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(15)

lessly togehtther) in idiot games until it seemed as if the
universe were battling and tumbling, in burute confusion and
wanton lust aimlessly by itself.
      In spring the garden urns casually filled with wind blown
plants were gay as ever. Violets came and daffodils. But
the stillness and the brightness of the day were as strange as
the chaos and tumult of night, with the trees standing there,
and the flowers standing there, looking before them, looking
up, yet beholding nothing, eyeless, and so terrible.

VII

      Thinking no harm, for the family would not come, never
again, some said, and the house would be sold at Michaelmas
perhaps, Mrs. McNab stooped and picked a bunch of flowers to
take home with her. She laid them on the table while she
dusted. She was fond of flowers. It was a pity to let them
waste. Suppose the house was sold (she stood arms akimbo in
front of the looking glass) it would want seeing to - it would.
There it had stood all these years without a sould in it. The
books and things were mouldy, for what with the war and help
being hard to get, the house had not been cleaned as she could
have wished. It was beyond one person's strength to get it
straight now. She was too old. Her legs pained her. All
those books needed to be laid out on the grass in the sun;
there was plaster fallen in the hall; the rain pipe had blocked
over the study window and let the water in; the carpet was

 


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