“I suppose you could do with that, with only yourself to keep. Though it seems a pity, considering the amount of time and money spent on your education.”
Was it his mother speaking? What had happened to her? Whence had come the dry hardness in her voice? Why were her eyes so dead? They used to steal quick little glances when she spoke. Now she only stared listlessly. A home-coming? This for a home? In the house next door there had been some stirring of life: the night when he had returned home from Scotland: the strange days after his father’s restoration.
The windows of the room were shut. René felt stifled. He made some excuse and went away out of the house, and roamed through the familiar streets. There were many houses empty: the gardens, some of which had once been trim, were now unkempt. The whole district was dismal and devitalized. Only the red trams clanging and clanking down the cobbled streets made any stir and gaiety.
He found himself presently in Galt’s Park. The little pink brick houses had invaded it. Many of the big houses were pulled down: others were being demolished, and only jagged walls and gaping windows were left. On the site of the Brocks’ house stood a little red-brick chapel outside which were announcements in Welsh and English. That gave him a shock. Some of the past life had been brushed away. He disliked the idea of its room being usurped by a chapel, a place of Christian worship. He did not know why he disliked this idea so much, but it was connected vaguely with the image of his mother sitting in that room, knitting and talking in an empty voice, and clinging obstinately to rules of conduct.
At the other end of Galt’s Park he came on a new street, flung straight across what he remembered as fields. Following its dreary length, he found himself near the Smallmans’ house. It was now completely shut in with little pink brick houses. He turned in at the gate, rang at the bell and asked the maid if he could see the Professor. He was left waiting in the hall where he had seen Linda’s green parasol. Here, too, there was no change. The Professor came out looking very mysterious. He took a hat down, seized René by the arm and led him out into the street.
“Well, well,” he said. “I’m glad to see you, glad to see you. How are you?”
“Very well.” René felt inclined to laugh. Clearly the Professor was trying not to hurt his feelings and to disguise the fact that he did not think him fit to enter his house, that temple of domesticity.
“Tell me about yourself. One doesn’t lose interest, you know.”
This time René did not edit his experiences.