enjoy the animating effect of Elisas encounter. Their mood remains distinctly elevated as they head for town, but then Elisa sees a small speck on the road in the distance. Instantly, she realizes that this is the treasure she so tenderly prepared. The stranger has discarded the flowers on the road to save the pot that contained them, the only object of value to him. She weeps privately as they drive pass the stranger in the tiny covered wagon. Elisa is shattered by the heartless manner in which he has drawn something from her secret self and then completely betrayed her gift by not even taking the trouble to hide the flowers. She attempts to override her disappointment, by maintaining a mood of gaiety, suggesting that they have wine at dinner. This is not sufficient to help her restore her feelings of confidence, so she asks her husband if they might go to a prizefight. This request so completely out of character that again her husband is totally baffled. She searches further for that special feeling she held briefly, and asks if men hurt each other very much. This is part of an effort to focus her own violent and angry feelings, but it is completely hollow as an attempt to sustain her sense of self-control. In a few moments, she completely gives up and her whole body collapses into the seat in a display of defeat. As the story concludes, Elisa is struggling to hide her real feeling of pain from her husband. She is anticipating a dreadful future in which she pictures herself crying weakly like an old woman. Clearly Steinbecks is particularly sensitive to the effect of landscape on a persons life. Because Elisa Allens sense of her own self-worth is so closely tied to the land, Steinbeck has chosen to connect her psychical existence to the season, the climate, and the terrain she inhibits. The mood of the story is set by his description of a winter fog bordered valley, a description that is also pertinent to Elisas mood. S...
