List of Abbreviations
Letters, i. The Letters of D. H. Lawrence 1901–13, vol. i, ed. James T. Boulton (Cambridge University Press, 1979).
Letters, ii. The Letters of D. H. Lawrence 1913–16, vol. ii, ed. George J. Zytaruk and James T. Boulton (Cambridge University Press, 1981).
Letters, iii. The Letters of D. H. Lawrence 1916–21, vol. iii, ed. James T. Boulton and Andrew Robertson (Cambridge University Press, 1984).
Letters, vi. The Letters of D. H. Lawrence 1927–8, vol. vi, ed. James T. Boulton and Margaret H. Boulton with Gerald M. Lacy (Cambridge University Press, 1991).
Letters, vii. The Letters of D. H. Lawrence 1928–30, vol. vii, ed. Keith Sagar and James T. Boulton (Cambridge University Press, 1993).
LOVE AMONG THE HAYSTACKS
LOVE AMONG THE HAYSTACKS In July 1908, Lawrence wrote that ‘All last week, and all this, I have been in the hay’ (Letters, i. 64). As described in the story, he had helped the Chambers family (a daughter of whom was Jessie (1887–1944), one of his closest friends during his youth) with their harvest at ‘two great fields at Greasley, running to the top of a sharp, irregular hillside, with … the Vicar’s garden on one side, and low, wild rushy fields on the other’ (Letters, i. 67).
“Ich bin klein … Christ allein.” Traditional German children’s prayer: ‘I am small, my heart is pure / There is no one in it except Christ alone.’
Bill Presumably the name of the labourer mentioned at 10:29 and 11:14.
Nation The Nation published poems by Lawrence in November 1911 and his story ‘The Miner at Home’ in March 1912. He told his sister Ada, ‘I am pleased to get a footing in the Nation. It is a sixpenny weekly, of very good standing’ (Letters, i. 324).
For a moment … the wonder in himself before Compare Lawrence’s admiration of his own body following his days of haymaking with the Chambers family: ‘as I was rubbing myself down in the late twilight … and as I passed my hands over my sides where the muscles lie suave and secret, I did love myself’ (Letters, i. 65).
We fast up here Trapped, probably from the German word ‘fest’, with an identical meaning, that Paula would naturally use as a German speaker.
glossy Glossy skin was often considered a symptom of ill health.
phosphorescent glare The matches are tipped with phosphorous, luminous when ignited but also poisonous; prohibited in Britain after 1908.
bruise the lips of the scornful Biblical phraseology but not an exact quotation; at Genesis iii.15, mankind will ‘bruise [the serpent’s] head, and [it] shalt bruise his heel’, whereas Psalm i.1 reads, ‘Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly … nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.’
take the stack-cloth up Lift the cloth from the haystack and take it down to the ground.
German girl Paula Jablonowsky is German-speaking and from Hanover, but with a Polish name and perhaps ancestry; Lawrence had identified her as ‘a Pole’ (13:33).
THE MINER AT HOME
sitting there in his pit-dirt The grime from coal mining had to be washed off at home; collieries provided no washing facilities.
blue seam … in the pit The wound has healed over coal dust, leaving a blue mark beneath the skin.
fourteen days from above date The Miners’ Federation of Great Britain issued such tickets for signatures on 12–14 February 1912, threatening national strike action if mine owners rejected its proposed new schedule of wages. In the Midlands, strikes did indeed begin on 26 February at Alfreton in Derbyshire and 28 February at the Eastwood pits in Nottinghamshire. A subsequent ballot in April rejected a settlement, but by too narrow a margin for strike action to be maintained and miners returned to work between 9 and 11 April 1912. Lawrence’s father balloted for a return to work, but those men who balloted against angered many Eastwood women, who, according to Lawrence, ‘would murder any man at any minute if he refused to be a good servant to the family’ (Letters, i. 379).
last two strikes The collieries owned by Barber Walker & Co. in Eastwood closed from January to March 1908 and again from June to November 1910.
Yorkshire an’ Welsh colliers Miners in both areas had a reputation for greater militancy than their counterparts in the Midlands; this disparity could cause acute problems when national ballots took place.
Who wants … Butties doesn’t The 1912 strike was partly motivated by a demand from the Miners’ Federation for a minimum wage of seven shillings and sixpence (37½ pence today) for piece workers at the coal face. ‘Butties’ (see Glossary) would be obliged to pay this minimum wage to their day workers.
THE WHITE STOCKING
Rise up … and shine forth A biblical version of ‘rise and shine’; see Mark xiv.42, Matthew xiii.43 and Isaiah lx.1: ‘Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee.’
“Pearls may be fair … the wearer.” No source has been identified; Lawrence probably invented the verse.
“E for Elsie, / Nice little gelsie,” An invented verse.
comic Valentine, the ‘long, hideous, cartoon’ mentioned at 50:34–5. In the earlier version of the story published in the Smart Set, the picture is of ‘a man glancing lugubriously over his shoulder at the ghost face of a young lady smiling and showing her teeth. It was entitled: “Her Bright Smile Haunts Me Still.” ’
“Doctor Wyer … puff!” Probably derived from the nursery rhyme, ‘Jeremiah, blow the fire, / Puff, puff, puff! / First you blow it gently, / Then you blow it rough.’ This verse was also part of a popular nineteenth-century music-hall song; the identity and significance of ‘Doctor Wyer’ is unclear.
Royal Royal Café and Restaurant at 32 Market Street, Nottingham.
like chickens … to roost Proverbially, ‘Curses, like chickens, come home to roost.’ A curse will rebound on the person who makes it.
Adams’ lace factory Samuel Adams & Sons, Lace Manufacturers, were based at 2 Commerce Square, Nottingham.
“True, true till death——” Taken from the popular song ‘Just Like the Ivy’ (1902) by A. J. Mills and Harry Castling: ‘Just watch the ivy on that old garden wall / Clinging so tightly what e’er may befall; / As you grow older I’ll be constantly true, / And just like the ivy, I’ll cling to you.’
Castle Rock … the boulevard Nottingham Castle is built on a high sandstone ridge known as Castle Rock; the tree-lined Castle Boulevard runs below.
her card … the dances Adams selects Elsie as his dancing partner by writing his initials on her printed card listing each dance.
She ate her custard … her employer This sentence reads oddly; proofs for The Prussian Officer and Other Stories (1914) read: ‘She ate her custard, all the while sustained and contained within the fusion with her employer.’ Syntactical sense is satisfied if the revised second clause is understood to mean that ‘an incomplete fusion all the while sustained and contained within [her] the being of her employer.’
ODOUR OF CHRYSANTHEMUMS
Selston Selston Colliery, located near Underwood, Nottinghamshire. The Eastwood-based mine owners Barber Walker & Co. used small locomotives to transport coal to the main railway line at Langley Mill.
pit-bank … its ashy sides The pit-bank would be made up of earth and small fragments of coal; the carboniferous elements of this waste material would tend to oxidise and catch fire, leaving ash as a residue.
Brinsley Colliery The mine where Lawrence’s father and at least two paternal uncles worked; one, James Lawrence (1851–80), was killed by a fall of coal in Brinsley Colliery in 1880. His wife and children lived in the cottage next to the railway line as described in the story; their third child was also born after the father’s death.
squat a low cottage This construction is a result of cuts Lawrence made to the 1910 English Review proofs of the story. The sentence originally read: ‘The train slowed down as it drew near a small cottage squat beside the great bay of railway-lines.’
‘Lord Nelson’ Real-life public house. The Prince of Wales and Yew
Tree mentioned later were also local pubs popular with miners.
it fell … shut ’im in Walter had been cutting into the bottom of a coal seam to create a space into which the overhanging coal could later be broken. He worked himself ‘under th’ face’ but was trapped by a rock fall behind him.
not dead The English Review proofs, as revised by Lawrence, read ‘dead’. The reading changed when he made final revisions for The Prussian Officer and Other Stories.
fear and shame The English Review proofs continued: ‘For in death she would have no life, for she had never loved. She had life on earth with her children, that was all.’
NEW EVE AND OLD ADAM
NEW EVE AND OLD ADAM Images favoured by Lawrence, pairing in conflict modern woman and unregenerate man. This title was used by Rudolf Golm (1870–1931) for the novel Der alte Adam und die neue Eva (1895), translated in 1898, a work that Lawrence certainly knew by 1910. He later applied the terms to his own fraught relationship with his wife Frieda von Richthofen Weekley (1879–1956) (see, for example, Letters, ii. 662); several other biographical echoes in the story are noted below.
Parisian Nights’ Entertainments Variation on The Arabian Nights’ Entertainments, a collection of folk tales in Arabic dating from the tenth century.
married a year In May 1913, at the time this story was written, Lawrence wrote that ‘I have been married for this last year’ (Letters, i. 553), after going to Germany with Frieda on 3 May 1912. They were legally married on 13 July 1914, following her divorce from Ernest Weekley (1865–1954).
Gretchen Virtuous and innocent character in Faust (1808) by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832). She is seduced by Faust and bears his child.
flat Used in its original sense of ‘storey’ or ‘floor’ (and at III:28).
Pietro Italianate nickname; the protagonists are subsequently identified as ‘Peter’ and ‘Paula Moest’. Lawrence knew the German sculptor Josef Moest (1873–1914) by 1913 and probably took the name from him.
Marble Arch Monument, or the underground railway station of the same name, at the west end of Oxford Street in London.
his brother-in-law’s Identified as ‘Edmund’ below; perhaps a re-creation of Lawrence’s future brother-in-law Edgar Jaffe (1866–1921).
Madge, her friend Also the name of a close Nottingham friend of Frieda; Madge Bradley and her sister Gladys had encouraged the relationship between Frieda and Lawrence. Frieda stayed with Gladys Bradley at the end of April 1912 while Lawrence waited to hear her intentions about her relationship with him (see Letters, i. 388–9).
twenty lire for a sovereign A sovereign was a gold coin nominally worth one pound sterling; during 1912–13, the exchange rate for a sovereign would be at least 24 Italian lire (the plural form of lira, the monetary currency of Italy until 2002).
Strand Prestigious central London shopping street, running from Charing Cross to Fleet Street.
Hampstead Fashionable middle- and upper-class suburb in north London.
most famous … poet and ‘Meister’ The most famous contemporary ‘Meister’ (‘Master’) of German poetry was probably Stefan George (1868–1933).
‘The Black Sheep’ Four plays with this title have been identified, but Lawrence may instead be playing with the title of The Blue Bird by Maurice Maeterlinck (1862–1949), famous in its time and first performed in London in 1909. The reasons why Maeterlinck could be considered a ‘black sheep’, his family’s disapproval of his literary ambitions and his long relationship with a married woman, may have been especially pertinent to Lawrence at the time of writing this story.
“On my breasts … perfumed sheets—” From ‘A Preaching from a Spanish Ballad’ (1887), ll. 33–6 by George Meredith (1828–1909): ‘At my breasts I cool thy footsoles; / Wine I pour, I dress thy meats; / Humbly, when my lord it pleaseth, / Lie with him on perfumed sheets’.
his hair … like an Apollo’s Curled and bunched hair, like that of the statue of the Apollo Belvedere in the Vatican Museum in Rome.
Flesh of my flesh From Genesis ii.23 as Eve is created from Adam’s rib: ‘And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.’
You wouldn’t love me … except generally Moest’s resentment of Paula’s attempts at undiscriminating goodwill recalls Gilbert Noon’s complaint to Johanna (also fictional recreations of Lawrence and Frieda), in Lawrence’s uncompleted novel Mr Noon: ‘If there is physical love, it is exclusive. It is exclusive. It’s only spiritual love that is all-embracing. And I’m off spiritual love. I don’t want it’ (ed. Lindeth Vasey (Cambridge University Press, 1984), p. 166).
VIN ORDINAIRE
VIN ORDINAIRE Lawrence gave the story this title ‘because I thought it was vin ordinaire’ (Letters, ii. 199); see Glossary. By July 1914, he had rewritten it with the title ‘The Thorn in the Flesh’ and it was this revised version that appeared in The Prussian Officer and Other Stories.
climbing ambitiously up The vigour of the plants in climbing over the walls of the barracks contrasts with the difficulties of Bachmann’s ascent of the fortifications.
Bachmann Literally, ‘Brookman’ (German).
fortifications The story is set in Metz, now a French city in the north-east of the country and capital of the Lorraine region. Following the Franco-Prussian War (1870–71), however, Metz had been formally ceded to Germany. By 1905, some 25,000 German troops were stationed there and the city was increasingly fortified. Lawrence travelled to Metz in May 1912, following Frieda, whose father Baron Friedrich von Richthofen (1844–1915) held a post as an administrative officer with the German army. Lawrence was obliged to leave the city under suspicion of spying: ‘they were going to arrest me for staring at their idiotic fortifications’ (Letters, i. 397). He dismissed Metz as ‘a ghastly medley … new town, old town, barracks, barracks, barracks, cathedral, Montigny’ (Letters, i. 393). See also note to 129:15–17.
Heidelberg City in south-west Germany on the Neckar river, between Stuttgart and Frankfurt.
Cathedral … blue sky Cathédrale Saint-Etienne in Metz, built in the Gothic style between 1220 and 1520.
forty miles to France In fact, the nearest point of the French border was just over seven miles from Metz.
Baron von Freyhof’s … two miles out of town The equivalent ‘big house’ of Baron von Richthofen was located in Montigny, a small village about three and a half miles from Metz.
Scy Now known as Scy-Chazelles, a village on the slopes of Mont St Quentin with a view over Metz.
his right hand … Franco-Prussian war Baron von Richthofen had a damaged finger on his right hand caused by a war injury.
“Yes,” … mechanically No mention is made in the story of Emilie posting Bachmann’s postcard to his mother, although the report of her returning home at the beginning of section IV could be after such a trip. It is likely that this detail was lost when cuts were made to ‘Vin Ordinaire’ by the editors of the English Review.
THE PRUSSIAN OFFICER
THE PRUSSIAN OFFICER [HONOUR AND ARMS] Edward Garnett (1868–1937), reader for the publisher Duckworth, altered Lawrence’s title ‘Honour and Arms’ to ‘The Prussian Officer’, a change that was carried over into the title of Duckworth’s collection. Lawrence did not approve: ‘Garnett was a devil to call my book of stories The Prussian Officer – what Prussian Officer?’ (Letters, ii. 241). Despite Lawrence’s comment that ‘I have written the best story I have ever done – about a German officer in the army and his orderly’ (Letters, ii. 21), the officer is indeed Prussian by birth. He is, however, serving in the Bavarian army, which maintained its independence from Prussian forces until the outbreak of the First World War in 1914.
‘Honour and Arms’ is taken from Newburgh Hamilton’s libretto for the dramatic oratorio Samson (1743) by George Frideric Handel (1685–1759), as adapted from Samson Agonistes (1671) by John Milton (1608–74). Harapha, the giant of Gath, taunts the blind Samson in an aria from scen
e 4: ‘Honour and Arms scorn such a Foe, / Tho’ I cou’d end thee at a Blow; / Poor Victory, / To conquer thee, / Or glory in thy Overthrow: / Vanquish a Slave that is half slain! / So mean a Triumph I disdain.’
pale blue uniform … sword scabbard Field uniform of an officer in the Bavarian Infantry Regiments. Lawrence would have seen these units in Bavaria during two visits in May–August 1912 and April–June 1913.
dithering An unusual but correct usage: the captain’s smile unnerves and confuses the orderly, rather than being hesitant itself; ‘dithering’ is the manuscript reading, but all later texts have ‘withering’.
strange country The landscapes Lawrence describes are those of the Isar valley and Loisach river. His impressions of Bavaria are also recorded in Letters, i. 411–16 and 540–54.
ENGLAND, MY ENGLAND
ENGLAND, MY ENGLAND Taken from the refrain to W. E. Henley’s (1849–1903) poem ‘England’ (1900), which begins ‘What have I done for you, / England, my England? / What is there I would not do, / England, my own?’ Henley advocates service to and sacrifice for country, sentiments revived at the outbreak of the First World War but subject to irony here.
Lawrence wrote the story while living in Greatham, Sussex, at a cottage on ‘the Meynell settlement’ (Letters, ii. 255) lent by Viola Meynell (1885–1956), the daughter of author and editor Wilfred Meynell (1852–1948) and poet Alice Meynell (1847–1922). His characters Winifred and Evelyn were modelled on Viola’s sister Madeline (1884–1975) and her husband Perceval Lucas (1879–1916). Madeline did have six siblings (169:16), and the eldest of the Lucases’ three daughters, Sylvia, injured her leg in the summer of 1913 by falling on a sickle left lying in long grass. Lucas was drafted into the infantry during the First World War, having previously been stationed in Epsom and Nottinghamshire (see 171:27–9). He died of wounds in France in July 1916, after which Lawrence briefly wished this prophetic story ‘at the bottom of the sea’ (Letters, ii. 635). This version of the story was written and published in 1915, prior to Lucas’s death (see also the Note on the Texts).
Selected Stories Page 39