Peace—quiet—greyness: greyness enduring for ever, that could yet be rent asunder like a temple veil and let in misery—the window glare, the reeking room, the clodding footsteps, the fingers tapping at her door—a frail eternity whose walls were slips of flesh.
She called harshly—
“Get out! Get away! Put it down outside then, can’t you?”
There was a mutter and the clank of a scuttle-lid, and a thud. The footsteps shuffled out of hearing.
She shut her eyes again.
Peace—quiet—greyness. The waves were rocking her.
She did not dream. There are, by that same pity of God, no dreams permitted in the place of refuge. But, as she lay in peace, she watched her own memorial thoughts rising about her, one by one, like bubbles in a glass, like cocks crowing in the dark of the dawn.
A white road ... the hill-top wind panting down it like a runner ... dust ... bright blue sky ... sky-blue succory in the gutter ... succory is so difficult to pick ... tough ... it leaves a green cut on one’s finger ... succory in a pink vase on the mantel-piece ... the fire’s too hot for flowers ... hot buttered toast ... the armchair wants mending ... the horsehair tickles one’s ears as one lies back in it and warms one’s toes and watches the rain drowning the fields outside ... empty winter fields, all tousled and tussocky from cow dung ... grey skies ... snow ... not a soul in sight ... and succory in a pink vase on the mantel-piece ... because one’s back in Eden ... summer and winter are all one in Eden ... picking buttercups in Eden as one used to do ... all the fields grown full of buttercups ... fifty buttercups make a bunch ... fifty golden buttercups with the King’s head on them ... hurry up with the buttercups ... one more bunch of buttercups will buy back Eden—Eden—ah!
So, with a long gasping sigh would come the end. “Eden—” and the longing would be upon her, tearing like a wild beast at her eyes and her throat and her heart—“I want to go home. Oh, God, let me go home! Let me out! I want to go home——”
The chapter ended.