Sons and Lovers - Chapter 4
Paul's artistic talents began to show themselves clearly. He loved to draw and paint, spending hours in his room creating pictures of the countryside around their village.
Gertrude was proud of her son's talent. She saw in it a sign of his refinement, proof that he was different from the rough miners' children.
"Paul will be an artist," she told her friends. "He will escape this life."
But Walter could not understand it. Art seemed to him a waste of time. "How will drawing put bread on the table?" he would ask. "He needs to learn a trade."
This disagreement was one more thing that separated them. Walter believed in practical work, in earning money to support the family. Gertrude believed in something higher, in education and culture and beauty.
Paul was caught in the middle. He loved his father, but he also loved the dreams his mother had for him.
"Maybe I can do both," he thought. "Maybe I can work and also paint."
He found a job at a factory, making surgical instruments. The work was dull and repetitive, but it paid well. Paul used his free time to continue his art, going into the countryside to draw, sketching the faces of the people he knew.
Gertrude was pleased that he had work, but she worried about the factory. "It will destroy his spirit," she said. "It will make him like everyone else."
But Paul did not mind so much. He was learning to support himself, to be independent. And still, in his heart, he held onto his mother's dream—that he would be something more than just another worker in another factory.