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TIME PASSES 1515

As she lurched (for she rolled like a ship at sea)and leered (for her eyes fell on nothing directly, butwith a sidelong glance that deprecated the scorn andanger of the world—she was witless, she knew it), asshe clutched the banisters and hauled herself upstairsand rolled from room to room, she sang. Rubbingthe glass of the long looking-glass and leering side-ways at her swinging figure a sound issued from herlips—something that had been gay twenty yearsbefore on the stage perhaps, had been hummed anddanced to, but now, coming from the toothless, bon-neted, care-taking woman, was robbed of meaning,was like the voice of witlessness, humour, persistencyitself, trodden down but springing up again, so thatas she lurched, dusting, wiping, she seemed to sayhow it was one long sorrow and trouble, how it wasgetting up and going to bed again, and bringingthings out and putting them away again. It wasnot easy or snug this world she had known for closeon seventy years. Bowed down she was with weari-ness. How long, she asked, creaking and groaningon her knees under the bed, dusting the boards, howlong shall it endure? but hobbled to her feet again,pulled herself up, and again with her sidelong leerwhich slipped and turned aside even from her ownface, and her own sorrows, stood and gaped in theglass, aimlessly smiling, and began again the oldamble and hobble, taking up mats, putting downchina, looking sideways in the glass, as if, after all,she had her consolations, as if indeed there twinedabout her dirge some incorrigible hope. Visions of