Women in Love

'Make tea, Hasan,' said Halliday.

'There is a room for me?' said Birkin.

To both of which questions the man grinned, and murmured.

He made Gerald uncertain, because, being tall and slender and reticent,

he looked like a gentleman.

'Who is your servant?' he asked of Halliday. 'He looks a swell.' 'Oh yes--that's because he's dressed in another man's clothes. He's

anything but a swell, really. We found him in the road, starving. So I

took him here, and another man gave him clothes. He's anything but what

he seems to be--his only advantage is that he can't speak English and

can't understand it, so he's perfectly safe.' 'He's very dirty,' said the young Russian swiftly and silently.

Directly, the man appeared in the doorway.

'What is it?' said Halliday.

The Hindu grinned, and murmured shyly: 'Want to speak to master.' Gerald watched curiously. The fellow in the doorway was goodlooking and

clean-limbed, his bearing was calm, he looked elegant, aristocratic.

Yet he was half a savage, grinning foolishly. Halliday went out into

the corridor to speak with him.

'What?' they heard his voice. 'What? What do you say? Tell me again.

What? Want money? Want MORE money? But what do you want money for?'

There was the confused sound of the Hindu's talking, then Halliday

appeared in the room, smiling also foolishly, and saying: 'He says he wants money to buy underclothing. Can anybody lend me a

shilling? Oh thanks, a shilling will do to buy all the underclothes he

wants.' He took the money from Gerald and went out into the passage

again, where they heard him saying, 'You can't want more money, you had

three and six yesterday. You mustn't ask for any more. Bring the tea in

quickly.' Gerald looked round the room. It was an ordinary London sitting-room in

a flat, evidently taken furnished, rather common and ugly. But there

were several negro statues, wood-carvings from West Africa, strange and

disturbing, the carved negroes looked almost like the foetus of a human

being. One was a woman sitting naked in a strange posture, and looking

tortured, her abdomen stuck out. The young Russian explained that she

was sitting in child-birth, clutching the ends of the band that hung

from her neck, one in each hand, so that she could bear down, and help

labour. The strange, transfixed, rudimentary face of the woman again

reminded Gerald of a foetus, it was also rather wonderful, conveying

the suggestion of the extreme of physical sensation, beyond the limits

of mental consciousness.

'Aren't they rather obscene?' he asked, disapproving.