Lady Chatterley's Lover Chapter 6 Summary

  • Connie talks to Tommy, who's maybe the worst person in the world to ask for love advice. He's convinced that loving a woman and liking her are mutually exclusive. Listen up ladies: the minute he starts respecting your intelligence is the minute he stops wanting to get you in bed.
  • The problem with relationships is that there's no mystery left. Men and women just know too much about each other (although possibly not as much as you'll know about a person after sharing a bathroom with them for a decade or two).
  • Connie acknowledges that this is true, and it just makes her even more depressed. No wonder people go out drinking and dancing. 
  • But Connie is stuck up in the north of England, so instead of going out jazzing and Charlestoning—or, let's make this relatable, crunking—she goes for a walk in the woods. 
  • On one of these walks, she runs across Mellors talking—not too nicely—to a weeping little girl.
  • Connie tries to comfort the girl (Mellors's daughter), but it's not until she offers up some money that the little girl actually tells her what's wrong. Mellors has killed a cat for poaching. Connie offers to take the girl back to her grandmother, but she's already tired of the little girl who seems to have a bit of a princess complex: "the spoilt, false little female" (6.78). 
  • Irony alert: the little girl's name is Connie.
  • After walking about a mile, they arrive at the house of Connie Jr's grandmother, who's doing her Saturday morning housework with a smudge on her nose. They make awkward conversation for a few minutes, and Connie heads out again to leave Connie Jr.'s grandmother growling about having Lady "Chat'ley" catch her with her face all dirty (6.98). 
  • Connie Sr. heads home—if you can call it home—to Wragby, thinking all the way about how depressing the modern world is. Home, love, joy, happiness, mother, father: none of these words mean anything anymore. The world is awful, blah blah blah, let me dye my hair black and write emo poetry in this purple velvet journal that I just happen to have in my pocket. 
  • The only thing she looks forward to at all is helping Clifford make money, since you have to admit there's something magical about the idea that you can just "make money" out of thin air. 
  • But Clifford is stupidly obsessed with being "good" and having people respect his work—when everyone knows that money is how you know that something's good. 
  • Oh, and she does think sometimes about taking Clifford up on his offer of a baby. Only she couldn't possibly have a baby with any of his friends, since they're all disgusting, so it would probably have to be a foreigner. Or maybe a foreigner to your class, Connie?
  • It's wet outside, and Connie offers to take a message to Mellors. (The boy who would usually run errands has the flu.) 
  • She walks off and finds the cottage, but there's no gamekeeper in sight. She snoops around a bit and finally sees him—buck naked.
  • It doesn't sound like a terribly attractive sight. He's got a "white slim back" and "slender white arms" and "pure, delicate, white loins" (6.129-130), so he's not exactly wowing her with his godlike form. But she still can't get the sight out of her mind, even after she sneaks away to knock at his door after giving him some time to dress.
  • They talk for a few minutes. She's kind of into him—he's at least friendly and warm to her, which is more than you can say for Clifford's friends. Or even Clifford himself.
  • When she asks Clifford about Mellors later, he pooh-poohs her. Connie thinks about the "tightness, niggardliness of the men of her generation. They were so tight, so scared of life!" (6.168). Clifford can't bring himself to say anything nice about Mellors, so he doesn't say much at all.