As in 'The Prussian Officer' the violence is intensely seen, its strange sounds heard. Lawrence enters fully into it, as something which he wants to realise. There is no deprecation: this is what the man feels, what he wants, what he has it in him to do. But there is something else in him equally real, and more powerful: his sense of pity springing from his sense of responsibility for her:
But he had seen her standing there, a piteous, horrified thing, and he turned his face aside in shame and nausea. He went and sat heavily in his chair, and a curious ease, almost like sleep, came over his brain. (PO(C) 162)
When he has returned the jewels to Adams, there is a poignant reconciliation, made more sweet by the tears and the blood:
"I'm sleeping down here," he said. "Go you to bed."
In a few moments she lifted her tear-stained, swollen face and looked at him with eyes all forlorn and pathetic.A great flash of anguish went over his body. He went over, slowly, and very gently took her in his hands. She let herself be taken. Then as she lay against his shoulders, she sobbed aloud:
"I never meant -"
"My love - my little love -" he cried, in anguish of spirit, holding her in his arms. (PO(C) 164)
The psychological penetration in the story is very remarkable; especially the challenges offered by Elsie, Adams's greedy opportunism, Whiston's slow wrath. The whole recollected sequence of the party, and the climactic present day of reckoning, where the morning prompts the long flashback and the evening follows and clinches it - it is all brilliantly constructed and, as a succession of actions and states of consciousness, imagined as only genius can imagine. Yet it has a limitation. I would not want to offer the conventional criticism that it is a day-dream of masculine dominance, since the story seems to me to be truthful, and faithful to the nature of the imagined people. It also renders with grace and assurance a stream of notations well beyond the reach of other writers. And in any case, Elsie's dance more than half-hints that neither violence nor tenderness can finally quell the spirit in her: something is invoked and released which might be more powerful than Lawrence's ostensible moral, the position where he wants to end, that 'within his grasp, she could dart about excitingly', that 'he was the permanent basis from which she took these little flights into nowhere'. Whiston puts this something more coarsely when in his anger he calls her a 'stray-running little *****': there he betrays a fear which may be natural, well-founded and not merely angry. *****es run astray as part of nature:so the ending of the story may not be entirely an easy 'happy ever after'; rather a moment of reconciliation in a process which recur.
Yet though one can point to such implications, one must admit that the whole drive of the story is meant to confirm the moral: that Whiston's masculine strength can from now on cradle Elsie's feminine waywardness and charm, even if it has to offer a salutary violence at the right moments. A more important criticism might be that the sheer achievement of the story tells against if: brilliance is created by Lawrence's
complete knowledge of these people, whom he has created and who pose no challenge to that domination since they are not a mystery to him. He sees right through them and all round them; and while we are startled, touched, and impressed by all that he can see (more than we could see ourselves) it threatens to leave his characters finished, closed off, and known. 'New Eve and Old Adam' challenges that he can't see all around, so that he will have to embark on his major fictions in order to comprehend it.
Originally Posted by Quark
You are hilarious! I hope at least you got a date with the cute girl or scored some points for later.
Glad you were not buying any Oscar Wilde although women seem to like him greatly.
"It's so mysterious, the land of tears." 
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Yes, Virgil - same with me. I read the Chekhov or actually reading it now - nearly done and I forget the Lawrence story so I will have to re-read it this weekend.
computers!
I for some unknown reason like mining stories a lot. Have read a couple of novels about it based on the area of Yorkshire (I think the mines were all around this area, right?), those were really interesting. It's a pity I have forgotten their title names. Would have liked to recommend them to you.
