D. H. Lawrence's 'Odour of Chrysanthemums'

Soon the room was busy in the darkness with the crisp
sound of crunching. The mother ate very little. She drank
her tea determinedly, and sat thinking, full of anger. When
she rose and took the Yorkshire pudding from the oven her
accumulated anger was evident in the stern, unbending head.
She looked at the pudding in the fender, and broke out:

"It is a scandalous thing as a man can't even come in to his
dinner.* If it's crozzled* up to a cinder I don't see why I should
care. Past his very door he goes to get to a public house, and
here I sit with his dinner waiting for him ---- "

She went out of the house, returning directly with a dustpan
of coal, with which she mended the fire. As she dropped piece
after piece of coal on the red fire, the shadows fell on the walls,
till the room was almost in total darkness.

"I canna see,"* grumbled the invisible John. In spite of
herself, the mother laughed.

"You know the way to your mouth," she said. She set
the dustpan outside the door, and came in, going across to
the pantry to wash her hands. When she came again like a tall
shadow on to the hearth, the lad repeated, complaining sulkily:

"I canna see."

"Good gracious!" cried the mother irritably,"you're as
bad as your father if it's a bit dusk!"

Nevertheless she took a paper spill* from a sheaf on the
mantelpiece and proceeded to light the lamp that hung from
the ceiling in the middle of the room. As she reached up
her figure displayed itself just rounding with maternity.

"Oh mother----!" exclaimed the girl.

"What?" said the woman, suspended in the act of putting
the lamp-glass over the flame. The copper reflector shone

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