The Man and the Dreaming Woman: Notes on D. H. Lawrence's The Witch à la Mode

Cover of the Blackthorn Press 

Kindle edition (2014)

I. Opening Remarks

'The Witch à la Mode' was one of Lawrence's earliest short stories, though it remained unpublished in his lifetime.*

First written in 1911, under the title 'Intimacy', it anticipates his second novel, The Trespasser (1912), and the character of Winifred Varley was, like the character Helena, based on the Croydon schoolteacher Helen Corke, whom Lawrence had met in the winter of 1908/09 and eventually developed feelings for; feelings stronger than friendship and other than the deep affection that she claimed to have for him.

Indeed, even in 1911, whilst engaged to Louie Burrows, Lawrence continued to make sexual demands upon Helen. Unfortunately, she continually knocked him back, frustrating his desire and stultifying his passion, leaving him ironic and bitter towards her.

'The Witch à la Mode' is born out of this sexual frustration and sardonic anger; when Lawrence finally came to the realisation that she would never be physically responsive to him and never want more than a kiss goodnight.

In a letter written in January 1910, Lawrence complained of Jessie Chambers (the prototype of Miriam in Sons and Lovers and to whom he had been unofficially engaged for several years): "She refuses to see that a man is male, that kisses are the merest preludes and anticipations, that love is largely a physical sympathy ..."

This could just as easily have been said of Helen Corke and the female characters in his fiction based upon her. As Elizabeth Mansfield notes: "He [Lawrence] came to think of Helen Corke as one of the 'Dreaming Women' whose 'passion exhausts itself at the mouth'". Ultimately, Helen offered Lawrence what Winifred Varley offers Bernard Coutts; an intense spiritual relationship rather than a physically fulfilling one.

Some critics have rather lazily suggested that Winifred was frigid. Others, like Howard Booth, have suggested we might think of her as a romantic asexual; the kind of woman, as Oliver Mellors would say, who loves everything about love, except the fucking, and who only agrees to sex, if at all, as a kind of favour.     

However, it's equally possible that, like Helen Corke, Winifred was a repressed lesbian or a bisexual who attempted to walk on neutral ground but was ultimately more drawn to her own sex than to men - even whilst many men were fatally attracted to her.** 


II. The Tale

"When Bernard Coutts alighted at East Croydon", writes Lawrence, "he knew he was tempting Providence." And so it proves ...

But Coutts is a man of desire whose spirit exulted in living dangerously and loving fate in all good conscience; a man who is roused by the electric blue sparks of a tram car and who excitedly greets the stars overhead.

He arrives at Laura Braithwaite's house. Laura is a young widow and a friend of his. Coutts has just returned from the Continent. Laura enquires about his fiancée, Constance, waiting for his return up in Yorkshire. She also asks him about Winifred, with whom, clearly, he has had a thing. Laura informs Coutts that Winifred is due to visit, having been invited to do so. Sure enough, at about half-past seven, she arrives - awks!

"When she entered, and saw him, he knew it was a shock to her, though she hid it as well as she could. He suffered too. After hesitating for a second in the doorway, she came forward, shook hands without speaking, only looking at him with rather frightened blue eyes. She was of medium height, sturdy in build. Her face was white, and impassive, without the least trace of a smile. She was a blonde of twenty eight, dressed in a white gown just short enough not to touch the ground. Her throat was solid and strong, her arms heavy and white and beautiful, her blue eyes heavy with unacknowledged passion." 

Both parties blush upon seeing one another. However, any momentary discomfort caused by the situation is soon forgotten as Coutts, an agalmatophile, has his attention seized by a pair of alabaster statues, two feet high, standing before an immense mirror hanging over the marble mantelpiece in the drawing room:

"Both were nude figures. They glistened under the side lamps, rose clean and distinct from their pedestals. The Venus leaned slightly forward, as if anticipating someone's coming. Her attitude of suspense made the young man stiffen. He could see the clean suavity of her shoulders and waist reflected white on the deep mirror. She shone, catching, as she leaned forward, the glow of the lamp on her lustrous marble loins."  

This, I think, is an astonishing passage, and I'm surprised it receives no comment in the explanatory notes provided by the Cambridge editor, or, indeed, by Howard Booth who is always looking to queer the circle, so to speak, and explore a range of non-normative sexualities. His suggestion that Winifred is asexual deserves consideration, but seems to be based on pretty flimsy evidence as far as I can see, whereas this passage provides compelling evidence of Coutts's statue fetishism.

Indeed, one might suggest that the main reason Bernard is so fascinated by Winifred is because of the solid whiteness of her figure and impassivity. In other words, she is statue-like and her unnaturalness is a consequence of this, rather than her sexual orientation (or absence of such). This is why, for example, when Winifred entertains the other guests by playing her violin, Coutts can't help looking from her to the Venus figure, until intoxicated by his own pervy pygmalionism.  

Anyway, let us return to the tale ...

Having left the party at Laura's house, Bernard and Winifred stroll together, hand-in-hand, but having immediately fallen back into the same dynamic of love and hate: "He hated her, truly. She hated him. Yet they held hands fast as they walked." They arrive at her house and she asks him in.

Whilst washing his hands in the bathroom, he thinks of Constance and, although he loved her, he realises that she bores and inhibits some vital part of him. Winifred, on the other hand, herself being intense and unnatural, allows him to become who he is: i.e., just as queer as she.

Indeed, Winifred insists on his exceptional nature and is "cruel to that other, common, every-day part of him" - the part that can contemplate married life, for example; "she could not understand how he could marry: it seemed almost monstrous to her: she fought against his marriage".    

Ultimately, Winifred rather frightens Coutts. He sees the witch in her and realises that were they to attempt a life together the result would not be good: "'You know, Winifred, we should only drive each other into insanity, you and I: become abnormal.'"

His main concern is that Winifred only wants to use him as a kind of human orbuculum in which to see visions and reflections of life, but doesn't care a fig for him as a man of flesh and blood (which is a bit rich coming from him if, in fact, I'm right about his agalmatophilia).

Inevitably, they embrace and kiss in a typically Lawrentian manner (i.e. one marked with a shocking degree of violence). But that one kiss is enough for Winifred: her passion ebbs unnaturally. And Coutts is left feeling profoundly frustrated in a state of epididymal hypertension: "His whole body ached like a swollen vein, with heavy intensity, while his heart grew dead with misery and despair."

He had wanted, like Pygmalion, to bring her to life with a kiss; to set her pulse beating and blood flowing. But Winifred had remained defiantly statuesque. Unable to ignite her sex, Coutts (accidently) kicks over a lamp and sets the room ablaze instead.

Howard Booth says this final incident sees Bernard "burnt not by [his] passion but by the very lack of desire [in Winifred]". I'm not sure I quite agree with that, but I do agree that Lawrence seems to be coming down firmly on the side of conventional married life.

For having saved Winifred from the flames, Coutts abandons her in order to achieve the (hetero)sexual maturity that he had earlier confessed he (instinctively) wants; i.e., to become a good husband and father, growing fat and amiable in domestic bliss.
 

Notes

* Lawrence first wrote the story - then called 'Intimacy' - in 1911. He revised it in 1913, changing the title to 'The White Woman', and subsequently, following slight further revision, to 'The Witch à la Mode'. It was first published in Lovat Dickson's Magazine in June 1934 and was included in the posthumous collection A Modern Lover, published by Martin Secker in October of that year. It can be read online as an ebook thanks to The University of Adelaide: click here.   

** Neutral Ground was the title of Helen Corke's novel, published in 1933, that attempted to delineate a point on the sexual spectrum somewhere between hetero and homosexuality where she felt most comfortable locating herself. Elizabeth Mansfield tells us that in a letter written to Lawrence's biographer Harry T. Moore, Helen "defined Neutral Ground as 'an honest attempt to deal with the problem of a Lesbian temperament'". 

D. H. Lawrence, 'The Witch à la Mode', Love Among the Haystacks and Other Stories, ed. John Worthen, (Cambridge University Press, 1987), pp. 54-70. All lines quoted are from this edition of the text.

D. H. Lawrence, 'Intimacy', The Vicar's Garden and Other Stories, ed. N. H. Reeve, (Cambridge University Press, 2009), pp. 123-38.

D. H. Lawrence, letter to Blanche Jennings (28 Jan. 1910), in The Letters of D. H. Lawrence, Vol. 1 (1901-13), ed. James T. Boulton, (Cambridge University Press, 1979), pp. 153-54.

Elizabeth Mansfield, Introduction to D. H. Lawrence's The Trespasser, ed. Elizabeth Mansfield, (Cambridge University Press, 1981), p. 18.

Howard J. Booth, 'Same-Sex Desire, Cross-Gender Identification and Asexuality in D. H. Lawrence’s Early Short Fiction', Études Lawrenciennes 42  (2011), pp. 37-57.  Click here to read online.

Slippery When Wet: Reflections on D. H. Lawrence's Aquaphilia

Image via derpibooru.org

Aquaphilia is yet another form of sexual fetishism that we often come across in the work of Mr. D. H. Lawrence and I thought it might be interesting to examine several instances of his water-based eroticism here ...

I: The White Peacock

There's a very lovely scene in Lawrence's first novel in which Cyril and his friend George frolic naked in a pond ...

"The water was icily cold, and for a moment deprived me of my senses. When I began to swim, soon the water was buoyant, and I was sensible of nothing but the vigorous poetry of action. I saw George swimming on his back laughing at me, and in an instant I had flung myself like an impulse after him. The laughing face vanished as he swung over and fled, and I pursued the dark head and the ruddy neck. [...] As I came up to him and caught him, with my hand on his shoulder [...] George was floating just beside me, looking up and laughing."

This is already a fairly explicit piece of homoerotic and aquaphilic writing, but it's interesting to note the words deleted from the original MS at this point: "and his white breasts and his belly emerged like cool buds of a firm fleshed water flower" - a line that could only have come from Lawrence's pen.  

Afterwards, having returned to the land, Cyril and George "stood and looked at each other as [they] rubbed [themselves] dry".


II: The Trespasser

What's interesting about the case of Siegmund, the protagonist of Lawrence's second novel, The Trespasser, is how his aquaphilia takes on an autoerotic character and moves towards a becoming-fish ...

"He chose his bathing place [...] threw his clothes on a high rock [...] ran laughing over the sand to the sea, where he waded in, thrusting his legs noisily through the heavy green water.
      It was cold, and he shrank. For a moment he found himself thigh-deep [...] afraid to plunge. Laughing, he went under the clear green water.
      He was a poor swimmer. Sometimes a choppy wave swamped him, and he rose gasping, wringing the water from his eyes and nostrils, while he heaved and sank with the rocking of the waves that clasped his breast. Then he stooped again to resume his game with the sea. It is splendid to play, even at middle age, and the sea is a fine partner."

Now, I'm not saying for certain that he jerked off in the sea. But Lawrence writes in such a queerly erotic manner that this is certainly implied: "He offered his body to the morning, glowing with the sea's passion ... the sunshine came on his shoulders like warm breath. He delighted in himself."

And if he did, in fact, choose to ejaculate his sperm upon the naked waters, mightn't this be said to mark his becoming one with his aquatic environment, just like a wave-thrilled fish?    


III: The Rainbow

Suddenly, in her penultimate term, Ursula Brangwen discovers that a "queer awareness existed between herself and her class-mistress, Miss Inger [...] a rather beautiful woman of twenty eight" who also happens to be the school's swimming instructress:

"Ursula trembled and was dazed with passion. Her hopes were soon to be realised. She would see Miss Inger in her bathing dress.
      [...] In the great bath the water was glimmering pale emerald-green, a lovely, glimmering mass of colour within the whitish, marble-like confines. Overhead the light fell softly and the great green body of pure water moved under it as someone dived from the side.
      Ursula, trembling, hardly able to contain herself, pulled off her clothes, put on her tight bathing suit, and opened the door of her cabin. Two girls were in the water. The mistress had not appeared. She waited. A door opened, Miss Inger came out, dressed in a red-tunic like a Greek girl's, tied round the waist, and a red silk handkerchief round her head. How lovely she looked. Her knees were so white and strong and proud, she was firm-bodied as Diana. She walked simply to the side of the bath, and with a negligent movement, flung herself in. For a moment Ursula watched the white, smooth, strong shoulders and the easy arms swimming. Then she too dived into the water.
      Now, ah now she was swimming in the same water with her dear mistress. The girl moved her limbs voluptuously, and swam by herself, deliciously, yet with a craving of unsatisfaction. She wanted to touch the other, to touch her, to feel her."

Miss Inger invites Ursula to race her: and so the latter sets off in chase; just as Cyril chased George in The White Peacock:

"The mistress was just ahead, swimming with easy strokes. Ursula could see the head put back, the water flickering upon the white shoulders, the strong legs kicking shadowily. And she swam blinded with passion. Ah, the beauty of the firm, white, cool flesh! Ah, the wonderful firm limbs. If she could but hold them, hug them, press them between her own small breasts!"

Lawrence concludes this hydrosapphic fantasy:

"They neared the end of the bath - the deep end. Miss Inger touched the pipe, swung herself round, and caught Ursula round the waist, in the water, and held her for a moment against herself. The bodies of the two women touched, heaved against each other for a moment, then were separate."  

Lawrence, however, can't resist giving us a further scene of aquatic lesbianism later in the same chapter ...

Miss Inger has invited Ursula to stay with her for the weekend at a country cottage and suggests a midnight swim. They undress in the bungalow, Ursula a little nervously. And then they venture outdoors, naked, feeling the "soft air of night upon their skins". Because Ursula is uncertain of the path, Miss Inger holds her close, and gives her a reassuring kiss.

Then, she picks up her student and volunteers to carry her into the water: "Ursula lay still in her mistress's arms, her forehead against the beloved, maddening breast." Before they can enter the water, however, a heavy shower of ice-cold rain begins to fall on their "flushed, hot limbs" and brings their aquaphilic adventure to a premature close.    


IV: Women in Love

Finally, I would like to draw attention to a scene in Chapter IV of my favourite novel by Lawrence, Women in Love, in which Gerald delights (solipsistically) in his own movement through water - and arouses the desire and envy of Gudrun in the process ...

"Suddenly, from the boat-house, a white figure ran out [...] It launched in a white arc through the air, there was a bursting of the water, and among the smooth ripples a swimmer was making out to space, in a centre of faintly heaving motion. The whole otherworld, wet and remote, he had to himself. He could move into the pure translucency of the grey, uncreated water.
      Gudrun stood by the stone wall [...] watching the motion on the bosom of the water, as if fascinated. [...]
      And she stood motionless gazing over the water at the face which washed up and down on the flood, as he swam steadily. From his separate element he saw [her], and he exulted to himself because of his own advantage, his possession of a world to himself. He was immune and perfect. He loved his own vigorous, thrusting motion, and the violent impulse of the very cold water against his limbs, buoying him up."

Lawrence continues:

"Gerald suddenly turned, and was swimming away swiftly, with a side stroke. He was alone now, alone and immune in the middle of the waters, which he had all to himself. He exulted in his isolation in the new element, unquestioned and unconditioned. He was happy, thrusting with his legs and all his body, without bond or connection anywhere, just himself in the watery world.
      Gudrun envied him almost painfully. Even this momentary possession of pure isolation and fluidity seemed to her so terribly desirable, that she felt herself as if damned, out there on the [dry land]."

Gudrun's aquaphilia, in other words, expresses itself not as a desire to fuck under water, but to shed her humanity and become-mermaid in her own weird, underwater world ... 

Notes

D. H. Lawrence, The White Peacock, ed. Andrew Robertson, (Cambridge University Press, 1983), pp. 222-23, and see the editorial note on p. 386. 

D. H. Lawrence. The Trespasser, ed. Elizabeth Mansfield, (Cambridge University Press, 1981), pp. 73.

I am also paraphrasing a line from Lawrence's magnificent poem 'Fish' in this section of the text, which can be found in Birds, Beasts and Flowers (1923). See The Poems, ed. Christopher Pollnitz, (Cambridge University Press, 2013), Vol. I, pp. 289-94. 

D. H. Lawrence, The Rainbow, ed. Mark Kinkead-Weekes, (Cambridge University Press, 1989), pp. 311,  313-16. 

D. H. Lawrence, Women in Love, ed. David Farmer, John Worthn and Lindeth Vasey (Cambridge University Press, 1987), pp. 46-7. 


This post is dedcated to Brenda Sumner, Secretary of the D. H. Lawrence Society, for all her kind help and support over the years.

Sex on the Beach

Many people seem to be excited by the thought of sex on the beach, despite the gritty reality of sand. But considerably fewer people desire to have sex with the beach.

And yet, the latter seems infinitely more pleasurable and full of possibility than having to penetrate another human body with all the usual built-in features: the same limbs, the same organs, the same expectations and responses. How dreary even love becomes when it never flickers or wavers or changes and becomes a mechanical exercise in pure repetition: in-out, in-out and shake it all about. If that's what sex is all about then, frankly, it's hardly worth the effort.

But, of course, sex needn't be so limited and repetitive: so human, all-too-human. It can become bestial, or object-oriented, elemental or even cosmic in character. I know of a woman, for example, who took the sun as a lover. And in The Trespasser, Lawrence describes with all his usual perverse brilliance the inhuman and purifying erotics of sun, sea, and sand.

Although ostensibly on a short holiday on the Isle of Wight with his young mistress in order that they might spend some time together and momentarily forget about his domestic entanglements, Siegmund seems to get more satisfaction from the beach than he does from the body of Helena. One day, whilst the latter frolics in the waves, Siegmund swims off to explore a tiny hidden bay, inaccessible from the land:

"He waded out of the green, cold water  ... Throwing himself down on the sand ... he lay glistening wet ... The sand was warm to his breast and and his belly and his arms. It was like a great body he cleaved to. Almost, he fancied, he felt it heaving under him in its breathing. Then he turned his face to the sun, and laughed. All the while, he hugged the warm body of the sea-bay beneath him. He spread his hands upon the sand: he took it in handfuls, and let it run smooth, warm, delightful, through his fingers.
      ... And he laid his hands again on the warm body of the shore, let them wander, discovering, gathering all the warmth, the softness, the strange wonder of smooth, warm pebbles, then shrinking from the deep weight of cold his hand encountered as he burrowed under the surface, wrist-deep. In the end, he found the cold mystery of the deep sand also thrilling. He pushed in his hands again and deeper, enjoying the almost hurt of the dark, heavy coldness. For the sun and the white flower of the bay were breathing and kissing him dry ... holding him in their warm concave, like a bee in a flower ...
      Siegmund lay and clasped the sand and tossed it in handfuls till over him he was all hot and cloyed. Then he rose and looked at himself and laughed ... and began to rub himself free of the clogging sand. He found himself strangely dry and smooth. He tossed more dry sand, and more, over himself ... Soon his body was dry and warm and smooth ... his body was full of delight and his hands glad with the touch of himself. He wanted himself clean. ... He went painfully over the pebbles till he found himself on the smooth rock bottom. Then he soused himself, and shook his head in the water, and washed and splashed and rubbed himself with his hands assiduously. ... It was the purification. ... He felt as if all the dirt of misery were soaked out of him ... So white and sweet and tissue-clean he felt, full of lightness and grace."

- D. H. Lawrence, The Trespasser, ed. Elizabeth Mansfield, (CUP, 1981), pp. 88-89.

When was the last time you felt like that after a quick fuck on the beach with some local picked up in a bar?