: Tools

Chapter 1 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 9

Environment
Why GitOps? Pipelines Argo CD
management

Chapter 2 Chapter 6 Chapter 5 Chapter 10

Kubernetes and Access control Deployment
Jenkins X
GitOps and security strategies

Chapter 7 Chapter 11

Secrets Flux

Chapter 8

Observability

302
 GitOps and Kubernetes
Continuous Deployment with Argo CD, Jenkins X, and Flux
ii
 GitOps and
Kubernetes
CONTINUOUS DEPLOYMENT WITH
ARGO CD, JENKINS X, AND FLUX

BILLY YUEN
ALEXANDER MATYUSHENTSEV
TODD EKENSTAM
AND JESSE SUEN

MANNING
SHELTER ISLAND
For online information and ordering of this and other Manning books, please visit
www.manning.com. The publisher offers discounts on this book when ordered in quantity.
For more information, please contact
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Manning Publications Co.
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©2021 by Manning Publications Co. All rights reserved.

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any form or by means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, or otherwise, without prior written
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20 Baldwin Road Technical development editor: Al Krinker
PO Box 761 Review editor: Aleks Dragosavljević
Shelter Island, NY 11964 Production editor: Deirdre S. Hiam
Proofreader: Katie Tennant
Technical proofreader: Sam Brown
Typesetter and cover designer: Marija Tudor

ISBN 9781617297977
Printed in the United States of America
 contents
preface xi
acknowledgments xii
about this book xiii
about the authors xviii
about the cover illustration xx

PART 1 BACKGROUND ................................................. 1

1 Why GitOps?
1.1
3
Evolution to GitOps 4
Traditional Ops 4 ■
DevOps 6 ■
GitOps 7
1.2 Developer benefits of GitOps 9
Infrastructure as code 9 ■
Self-service 10 ■
Code reviews 11
Git pull requests 12
1.3 Operational benefits of GitOps 13
Declarative 13 ■
Observability 15 Auditability and ■

compliance 16 ■
Disaster recovery 19

2 Kubernetes and GitOps

2.1 Kubernetes introduction
20
20
What is Kubernetes? 21 Other container orchestrators 22
■

Kubernetes architecture 22 Deploying to Kubernetes 25

■

2.2 Declarative vs. imperative object management 30

How declarative configuration works 34

v
vi CONTENTS

2.3 Controller architecture 37

Controller delegation 37 ■
Controller pattern 38
NGINX operator 40
2.4 Kubernetes + GitOps 44
2.5 Getting started with CI/CD 44
Basic GitOps operator 45 ■
Continuous integration pipeline 47

PART 2 PATTERNS AND PROCESSES ............................. 53

3 Environment management
3.1
55
Introduction to environment management 56
Components of an environment 57 Namespace ■

management 59 Network isolation 64 Preprod and prod

■ ■

clusters 67
3.2 Git strategies 68
Single branch (multiple directories) 69 ■
Multiple branches 70
Multirepo vs. monorepo 70
3.3 Configuration management 71
Helm 72 Kustomize 76
■ ■
Jsonnet 79 ■
Configuration
management summary 83
3.4 Durable vs. ephemeral environments 83

4 Pipelines
4.1
86
Stages in CI/CD pipelines 86
GitOps continuous integration 88 ■
GitOps continuous
delivery 94
4.2 Driving promotions 98
Code vs. manifest vs. app config 98 Code and image ■

promotion 99 Environment promotion 101 Putting it all

■ ■

together 102
4.3 Other pipelines 102
Rollback 103 ■
Compliance pipeline 106

5 Deployment strategies
5.1 Deployment basics
109
110
Why ReplicaSet is not a good fit for GitOps 111 How Deployment ■

works with ReplicaSets 114 Traffic routing 120

■

Configuring minikube for other strategies 122

 CONTENTS vii

5.2 Blue-green 123

Blue-green with Deployment 125 ■
Blue-green with Argo
Rollouts 130
5.3 Canary 133
Canary with Deployment 134 ■
Canary with Argo
Rollouts 138
5.4 Progressive delivery 140
Progressive delivery with Argo Rollouts 140

6 Access control and security

6.1 Introduction to access control 149
148

What is access control? 149 ■

What to secure 150 ■
Access
control in GitOps 153
6.2 Access limitations 155
Git repository access 155 ■
Kubernetes RBAC 163 ■
Image
registry access 168
6.3 Patterns 171
Full access 171 ■
Deployment repo access 172 ■
Code access
only 172
6.4 Security concerns 173
Preventing image pull from untrusted registries 173
Cluster-level resources in a Git repository 174

7 Secrets
7.1
176
Kubernetes Secrets 177
Why use Secrets? 177 ■
How to use Secrets 178
7.2 GitOps and Secrets 181
No encryption 181 Distributed Git repos 181 No granular
■ ■

(file-level) access control 181 Insecure storage 181 ■

Full commit history 182

7.3 Secrets management strategies 182
Storing Secrets in Git 182 Baking Secrets into the container
■

image 182 Out-of-band management 183 External Secrets

■ ■

management systems 184 Encrypting Secrets in Git 185

■

Comparison of strategies 186

7.4 Tooling 187
HashiCorp Vault 187 Vault Agent Sidecar Injector 190
■

Sealed Secrets 194 Kustomize Secret generator plugin 198

■
viii CONTENTS

8 Observability
8.1
203
What is observability? 204
Event logging 205 ■
Metrics 209 Tracing 212 ■

Visualization 217 ■
Importance of observability in GitOps 219
8.2 Application health 219
Resource status 220 Readiness and liveness
■
224
Application monitoring and alerting 225
8.3 GitOps observability 227
GitOps metrics 227 Application sync status 228
■

Configuration drift 232 GitOps change log 234

■

PART 3 TOOLS ........................................................ 239

9 Argo CD
9.1
241
What is Argo CD? 241
Main use cases 242 Core concepts
■
243 ■
Sync and health
statuses 244 Architecture 246
■

9.2 Deploy your first application 249

Deploying the first application 249 ■
Inspect the application
using the user interface 251
9.3 Deep dive into Argo CD features 253
GitOps-driven deployment 253 Resource hooks ■
254
Postdeployment verification 257
9.4 Enterprise features 257
Single sign-on 258 ■
Access control 261 ■
Declarative
management 263

10 Jenkins X
10.1
267
What is Jenkins X? 267
10.2 Exploring Prow, Jenkins X pipeline operator,
and Tekton 269
10.3 Importing projects into Jenkins X 273
Importing a project 274 ■
Promoting a release to the production
environment 281

11 Flux
11.1
284
What is Flux? 284
What Flux does 285 ■
Docker registry scanning 286
Architecture 288
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 CONTENTS ix

11.2 Simple application deployment 289

Deploying the first application 289 Observing application
■

state 290 Upgrading the deployment image 291 Using

■ ■

Kustomize for manifest generation 292 Securing deployment

■

using GPG 294

11.3 Multitenancy with Flux 296

appendix A Setting up a test Kubernetes cluster 299

appendix B Setting up GitOps tools 302
appendix C Configuring GPG key 313

index 315
x CONTENTS
 preface
As Intuit embarked on the journey from on-premises to cloud-native, the journey itself
presented an opportunity to reinvent our build and deployment process. Similar to
many large enterprises, our old deployment process was data-center-centric with sepa-
rate QA, Ops, and Infrastructure teams. Code could take weeks to get deployed, and
developers had no access to infrastructure when there were production issues. Infra-
structure issues could take a long time to resolve and required many groups’ collabo-
ration.
As Marianna Tessel (Intuit CTO) and Jeff Brewer (Intuit SBSEG chief architect)
decided to bet big on Kubernetes and Docker, we were fortunate to be the first team
to fully migrate one of our production applications with Kubernetes and Docker.
Along the way, we got to reinvent our CI/CD pipeline and adopt the GitOps process.
Jesse and Alex created Argo CD (CNCF incubator project) to address enterprise
needs for GitOps. Todd and his team created world-class cluster management tools so
we can scale out to hundreds of clusters with ease.
Having a standard like Kubernetes and Docker enables all engineers to speak a
common language in terms of infrastructure and deployment. Engineers can easily
contribute to other projects and deploy as soon as the development process is com-
plete. GitOps also allows us to know exactly who and what gets changed in our environ-
ments, which is especially important if you are subject to compliance requirements. We
cannot imagine going back to the old way we did deployment, and we hope that this
book can help accelerate your journey to embrace GitOps!

xi
 acknowledgments
This book turned out to be an 18-month journey that required a lot of work and addi-
tional research to tell the complete story. We believe that we have delivered what we
set out to do, and it is a great book for anyone who wants to adopt GitOps and Kuber-
netes.
There are quite a few people we’d like to thank for helping us along the way. At Man-
ning, we would like to thank our development editor, Dustin Archibald, project editor,
Deirdre Hiam, proofreader, Katie Tennant, and reviewing editor, Aleks Dragosavljevic.
We want to thank Marianna Tessel and Jeff Brewer, who provided us the opportu-
nity and freedom to transform and experiment with GitOps and Kubernetes. We
would also like to thank Pratik Wadher, Saradhi Sreegiriaju, Mukulika Kupas, and
Edward Lee for their guidance throughout the process. We want to call out Viktor Far-
cic and Oscar Medina for their insightful contributions to the Jenkins X chapter.
To all the reviewers: Andres Damian Sacco, Angelo Simone Scotto, Björn Neuhaus,
Chris Viner, Clifford Thurber, Conor Redmond, Diego Casella, James Liu, Jaume
López, Jeremy Bryan, Jerome Meyer, John Guthrie, Marco Massenzio, Matthieu Evrin,
Mike Ensor, Mike Jensen, Roman Zhuzha, Samuel Brown, Satej Kumar Sahu, Sean T.
Booker, Wendell Beckwith, and Zorodzayi Mukuya, we say thank you. Your suggestions
helped make this a better book.
For Jeff Brewer, who inspired us all for this awesome transformation journey!

xii
 about this book
Who this book is for
This book is intended for both Kubernetes infrastructure and operation engineers
and software developers who want to deploy applications to Kubernetes through a
declarative model using the GitOps process. It will benefit anyone looking to improve
the stability, reliability, security, and auditability of their Kubernetes clusters while at
the same time reducing operational costs through automated continuous software
deployments.
Readers are expected to have a working knowledge of Kubernetes (Deployment,
Pod, Service, and Ingress resources, for example) as well as an understanding of mod-
ern software development practices including continuous integration/continuous
deployment (CI/CD), revision control systems (such as Git), and deployment/infra-
structure automation.

Who this book is not for

Advanced users who have successfully implemented a mature GitOps system may be
better off reading a more advanced book on their chosen tool.
This book is not intended to cover all aspects of Kubernetes in depth. While we
cover many Kubernetes concepts that are relevant to GitOps, readers looking for a
comprehensive guide to Kubernetes should look at the other great books and online
resources available on the topic.

How this book is organized: A roadmap

This book describes the benefits of GitOps on Kubernetes, including flexible configu-
ration management, monitoring, robustness, multienvironment support, and security.

xiii
xiv ABOUT THIS BOOK

You will learn the best practices, techniques, and tools to achieve these benefits, which
enable enterprises to use Kubernetes to accelerate application development without
compromising on stability, reliability, or security.
You will also gain in-depth understanding of the following topics:
 Multiple-environment management with branching, namespace, and configu-
ration
 Access control with Git, Kubernetes, and pipelines
 Pipeline considerations with CI/CD, promotion, push/pull, and release/roll-
back
 Observability and drift detection
 Managing Secrets
 Deployment strategy selection among rolling update, blue/green, canary, and
progressive delivery
This book takes a hands-on approach with tutorials and exercises to develop the skills
you need to embrace GitOps using Kubernetes. After reading this book, you will know
how to implement a declarative continuous delivery system for your applications run-
ning on Kubernetes. This book contains hands-on tutorials on
 Getting started with managing Kubernetes application deployments
 Configuration and environment management using Kustomize
 Writing your own basic Kubernetes continuous delivery (CD) operator
 Implementing CI/CD using Argo CD,1 Jenkins X,2 and Flux3

IMPERATIVE VS. DECLARATIVE There are two basic ways to deploy Kubernetes:
imperatively using many kubectl commands or declaratively by writing mani-
fests and using kubectl apply. The former is useful for learning and interac-
tive experimentation. The latter is best for reproducible deployments and
tracking changes.

This book is intended for you to follow along, running the hands-on portion of the
tutorials, using your own test Kubernetes cluster. Appendix A describes several
options for creating a test cluster.
There are many code listings contained in the book. All code listings and addi-
tional supporting material can be found in the publicly accessible GitHub repository
for this book:

https://github.com/gitopsbook/resources

We encourage you to clone or fork this repository and use it as you work through the
tutorials and exercises in the book.

1
https://argoproj.github.io/argo-cd.
2
https://jenkins-x.io.
3
https://github.com/fluxcd/flux.
 ABOUT THIS BOOK xv

The following tools and utilities should be installed on your workstation:

 Kubectl (v1.16 or later)
 Minikube (v1.4 or later)
 Bash or the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL)

Most tutorials and exercises can be completed using a minikube running on your
workstation. If not, we will mention if the cluster running on a cloud provider is
needed, and you can refer to appendix A for details on creating the cluster.

NOTE You may incur additional costs for running a test Kubernetes cluster
on a cloud provider. While we have attempted to reduce the cost of the rec-
ommended test configuration as much as possible, remember you are respon-
sible for these costs. We recommend you delete your test cluster after
completing each tutorial or exercise.

This book has 3 parts that cover 11 chapters. Part 1 covers the background and intro-
duces GitOps and Kubernetes:
 Chapter 1 walks you through the journey of software deployment evolution and
how GitOps became the latest practice. It also covers the many key concepts
and benefits of GitOps.
 Chapter 2 provides key concepts on Kubernetes and why its declarative nature
is perfect for GitOps. It also covers the core operator concept and how to imple-
ment a simple GitOps operator.
Part 2 goes over the patterns and processes to adopt the GitOps process:
 Chapter 3 discusses the definition of an environment and how Kubernetes
Namespaces nicely map as environments. It also covers branching strategy and
config management to your environment implementation.
 Chapter 4 goes deep into the GitOps CI/CD pipeline with comprehensive
descriptions of all stages necessary for a complete pipeline. It also covers code,
image, and environment promotion as well as the rollback mechanism.
 Chapter 5 describes various deployment strategies, including rolling update,
blue/green, canary, and progressive delivery. It also covers how to implement
each strategy by using native Kubernetes resources and other open source tools.
 Chapter 6 discusses GitOps-driven deployment’s attack surfaces and how to mit-
igate each area. It also reviews Jsonnet, Kustomize, and Helm and how to
choose the right configuration management pattern for your use cases.
 Chapter 7 discusses various strategies for managing Secrets for GitOps. It also
covers several Secret management tools as well as native Kubernetes Secrets.
 Chapter 8 explains the core concepts of observability and why it is important to
GitOps. It also describes various methods to implement observability with
GitOps and Kubernetes.
xvi ABOUT THIS BOOK

Part 3 goes over several enterprise-grade GitOps tools:

 Chapter 9 discusses the intent and architecture for Argo CD. It also covers con-
figuring application deployment using Argo CD and how to secure Argo CD in
production.
 Chapter 10 discusses the intent and architecture for Jenkins X. It also covers
configuring application deployment and promotion to various environments.
 Chapter 11 discusses the intent and motivation for Flux. It also covers configur-
ing application deployment using Flux and multitenancy.

Part 1: Background Part 2: Patterns and processes Part 3: Tools

Chapter 1 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 9

Environment
Why GitOps? Pipelines Argo CD
management

Chapter 2 Chapter 6 Chapter 5 Chapter 10

Kubernetes and Access control Deployment
Jenkins X
GitOps and security strategies

Chapter 7 Chapter 11

Secrets Flux

Chapter 8

Observability

Appendix A Appendix B Appendix C

Set up a test Set up Configure
Kubernetes cluster GitOps tools GPG key

Appendixes: optional information

The book was organized to read all the chapters in sequential order. However, if there is a particular area
of interest you’d like to jump into, we recommend you read the prerequisite chapters. For example, if you
would like to jump right into learning to use Argo CD, we recommend you read chapters 1, 2, 3, and 5
before reading chapter 9.

About the code

This book contains many examples of source code both in numbered listings and
inline with normal text. In both cases, source code is formatted in a fixed-width
font to separate it from ordinary text. Sometimes, code is also in bold to highlight
 ABOUT THIS BOOK xvii

code that has changed from previous steps in the chapter, such as when a new feature
adds to an existing line of code.
In many cases, the original source code has been reformatted; we’ve added line
breaks and reworked indentation to accommodate the available page space in the
book. Additionally, comments in the source code have often been removed from the
listings when the code is described in the text. Code annotations accompany many of
the listings, highlighting important concepts. Source code for the examples in this
book is available for download from https://github.com/gitopsbook /resources.

liveBook discussion forum

Purchase of GitOps and Kubernetes includes free access to a private web forum run by
Manning Publications where you can make comments about the book, ask technical
questions, and receive help from the authors and from other users. To access the forum,
go to https://livebook.manning.com/book/GitOps-and-Kubernetes/discussion. You
can also learn more about Manning’s forums and the rules of conduct at https://
livebook.manning.com/#!/discussion.
Manning’s commitment to our readers is to provide a venue where a meaningful
dialogue between individual readers and between readers and authors can take place.
It is not a commitment to any specific amount of participation on the part of the
authors, whose contribution to the forum remains voluntary (and unpaid). We sug-
gest you try asking them some challenging questions lest their interest stray! The
forum and the archives of previous discussions will be accessible from the publisher’s
website as long as the book is in print.
 about the authors
BILLY YUEN is a principal engineer with Intuit’s Platform team, focusing on AWS and
Kubernetes adoption, system resiliency, and monitoring. Previously, Billy worked on
Netflix’s Edge Services team to build the next generation of edge-service infrastruc-
ture to support millions of customers (more than 3 billion requests per day) with high
scalability, resilience to failure, and rapid innovation. Billy was a speaker at Java One
2016 and Velocity NY 2016 on “Operational Excellence with Netflix Hystrix,” “CI/CD
at Lightspeed” at KubeCon 2018, and “Automated Canary Release” at Container
World 2019.
ALEXANDER MATYUSHENTSEV is a principal engineer on the Intuit Platform team,
focusing on building tools that make it easier to use Kubernetes. Alexander is passion-
ate about open source, cloud-native infrastructure, and tools that increase developers’
productivity. He is one of the core contributors to the Argo Workflows and Argo CD
projects. Alexander was a speaker at KubeCon 2019 on “How Intuit Does Canary and
Blue-Green Deployments with a K8s Controller.”
TODD EKENSTAM is a principal engineer at Intuit, building a platform for secure,
multitenant Kubernetes infrastructure supporting applications serving Intuit’s
approximately 50 million customers. Todd has worked on a variety of large-scale dis-
tributed systems projects during his career of more than 25 years, including hierarchi-
cal storage management, peer-to-peer database replication, enterprise storage
virtualization, and two-factor authentication SaaS. Todd has presented at academic,
government, and industry conferences, most recently as a guest speaker on “Introduc-
tion to Open Policy Agent” at KubeCon 2018.
JESSE SUEN is a principal engineer on the Intuit Platform team, developing
microservices-based, distributed applications for Kubernetes. He was an early

xviii
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now to explore a rich
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and enjoy exciting offers!
 ABOUT THE AUTHORS xix

engineer at Applatix (acquired by Intuit), building a platform to help users run con-
tainerized workloads in the public cloud. Before that, he was part of the engineering
team at Tintri and Data Domain, working on virtualized infrastructure, storage, tool-
ing, and automation. Jesse is one of the core contributors to the open source Argo
Workflows and Argo CD projects.
 about the cover illustration
The figure on the cover of GitOps and Kubernetes is captioned “Habitant de Styrie,” or
resident of Styria. The illustration is taken from a collection of dress costumes from
various countries by Jacques Grasset de Saint-Sauveur (1757-1810), titled Costumes de
Différents Pays, published in France in 1797. Each illustration is finely drawn and col-
ored by hand. The rich variety of Grasset de Saint-Sauveur’s collection reminds us viv-
idly of how culturally apart the world’s towns and regions were just 200 years ago.
Isolated from each other, people spoke different dialects and languages. In the streets
or in the countryside, it was easy to identify where they lived and what their trade or
station in life was just by their dress.
The way we dress has changed since then, and the diversity by region, so rich at the
time, has faded away. It is now hard to tell apart the inhabitants of different conti-
nents, let alone different towns, regions, or countries. Perhaps we have traded cultural
diversity for a more varied personal life—certainly for a more varied and fast-paced
technological life.
At a time when it is hard to tell one computer book from another, Manning cele-
brates the inventiveness and initiative of the computer business with book covers
based on the rich diversity of regional life of two centuries ago, brought back to life by
Grasset de Saint-Sauveur’s pictures.

xx
 Part 1

Background

T his part of the book covers background and gives you an introduction to
GitOps and Kubernetes.
Chapter 1 walks you through the journey of software deployment evolution
and how GitOps became the latest practice. It also covers the many key concepts
and benefits of GitOps.
Chapter 2 provides key concepts of Kubernetes and why its declarative nature
is perfect for GitOps. It also covers the core operator concept and how to imple-
ment a simple GitOps operator.
After you grasp the core concepts of GitOps and Kubernetes, you will be
ready to dive into the patterns and processes required to adopt GitOps in your
deployments. Part 2 covers the GitOps CI/CD pipeline along with environment
setup and promotion as well as different deployment strategies. It also covers
how you can secure your deployment process and reviews several configuration
management tools and various techniques to manage Secrets in GitOps. There is
also a chapter devoted to observability as it is related to GitOps.
2 CHAPTER
 Why GitOps?

This chapter covers

 What is GitOps?
 Why GitOps is important
 GitOps compared with other approaches
 Benefits of GitOps

Kubernetes is a massively popular open source platform that orchestrates and auto-
mates operations. Although it improves the management and scaling of infrastruc-
ture and applications, Kubernetes frequently has challenges managing the
complexity of releasing applications.
Git is the most widely used version-control system in the software industry today.
GitOps is a set of procedures that uses the power of Git to provide both revision and
change control within the Kubernetes platform. A GitOps strategy can play a big
part in how quickly and easily teams manage their services’ environment creation,
promotion, and operation.
Using GitOps with Kubernetes is a natural fit, with the deployment of declara-
tive Kubernetes manifest files being controlled by common Git operations. GitOps
brings the core benefits of Infrastructure as Code and immutable infrastructure to

3
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"Not at all," said Dukes; "the top of you's by no means hors de
combat. You've got the life of the mind sound and intact. So let us
hear your ideas."
"Well," stammered Clifford, "even then I don't suppose I have much
idea ... I suppose marry-and-have-done-with-it would pretty well
stand for what I think. Though of course between a man and woman
who care for one another, it is a great thing."
"What sort of great thing?" said Tommy.
"Oh ... it perfects the intimacy," said Clifford, uneasy as a woman in
such talk.
"Well, Charlie and I believe that sex is a sort of communication like
speech. Let any woman start a sex conversation with me, and it's
natural for me to go to bed with her to finish it, all in due season.
Unfortunately no woman makes any particular start with me, so I go
to bed by myself; and am none the worse for it.... I hope so anyway,
for how should I know? Anyhow I've no starry calculations to be
interfered with, and no immortal works to write. I'm merely a fellow
skulking in the army...."
Silence fell. The four men smoked. And Connie sat there and put
another stitch in her sewing.... Yes, she sat there! She had to sit
mum. She had to be quiet as a mouse, not to interfere with the
immensely important speculations of these highly-mental gentlemen.
But she had to be there. They didn't get on so well without her; their
ideas didn't flow so freely. Clifford was much more edgy and
nervous, he got cold feet much quicker in Connie's absence, and the
talk didn't run. Tommy Dukes came off best; he was a little inspired
by her presence. Hammond she didn't really like; he seemed so
selfish in a mental way. And Charles May, though she liked
something about him, seemed a little distasteful and messy, in spite
of his stars.
How many evenings had Connie sat and listened to the
manifestations of these four men! these, and one or two others. That
they never seemed to get anywhere didn't trouble her deeply. She
liked to hear what they had to say, especially when Tommy was
there. It was fun. Instead of men kissing you, and touching you with
their bodies, they revealed their minds to you. It was great fun! But
what cold minds!
And also it was a little irritating. She had more respect for Michaelis,
on whose name they all poured such withering contempt, as a little
mongrel arriviste, and uneducated bounder of the worst sort.
Mongrel and bounder or not, he jumped to his own conclusions. He
didn't merely walk round them with millions of words, in the parade of
the life of the mind.
Connie quite liked the life of the mind, and got a great thrill out of it.
But she did think it overdid itself a little. She loved being there,
amidst the tobacco smoke of those famous evenings of the cronies,
as she called them privately to herself. She was infinitely amused,
and proud too, that even their talking they could not do without her
silent presence. She had an immense respect for thought ... and
these men, at least, tried to think honestly. But somehow there was a
cat, and it wouldn't jump. They all alike talked at something, though
what it was, for the life of her she couldn't say. It was something that
Mick didn't clear, either.
But then Mick wasn't trying to do anything, but just get through his
life, and put as much across other people as they tried to put across
him. He was really anti-social, which was what Clifford and his
cronies had against him. Clifford and his cronies were not anti-social;
they were more or less bent on saving mankind, or on instructing it,
to say the least.
There was a gorgeous talk on Sunday evening, when the
conversation drifted again to love.

"Blest be the tie that binds

 Our hearts in kindred something-or-other"—

said Tommy Dukes. "I'd like to know what the tie is.... The tie that
binds us just now is mental friction on one another. And, apart from
that, there's damned little tie between us. We bust apart, and say
spiteful things about one another, like all the other damned
intellectuals in the world. Damned everybodies, as far as that goes,
for they all do it. Else we bust apart, and cover up the spiteful things
we feel against one another by saying false sugaries. It's a curious
thing that the mental life seems to flourish with its roots in spite,
ineffable and fathomless spite. Always has been so! Look at
Socrates, in Plato, and his bunch round him! The sheer spite of it all,
just sheer joy in pulling somebody else to bits.... Protagoras, or
whoever it was! And Alcibiades, and all the other little disciple dogs
joining in the fray! I must say it makes one prefer Buddha, quietly
sitting under a bo-tree, or Jesus, telling his disciples little Sunday
stories, peacefully, and without any mental fireworks. No, there's
something wrong with the mental life, radically. It's rooted in spite
and envy, envy and spite. Ye shall know the tree by its fruit."
"I don't think we're altogether so spiteful," protested Clifford.
"My dear Clifford, think of the way we talk each other over, all of us.
I'm rather worse than anybody else, myself. Because I infinitely
prefer the spontaneous spite to the concocted sugaries; now they
are poison; when I begin saying what a fine fellow Clifford is, etc, etc,
then poor Clifford is to be pitied. For God's sake, all of you, say
spiteful things about me, then I shall know I mean something to you.
Don't say sugaries, or I'm done."
"Oh, but I do think we honestly like one another," said Hammond.
"I tell you we must ... we say such spiteful things to one another,
about one another, behind our backs! I'm the worst."
"And I do think you confuse the mental life with the critical activity. I
agree with you, Socrates gave the critical activity a grand start, but
he did more than that," said Charlie May, rather magisterially. The
cronies had such a curious pomposity under their assumed modesty.
It was all so ex cathedra, and it all pretended to be so humble.
Dukes refused to be drawn about Socrates.
"That's quite true, criticism and knowledge are not the same thing,"
said Hammond.
"They aren't, of course," chimed in Berry, a brown, shy young man,
who had called to see Dukes, and was staying the night.
They all looked at him as if the ass had spoken.
"I wasn't talking about knowledge.... I was talking about the mental
life," laughed Dukes. "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
rationalise. Set the mind and the reason to cock it over the rest, and
all they can do is to criticise, and make a deadness. I say all they
can do. It is vastly important. My God, the world needs criticising
today ... criticising 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 connection between the apple and the
tree: the organic connection. 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."
Clifford made big eyes: it was all stuff to him. Connie secretly
laughed to herself.
"Well then, we're all plucked apples," said Hammond, rather acidly
and petulantly.
"So let's make cider of ourselves," said Charlie.
"But what do you think of Bolshevism?" put in the brown Berry, as if
everything had led up to it.
"Bravo!" roared Charlie. "What do you think of Bolshevism?"
"Come on! Let's make hay of Bolshevism!" said Dukes.
"I'm afraid Bolshevism is a large question," said Hammond, shaking
his head seriously.
"Bolshevism, it seems to me," said Charlie, "is just a superlative
hatred of the thing they call the bourgeois; and what the bourgeois
is, isn't quite defined. It is Capitalism, among other things. Feelings
and emotions are also so decidedly bourgeois that you have to
invent a man without them.
"Then the individual, especially the personal man, is bourgeois: so
he must be suppressed. You must submerge yourselves in the
greater thing, the Soviet-social thing. Even an organism is bourgeois:
so the ideal must be mechanical. The only thing that is a unit, non-
organic, composed of many different, yet equally essential parts, is
the machine. Each man a machine-part, and the driving power of the
machine, hate ... hate of the bourgeois. That, to me, is Bolshevism."
"Absolutely!" said Tommy, "But also, it seems to me a perfect
description of the whole of the industrial ideal. It's the factory-owner's
ideal in a nut-shell; except that he would deny that the driving power
was hate. Hate it is, all the same: hate of life itself. Just look at these
Midlands, if it isn't plainly written up ... but it's all part of the life of the
mind, it's a logical development."
"I deny that Bolshevism is logical, it rejects the major part of the
premisses," said Hammond.
"My dear man, it allows the material premiss; so does the pure mind
... exclusively."
"At least Bolshevism has got down to rock bottom," said Charlie.
"Rock bottom! The bottom that has no bottom! The Bolshevists will
have the finest army in the world in a very short time, with the finest
mechanical equipment."
"But this thing can't go on ... this hate business. There must be a
reaction...." said Hammond.
"Well, we've been waiting for years ... we wait longer. Hate's a
growing thing like anything else. It's the inevitable outcome of forcing
ideas on to life, forcing one's deepest instincts; our deepest feelings
we force according to certain ideas. We drive ourselves with a
formula, like a machine. The logical mind pretends to rule the roost,
and the roost turns into pure hate. We're all Bolshevists, only we are
hypocrites. The Russians are Bolshevists without hypocrisy."
"But there are many other ways," said Hammond, "than the Soviet
way. The Bolshevists aren't really intelligent."
"Of course not. But sometimes it's intelligent to be half-witted: if you
want to make your end. Personally, I consider Bolshevism half-
witted; but so do I consider our social life in the west half-witted. So I
even consider our far-famed mental life half-witted. We're all as cold
as cretins, we're all as passionless as idiots. We're all of us
Bolshevists, only we give it another name. We think we're gods ...
men like gods! It's just the same as Bolshevism. One has to be
human, and have a heart and a penis if one is going to escape being
either a god or a Bolshevist ... for they are the same thing: they're
both too good to be true."
Out of the disapproving silence came Berry's anxious question:
"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!"
"But you do believe in something?"
"Me? Oh, intellectually I believe in having a good heart, a chirpy
penis, a lively intelligence, and the courage to say 'shit!' in front of a
lady."
"Well, you've got them all," said Berry.
Tommy Dukes roared with laughter. "You angel boy! If only I had! If
only I had! No; my heart's as numb as a potato, my penis droops and
never lifts its head up, I dare rather cut him clean off than say 'shit!'
in front of my mother or my aunt ... they are real ladies, mind you;
and I'm not really intelligent, I'm only a 'mental-lifer.' It would be
wonderful to be intelligent: then one would be alive in all the parts
mentioned and unmentionable. The penis rouses his head and says:
How do you do?—to any really intelligent person. Renoir said he
painted his pictures with his penis ... he did too, lovely pictures! I
wish I did something with mine. God! when one can only talk!
Another torture added to Hades! And Socrates started it."
"There are nice women in the world," said Connie, lifting her head up
and speaking at last.
The men resented it ... she should have pretended to hear nothing.
They hated her admitting she had attended so closely to such talk.

"My God!—'If they be not nice to me

What care I how nice they be?'—

"No, it's hopeless! I just simply can't vibrate in unison with a woman.
There's no woman I can really want when I'm faced with her, and I'm
not going to start forcing myself to it.... My God, no! I'll remain as I
am, and lead the mental life. It's the only honest thing I can do. I can
be quite happy talking to women; but it's all pure, hopelessly pure.
Hopelessly pure! What do you say, Hildebrand, my chicken?"
"It's much less complicated if one stays pure," said Berry.
"Yes, life is all too simple!"

CHAPTER V
On a frosty morning with a little February sun, Clifford and Connie
went for a walk across the park to the wood. That is, Clifford chuffed
in his motor-chair, and Connie walked beside him.
The hard air was still sulphureous, but they were both used to it.
Round the near horizon went the haze, opalescent with frost and
smoke, and on the top lay the small blue sky; so that it was like
being inside an enclosure, always inside. Life always a dream or a
frenzy, inside an enclosure.
The sheep coughed in the rough, sere grass of the park, where frost
lay bluish in the sockets of the tufts. Across the park ran a path to
the woodgate, a fine ribbon of pink. Clifford had had it newly
gravelled with sifted gravel from the pit-bank. When the rock and
refuse of the underworld had burned and given off its sulphur, it
turned bright pink, shrimp-coloured on dry days, darker, crab-
coloured on wet. Now it was pale shrimp-colour, with a bluish-white
hoar of frost. It always pleased Connie, this underfoot of sifted, bright
pink. It's an ill-wind that brings nobody good.
Clifford steered cautiously down the slope of the knoll from the hall,
and Connie kept her hand on the chair. In front lay the wood, the
hazel thicket nearest, the purplish density of oaks beyond. From the
wood's edge rabbits bobbed and nibbled. Rooks suddenly rose in a
black train, and went trailing off over the little sky.
Connie opened the woodgate, and Clifford puffed slowly through into
the broad riding that ran up an incline between the clean-whipped
thickets of the hazel. The wood was a remnant of the great forest
where Robin Hood hunted, and this riding was an old, old
thoroughfare coming across country. But now, of course, it was only
a riding through the private wood. The road from Mansfield swerved
round to the north.
In the wood everything was motionless, the old leaves on the ground
keeping the frost on their underside. A jay called harshly, many little
birds fluttered. But there was no game; no pheasants. They had
been killed off during the war, and the wood had been left
unprotected, till now Clifford had got his gamekeeper again.
Clifford loved the wood; he loved the old oak trees. He felt they were
his own through generations. He wanted to protect them. He wanted
this place inviolate, shut off from the world.
The chair chuffed slowly up the incline, rocking and jolting on the
frozen clods. And suddenly, on the left, came a clearing where there
was nothing but a ravel of dead bracken, a thin and spindly sapling
leaning here and there, big sawn stumps, showing their tops and
their grasping roots, lifeless. And patches of blackness where the
woodmen had burned the brushwood and rubbish.
This was one of the places that Sir Geoffrey had cut during the war
for trench timber. The whole knoll, which rose softly on the right of
the riding, was denuded and strangely forlorn. On the crown of the
knoll where the oaks had stood, now was bareness; and from there
you could look out over the trees to the colliery railway, and the new
works at Stacks Gate. Connie had stood and looked, it was a breach
in the pure seclusion of the wood. It let in the world. But she didn't
tell Clifford.
This denuded place always made Clifford curiously angry. He had
been through the war, had seen what it meant. But he didn't get
really angry till he saw this bare hill. He was having it replanted. But
it made him hate Sir Geoffrey.
Clifford sat with a fixed face as the chair slowly mounted. When they
came to the top of the rise he stopped; he would not risk the long
and very jolty downslope. He sat looking at the greenish sweep of
the riding downwards, a clear way through the bracken and oaks. It
swerved at the bottom of the hill and disappeared; but it had such a
lovely easy curve, of knights riding and ladies on palfreys.
"I consider this is really the heart of England," said Clifford to Connie,
as he sat there in the dim February sunshine.
"Do you?" she said, seating herself, in her blue knitted dress, on a
stump by the path.
"I do! this is the old England, the heart of it; and I intend to keep it
intact."
"Oh yes!" said Connie. But, as she said it she heard the eleven-
o'clock hooters at Stacks Gate colliery. Clifford was too used to the
sound to notice.
"I want this wood perfect ... untouched. I want nobody to trespass in
it," said Clifford.
There was a certain pathos. The wood still had some of the mystery
of wild, old England; but Sir Geoffrey's cuttings during the war had
given it a blow. How still the trees were, with their crinkly,
innumerable twigs against the sky, and their grey, obstinate trunks
rising from the brown bracken! How safely the birds flitted among
them! And once there had been deer, and archers, and monks
padding along on asses. The place remembered, still remembered.
Clifford sat in the pale sun, with the light on his smooth, rather blond
hair, his reddish full face inscrutable.
"I mind more, not having a son, when I come here, than any other
time," he said.
"But the wood is older than your family," said Connie gently.
"Quite!" said Clifford. "But we've preserved it. Except for us it would
go ... it would be gone already, like the rest of the forest. One must
preserve some of the old England!"
"Must one?" said Connie. "If it has to be preserved, and preserved
against the new England? It's sad, I know."
"If some of the old England isn't preserved, there'll be no England at
all," said Clifford. "And we who have this kind of property, and the
feeling for it, must preserve it."
There was a sad pause.
"Yes, for a little while," said Connie.
"For a little while! It's all we can do. We can only do our bit. I feel
every man of my family has done his bit here, since we've had the
place. One may go against convention, but one must keep up
tradition." Again there was a pause.
"What tradition?" asked Connie.
"The tradition of England! of this!"
"Yes," she said slowly.
"That's why having a son helps; one is only a link in a chain," he
said.
Connie was not keen on chains, but she said nothing. She was
thinking of the curious impersonality of his desire for a son.
"I'm sorry we can't have a son," she said.
He looked at her steadily, with his full, pale-blue eyes.
"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
connections 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 connections matter? And the occasional
sexual connections specially! 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."
Connie sat and listened in a sort of wonder, and a sort of fear. She
did not know if he was right or not. There was Michaelis, whom she
loved; so she said to herself. But her love was somehow only an
excursion from her marriage with Clifford; the long, slow habit of
intimacy, formed through years of suffering and patience. Perhaps
the human soul needs excursions, and must not be denied them. But
the point of an excursion is that you come home again.
"And wouldn't you mind what man's child I had?" she asked.
"Why, Connie, I should trust your natural instinct of decency and
selection. You just wouldn't let the wrong sort of fellow touch you."
She thought of Michaelis! He was absolutely Clifford's idea of the
wrong sort of fellow.
"But men and women may have different feelings about the wrong
sort of fellow," she said.
"No," he replied. "You cared for me. I don't believe you would ever
care for a man who was purely antipathetic to me. Your rhythm
wouldn't let you."
She was silent. Logic might be unanswerable because it was so
absolutely wrong.
"And should you expect me to tell you?" she asked, glancing up at
him almost furtively.
"Not at all. I'd better not know.... 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?"
Connie was a little overwhelmed by his words. She knew he was
right theoretically. But when she actually touched her steadily-lived
life with him she ... hesitated. Was it actually her destiny to go on
weaving herself into his life all the rest of her life? Nothing else?
Was it just that? She was to be content to weave a steady life with
him, all one fabric, but perhaps brocaded with the occasional flower
of an adventure. But how could she know what she would feel next
year? How could one ever know? How could one say Yes? for years
and years? The little yes, gone on a breath! Why should one be
pinned down by that butterfly word? Of course it had to flutter away
and be gone, to be followed by other yes's and no's! Like the
straying of butterflies.
"I think you're right, Clifford. And as far as I can see I agree with you.
Only life may turn quite a new face on it all."
"But until life turns a new face on it all, you do agree?"
"Oh yes! I think I do, really."
She was watching a brown spaniel that had run out of a side-path,
and was looking toward them with lifted nose, making a soft, fluffy
bark. A man with a gun strode swiftly, softly out after the dog, facing
their way as if about to attack them; then stopped instead, saluted,
and was turning down hill. It was only the new gamekeeper, but he
had frightened Connie, he seemed to emerge with such a swift
menace. That was how she had seen him, like the sudden rush of a
threat out of nowhere.
He was a man in dark-green velveteens and gaiters ... the old style,
with a red face and red moustache and distant eyes. He was going
quickly down hill.
"Mellors!" called Clifford.
The man faced lightly round, and saluted with a quick little gesture, a
soldier!
"Will you turn the chair round and get it started? That makes it
easier," said Clifford.
The man at once slung his gun over his shoulder, and came forward
with the same curious swift, yet soft movements, as if keeping
invisible. He was moderately tall and lean, and was silent. He did not
look at Connie at all, only at the chair.
"Connie, this is the new gamekeeper, Mellors. You haven't spoken to
her ladyship yet, Mellors?"
"No, Sir!" came the ready, neutral words.
The man lifted his hat as he stood, showing his thick, almost fair hair.
He stared straight into Connie's eyes, with a perfect, fearless,
impersonal look, as if he wanted to see what she was like. He made
her feel shy. She bent her head to him shyly, and he changed his hat
to his left hand and made her a slight bow, like a gentleman; but he
said nothing at all. He remained for a moment still, with his hat in his
hand.
"But you've been here some time, haven't you?" Connie said to him.
"Eight months, Madam ... your Ladyship!" he corrected himself
calmly.
"And do you like it?"
She looked him in the eyes. His eyes narrowed a little, with irony,
perhaps with impudence.
"Why, yes, thank you, your Ladyship! I was reared here...." He gave
another slight bow, turned, put his hat on, and strode to take hold of
the chair. His voice on the last words had fallen into the heavy broad
drag of the dialect ... perhaps also in mockery, because there had
been no trace of dialect before. He might almost be a gentleman.
Anyhow, he was a curious, quick, separate fellow, alone, but sure of
himself.
Clifford started the little engine, the man carefully turned the chair,
and set it nose-forwards to the incline that curved gently to the dark
hazel thicket.
"Is that all then, Sir Clifford?" asked the man.
"No, you'd better come along in case she sticks. The engine isn't
really strong enough for the uphill work." The man glanced round for
his dog ... a thoughtful glance. The spaniel looked at him and faintly
moved its tail. A little smile, mocking or teasing her, yet gentle, came
into his eyes for a moment, then faded away, and his face was
expressionless. They went fairly quickly down the slope, the man
with his hand on the rail of the chair, steadying it. He looked like a
free soldier rather than a servant. And something about him
reminded Connie of Tommy Dukes.
When they came to the hazel grove, Connie suddenly ran forward,
and opened the gate into the park. As she stood holding it, the two
men looked at her in passing, Clifford critically, the other man with a
curious, cool wonder; impersonally wanting to see what she looked
like. And she saw in his blue, impersonal eyes a look of suffering and
detachment, yet a certain warmth. But why was he so aloof, apart?
Clifford stopped the chair, once through the gate, and the man came
quickly, courteously, to close it.
"Why did you run to open?" asked Clifford in his quiet, calm voice,
that showed he was displeased. "Mellors would have done it."
"I thought you would go straight ahead," said Connie.
"And leave you to run after us?" said Clifford.
"Oh, well, I like to run sometimes!"
Mellors took the chair again, looking perfectly unheeding, yet Connie
felt he noted everything. As he pushed the chair up the steepish rise
of the knoll in the park, he breathed rather quickly, through parted
lips. He was rather frail really. Curiously full of vitality, but a little frail
and quenched. Her woman's instinct sensed it.
Connie fell back, let the chair go on. The day had greyed over: the
small blue sky that had poised low on its circular rims of haze was
closed in again, the lid was down, there was a raw coldness. It was
going to snow. All grey, all grey! the world looked worn-out.
The chair waited at the top of the pink path. Clifford looked round for
Connie.
"Not tired, are you?" he asked.
"Oh no!" she said.
But she was. A strange, weary yearning, a dissatisfaction had
started in her. Clifford did not notice: those were not things he was
aware of. But the stranger knew. To Connie, everything in her world
and life seemed worn-out, and her dissatisfaction was older than the
hills.
They came to the house, and round to the back, where there were
no steps. Clifford managed to swing himself over on to the low,
wheeled house-chair; he was very strong and agile with his arms.
Then Connie lifted the burden of his dead legs after him.
The keeper, waiting at attention to be dismissed, watched everything
narrowly, missing nothing. He went pale, with a sort of fear, when he
saw Connie lifting the inert legs of the man in her arms, into the other
chair, Clifford pivoting round as she did so. He was frightened.
"Thanks, then, for the help, Mellors," said Clifford casually, as he
began to wheel down the passage to the servants' quarters.
"Nothing else, Sir?" came the neutral voice, like one in a dream.
"Nothing, good morning!"
"Good morning, Sir."
"Good morning! it was kind of you to push the chair up that hill.... I
hope it wasn't heavy for you," said Connie, looking back at the
keeper outside the door.
His eyes came to hers in an instant, as if wakened up. He was aware
of her.
"Oh no, not heavy!" he said quickly. Then his voice dropped again
into the broad sound of the vernacular: "Good mornin' to your
Ladyship!"
"Who is your gamekeeper?" Connie asked at lunch.
"Mellors! You saw him," said Clifford.
"Yes, but where did he come from?"
"Nowhere! He was a Tevershall boy ... son of a collier, I believe."
"And was he a collier himself?"
"Blacksmith on the pit-bank, I believe: overhead smith. But he was
keeper here for two years before the war ... before he joined up. My
father always had a good opinion of him, so when he came back,
and went to the pit for a blacksmith's job, I just took him back here as
keeper. I was really very glad to get him ... it's almost impossible to
find a good man round here, for a gamekeeper ... and it needs a
man who knows the people."
"And isn't he married?"
"He was. But his wife went off with ... with various men ... but finally
with a collier at Stacks Gate, and I believe she's living there still."
"So this man is alone?"
"More or less! He has a mother in the village ... and a child, I
believe."
Clifford looked at Connie, with his pale, slightly prominent blue eyes,
in which a certain vagueness was coming. He seemed alert in the
foreground, but the background was like the Midlands atmosphere,
haze, smoky mist. And the haze seemed to be creeping forward. So
when he stared at Connie in his peculiar way, giving her his peculiar,
precise information, she felt all the background of his mind filling up
with mist, with nothingness. And it frightened her. It made him seem
impersonal, almost to idiocy.
And dimly she realised one of the great laws of the human soul: that
when the emotional soul receives a wounding shock, which does not
kill the body, the soul seems to recover as the body recovers. But
this is only appearance. It is really only the mechanism of the re-
assumed habit. Slowly, slowly the wound to the soul begins to make
itself felt, like a bruise, which only slowly deepens its terrible ache, till
it fills all the psyche. And when we think we have recovered and
forgotten, it is then that the terrible after-effects have to be
encountered at their worst.
So it was with Clifford. Once he was "well," once he was back at
Wragby, and writing his stories, and feeling sure of life, in spite of all,
he seemed to forget, and to have recovered all his equanimity. But
now, as the years went by, slowly, slowly, Connie felt the bruise of
fear and horror coming up, and spreading in him. For a time it had
been so deep as to be numb, as it were non-existent. Now slowly it
began to assert itself in a spread of fear, almost paralysis. Mentally
he still was alert. But the paralysis, the bruise of the too great shock,
was gradually spreading in his affective self.
And as it spread in him, Connie felt it spread in her. An inward dread,
an emptiness, an indifference to everything gradually spread in her
soul. When Clifford was roused, he could still talk brilliantly, and as it
were, command the future: as when, in the wood, he talked about
her having a child, and giving an heir to Wragby. But the day after, all
the brilliant words seemed like dead leaves, crumpling up and
turning to powder, meaning really nothing, blown away on any gust
of wind. They were not the leafy words of an effective life, young with
energy and belonging to the tree. They were the hosts of fallen
leaves of a life that is ineffectual.
So it seemed to her everywhere. The colliers at Tevershall were
talking again of a strike, and it seemed to Connie there again it was
not a manifestation of energy, it was the bruise of the war that had
been in abeyance, slowly rising to the surface and creating the great
ache of unrest, and stupor of discontent. The bruise was deep, deep,
deep ... the bruise of the false inhuman war. It would take many
years for the living blood of the generations to dissolve the vast black
clot of bruised blood, deep inside their souls and bodies. And it
would need a new hope.
Poor Connie! As the years drew on it was the fear of nothingness in
her life that affected her. Clifford's mental life and hers gradually
began to feel like nothingness. Their marriage, their integrated life
based on a habit of intimacy, that he talked about: there were days
when it all became utterly blank and nothing. It was words, just so
many words. The only reality was nothingness, and over it a
hypocrisy of words.
There was Clifford's success: the bitch-goddess! It was true he was
almost famous, and his books brought him in a thousand pounds.
His photograph appeared everywhere. There was a bust of him in
one of the galleries, and a portrait of him in two galleries. He seemed
the most modern of modern voices. With his uncanny lame instinct
for publicity, he had become in four or five years one of the best
known of the young "intellectuals." Where the intellect came in,
Connie did not quite see. Clifford was really clever at that slightly
humorous analysis of people and motives which leaves everything in
bits at the end. But it was rather like puppies tearing the sofa
cushions to bits; except that it was not young and playful, but
curiously old, and rather obstinately conceited. It was weird and it
was nothing. This was the feeling that echoed and re-echoed at the
bottom of Connie's soul: it was all nothing, a wonderful display of
nothingness. At the same time a display. A display! a display! a
display!
Michaelis had seized upon Clifford as the central figure for a play;
already he had sketched in the plot, and written the first act. For
Michaelis was even better than Clifford at making a display of
nothingness. It was the last bit of passion left in these men: the
passion for making a display. Sexually they were passionless, even
dead. And now it was not money that Michaelis was after. Clifford
had never been primarily out for money, though he made it where he
could, for money is the seal and stamp of success. And success was
what they wanted. They wanted, both of them, to make a real display
... a man's own very display of himself, that should 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 suède
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
want to marry. I know it would be the best thing for me ... marry and