D. H. Lawrence's 'Odour of Chrysanthemums'
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She looked at the children. Their eyes and their little
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parted lips were piteous. The mother sat rocking in silence
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for some time. Then she looked at the clock.4
"Twenty minutes to six!" In a tone of fine bitter care-
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lessness she continued: "Eh, he'll not come now till they bring
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him. There he'll stick! He needn't come rolling in here in
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his pit-dirt, for I won't wash him. He can lie on the floor ----
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Eh, what a fool I've been, what a fool! And this is what I
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came here for, to this dirty hole, rats and all, for him to slink
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past his very door. Twice last week -- he's begun now ----"11
She silenced herself, and rose to clear the table. When she
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was actively engaged she could endure, but as she sat still her
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fury seemed to sway like fighting imps within her, and to break
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out of her control. 15
Annie trotted after her mother with the tea-things, and
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helped to wipe them, chattering all the time, almost feverishly
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chattering. Anything was better than the clouds of silence
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that would settle on them. When there was no more house-
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work to be done Annie stood disconsolate for a moment. She
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felt almost unequal to the struggle with the pressure of the
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trouble. Yet, in childish dread of abnormal states, in terror
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of an approaching climax, she forced herself to play. 23
"Our John*, should we play at gipsies?" 24
They hung an old red table cloth from the sofa to their
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father's large arm-chair, and in the corner behind it was their
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gipsy caravan. They played with peculiar intentness, were
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brilliantly fertile in inventions, united in terror against the
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oncoming of they knew not what. John was a tinker and
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Annie sold clothes-pegs. They knocked at the dresser and
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interviewed an imaginary housewife; they knocked at the pantry
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door, and an imaginary dog flew at them, when John had the
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pleasure of kicking it under the jaw, they knocked at the stair
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foot door, and sold two pegs, putting them under the mat,
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they could make no one hear at the parlour door; then John
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returned to the pantry and was given a lading can to mend.
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Whilst he soldered it Annie washed the clothes. When it was
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