Gran, that old witch, she also knew the spiritual body. But she loved spiting it. And she was dying like clay.
Mary, who was so spiritual and so self-sacrificing, she didn't know the body of straight fire at all. Her spirit was all natural. She was so "good," and so heavily "natural," she would put out any fire of the glory of the burning Lord. She was more "natural" even than Easu.
And Jack's father was the same. So good! So nice! So kind! So absolutely well-meaning! And he would bank out the fire of the burning Lord with shovelfuls of kindness.
They would, none of them, none of them, let the fire bum straight. None of them. There were no people at all who dared have the fire of the Lord, and drink from the cup of the fierce glory of the Lord, the sun in one hand and the moon in the other.
Only this strange, wild, ash-coloured country with its undiminished sun and its unblemished moon, would allow it. There was a great death between the two hands of the Lord; between the sun and the moon. But let there be a great death. Jack gave himself to it.
He was almost asleep, in the half-trance of inner consciousness, when Dad came in. Jack opened his eyes and made to rise, but Dad waved him to sit still, while he took the chair on the other side of the fire, and sat down inert. He seemed queer. Dad seemed queer. The same dusky look over his face as over Gran's. And a queer, pinched, far-away look. Jack wondered over it. And he could see Dad didn't want to be spoken to. The clock tick-tocked. Jack went into a kind of sleep.
He opened his eyes. Dad was very slowly, very slowly fingering the bowl of his pipe. How quiet it was!
Jack dozed again, and wakened to a queer noise. It was Dad's breathing: and perhaps the falling of his pipe. He had dropped his pipe. And his body had dropped over sideways, very heavy and uncomfortable, and he was breathing hoarsely, unnaturally in his sleep. Save for the breathing, it was dreadfully quiet. Jack picked up the pipe and sat down again. He felt tired: awfully tired, for no reason at all.
He woke with a start. The afternoon was passing, there was a shower, the room seemed dark. The firelight flickered on Mr. Ellis' watchguard. He wore his unbuttoned waistcoat as ever, with the gold watchchain showing. He was very stout, and very still. Terribly still and sagging sideways, the hoarse breathing had ceased. Jack would have liked to wake him from that queer position.
How quiet it was. Upstairs someone had dragged a chair, and that had made him realise! Far away, very far away, he could hear Harry and Ellie and Baby, playing. "There's a quiet of the sun, and another quiet of the moon, and another quiet of the stars; for one star differs from another in quiet. So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body."