The White Peacock (Romance Classic). D. H. Lawrence

       D. H. Lawrence

      The White Peacock

      (Romance Classic)

      Published by

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      - Advanced Digital Solutions & High-Quality eBook Formatting -

       [email protected]

      2019 OK Publishing

      EAN 4064066052218

      Table of Contents

       PART ONE

       Chapter 1. The People of Nethermere

       Chapter 2. Dangling the Apple

       Chapter 3. A Vendor of Visions

       Chapter 4. The Father

       Chapter 5. The Scent of Blood

       Chapter 6. The Education of George

       Chapter 7. Lettie Pulls Down the Small Gold Grapes

       Chapter 8. The Riot of Christmas

       Chapter 9. Lettie Comes of Age

       PART TWO

       Chapter 1. Strange Blossoms and Strange New Budding

       Chapter 2. A Shadow in Spring

       Chapter 3. The Irony of Inspired Moments

       Chapter 4. Kiss when She’s Ripe for Tears

       Chapter 5. An Arrow from the Impatient God

       Chapter 6. The Courting

       Chapter 7. The Fascination of the Forbidden Apple

       Chapter 8. A Poem of Friendship

       Chapter 9. Pastorals and Peonies

       PART THREE

       Chapter 1. A New Start in Life

       Chapter 2. Puffs of Wind in the Sail

       Chapter 3. The First Pages of Several Romances

       Chapter 4. Domestic Life at the Ram

       Chapter 5. The Dominant Motif of Suffering

       Chapter 6. Pisgah

       Chapter 7. The Scarp Slope

       Chapter 8. A Prospect Among the Marshes of Lethe

      PART ONE

       Table of Contents

      Chapter 1

       The People of Nethermere

       Table of Contents

      I stood watching the shadowy fish slide through the gloom of the millpond. They were grey, descendants of the silvery things that had darted away from the monks, in the young days when the valley was lusty. The whole place was gathered in the musing of old age. The thick-piled trees on the far shore were too dark and sober to dally with the sun; the weeds stood crowded and motionless. Not even a little wind flickered the willows of the islets. The water lay softly, intensely still. Only the thin stream falling through the millrace murmured to itself of the tumult of life which had once quickened the valley.

      I was almost startled into the water from my perch on the alder roots by a voice saying:

      “Well, what is there to look at?” My friend was a young farmer, stoutly built, brown-eyed, with a naturally fair skin burned dark and freckled in patches. He laughed, seeing me start, and looked down at me with lazy curiosity.

      “I was thinking the place seemed old, brooding over its past.” He looked at me with a lazy indulgent smile, and lay down on his back on the bank, saying:

      “It’s all right for a doss — here.”

      “Your life is nothing else but a doss. I shall laugh when somebody jerks you awake,” I replied.

      He smiled comfortably and put his hands over his eyes because of the light.

      “Why shall you laugh?” he drawled.

      “Because you’ll be amusing,” said I.

      We were silent for a long time, when he rolled over and began to poke with his finger in the bank.

      “I thought,” he said in his leisurely fashion, “there was some cause for all this buzzing.”

      I looked, and saw that he had poked out an old, papery nest of those pretty field bees which seem to have dipped their tails into bright amber dust. Some agitated insects ran round the cluster of eggs, most of which were empty now, the crowns gone; a few young bees staggered about in uncertain flight before they could gather power to wing away in a strong course. He watched the little ones that ran in and out among the shadows of the grass, hither and thither in consternation.

      “Come here — come here!” he said, imprisoning one poor little bee under a grass stalk, while with another stalk he loosened the folded blue wings.

      “Don’t tease the little beggar,” I said.