Любовник леди Чаттерлей / Lady Chatterley's Lover. Книга для чтения на английском языке

To her it meant nothing except that she gave herself to him. And at length he ceased to quiver any more, and lay quite still, quite still. Then, with dim, compassionate fingers, she stroked his head, that lay on her breast.

When he rose, he kissed both her hands, then both her feet, in their suède[22 - suède – (фр.) замша] slippers, and in silence went away to the end of the room, where he stood with his back to her. There was silence for some minutes. Then he turned and came to her again as she sat in her old place by the fire.

“And now, I suppose you’ll hate me!” he said in a quiet, inevitable way. She looked up at him quickly.

“Why should I?” she asked.

“They mostly do,” he said; then he caught himself up. “I mean…a woman is supposed to.”

“This is the last moment when I ought to hate you,” she said resentfully.

“I know! I know! It should be so! You’re frightfully good to me…” he cried miserably.

She wondered why he should be miserable.

“Won’t you sit down again?” she said. He glanced at the door.

“Sir Clifford!” he said, “won’t he…won’t he be…?” She paused a moment to consider. “Perhaps!” she said. And she looked up at him. “I don’t want Clifford to know not even to suspect. It would hurt him so much. But I don’t think it’s wrong, do you?”

“Wrong! Good God, no! You’re only too infinitely good to me…I can hardly bear it.”

He turned aside, and she saw that in another moment he would be sobbing.

“But we needn’t let Clifford know, need we?” she pleaded. “It would hurt him so. And if he never knows, never suspects, it hurts nobody.”

“Me!” he said, almost fiercely; “he’ll know nothing from me! You see if he does. Me give myself away! Ha! Ha!” he laughed hollowly, cynically, at such an idea. She watched him in wonder. He said to her: “May I kiss your hand and go? I’ll run into Sheffield I think, and lunch there, if I may, and be back to tea.

May I do anything for you? May I be sure you don’t hate me? – and that you won’t?” – he ended with a desperate note of cynicism.

“No, I don’t hate you,” she said. “I think you’re nice.”

“Ah!” he said to her fiercely, “I’d rather you said that to me than said you love me! It means such a lot more…Till afternoon then. I’ve plenty to think about till then.” He kissed her hands humbly and was gone.