SONS AND LOVERS D. H. Lawrence Author
- new bookISBN: 2940012092786
PART I 1. The Early Married Life of the Morels 2. The Birth of Paul, and Another Battle 3. The Casting Off of Morel--The Taking on of William 4. The Young Life of … More...
PART I 1. The Early Married Life of the Morels 2. The Birth of Paul, and Another Battle 3. The Casting Off of Morel--The Taking on of William 4. The Young Life of Paul 5. Paul Launches into Life 6. Death in the Family PART II 7. Lad-and-Girl Love 8. Strife in Love 9. Defeat of Miriam 10. Clara 11. The Test on Miriam 12. Passion 13. Baxter Dawes 14. The Release 15. DerelictPART ONECHAPTER ITHE EARLY MARRIED LIFE OF THE MORELSTHE BOTTOMS succeeded to Hell Row. Hell Row was a block of thatched,bulging cottages that stood by the brookside on Greenhill Lane. Therelived the colliers who worked in the little gin-pits two fields away.The brook ran under the alder trees, scarcely soiled by these smallmines, whose coal was drawn to the surface by donkeys that ploddedwearily in a circle round a gin. And all over the countryside were thesesame pits, some of which had been worked in the time of Charles II, thefew colliers and the donkeys burrowing down like ants into the earth,making queer mounds and little black places among the corn-fields andthe meadows. And the cottages of these coal-miners, in blocks and pairshere and there, together with odd farms and homes of the stockingers,straying over the parish, formed the village of Bestwood.Then, some sixty years ago, a sudden change took place, gin-pits wereelbowed aside by the large mines of the financiers. The coal and ironfield of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire was discovered. Carston, Waiteand Co. appeared. Amid tremendous excitement, Lord Palmerston formallyopened the company's first mine at Spinney Park, on the edge of SherwoodForest.About this time the notorious Hell Row, which through growing old hadacquired an evil reputation, was burned down, and much dirt was cleansedaway.Carston, Waite & Co. found they had struck on a good thing, so, down thevalleys of the brooks from Selby and Nuttall, new mines were sunk, untilsoon there were six pits working. From Nuttall, high up on the sandstoneamong the woods, the railway ran, past the ruined priory of theCarthusians and past Robin Hood's Well, down to Spinney Park, then on toMinton, a large mine among corn-fields; from Minton across the farmlandsof the valleyside to Bunker's Hill, branching off there, and runningnorth to Beggarlee and Selby, that looks over at Crich and the hills ofDerbyshire: six mines like black studs on the countryside, linked by aloop of fine chain, the railway.To accommodate the regiments of miners, Carston, Waite and Co. built theSquares, great quadrangles of dwellings on the hillside of Bestwood,and then, in the brook valley, on the site of Hell Row, they erected theBottoms.The Bottoms consisted of six blocks of miners' dwellings, two rowsof three, like the dots on a blank-six domino, and twelve houses in ablock. This double row of dwellings sat at the foot of the rather sharpslope from Bestwood, and looked out, from the attic windows at least, onthe slow climb of the valley towards Selby.The houses themselves were substantial and very decent. One could walkall round, seeing little front gardens with auriculas and saxifrage inthe shadow of the bottom block, sweet-williams and pinks in the sunnytop block; seeing neat front windows, little porches, little privethedges, and dormer windows for the attics. But that was outside; thatwas the view on to the uninhabited parlours of all the colliers' wives.The dwelling-room, the kitchen, was at the back of the house, facinginward between the blocks, looking at a scrubby back garden, and then atthe ash-pits. And between the rows, between the long lines of ash-pits,went the alley, where the children played and the women gossiped and themen smoked. So, the actual conditions of living in the Bottoms, thatwas so well built and that looked so nice, were quite unsavoury becausepeople must live in the kitchen, and the kitchens opened on to thatnasty alley of ash-pits.Mrs. Morel was not anxious to move into the Bottoms, which was alreadytwelve years old and on the downward path, when she descended to it fromBestwood. But it was the best she could do. Moreover, she had an endhouse in one of the top blocks, and thus had only one neighbour; onthe other side an extra strip of garden. And, having an end house, sheenjoyed a kind of aristocracy among the other women of the betweenhouses, because her rent was five shillings and sixpence instead offive shillings a week. But this superiority in st Digital Content>E-books>Graphic Novels>Graphic Novels>Graphic Novel A, SAP Digital >16<
