Re Adaptation By: Ali Nabawy Alynabawy@Hotmail.Com
Hello, Mum.
We're going to see that wedding.
- But you haven't been home five minutes. - You don't have a wedding every day.
Now, look, Gudrun, your Aunt Jessie is coming to lunch.
You haven't seen her for two years. Now, why don't you stay?
Two more days won't make much difference, will it?
It's a Crich wedding, Mum.
- Ursula? - Mm?
- Do you really not want to get married? - I don't know.
- Depends how you mean. - It usually means one thing.
Wouldn't you be in a better position if you were married?
Might be. I'm not sure, really.
You don't think one needs the experience?
Oh, Gudrun, do you think it need be an experience?
It's bound to be. Possibly undesirable, but it's an experience of some sort.
Not really. More likely to be the end of experience.
- Morning, Miss Brangwen. - Morning.
Yes, of course, there is that to consider.
Hurry, Tibby, for God's sake! Now we are late. Here, got it?
- Laura will never forgive me. - Gerald will blame me for this.
Get up.
- Where's Birkin? - With the groom. He's late.
- Whoa, there, steady. - Hello, Gerald.
- Winifred, what a charming dress. - Mother.
Good morning, Christiana.
It's such bad form for the groom to be late.
Don't worry about that. Something unconventional will do that family good.
Laura is not going to run away. If you're late, you're late.
Whoa, whoa!
Father.
Hello, Laura.
Tibby!
- What a spectacle. - Does it hurt your sense of family pride?
Yes, rather. Do something properly or don't bother.
But it's a masterpiece of good form to act spontaneously on one's impulses.
- It's the only gentlemanly thing to do. - Do you expect me to take you seriously?
Yes, Gerald. You are one of the very few people I do expect that of.
- Hello, Hermione. - What made you late?
The groom talked about the immortality of the soul and he hadn't got a buttonhook.
Immortality of the soul? More appropriate for an execution than a wedding.
Perhaps it would be nice if a man came along.
I mean, I wouldn't go out of my way to look for him.
If there should happen along an attractive individual with sufficient means, well...
Oh, don't you find yourself getting bored with everything?
Everything fails to materialise. Nothing materialises.
Everything withers in the bud.
- Everything. - Frightening.
Do you hope to get anywhere by just marrying?
Well, it seems the inevitable next step. But, you see, it's just impossible.
The man makes it impossible.
Now, sometimes catkins are called lamb's tails.
Don't you think they look rather like them?
So lovely and tiny.
Soft.
Sorry. Did I startle you? I thought you'd heard me come in.
No.
You're doing catkins. Are they as far out as this already? I hadn't noticed this year.
It's the fact you want to emphasise, not the impression. What's the fact?
Red, little, spiky stigmas of the female flower, dangling yellow male catkin,
yellow pollen flying from one to the other.
Make a pictorial record of the fact as when you're drawing a face.
Two eyes, nose, mouth with teeth!
I've been waiting for you for so long.
I thought I'd come and see what a school inspector does when he's on duty.
How do you do, Miss Brangwen? Do you mind my coming in?
- No. - Are you sure?
- What are you doing? - Catkins.
Really?
What do you learn about them?
From these little red bits, the nuts come.
If they receive pollen from these long danglers.
Little red flames.
Little red flames. Aren't they beautiful?
I think they're so beautiful.
- Have you never noticed them before? - No, never before.
- Now you'll always see them. - Now I shall always see them.
Thank you so much for showing me.
I think they're so beautiful.
Little red flames.
Oh, he dropped it.
Fancy her barging into your classroom like that. What a liberty.
Hermione loves to dominate everyone. She'd like to dominate us, I think.
Oh, so that's why she's invited us for the weekend.
- Charming. - Hello.
It's Gerald Crich.
I know. So, Gerald's in charge of the mines now.
Mm. Making all kinds of latest improvements. They hate him for it.
He takes them all by the scruff of the neck and fairly flings them along.
He'll have to die when he's made all the possible improvements
and there's nothing more to improve.
- He's got go, anyhow. - Certainly he's got go.
The unfortunate thing is, where does his go go to?
Dreadful. Dreadful.
All this strife and dissension.
If we could only realise that in the spirit we are all one.
All equal in the spirit.
All brothers there.
The rest wouldn't matter. There'd be no more of this carping, envy.
All this struggle for power, which destroys, only destroys.
It's the opposite, Hermione. It's just the contrary.
The minute you compare, one man is seen to be far better than another.
All the inequality in the world that you can imagine is there by nature.
I want every man to have his share of the world's goods,
so that I can be rid of his importunity, so I can say "You've got what you want."
"You've got a share of the world's gear. Mind yourself and don't obstruct me."
It sounds like megalomania, Rupert.
I must go and dress for lunch.
Don't be late, Rupert.
So this is Hermione's country cottage.
There's one reason Rupert's attracted to her.
Oh, do you think so? I don't think that.
Lovers have sold their souls for far less.
At least here, you will have an opportunity to observe nature.
Gudrun Brangwen.
Gerald Crich.
Tibby and Laura Lupton.
Ursula Brangwen.
Rupert Birkin. Rupert Birkin.
What peculiar names. Do you think we've been singled out?
Chosen for some extraordinary moment in life?
Or are we all cursed with the mark of Cain?
I'm afraid Ursula was a martyred saint. Been rather difficult to live up to.
And who is Gudrun?
In a Norse myth, Gudrun was a sinner who murdered her husband.
- Will you live up to that? - Which would you prefer, Mr Crich?
The sinner or the murderer?
Ah, I see the perpetual struggle has begun.
Oh, we all struggle so, don't we?
The proper way to eat a fig in society
is to split it in four, holding it by the stump, and open it,
so it is a glittering, rosy, moist, honeyed, heavy-petalled, four-petalled flower.
You throw away the skin after you have taken off the blossom with your lips.
The vulgar way is to put your mouth to the crack and take out the flesh in one bite.
The fig is a very secretive fruit.
The Italians vulgarly say it stands for the female part, the fig-fruit,
the fissure, the yoni.
The wonderful moist conductivity towards the centre, involved, in-turned.
One small way of access only, and this close-curtained from the light.
Sap that smells strange on your fingers, that even goats won't taste it.
And when the fig has kept her secret long enough,
so it explodes,
and you see through the fissure the scarlet,
and the fig is finished. The year is over.
That's how the fig dies, showing her crimson through the purple slit.
Like a wound, the exposure of her secret on the open day.
Like a prostitute, the bursten fig makes a show of her secret.
That's how women die, too.
Would you like to come for a walk? Would you like to come for a walk?
- The dahlias are so pretty. - Shall we, Gudrun?
- Will you come for a walk, Rupert? - No, Hermione.
- Are you sure? - Quite sure.
- And why not? - I don't like trooping off in a gang.
- But the dahlias are so pretty. - I've seen them.
Then we'll leave a little boy behind if he's sulky.
Goodbye.
- Goodbye, little boy. - Bye.
Impudent hag.
Have you ever really loved anybody?
Yes and no.
But not finally?
Finally? No.
Nor I.
- Do you want to? - I don't know.
I do.
I want the finality of love.
- Just one woman? - Just one woman.
I don't believe a woman, and nothing but a woman, will ever make my life.
You don't? Then what do you live for, Gerald?
I suppose I live for my work.
And other than that, I live... because I'm living.
I find that one needs one single, pure activity.
I would call love a single, pure activity.
But I don't really love anybody. Not now.
You mean that if there isn't a woman... then there's nothing?
More or less that.
Seeing there's no God.
Rupert, what is it you really want?
I want... to sit with my beloved in a field,
with daisies growing all around us.
We have devised an entertainment for you
in the style of the Russian Ballet.
- Who are those Brangwen girls? - Teachers in the grammar school.
- Gudrun pretends she's an artist as well. - What's their father?
Handicraft instructor in the grammar school.
Really?
The class barriers are breaking down.
That their father teaches handcraft at a school doesn't matter to me.
I shall be Orpah, a vivid, sensational widow.
I'm only just a widow and I slowly dance the death of my husband
before returning to my former life.
Gudrun will be the beautiful Ruth.
Her husband too has just now died.
And she weeps with me and laments.
And Ursula will be the mother-in-law, Naomi.
Our husbands were her sons.
Her own husband died years ago. Thus all her men are dead.
She stands alone, demanding nothing.
And the Contessa will be the wheat fields, rippling in the evening air.
And Birkin will turn the pages for the maestro.
Yes!
Lovely.
A nice dance.
Yes. Yes.
I can't do it.
Little tart!
Madame!
Hey, where are you going?
- Gerald! - Coming.
Bravo!
I'm sorry if I spoilt your dance.
It was an act of pure spontaneity.
My arse!
You can't bear anything to be spontaneous, can you?
Cos then it's no longer in your power.
You must clutch things and have them in your power.
And why? Because you haven't got any real body.
Any dark, sensual body of life.
All you've got is your will and your lust for power.
How can you not think me sensual?
All you want is pornography. Looking at yourself in mirrors.
Watching your naked animal actions in mirrors.
Keeping it all in your consciousness, making it all mental.
If one cracked your skull,
maybe one could get a spontaneous, passionate woman out of you
with real sensuality.
No, you don't, Hermione. I don't let you.
And Jesus Christ our Lord hath said
that greater love hath no man than he who lays down his life for his brother.
And no greater love hath man than the love of man for man,
and brother for brother.
We'll move forward into an uninterrupted age of brotherhood and love.
- For love is the greatest thing... - He might as well say hate is the greatest.
What people want is hate. Hate and nothing but hate.
In the name of righteousness and love, ye shall have hate.
- Out of love, throw nitroglycerine bombs. - Excuse me.
And ye shall kill your brother, though it's the lie that kills.
If people want hate, let them have it. Death, torture, destruction, let's have it.
But not in the name of love. Oh, I abhor humanity. I wish it was swept away.
It could go. It would be no absolute loss if every human being perished tomorrow.
So, you want everybody in the world destroyed?
Yes, absolutely.
You yourself, don't you think it's a wonderful, clear idea?
A world empty of people, just uninterrupted grass and rabbits.
You don't seem to see much love in humanity.
- What about individual love? - I don't believe in it any more than hate.
Love is an emotion you feel or don't feel according to your circumstances.
If you don't believe in love, what do you believe in?
Just in the end of the world and rabbits?
The point about l-o-v-e is that we hate the word because we vulgarised it.
It should be tabooed, forbidden from utterance until we find a new, better idea.
Well, I shall leave it to you to send your new, better idea down from the holy altar.
When you think the world is ready, of course.
Ha! Ha! Come on! Go on, you cow!
Come on, you bitch.
Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!
Gerald!
- Gerald, what are you doing? - You coward!
Gerald, let her go! Let her go!
- The bully. Oh, Gudrun! - Be quiet!
Please!
She's bleeding! Oh, no!
Oh, Gudrun, do something!
- No! - Forward!
Get in there! Ha! Ha! Ha!
I should think you're proud!
Report to the office.
I'm sorry, Dewhurst.
Can't you keep him on a little longer?
I've already replaced him, Father. Don't you think his pension will be sufficient?
'Tis not the pension, it's the work. I still have a few more years' work left in me.
Not the sort of work I want.
They hate you. I'm glad I won't have to see it much longer.
Their hate is better than your love. You made a fortune exploiting them.
Now you're trying to ease your guilt by slipping them a few coins.
At least I give them a fair salary, if they can do the work.
There'll be few of them left to pay soon. You and your new machines.
- Yes, me and my new machines. - You've stopped the widows' coal.
We've always allowed all the widows of men who worked for the firm
a load of coal every three months.
They'll have to pay cost price from now. The firm is not the charity you think it is.
Home, please.
- How is your wife, Thomas? - Well, sir.
Good.
What price that, eh? She'll do, won't she?
By heck, I'd give a week's wages for five minutes with her. Five minutes!
Your missus would have something to say.
Hey! You're first class, you are.
- Think she's worth a week's wages? - I'd bloody put them down this second.
Yeah.
- Hello, love. - What about this match, then?
Look.
Ee, you won't get much for it down here, dearie.
Come on, love. Give us a drink.
- Bloody men. - Piss off.
You wanting company?
Sure you do. You'll be wanting a little company.
- Who be you, then? - A man.
- What work? - Miner. Good enough for you?
Why do you ask all these questions?
How are your thighs?
- My thighs? - How are they?
Are they strong? Because I want to drown in flesh.
Hot, physical, naked flesh.
Flesh?
Come here. You're dying for it, aren't you?
You are hideous and ridiculous like all the rest.
Come here, you stuck-up bitch. You rotten cow.
Good evening, Miss Brangwen.
Anything wrong, Palmer?
Mr Crich.
No offence, Mr Crich.
Well, I was born here and I'll die here until I fly away.
Well, don't fly away till you come to our picnic.
Did you imagine yourself in the midst of this?
- Hm. Does look rather awful. - Imagine what it'll be like.
- I suppose we could get away from it. - Police, to keep you in?
The Criches are afraid you will run off with the silver. Good afternoon.
Please, Father, may I have just a little bit of beer?
Well, you can just have a little.
- Just one more. - We are going for a dip, Father.
Ah, my dear, be sure not to stay in the water too long, won't you?
Pass it this way. I could do with another.
Come on, you old skinflint. Back up here...
Right, let's have you. One china mug still here. There's only one left.
There's three balls, sir.
This is Mr Birkin, Father.
How do you do? I hope you are keeping well.
Yes, thank you. I'm fit.
Hello, Mrs Brangwen. I know Gudrun and Ursula quite well.
- Yes, I've heard them talk about you. - Mr and Mrs Brangwen.
- I'm glad you could come to our picnic. - You forgot our invitation last year.
I...
- Tea. - Yes.
Would you like tea here or at the house?
- Can we have a rowing boat and get out? - Get out?
Well, you see, we know hardly anyone here. We're almost complete strangers.
Oh...
Oh, I'll see to it that you're set up with a few acquaintances.
Oh, you know what I mean. Can't we go over there and explore?
The light is so perfect. Perhaps we could bathe.
It reminds one of the upper reaches of the Nile. As one imagines the Nile.
Do you think it's far enough off?
Yes, you could go there. Unfortunately, we don't seem to have any more boats.
- Oh, it would be so lovely. - Do you handle a boat pretty well?
- Pretty well. - Yes, we both row like water spiders.
There is a canoe I didn't bring out
for fear somebody would drown themselves.
Do you think you'll be safe in that? You see, I'm responsible for this water.
I had a canoe at Arundel. I can assure you, I'm perfectly safe.
Then I shall see to it that you're given a tea basket.
You can have a picnic all to yourselves.
- That is the idea, isn't it? - How fearfully good.
How frightfully nice of you.
Behind the rock.
Come on.
- Are you happy, Prune? - Ursula, I am utterly, utterly happy.
So am I.
Aren't they charming, Ursula?
Charming? Won't they do anything to us?
Oh, I'm sure they won't.
I'm frightened.
Keep singing.
What the hell do you think you're doing?
- I think we've all gone mad. - Pity we aren't madder.
Why have you come?
Why do you want to drive them mad?
They're nasty when they turn.
- Turn where? - Turn against you.
- Turn against me? - They gored a farmer's cow to death.
- What do I care? - I care, seeing they're my cattle.
How are they yours? You haven't swallowed them.
Give me one of them. Now.
You know where they are.
You think I am frightened of you and your cattle, don't you?
Why should I think that?
That's why.
You struck the first blow.
And I shall strike the last.
Why are you behaving in this impossible and ridiculous fashion?
You... make me behave like this.
Me? How?
- Don't be angry with me. - No.
No, I'm not angry with you.
I am in love with you.
Yes.
Well, that's one way of putting it.
It's all right, then?
Yes.
Yes, it's all right.
It's all right, it's all right, it's all right.
- I must be going home now. - Must you?
How sad.
- Are you really sad? - Yes.
I wish we could go on walking like this forever.
There is a golden light in you which I wish that you would give me.
I always think I'm going to be loved. And then I'm let down.
Tibby! Tibby!
Tibby!
Laura?
Laura! Where are you?
Help me, please!
Help! Help! Help me, someone! Please, quick, somebody come!
Lupton! Oh, God, Laura!
- Laura! - No! No!
- Where were they? - I don't know.
- Keep away from me! - Gerald, stop it! Stop it!
- I've got to find them. - You can't.
Why should you interfere?
You can't see.
Laura!
- Oh, God, Laura! - Keep the boat still.
- I can't. - Come out!
- Keep back! You can't help us. - Laura!
Come out, Gerald. Gerald, for God's sake, come out.
- Gerald! - Gudrun!
- Laura! - Keep the boat steady.
- Gerald! - It's too dark.
Gerald! Gerald, are you all right?
Gerald, hang on.
We shan't save them, Father. There's no knowing where they are.
- There's a current as cold as hell. - Go home and look to yourself.
We'll let the water out. Rupert, go to the north sluice.
There's room in that water there for thousands.
- Two is enough. - That's one thing about our family.
Once anything goes wrong,
it can never be put right.
Not with us.
- Do you think they're dead? - Yes.
Oh, how horrible.
- Do you mind very much? - Not about the dead. They're dead.
The worst of it is they cling to the living and won't let go.
- I'm afraid of death. - Death's all right, nothing better.
But you don't want to die?
I would like to die from our kind of life.
Be born again through a love that is like sleep.
With new air around one that no one's ever breathed before.
I thought love wasn't good enough for you.