Chapter 11

CHAPTER XI

THE TEST ON MIRIAM

WITH the spring came again the old madness and battle. Now he
knew he would have to go to Miriam. But what was his reluctance?
He told himself it was only a sort of overstrong virginity in her
and him which neither could break through. He might have married her;
but his circumstances at home made it difficult, and, moreover, he did
not want to marry. Marriage was for life, and because they had become
close companions, he and she, he did not see that it should inevitably
follow they should be man and wife. He did not feel that he wanted
marriage with Miriam. He wished he did. He would have given his
head to have felt a joyous desire to marry her and to have her.
Then why couldn't he bring it off? There was some obstacle;
and what was the obstacle? It lay in the physical bondage.
He shrank from the physical contact. But why? With her he felt bound
up inside himself. He could not go out to her. Something struggled
in him, but he could not get to her. Why? She loved him.
Clara said she even wanted him; then why couldn't he go to her,
make love to her, kiss her? Why, when she put her arm in his,
timidly, as they walked, did he feel he would burst forth in brutality
and recoil? He owed himself to her; he wanted to belong to her.
Perhaps the recoil and the shrinking from her was love in its first
fierce modesty. He had no aversion for her. No, it was the opposite;
it was a strong desire battling with a still stronger shyness
and virginity. It seemed as if virginity were a positive force,
which fought and won in both of them. And with her he felt it
so hard to overcome; yet he was nearest to her, and with her alone
could he deliberately break through. And he owed himself to her.
Then, if they could get things right, they could marry; but he
would not marry unless he could feel strong in the joy of it--never.
He could not have faced his mother. It seemed to him that
to sacrifice himself in a marriage he did not want would be
degrading, and would undo all his life, make it a nullity.
He would try what he COULD do.

And he had a great tenderness for Miriam. Always, she was sad,
dreaming her religion; and he was nearly a religion to her. He could
not bear to fail her. It would all come right if they tried.

He looked round. A good many of the nicest men he knew were
like himself, bound in by their own virginity, which they could not
break out of. They were so sensitive to their women that they would
go without them for ever rather than do them a hurt, an injustice.
Being the sons of mothers whose husbands had blundered rather
brutally through their feminine sanctities, they were themselves
too diffident and shy. They could easier deny themselves than incur