6
She turned about in bed; her head was growing fevered.
She conjured up a vision of the backs of the books in the bookcase in the dining-room at home.... Iliad and Odyssey ... people going over the sea in boats and someone doing embroidery ... that little picture of Hector and Andromache in the corner of a page ... he in armour ... she, in a trailing dress, holding up her baby. Both, silly.... She wished she had read more carefully. She could not remember anything in Lecky or Darwin that would tell her what to do ... Hudibras ... The Atomic Theory ... Ballads and Poems, D. G. Rossetti ... Kinglake’s Crimea ... Palgrave’s Arabia ... Crimea.... The Crimea.... Florence Nightingale; a picture somewhere; a refined face, with cap and strings.... She must have smiled.... Motley’s Rise of ... Rise of ... Motley’s Rise of the Dutch Republic.... Motley’s Rise of the Dutch Republic and the Chronicles of the Schönberg-Cotta family. She held to the memory of these two books. Something was coming from them to her. She handled the shiny brown gold-tooled back of Motley’s Rise and felt the hard graining of the red-bound Chronicles.... There were green trees outside in the moonlight ... in Luther’s Germany ... trees and fields and German towns and then Holland. She breathed more easily. Her eyes opened serenely. Tranquil moonlight lay across the room. It surprised her like a sudden hand stroking her brow. It seemed to feel for her heart. If she gave way to it her thoughts would go. Perhaps she ought to watch it and let her thoughts go. It passed over her trouble like her mother did when she said, “Don’t go so deeply into everything, chickie. You must learn to take life as it comes. Ah-eh if I were strong I could show you how to enjoy life....” Delicate little mother, running quickly downstairs clearing her throat to sing. But mother did not know. She had no reasoning power. She could not help because she did not know. The moonlight was sad and hesitating. Miriam closed her eyes again. Luther ... pinning up that notice on a church door.... (Why is Luther like a dyspeptic blackbird? Because the Diet of Worms did not agree with him) ... and then leaving the notice on the church door and going home to tea ... coffee ... some evening meal ... Käthe ... Käthe ... happy Käthe.... They pinned up that notice on a Roman Catholic church ... and all the priests looked at them ... and behind the priests were torture and dark places ... Luther looking up to God ... saying you couldn’t get away from your sins by paying money ... standing out in the world and Käthe making the meal at home ... Luther was fat and German. Perhaps his face perspired ... Eine feste Burg; a firm fortress ... a round tower made of old brown bricks and no windows.... No need for Käthe to smile.... She had been a nun ... and then making a lamplit meal for Luther in a wooden German house ... and Rome waiting to kill them.
Darwin had come since then. There were people ... distinguished minds, who thought Darwin was true.
No God. No Creation. The struggle for existence. Fighting.... Fighting.... Fighting.... Everybody groping and fighting.... Fräulein.... Some said it was true ... some not. They could not both be right. It was probably true ... only old-fashioned people thought it was not. It was true. Just that—monkeys fighting. But who began it? Who made Fräulein? Tough leathery monkey....