The Rocking-Horse Winner by D.H. Lawrence

The Rocking-Horse Winner Reviews

• 
  Cecily

  The opening words sound like a fairy story:
  “There was a woman who was beautiful, who started with all the advantages, yet she had no luck.”
  But it is immediately clear that this is more Grimm than Disney:
  “She married for love, and the love turned to dust. She had bonny children, yet she felt they had been thrust upon her, and she could not love them.”
  
  It was intended to be a ghost story, but there are no ghosts - just supernatural voices and premonitions, and the metaphorical ghost of an off-stage, useless father:
  “Though he had good prospects, those prospects never materialised.”
  
  It is as haunting as any ghost story because of the combined effects of lack of love and whispering walls on the boy, Paul:
  “The house became haunted by the unspoken phrase: There must be more money!’”
  
  The heart of the story is luck, money, and the absence of both.
  The heart of Paul longs for love from the empty heart of his mother.
  
  
  Image: The word “Lucky” with horseshoe U (
  Source)
  
  Luck
  
  Paul asks why they don’t have a car. His mother says it’s because they’re poor (this is relative - they have a large house and several servants, but live beyond their means).
  When he asks why, she says, “slowly and bitterly, ‘it’s because your father has no luck.’” She fails to mention her own compulsive spending.
  “Is luck money, mother?”
  “No, Paul! Not quite. It’s what causes you to have money… That’s why it’s better to be born lucky than rich.”
  
  So does dying rich mean dying lucky (or just that you have a bad accountant?!)? Tragedy or triumph?
  
  Make your own luck?
  
  The idea of making your own luck is a cliché. But if you “make” it, surely it’s skill, effort, and persistence, rather than luck?
  
  Rationalists like me can’t manufacture luck and can’t hope for Paul’s paranormal solution.
  
  That leaves us with a delicate balancing act: to accept and enjoy what we have right now, even as we reach out and up, striving for more and better lives, more and better selves.
  
  More importantly, sacrificial love is more honourable than materialistic greed.
  
  
  Image: Mother and Paul’s shadow, from a screen adaptation - Valerie Hobson in 1949, I think (
  Source)
  
  On the psychiatrist’s couch
  
  Like Oedipus, and like the son in Sons and Lovers, Paul wants to replace his feckless father in the cold heart of his mother. His furious rocking may bring pleasure and relief beyond what's explicit in the story.
  
  But the ending... That's the horror.
  
  Ad astra
  
  As a child, I named my own rocking horse Pegasus because I knew he had wings. Their invisibility was part - confirmation, even - of their magic. Like Paul, my riding was sometimes frantic, mesmeric, dangerous. Pegasus flew me to many and wondrous places. I won no money, but I lived to tell the tales and to see my own, loved, child ride Pegasus as I had done. I saw my own Winner’s Enclosure.
  
  See also
  
  • I’ve reviewed several of DHL’s short stories
  HERE. Many of them have themes that overlap with those here.
  
  • See Sons and Lovers, which I reviewed
  HERE, for another Lawrencian Paul with a probably Oedipal complex.
  
  • This sort of ghostless ghost story reminded me a little of Poe. See my reviews of:
  -
  The Pit and the Pendulum
  -
  The Tell-Tale Heart
  -
  The Fall of the House of Usher
  
  • There are several screen adaptations, but I’ve not watched any of them.
  
  Short story club
  
  I reread this as one of the stories in
  The Art of the Short Story, by Dana Gioia, from which I'm aiming to read one story a week with
  The Short Story Club, starting 2 May 2022.
  
  You can read this story
  here.
  
  You can join the group
  here.
• 
  Petra time heals but a week isnt quite long enough

  This is not about the fervid child hero of the book, the mother whose life is a lie, the desire for money above all else or the writing which was brilliant, stressed and edgy, befitting the tragic story.I do not want to write about the story because it is very short and better read, anything much you read about the story will spoil it for you. This is a link to read online
  The Rocking-Horse winner.
  
  This is about my beginning experience of audio. I 'read' this or listened to it. I'm getting used to the medium and can see that the acting ability of the narrator is what makes all the difference. More difference that the actual text written by the author. This narrator, a woman, chose to give the little boy a thin, reedy voice, almost laughable, but written, I could see that this had considerably greater depth. I did read the story afterwards and I did not agree with the narrator's characterisation of the little boy at all. She tried to capture more of the 'little-boy'ishness rather than the character of the child, to me.
  
  No matter what I read and hear, I have to say that still to me listening to an audio book is entirely synonymous to listening to a radio play and in no way has the depth of a written book - after all the characterisation and emphasis have all been taken out of my hands and, like with a film, its someone else's interpretation that is feeding my brain.
  
  I like films that I haven't read the book of - my interpretation of the written word will be different from the director's and not at all influenced by 'box office', stars with pulling power and needing to fit the story into a time frame. I like radio plays (sometimes) and I think I can get into audio books, but the substitution of the narrator's interpretation and imagination for my own is the sticking point for me. You would think that if the narrator is also the author I should accept that the interpretation and imagination are absolutely authentic, but I don't read fiction (when I do) for authenticity, I read it for enjoyment.
  
  And I definitely enjoyed this book much more written than listened to.
  
  100% rewritten 12 Nov. 2022 after re-reading the story online.
• 
  Adina

  My 2nd short story by DH Lawrence, this time with a fantasy twist. I enjoyed this one even more, i think.
  
  The bottom line of the story: We should strive for more love then for more Money. Also, betting is bad for your health.
  
  It was a sad story, I wanted to hug the boy who is the MC.
  
  
  
  
  
• 
  Helga

  This is a tragic story about how humans are never satisfied with what they have and enough is never enough for them.
  The story is so strong and real, it makes you take a good look at the things you value in your life and ask yourself are they worth the sacrifices you make to gain them.
  You can read the short story here:
  http://www.classicshorts.com/stories/...
• 
  Sara

  A marvelous little story that explores some very important themes regarding money, greed and obsession. Paul's parents, particularly his mother, are never satisfied with what they have in life. The live beyond their means and show no frugality when they have money at hand. The house, as a result, seems to constantly whisper the need for money...more money, more money. The children in the nursery hear the whispers, and the boy, Paul, decides he must obtain "luck" and quell the whispering.
  
  The story can be read here:
  
  https://www.classicshorts.com/stories...
  
  with many thanks to Kathleen for encouraging me to read this one and clear another good story from the TBR.
• 
  PattyMacDotComma

  4★
  “There was a woman who was beautiful, who started with all the advantages, yet she had no luck. She married for love, and the love turned to dust.”
  
  She is so bitter about her lack of advantage that she seems to have lost her capacity for love as well. She begrudges the fact that she has children who always seem to need something. Her little boy has overheard and senses what’s wrong. They don’t have any luck.
  
  “If you’re lucky you have money. That’s why it’s better to be born lucky than rich. If you’re rich, you may lose your money. But if you’re lucky, you will always get more money.”
  
  That’s what he thinks. If he can get lucky, he can get rich. The children play in a nursery, which we might call a toy room or playroom now.
  
  “And so the house came to be haunted by the unspoken phrase: ‘There must be more money! There must be more money!’ The children could hear it all the time, though nobody ever said it aloud…
  
  It came whispering from the springs of the still-swaying rocking-horse, and even the horse, bending his wooden, champing head, heard it.”
  
  The little boy begins asking his uncle and the gardener about horse-racing. He rides the rocking-horse frantically.
  
  “He wanted luck, he wanted it, he wanted it. When the two girls were playing dolls, in the nursery, he would sit on his big rocking horse, charging madly into space, with a frenzy that made the little girls peer at him uneasily. Wildly the horse careered, the waving dark hair of the boy tossed, his eyes had a strange glare in them. The little girls dared not speak to him.”
  
  There is a haunting, science fiction element to this that I wasn’t expecting from
  D.H. Lawrence.
  
  It’s another story that has been discussed by the Short Story Club Group here:
  
  https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
  
  It is included in some story collections, and you can download it here:
  
  https://blogs.bu.edu/cflamm/files/201...
• 
  Tamoghna Biswas

  **4.5 stars**
  
  “Although they lived in style, they felt always an anxiety in the house. There was never enough money. The mother had a small income, and the father had a small income, but not nearly enough for the social position which they had to keep up. ”
  
  Lawrence is mainly noted for his longer works like
  Lady Chatterley’s Lover and
  Sons and Lovers, which were once proclaimed ‘obscene’ but actually were quite ahead of their time, even for now. Considering the genre he usually wrote in, this tale is of completely different themes, a masterful blend of fantasy and melancholy which is narrated in a fable-ish way. Quite a deviation from the usual, and for good.
  
  The story can be summed up as: a kid born of an unloving mother, in a down and out family starts betting on horse races, desperate to win his mother’s love and attention, and also wealth. However, he does all of these in an incomprehensible, mystical way that doesn’t, obviously end well. The loneliness, which a kid can suffer with no fault at all from his part, and how, actually money can control one’s emotions, are among the non-farcical themes of the story. The rest is ambiguous, and even though it’s never to be told a tale of magic-realism, it can well surpass many popular tales from that genre in terms of readability.
  
  The story shows one thing to us, towering above all, and that is it’s never enough even for a kid. Greed really is something that can reveal itself from the youngest age. Though different in almost all aspects that can be spoken of, even this tale has that common theme from Lawrence’s usual: dehumanisation and deterioration of human values as a result of industrialisation and modernity.
  
  I don’t think it can be categorised as horror, though. Definitely, it can be told haunting, even more so for me as I read it on a depressing day (last day of school). However, you can overthink the obvious, if you don’t care about a good night’s sleep. Can you guess how it ends? Yeah. I bet you can. But you will most probably end up loving this story. As for me, if it weren’t for this story, I won’t have read any more of his works, probably.
  
  You can read the story
  here.
  
  “"I don't know. Nobody ever knows why one person is lucky and another unlucky."
  "Don't they? Nobody at all? Does nobody know?"
  "Perhaps God. But He never tells."
  "He ought to, then. And are'nt you lucky either, mother?"
  "I can't be, it I married an unlucky husband."
  "But by yourself, aren't you?"
  "I used to think I was, before I married. Now I think I am very unlucky indeed."”
• 
  Connie G

  "There was a woman who was beautiful, who started with all the advantages, yet she had no luck. . . Only she herself knew that at the center of her heart was a hard little place that could not feel love, no, not for anybody."
  
  Paul's mother was a cold, upper-class woman who had to keep up the appearance of being wealthy although there was little money coming into the household. Even when she came into some money, she always spent more. She had expensive taste and the house seemed to be haunted by the phrase:
  
  "There must be more money! There must be more money!."
  
  Paul anxiously pursued a magical solution to the problem in a frenzied state. A rocking horse is an important symbol in the story. Even if one frantically rides and rides a rocking horse, it will go nowhere down the road. In the same way, a life spent thinking only about wealth, but with no love, is a ride to nowhere. "The Rocking-Horse Winner" has the feeling of a fable or fairy tale about conspicuous consumption.
• 
  Kathleen

  “And so the house came to be haunted by the unspoken phrase: 'There must be more money!’”
  
  I love this little story. I love the theme that love can’t live peacefully with the drive for luck and money. I love the haunting of the story--the power of things that are felt in a family, even when they are unspoken. I love the momentum, how it gallops along to the end.
  
  It’s told through a distant third person, making it feel like a fable, and when you’re done reading, sure enough, you’ve gained a little wisdom.
  
  You can read it here:
  https://www.classicshorts.com/stories...
• 
  Paula Mota

  And so the house came to be haunted by the unspoken phrase: There must be more money! There must be more money! The children could hear it all the time though nobody said it aloud. They heard it at Christmas, when the expensive and splendid toys filled the nursery. (...) And the children would stop playing, to listen for a moment. They would look into each other’s eyes, to see if they had all heard. And each one saw in the eyes of the other two that they too had heard. “There must be more money! There must be more money!”
  
  Escrito em 1926 e ainda a fazer sentido quase 100 depois, esta história sobre a ânsia de ter de mais dinheiro e mais bens materiais, em que essa pressão passa para as crianças da família, sobretudo para um rapazinho que tem um cavalo de balouço muito especial.
• 
  Dave Schaafsma

  I've read this story many times, but not recently, and I saw the Goodreads Short Story Club was reading it so I listened to it this time, and loved it once again, the story of "luck" which is defined differently by Paul, a young boy, and his mother, Hester. Paul hears his very house echo his mother's complaint that she "needs more money." She says she has never been lucky, which means for her that she and her extravagant husband never made enough money to please her.
  
  Paul wants his mother's approval, rocking as he does on his rocking horse, trying to get an intuition about who will win horse races. It's somewhat exhilarating as the boy invests his savings on winning horse after winning horse, not telling his mother, storing it away. In some (Oedipal-ish) ways he wants to make his mother happy in a way her husband could not. But the story ends in tragedy, something to do with Paul's rocking away feverishly on the horse, choosing a horse that (ironically) wins him more money than ever, telling us mother that he is lucky, which for him means he would hope to gain her love.
  
  One thing the story is about is tied to a long-time Lawrence theme, that of money/greed/capitalism overwhelming all other needs in the contemporary world. Sad, but powerful. Paul's mental health needs make this story even sadder in many ways.
  
  "My God, Hester, you're eighty-thousand to the good, and a poor devil of a son to the bad"--Paul's uncle, near the end.
  
  here's a pdf of the story:
  
  
  https://blogs.bu.edu/cflamm/files/201...
• 
  Duane

  A haunting story that sent a shudder through me at the end. This would have made a perfect episode of the old TV series "The Twilight Zone". Nevertheless, it was a first class fun read.
• 
  Janelle

  A dark story with supernatural overtones. After a talk about luck with his mother (the family is living beyond its means and the house calls to the boy about needing money) he rides his rocking horse until he can be sure of the name of the next race winner. His obsession in response to his mothers need for more money leads to a sad end.
• 
  Dustin

  
  
  D.H. Lawrence's 1926 classic short story, The Rocking Horse Winner pulls at your heartstrings from the get-go and refuses to let go until its tragic culmination. As seen below, the opening paragraph does more than make for an emotional first impression, Lawrence's impressive and somehow beautiful prose sucks you in immediately, making it impossible to put down.
  
  

  "There was a woman who was beautiful, who started with all the advantages, yet she had no luck. She married for love, and the love turned to dust. She had bonny children, yet she felt they had been thrust upon her, and she could not love them. They looked at her coldly, as if they were finding fault with her. And hurriedly she felt she must cover up some fault in herself. Yet what it was that she must cover up she never knew. Nevertheless, when her children were present, she always felt the centre of her heart go hard. This troubled her, and in her manner she was all the more gentle and anxious for her children, as if she loved them very much. Only she herself knew that at the centre of her heart was a hard little place that could not feel love, no, not for anybody. Everybody else said of her: "She is such a good mother. She adores her children." Only she herself, and her children themselves, knew it was not so. They read it in each other's eyes."

  
  
  From there, it only gets better. The dialogue is spot-on, relevant, and lifelike. The pictures that Lawrence delivers to the reader is incredibly vivid, increasingly compelling (I couldn't finish it fast enough, really,) and though there are little details like the protagonist's "uncanny blue eyes" that are emphasized for whatever reason, every word serves a purpose. It never felt verbose or unnecessary. On the contrary, literally every word is essential.
  
  I have no more to say, other than read it for yourself if you haven't. Even if you have (this was a re-read for me,) give it another go, it's totally worth it.
  
• 
  SheAintGotNoShoes

  I must have been around 15 when I read this story and I remember it blowing my mind. I have not read it since, and while knowing practically nothing about psychology then, even though as an adult I went into social work, it is a great story with some psy elements and a certain 'creepiness ' about it. Time to re-discover it after over 40 years.
  
  A++++++++
• 
  George Ilsley

  The whisper was everywhere, and therefore no one spoke it.
  
  An unusual short story from D.H. Lawrence, one tinged with tragic humour or satirical insight. Almost a hint of
  P.G. Wodehouse, with the surprising flavour of
  Saki.
  
  An unexpected delight from a sometimes heavy-handed author. Having read many other stories from Lawrence, this one surprised me.
• 
  Matthew Ted

  I read this during my BA at University, and then again during the MA, when it was called upon again. As ever, I remember exactly where I was: I was bombing towards C. on a train from W. and as this haunting, almost terrifying, little story unfolded, the rocking and jolting train beneath me became all the more part of the narrative... A brilliant short story.
• 
  Katy

  This is a fast paced short story with somewhat of a horror twist to it. Young Paul strives for his mother’s approval. This family is struggling financially yet the mother continues to “keep up with the Jones” as best she can using their meager means. She tells her son how different life would be and how much easier it would be if only they were lucky. So Paul sets out to “be lucky”, and he does so by riding his rocking horse until he “knows” which horse will win at the races.
  
  Although Paul achieves, for the most part, this “lucky” run, and provides his mother with the winnings it is never enough for her, and she always wants more. Really the classic tale of morality gone awry. Paul’s incessant “riding” much like the rocking horse takes him no where, nor does he ever appear to find the love he craves from his mother. And therein lies the horror!
  
  DHL again uses much symbolism in his writing to deliver an oft written about message. He does a fine job of getting his point across. And the writing of course is emotion filled and descriptive.
  
  While I am somewhat of a newbie to these classics and have not yet developed a deeper sense to understanding of the finer details, these stories always seem to give one opportunity for great thought.
• 
  gloria ୨୧

  ➥ 4 Stars *:･ﾟ✧
  
  Great, fun, unique fairytale-esque story with additional entertainment and giggle value. And I can definitely wring the meaning behind many parts of this book, loved it.
• 
  aljouharah altheeyb

  أحياناً أتمنى أشغل الكاميرا وأصور تعابير وجهي عند آخر سطر وأنشرها كريفيو.
  لأنها أنسب طريقة لمعرفة مشاعري تماماً عن القصة، الشخصيات، والنهاية.
  لم أكن أنوي "كالكثير من الكتب التي قرأتها" أن أقرأ قصص لورانس القصيرة خلال هذه الأيام، لقد قرأت عنه وعن اسلوبه وسرديته السلسلة جداً في كتاب how to read and why لكن لم أكن أشعر أبداَ برغبة في القراءة له لا لسبب سوى ان اسمه لم يعجبني xD ..
  اليوم، عندما كُنت أتنقل من موقع لآخر، وجدت نفسي أمام عنوان القصة هذه، وفي لحظة ملل ورتابة شديدين ضغطت على search on google وقرأت القصة.
  أو لنقل أن القصة قرأتني. لأن هذا هو التعبير الأصدق.
  . هناك الكثير من المرايا، والأكثر منها هي التنبؤات التي تحملها.
  تبدأ القصة عن أم وأطفالها الثلاثة، وذلك الشعور الصامت المعروف بينهم جميعاً، الذي لاينطق باسمه أحد، لكن الكل يسمعه طوال الوقت.
  رحلة الطفل، تنبؤاته، رغبته واستبداله حياته بأمنيته كُله يريك بشكل مريع مايمكن أن يحدث أن جعلت ذلك الشيء الصامت يسيطر عليك دون مقاومة، دون توضيح لمقاصده أو أسبابه كأقل الأيمان.
  كلمات باول في الصفحة الأخيرة آلمت قلبي، لقد رضي بأن يضحي بكل شيء لأجل الحصول على كلمة رضى، لأجل التأكيد على أنه لاينقص شيئاً عن غيره.
  السرد رائع، التسلسل رائع، التنقل بين الحوارات وطريقة مخاطبة الشخصيات لبعضها مُذهل!
  لن أتردد أن أقرأ باقي قصصه حتى وإن لم يعجبني اسمك يالورانس.
  5\5
• 
  Kels

  Let me just start off by saying that I'm fiercely unafraid of criticizing and rejecting a classic. I'm not all that impressed by antiquity, nor do I feel the need to rate something highly just because it is a lauded piece of literature. So now that we have gotten that out the way, I must say that The Rocking Horse Winner is a lackluster tale, more akin to a fable, that blatantly and obtrusively tries to weave in morality within its plot with all the elegance of a T-Rex trying to make up a bed. (just picture it!)
  
  The narrative suffers greatly from being depthless and of course, I do realize that this is a short story. Yet even shorts can do a good job of adding layers and profundity to a story, but this short decidedly doesn't put the slightest effort into accomplishing that feat. The writing was colorless, the characters went unexplained, and the plot and moral of the story was so obvious, really, it need not be written.
• 
  Shayantani

  A short story rendered to perfection. It’s about how a parent’s greed and dissatisfaction can affect their children and rob them of their innocence. Lots of symbolism in the story and I really liked it.
• 
  J

  A very imaginative and brilliant short story!
• 
  B. P. Rinehart

  You know I don't regularly recommend music with my book reviews but
  Led Zeppelin's Stairway To Heaven seems almost scarily appropriate here and I will offer it in place of my usual opening quote.
  
  This story highlights the sometimes sad circumstance that can happen when a child feels (or is forced to feel/be) obligated for the well-being of his/her family. In this case the child without the knowledge of his mom feels called to this to relieve the hard circumstance of his family and it ends in the way that you think a young child taking financial matters in his own hand behind his parent's back would but the plot...is not what you thought it was going to be.
  
  This book has a lot of interpretations from economic to social to feminist. It makes you really have to think who or what is bad here, there is an antagonist but where do I look for the antagonist at? I for one would think a combination of greed, bad communication, and indifference combine to be the real antagonist in this story, but I will let you read and tell me if I'm right.
  
  
  HEY! I THOUGHT OF ANOTHER SONG! XD Very dark humor.
• 
  Rhonda

  This remains my favorite short story of all time. In that I will follow my dictum of when I was 15 and suggest that writing about it would damage the beauty of it. My English teachers were not impressed by my appeal to aesthetics.
  This story is about how greed overwhelms and isolates and alienates us from what is truly valuable in life, a constant theme within Lawrence. The topic is treated masterfully and the end is tragic. To me this wonderful story will always be hauntingly beautiful with a moral to which the modern world has not paid sufficient attention.
  
• 
  Greg

  One of the great short stories of all time. A must for all readers, especially those who haven't latched on to the short story genre. Sometimes a short story can stick with you far longer than a full length novel.
• 
  Kay Pelham

  It was a good read. Four stars because I'm uncertain about how to feel about the ending. Now I wait for Tuesday's The Literary Life podcast episode on it.
• 
  bonnie

  read this for school. felt like a fever dream.
• 
  Julia Sapphire

  more of a 3.5 or 3.75 stars
• 
  Cassie ♠

  Αυτό το βιβλίο συμπεριλαμβάνει 4 διηγήματα του
  D.H. Lawrence, τα οποία ως κύριο θέμα έχουν την σημασία που είχε η κοινωνική θέση και τα χρήματα στα μάτια των ανθρώπων. Ο τρόπος με τον οποίο τα διηγείται είναι γεμάτος ειρωνεία. Μια γλυκιά ειρωνεία όμως. Σχόλια, δηλαδή, που στην αρχή τα παίρνεις ως θετικά, μέχρι να καταλάβεις την πραγματική σημασία τους.
  Αυτό που μου έκανε εντύπωση είναι, πως στα 2 τελευταία διηγήματα η ιστορία κόβεται απότομα. Οφέιλω να ομολογήσω, πως δεν γνωρίζω αν ο συγγραφέας το έκανε εσκεμμένα ή αν απλά είναι μισοτελειωμένα διηγήματα, που συλλέχθηκαν μετά το θάνατό του. Εξάλλου, το τέλος της ιστόριας για τον συγγραφέα δεν έχει καμία απολύτως σημασία. Δεν διηγείται μια αρχή και ένα τέλος. Διηγείται απλά στιγμές καθημερινές διάφορων ανθρώπων.
  
  "Ο νικητής με το ξύλινο αλογάκι"
  Ένα πολυσυζητημένο διήγημα. Δείχνει την εξάρτηση που έχουν οι άνθρωποι από τα χρήματα, και την μανία τους να κερδίζουν όλο και περισσότερα. Αυτή η πάντα-ανικανοποίητη όρεξη για υλισμό, τους κάνει να χάνουν ό,τι σημαντικό έχουν στην ζωή. Η ερώτηση, που κατά τη γνώμη μου, θέτει ο συγγραφέας, είναι εάν συνειδητοποιούν ποτέ τι έχασαν στον αγώνα τους για περισσότερα κέρδη και τι θυσίασαν.
  "Πράγματα"
  Το διήγημα αυτό σατιρίζει τους ανθρώπους που ζουν "ελεύθεροι" και εκπροσωπούν ένα ψευδή ιδεαλισμό, όλα βεβαίως στο βωμό του "φαίνεσθαι". Κατά την γνώμη μου σατιρίζει μια μικροαστική οικογένεια που παλεύει να εναντιωθεί στην ίδια κοινωνία, την οποία προσπαθεί ταυτόχρονα να εντυπωσιάσει.
  "Εσύ με άγγιξες"
  Όλοι θέτουμε κάποιο στόχο στη ζωή μας. Άλλοι μια ελευθερία, άλλοι χρήματα, άλλοι δόξα. Εδώ ο συγγραφέας μας διηγείται τη διαφορά ενός φτωχού ανθρώπου που ήθελε μια ελεύθερη ζωή, που να μην την περάσει στα χαμηλότερα κοινωνικά στρώματα, και δύο γυναικών που ζούσαν πλούσια χωρίς κανένα ιδιαίτερο σκοπό στη ζωή τους.
  "Οι θυγατέρες του εφημέριου"
  Ένα διήγημα που αναφέρεται πάλι στην κοινωνική τάξη, την οποία οι άνθρωποι βάζουν ως προτεραιότητα, πάνω από την ελευθερία του μυαλού και του σώματος. Υποταγμένοι σε ένα σύστημα που στο τέλος ούτε οι ίδιοι δεν αναγνωρίζουν. Περνάνε τα χρόνια και το μόνο που τους μένει είναι ένα υπεροπτικό ύφος και μια κοινωνική θέση. Όλα τα υπόλοιπα τα έχουν χάσει ή τα έχουν θυσιάσει.