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The remains of Stage IIIb
Only twenty-two pages first introduced into Stage IIIb now survive: pages 45, 46a-49a, 62, 68-69 on n paper which Lawrence used for his letters between 29 June and 18 July 1912, and pages 353-355, 358-362, 370-375 on m paper which he used for letters on 16, 17 and 21 May 1912.
This was the period of Lawrence's sojourn in Germany. He was abroad for the first time in his life; his affair with Frieda had produced tumult with her husband and her family and turmoil within Lawrence himself. After a week abroad, he went to Waldbröl to stay with his Krenkow relatives,[32] who had issued the original invitation to him to visit Germany. He was in Waldbröl
His letters from here on 14 and [15] May (nos. 443,444) are on a 26-lined paper which does not appear in the novel, but from [16] to 21 May (nos. 445, 446, 447) are all on m paper—otherwise he wrote postcards, and probably one letter to Jessie. She reported in her memoir that he wrote from Germany saying (E.T., 216): "I am going through Paul Morel. I'm sorry it turned out as it has. You'll have to go on forgiving me."
On m paper he wrote fourteen new pages which he inserted into his draft and which survived into Stage IV as parts of chapter XI, "The Test on Miriam", some of them very little altered in Stage IV. It is impossible to tell whether these new pages contain quite new material or just extensive revision of Stage IIIa writing, but they are particularly interesting in that they convey some of the first of Lawrence's reflections on his relationship with Jessie under the impact of his very new relationship with Frieda.
Pages 353-355, renumbered 397-399 in Stage IV, contain Paul's conversation with Miriam when he went back to her, about their "marrying", from "'I can't marry you,' he continued slowly" to "As she stood under the drooping thorn-tree." Pages 358-362, renumbered 402-406 in Stage IV, contain the cherry-picking sequence followed by the walk in the pinewood, from "There was a great crop of cherries. . ." to "Instinctively, they all left him alone." Pages 370-375, renumbered 414-417 and 419-420 in Stage IV, contain Paul's final breaking-off with Miriam, starting "'Well,' said his mother, 'I think it will be best,'" and ending "His mother looked at him." But this section was altered a great deal at Stage IV, with a whole page inserted (p. 418) towards the end of the bitter dialogue between Paul and Miriam, after "never fight you off" and before "He hacked at the earth till she was fretted to death."
On 23 May he announced that he had "finished all but 10 pages" (no. 453); and the next day he left Waldbröl for Munich and his "honeymoon" with Frieda. From 1 June for two months they settled in Alfred Weber's apartment in Icking, near Munich, as Lawrence described to his Eastwood friend Mrs Hopkin on 2 June 1912 (no. 457): "Now Frieda and I are living alone in Professor Weber's flat. It is the top stor[e]y of this villa—quite small—four rooms beside kitchen. But there's a balcony, where we sit out, and have meals, and I write."
It may have been here that Lawrence tinkered with chapter II of his novel; for he inserted revised pages in chapter II on n paper, an extremely transparent cheap paper, rather like grease-proof paper, which he also used for Once written between 2 and 29 June, and for his letters of 29 June and 3, 8 and 18 July. As this paper is not found outside these dates, and as Lawrence used different paper for revisions to the end of the novel, it is likely that he made these changes to the second chapter nearer those dates. Moreover, he talked on 2 June (no. 458) of sending 'Paul Morel' off to Heinemann, but did not send it till 9 June.
On this paper he inserted five new pages between pages 44 and 46 of his previous draft (Fragment 3, pages 45, 46a-49a) in which he described Walter
As these different strata fall into place in the final morphology of the novel, it is not uncommon for material transferred from earlier stages to be found at the end of a chapter. This gives the impression that Lawrence knew the destination at which he intended each phase of his narrative to arrive but took time establishing the route. Yet where the different drafts can be compared intact, Lawrence can be observed copying out again almost verbatim whole episodes. For example, in the visit of Jerry to Walter Morel's sickbed and most of the ensuing twenty pages of overlap between Stages II and III, the revisions Lawrence introduced as he copied could have been entered on the original Stage II text without much disorder, and Lawrence could have transferred the pages, as he later did elsewhere. Thus it would be a mistake to suppose when Lawrence rewrote a passage afresh onto new paper that he was compelled to because of the quantity of revision, or that it was entirely new material. It may be that, particularly as he wrote Stage IV, his zeal for making fair copies flagged towards the end of a chapter. Nonetheless, it may be significant that chapter-ends often remained unchanged from Stage III to Stage IV, and that the surviving sequences of Stage III often had been or became chapter-ends.
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