I will make some comments on the posted paragraphs:
Quote:
To his orderly he was at first cold and just and indifferent: he did not fuss over trifles. So that his servant knew practically nothing about him, except just what orders he would give, and how he wanted them obeyed. That was quite simple. Then the change gradually came.
Here is further description of the officer, as viewed once again by the orderly. This states that the orderly knew practically nothing about the officer....interesting. So the relationship between them is strickly one of servant and master. Last line indicates the change that gradually occurs between them.
Quote:
The orderly was a youth of about twenty-two, of medium height, and well built. He had strong, heavy limbs, was swarthy, with a soft, black, young moustache. There was something altogether warm and young about him. He had firmly marked eyebrows over dark, expressionless eyes, that seemed never to have thought, only to have received life direct through his senses, and acted straight from instinct.
Again the point of view is from the story-teller and is shifted back to the physical appearance of the youth. It is obvious that he is strong and handsome and someone who would be envied by the officer, who is probably aging or knows he has limited years of youthfulness. Most important, is this last line which seems to indicate that the orderly is driven by instinct and his senses. This would relate to 'blood' philosophy and relationships that Lawrence talks about often in his writing, whereby the intellect gives over to the deeper senses of the blood and animal instinct. I am sure Virgil can further comment on this idea.
Quote:
Gradually the officer had become aware of his servant’s young, vigorous, unconscious presence about him. He could not get away from the sense of the youth’s person, while he was in attendance. It was like a warm flame upon the older man’s tense, rigid body, that had become almost unliving, fixed. There was something so free and self-contained about him, and something in the young fellow’s movement, that made the officer aware of him.
This passage eloquently describes how the officer perceives the youthfulness of the orderly and suggests he is taken by it and feels a "warm flame" within his own "tense, rigid body". It further describes his body as "unliving, fixed". In contrast the youth is full of life and vigor, and he envies this and the fact that the youth can be less controlled (by himself) than he is and more natural in his being.
Quote:
And this irritated the Prussian. He did not choose to be touched into life by his servant. He might easily have changed his man, but he did not. He now very rarely looked direct at his orderly, but kept his face averted, as if to avoid seeing him. And yet as the young soldier moved unthinking about the apartment, the elder watched him, and would notice the movement of his strong young shoulders under the blue cloth, the bend of his neck. And it irritated him. To see the soldier’s young, brown, shapely peasant’s hand grasp the loaf or the wine-bottle sent a flash of hate or of anger through the elder man’s blood. It was not that the youth was clumsy: it was rather the blind, instinctive sureness of movement of an unhampered young animal that irritated the officer to such a degree.
Now we can really see what is irritating the officer. He is put out about the youth possessing what he no longer has and obviously longs for; he is fighting being "touched into life" by by this awareness and the affect the servant has on his being. Now Lawrence actually uses the term "animal" in the last statement. In this entire passage the officer observes the freedom and beauty of the youth and is drawn to him, but rejects this notion and it irritates him at the same time. In some sense he is trapped within himself and within his own 'reserve'. He cannot let himself go and feel anything animalistic or natural.
Quote:
Once, when a bottle of wine had gone over, and the red gushed out on to the tablecloth, the officer had started up with an oath, and his eyes, bluey like fire, had held those of the confused youth for a moment. It was a shock for the young soldier. He felt something sink deeper, deeper into his soul, where nothing had ever gone before. It left him rather blank and wondering. Some of his natural completeness in himself was gone, a little uneasiness took its place. And from that time an undiscovered feeling had held between the two men.
In this paragraph the incident of the wine being spilt and the reaction of the officer is profound enough to have an adverse affect on the relationship of the two men. Now the youth sees the "bluey like fire" in the officers eyes and has the first indication of unsettling feelings between the two men - he is confused by the older man's reaction. This moment is a sort of warning for what is to come in the future. From this point on the orderly is unnerved to a degree and loses some of his ease of manor that the officer was admiring/rejecting, at the same time. The last line leaves off with the feeling of a definite change between them, further emphasising the point.
Quote:
Henceforward the orderly was afraid of really meeting his master. His subconsciousness remembered those steely blue eyes and the harsh brows, and did not intend to meet them again. So he always stared past his master, and avoided him. Also, in a little anxiety, he waited for the three months to have gone, when his time would be up. He began to feel a constraint in the Captain’s presence, and the soldier even more than the officer wanted to be left alone, in his neutrality as servant.
Now fear creeps in with the first statement, and in the second it states it is 'subconscious' fear. Now the orderly begins to avoid the officer. He starts to put himself into a vulnerable situation with his attitude or constraint in the officer's presense. Obviously the officer will now sense this change. I think this leaves the orderly open for abuse. The officer sees this vulnerable anxiety in the youth and later takes advantage of it.
