Susan, who has always loved Bernard, says to him, “My ruined life, my wasted life.” And Neville, taking Jinny’s little hand, with the cherry-coloured finger-nails, by the lake, by the moonlit water, cries, “Love, love,” and she answers, imitating the bird, “Love, love?” What song do we hear?’
‘They vanish, towards the lake,’ said Rhoda. ‘They slink away over the grass furtively, yet with assurance as if they asked of our pity their ancient privilege — not to be disturbed. The tide in the soul, tipped, flows that way; they cannot help deserting us. The dark has closed over their bodies. What song do we hear — the owl’s, the nightingale’s, the wren’s? The steamer hoots; the light on the electric rails flashes; the trees gravely bow and bend. The flare hangs over London. Here is an old woman, quietly returning, and a man, a late fisherman, comes down the terrace with his rod. Not a sound, not a movement must escape us.’
‘A bird flies homeward,’ said Louis. ‘Evening opens her eyes and gives one quick glance among the bushes before she sleeps. How shall we put it together, the confused and composite message that they send back to us, and not they only, but many dead, boys and girls, grown men and women, who have wandered here, under one king or another?’
‘A weight has dropped into the night,’ said Rhoda, ‘dragging it down. Every tree is big with a shadow that is not the shadow of the tree behind it. We hear a drumming on the roofs of a fasting city when the Turks are hungry and uncertain tempered. We hear them crying with sharp, stag-like barks, “Open, open.” Listen to the trams squealing and to the flashes from the electric rails. We hear the beech trees and the birch trees raise their branches as if the bride had let her silken nightdress fall and come to the doorway saying “Open, open”.’
‘All seems alive,’ said Louis. ‘I cannot hear death anywhere tonight. Stupidity, on that man’s face, age, on that woman’s, would be strong enough, one would think, to resist the incantation, and bring in death. But where is
