10
Someone brought in the meal and clattered it quietly down, going away and shutting the door without a word. A door opened and the sound of departing footsteps ceased. She was shut in with the meal and the lamp in the little crowded world. The musty silence was so complete that the window hidden behind the buff and white blinds and curtains must be shut. The silence throbbed. The throbbing of her heart shook the room. Something was telling the room that she was the happiest thing in existence. She stood up, the beloved little room moving as she moved, and gathered her hands gently against her breast, to ... get through, through into the soul of the musty little room.... “Oh....” She felt herself beating from head to foot with a radiance, but her body within it was weak and heavy with fever. The little scene rocked, crowding furniture, antimacassars, ornaments, wool mats. She looked from thing to thing with a beaming, feverish, frozen smile. Her eyes blinked wearily at the hot crimson flush of the mat under the lamp. She sank back again her heavy light limbs glowing with fever. “By Jove, I’m tired.... I’ve had nothing since breakfast m—but a m-bath bun and an acidulatudd drop.” ... She laughed and sat whistling softly ... Jehoshophat—Manchester—Mesopotamia—beloved—you sweet sweet thing—Veilchen, unter Gras versteckt—out of it all—here I am. I shall always stay in hotels.... Glancing towards the food spread out on a white cloth near the globed lamp she saw beyond the table a little stack of books. Ham and tea and bread and butter.... Leaning unsteadily across the table ... battered and ribbed green binding and then a short moral story or natural history—blue, large and fat, a ‘story-book’ of some kind ... she drew out one of the undermost volumes.... “Robert Elsmere”! Here, after all these years in this little outlandish place. She poured out some tea and hurriedly slid a slice of ham between two pieces of bread and butter and sat back with the food drawn near, the lamplight glaring into her eyes, the printed page in exciting shadow. Everything in the room was distinct and sharp,—morning strength descended upon her.
11
How he must have liked and admired. It must have amazed him; a woman setting forth and putting straight the muddles of his own mind. “Powerful” he probably said. It was a half jealous keeping to himself of a fine, good thing. If he could have known that it would have been, just at that very moment, the answer to my worry about Christ he would have been jealous and angry quite as much as surprised and pleased and sympathetic ... he was afraid himself of the idea that anyone can give up the idea of the divinity of Christ and still remain religious and good. He ought to have let me read it.... If he could have stated it himself as well, that day by the gate he would have done so ... “a very reasonable dilemma my dear.” He knew I was thinking about things. But he had not read Robert Elsmere then. He was jealous of a thunderbolt flung by a woman....
12
And now I’ve got beyond Robert Elsmere.... That’s Mrs. Humphry Ward and Robert Elsmere; that’s gone. There’s no answering science. One must choose. Either science or religion. They can’t both be true. This is the same as Literature and Dogma.... Only in Literature and Dogma there is that thing that is perfectly true—that thing—what is it? What was that idea in Literature and Dogma?
13
I wonder if I’ve strained my heart. This funny feeling of sinking through the bed. Never mind. I’ve done the ride. I’m alive and alone in a strange place. Everything’s alive all round me in a new way. Nearer. As the flame of the candle had swelled and gone out under her blowing she had noticed the bareness of everything in the room—a room for chance travellers, nothing that anyone could carry away. She could still see it as it was when she moved and blew out the candle, a whole room swaying sideways into darkness. The more she relinquished the idea of harm and danger, the nearer and more intimate the room became.... No one can prevent my being alone in a strange place, near to things and loving them. It’s more than worth half killing yourself. It makes you ready to die. I’m not going to die, even if I have strained my heart. ‘Damaged myself for life.’ I am going to sleep. The dawn will come, no one knowing where I am. Because I have no money I must go on and stay with these people. But I have been alive here. There’s hardly any time. I must go to sleep.