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I have my choice of crimes. The woods flit and fly-in summer there are bluebells; in the opening there, when Spring comes, primroses. A parting, was it, twenty years ago? Vows broken? Not Mi
"Yes," she seems to nod to me, "it's the thing I did."
Whether you did, or what you did, I don't mind; it's not the thing I want. The draper's window looped with violet-that'll do; a little cheap perhaps, a little commonplace-since one has a choice of crimes, but then so many (let me peep across again-still sleeping, or pretending sleep! white, worn, the mouth closed-a touch of obstinacy, more than one would think-no hint of sex)-so many crimes aren't your crime; your crime was cheap; only the retribution solemn; for now the church door opens, the hard wooden pew receives her; on the brown tiles she kneels; every day, winter, summer, dusk, dawn (here she's at it) prays. All her sins fall, fall, for ever fall. The spot receives them. It's raised, it's red, it's burning. Next she twitches. Small boys point. "Bob at lunch to-day"-But elderly women are the worst.
Indeed now you can't sit praying any longer. Kruger's sunk beneath the clouds-washed over as with a painter's brush of liquid grey, to which he adds a tinge of black-even the tip of the truncheon gone now. That's what always happens! Just as you've seen him, felt him, someone interrupts. It's Hilda now.
How you hate her! She'll even lock the bathroom door overnight, too, though it's only cold water you want, and sometimes when the night's been bad it seems as if washing helped. And John at breakfast-the children-meals are worst, and sometimes there are friends-ferns don't altogether hide 'em-they guess, too; so out you go along the front, where the waves are grey, and the papers blow, and the glass shelters green and draughty, and the chairs cost tuppence-too much-for there must be preachers along the sands. Ah, that's a nigger-that's a fu
Have I read you right? But the human face-the human face at the top of the fullest sheet of print holds more, withholds more. Now, eyes open, she looks out; and in the human eye-how d'you define it?-there's a break-a division-so that when you've grasped the stem the butterfly's off-the moth that hangs in the evening over the yellow flower-move, raise your hand, off, high, away. I won't raise my hand. Hang still, then, quiver, life, soul, spirit, whatever you are of Mi
To what, to where? She opened the door, and, putting her umbrella in the stand-that goes without saying; so, too, the whiff of beef from the basement; dot, dot, dot. But what I ca