3
The ripe afternoon light ... even outside a hospital ... the strange indistinguishable friend, mighty welcome, unutterable happiness. Oh death, where is thy sting? Oh grave, where is thy victory? The light has no end. I know it and it knows me, no misunderstanding, no barrier. I love you—people say things. But nothing that anybody says has any meaning. Nothing that anybody says has any meaning. There is something more than anything that anybody says, that comes, first, before they speak ... vehicles travelling along through heaven; everybody in heaven without knowing it; the sound the vehicles made all together, sounding out through the universe ... life touches your heart like dew; that is true ... the edge of his greasy knowing selfish hair touches the light; he brushes it; there is something in him that remembers. It is in everybody; but they won’t stop. How maddening. But they know. When people die they must stop. Then they remember. Remorse may be complete; until it is complete you cannot live. When it is complete something is burned away ... ou-agh, flows out of you, burning, inky, acid, flows right out ... purged ... though thy sins are as scarlet they shall be white as snow. Then the light is there, nothing but the light, and new memory, sweet and bright; but only when you have been killed by remorse.
This is what is meant by a purple twilight. Lamps alight, small round lights, each in place, shedding no radiance, white day lingering on the stone pillars of the great crescent, the park railings distinct, the trees shrouded but looming very large and permanent, the air wide and high and purple, darkness alight and warm. Far far away beyond the length of two endless months is Christmas. This kind of day lived for ever. It stood still. The whole year, funny little distant fussy thing stood still in this sort of day. You could take it in your hand and look at it. Nobody could touch this. People and books and all those things that men had done, in the British Museum were a crackling noise, outside.... Les yeux gris, vont au paradis. That was the two poplars standing one each side of the little break in the railings, shooting up; the space between them shaped by their shapes, leading somewhere. I must have been through there; it’s the park. I don’t remember. It isn’t. It’s waiting. One day I will go through. Les yeux gris, vont au paradis. Going along, along, the twilight hides your shabby clothes. They are not shabby. They are clothes you go along in, funny; jolly. Everything’s here, any bit of anything, clear in your brain; you can look at it. What a terrific thing a person is; bigger than anything. How funny it is to be a person. You can never not have been a person. Bouleversement. It’s a fait bouleversant. Christ-how-rummy. It’s enough. Du, Heilige, rufe dein Kind zurück, ich habe genossen dass irdische Glück; ich habe geleibt und gelebet.... Oh let the solid earth not fail beneath my feet, until I am quite quite sure.... Hullo, old Euston Road, beloved of my soul, my own country, my native heath. There’ll still be a glimmer on the table when I light the lamp ... how shall I write it down, the sound the little boy made as he carefully carried the milk jug ... going along, trusted, trusted, you could see it, you could see his mother. His legs came along, little loose feet, looking after themselves, pottering, behind him. All his body was in the hand carrying the milk jug. When he had done carrying the milk jug he would run; running along the pavement amongst people, with cool round eyes not looking at anything. Where the crowd prevented his running he would jog up and down as he walked, until he could run again, bumping solemnly up and down amongst the people; boy.