"The Prussian Soldier"
This story is a penetrating psychological study of repressed homosexuality rising to the surface in the form of violent sublimation. The repression is brilliantly captured in metaphor early on:
“Gradually the officer had become aware of his servant’s young, vigorous, unconscious presence about him. He could not get away from the sense of the youth’s person, while he was in attendance. It was like a warm flame upon the older man’s tense, rigid body, that had become almost unliving, fixed.”
“The Horse-Dealer’s Daughter”
This is a story about a family fallen on hard times, but despite the presence of plenty of brothers, it is the lone sister who is the real focus. Specifically, her recognition that hard times always hits unmarried women harder than any man. And so the story is really a romance about:
“a rather short, sullen-looking young woman of twenty-seven. She would have been good-looking, save for the impassive fixity of her face, ‘bull-dog’, as her brothers called it”
who by the middle of the narrative has transformed into an object of love for the right man who is overwhelmed by
“a heavy power in her eyes which laid hold of his whole being, as if he had drunk some powerful drug.”
"The Princess"
The title character of this story is not really a Princess, but has been made to believe so by her father, which makes the title a sort of metaphor. Where figurative language really gets juiced up, however, is in the advice that the father repeats to his little Princess throughout her process of growing up:
“Inside everybody there is another creature, a demon which doesn’t care at all. You peel away all the things they say and do and feel, as cook peels away the outside of the onions. And in the middle of everybody there is a green demon which you can’t peel away.”
“The Witch a la Mode”
A really beautiful metaphorical image is to be found in this story. The story would not really change if it were removed, but it is an example of how a simple metaphorical image can transform a mundane action into poetry:
“At that moment a train across the valley threaded the opposite darkness with its gold thread.”
“The Odour of Chrysanthemums”
Arguably, perhaps—well, indeed, but only just—the most memorable metaphorical image to be found in Lawrence’s short fiction is found in the two plaintive, wistful, and philosophically burdened closing lines of one of his most famous stories:
“She knew she submitted to life, which was her immediate master. But from death, her ultimate master, she winced with fear and shame.”
