Любовник леди Чаттерлей / Lady Chatterley's Lover

) – «полудевственница» – женщина, остающаяся девственницей физически, но знакомая со всеми сторонами интимной жизни.]”

“A demi-vierge!” replied Connie vaguely. “Why? Why not?”

“Unless you like it, of course!” said her father hastily. To Clifford he said the same, when the two men were alone: “I’m afraid it doesn’t quite suit Connie to be a demi-vierge.”

“A half-virgin!” replied Clifford, translating the phrase to be sure of it.

He thought for a moment, then flushed very red. He was angry and offended.

“In what way doesn’t it suit her?” he asked stiffly.

“She’s getting thin… angular. It’s not her style. She’s not the pilchard sort of little slip of a girl, she’s a bonny Scotch trout.”

“Without the spots, of course!” said Clifford.

He wanted to say something later to Connie about the demi-vierge business… the half-virgin state of her affairs.

But he could not bring himself to do it. He was at once too intimate with her and not intimate enough. He was so very much at one with her, in his mind and hers, but bodily they were non-existent to one another, and neither could bear to drag in the corpus delicti.[29 - Corpus delicti (лат.) – юридический термин, означающий «состав преступления» или «вещественные доказательства». В данном случае используется как «неоспоримый факт». ] They were so intimate, and utterly out of touch.

Connie guessed, however, that her father had said something, and that something was in Clifford’s mind. She knew that he didn’t mind whether she were demi-vierge or demi-monde,[30 - Demi-monde (фр.) – «дама полусвета» – женщина легкого поведения.] so long as he didn’t absolutely know, and wasn’t made to see. What the eye doesn’t see and the mind doesn’t know, doesn’t exist.

Connie and Clifford had now been nearly two years at Wragby, living their vague life of absorption in Clifford and his work. Their interests had never ceased to flow together over his work. They talked and wrestled in the throes of composition, and felt as if something were happening, really happening, really in the void.

And thus far it was a life: in the void. For the rest it was non-existence.