(18)one woman, too much, too much. She creaked, she moaned. Shebanged the door. She turned the key in the lock, and left thehouse alone, shut up, locked.VIIIThe house was left; the house was deserted. It was leftlike a shell on a sandhill to fill with dry salt grains now thatlife had left it. The long night seemed to have set in; thetrifling airs, nibbling, the clammy breaths fumbling seemed tohave triumphed. The saucepan had rusted and the mat decayed.Toads had nosed their way in. Idly, aimlessly, the swayingshawl seung to and fro. A thistle thrust itself between thewtiles in the larder. The swallows nested in the drawing room;the floor was strewn with straw; the plaster fell in shovelfulls; rafters were laid bare; rats carried off this and thatto gnaw behind the wainscots. Tortoise shell butterflies burstX |from the chrysalis,&pattered their life out on the window pane.and died on the window panes. Poppies sowed themselves amongthe dahlias; the lawn waved with long grass; giant artichokestowered among roses; a fringed carnation flowered among thecabbages; while the gentle tapping of a weed at the window hadbecome, on winters' nights, a drumming from sturdy trees andthorned briars which made the whole room green in summer.What power could now prevent the fertility, the insensibilityof nature? Like a spot of sunlight Mrs. McNab's dream of a lady,of a child, of a plate of milk soup,?ithad waveredThe final reading appears to be: '...the intensity of nature? Mrs. McNabs's dream of a lady, of a child, of a plate of milk soup? Like a spot of sunlight, it had wavered...' over the walls
