They
have the freshness of the daylight life about them. You
can hear the carters cracking their whips and crying
hoarsely to their horses or to one another; and sometimes
even a peal of healthy, harsh horse-laughter comes up to
you through the darkness. There is now an end to mystery
and fear. Like the knocking at the door in MACBETH, or the
cry of the watchman in the TOUR DE NESLE, they show that
the horrible caesura is over, and the nightmares have fled
away, because the day is breaking and the ordinary life of
men is beginning to bestir itself among the streets.
*
She was as dead an old woman as ever I saw; no more than
bone and parchment, curiously put together. Her eyes, with
which she interrogated mine, were vacant of sense. It
depends on what you call seeing, whether you might not call
her blind. Perhaps she had known love; perhaps borne
children, suckled them, and given them pet names. But now
that was all gone by, and had left her neither happier nor
wiser; and the best she could do with her mornings was to
come up here into the cold church and juggle for a slice of
heaven. It was not without a gulp that I escaped into the
streets and the keen morning air. Morning? why, how tired
of it she would be before night! and if she did not sleep,
how then? It is fortunate that not many of us are brought
up publicly to justify our lives at the bar of threescore
years and ten; fortunate that such a number are knocked
opportunely on the head in what they call the flower of
their years, and go away to suffer for their follies in
private somewhere else.
Pages:
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75