"D. H. Lawrence - Sons And Lovers" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lawrence D. H)

Walter Morel seemed melted away before her. She was
to the miner that thing of mystery and fascination, a lady.
When she spoke to him, it was with a southern pronunciation and a
purity of English which thrilled him to hear. She watched him.
He danced well, as if it were natural and joyous in him to dance.
His grandfather was a French refugee who had married an English
barmaid--if it had been a marriage. Gertrude Coppard watched the
young miner as he danced, a certain subtle exultation like glamour in
his movement, and his face the flower of his body, ruddy, with tumbled
black hair, and laughing alike whatever partner he bowed above.
She thought him rather wonderful, never having met anyone like him.
Her father was to her the type of all men. And George Coppard,
proud in his bearing, handsome, and rather bitter; who preferred
theology in reading, and who drew near in sympathy only to one man,
the Apostle Paul; who was harsh in government, and in familiarity ironic;
who ignored all sensuous pleasure:--he was very different from
the miner. Gertrude herself was rather contemptuous of dancing;
she had not the slightest inclination towards that accomplishment,
and had never learned even a Roger de Coverley. She was puritan,
like her father, high-minded, and really stern. Therefore the dusky,
golden softness of this man's sensuous flame of life, that flowed off
his flesh like the flame from a candle, not baffled and gripped into
incandescence by thought and spirit as her life was, seemed to her
something wonderful, beyond her.

He came and bowed above her. A warmth radiated through her
as if she had drunk wine.

"Now do come and have this one wi' me," he said caressively.
"It's easy, you know. I'm pining to see you dance."

She had told him before she could not dance. She glanced
at his humility and smiled. Her smile was very beautiful.
It moved the man so that he forgot everything.

"No, I won't dance," she said softly. Her words came clean
and ringing.

Not knowing what he was doing--he often did the right thing
by instinct--he sat beside her, inclining reverentially.

"But you mustn't miss your dance," she reproved.


"Nay, I don't want to dance that--it's not one as I care about."

"Yet you invited me to it."

He laughed very heartily at this.