Quote:
She went forward, forgetting the gardener in a moment. Her face became strained, her movements eager. Glancing round, she saw all the windows giving on to the lawn were curtainless and dark. The house had a sterile appearance, as if it were still used, but not inhabited. A shadow seemed to go over her. She went across the lawn towards the garden, through an arch of crimson ramblers, a gate of colour. There beyond lay the soft blue sea with the bay, misty with morning, and the farthest headland of black rock jutting dimly out between blue and blue of the sky and water. Her face began to shine, transfigured with pain and joy. At her feet the garden fell steeply, all a confusion of flowers, and away below was the darkness of tree-tops covering the beck.
She turned to the garden that shone with sunny flowers around her. She knew the little corner where was the seat beneath the yew tree. Then there was the terrace where a great host of flowers shone, and from this, two paths went down, one at each side of the garden. She closed her sunshade and walked slowly among the many flowers. All round were rose bushes, big banks of roses, then roses hanging and tumbling from pillars, or roses balanced on the standard bushes. By the open earth were many other flowers. If she lifted her head, the sea was upraised beyond, and the Cape.
Slowly she went down one path, lingering, like one who has gone back into the past. Suddenly she was touching some heavy crimson roses that were soft as velvet, touching them thoughtfully, without knowing, as a mother sometimes fondles the hand of her child. She leaned slightly forward to catch the scent. Then she wandered on in abstraction. Sometimes a flame-coloured, scentless rose would hold her arrested. She stood gazing at it as if she could not understand it. Again the same softness of intimacy came over her, as she stood before a tumbling heap of pink petals. Then she wondered over the white rose, that was greenish, like ice, in the centre. So, slowly, like a white, pathetic butterfly, she drifted down the path, coming at last to a tiny terrace all full of roses. They seemed to fill the place, a sunny, gay throng. She was shy of them, they were so many and so bright. They seemed to be conversing and laughing. She felt herself in a strange crowd. It exhilarated her, carried her out of herself. She flushed with excitement. The air was pure scent.
Hastily, she went to a little seat among the white roses, and sat down. Her scarlet sunshade made a hard blot of colour. She sat quite still, feeling her own existence lapse. She was no more than a rose, a rose that could not quite come into blossom, but remained tense. A little fly dropped on her knee, on her white dress. She watched it, as if it had fallen on a rose. She was not herself.
In that first paragragh, we see that a shadow goes over her. The past is coming up on her. We then come to this key sentence: "Her face began to shine, transfigured with pain and joy." Whenever we come to the word "transfigured" in a Lawrence story, we should always pause. This is definitely an early Lawrence work. First, there is no religious connotation to the transguration. It's not the same as a later Lawrence work. Also, the more experienced Lawrence would have saved the word for the peak of the experience, at the height of the emotion. Here it comes in the first paragragh of this little scene.
Quote:
Then she wandered on in abstraction. Sometimes a flame-coloured, scentless rose would hold her arrested. She stood gazing at it as if she could not understand it. Again the same softness of intimacy came over her, as she stood before a tumbling heap of pink petals. Then she wondered over the white rose, that was greenish, like ice, in the centre. So, slowly, like a white, pathetic butterfly, she drifted down the path, coming at last to a tiny terrace all full of roses. They seemed to fill the place, a sunny, gay throng. She was shy of them, they were so many and so bright. They seemed to be conversing and laughing. She felt herself in a strange crowd. It exhilarated her, carried her out of herself. She flushed with excitement. The air was pure scent.
She is in "abstraction." The roses become personified, "conversing and laughing," they created a "crowd." And then "It exhilarated her, carried her out of herself." The abstraction and the carrying her out of herself is what Lawrence calls a loss of ego, her self. The experience is intensified with the personified roses, as if she's in a drugged state. She is living in a state when she felt the most intense, when life was passionate, that past with her lover. Roses are a symbol of idealism. She has idealized the past. there isn't even a mention of the lover here, just the rose that he is symbolized by and rose that she is symbolized by. They are not real people, they are just symbols in her mind. And then we get the last paragragh:
Quote:
Hastily, she went to a little seat among the white roses, and sat down. Her scarlet sunshade made a hard blot of colour. She sat quite still, feeling her own existence lapse. She was no more than a rose, a rose that could not quite come into blossom, but remained tense. A little fly dropped on her knee, on her white dress. She watched it, as if it had fallen on a rose. She was not herself.
Remember I've said that Lawrence's ideal life is that of a flower. That is what he imagines our souls to be if we are lucky enough to be transfigured. He says here, "She was no more than a rose." But, and this is a big but, "a rose that could not quite come into blossom, but remained tense." She is human. The real world still exists. Real life has to undercut (hehe, sorry about the rose metaphor of cutting ;) ) her idealism.
