Day's End and Other Stories by H. E. Bates

over the earth in thin unmelted streaks which were lit to a dazzling purity where the shafts of light fell. The night was frigidly calm and spiritual and suddenly it seemed that the air about the white and yellow lights gave up the soul of the woman and let it soar and disappear soundlessly into the dark sky.
    In a minute it was all over, and murmuring ‘Thank God!’ she sank into a chair, and sighed twice.
    â€˜Didn’t you say something to me?’ inquired her husband.
    â€˜Nothing.’
    â€˜I thought you said “Good God.” But that’s not like you.’
    She felt sick and harassed and selfish.
    â€˜It’s nothing,’ she falteringly told him. ‘But in the church this morning, in one of the seats—’
    â€˜You’re crying!’ he exclaimed.
    â€˜In the church this morning,’ she tried again, ‘and now you come with this story—’
    â€˜The service has made you tired,’ he said. ‘In the morning it will be all right again. You mustn’t go again this week. I agree, it’s a nauseating thing, and on Easter Sunday, too.’
    But seeing that she still cried he turned away, ate something with one hand and with the other patted her neck.
    â€˜I understand. I understand,’ he whispered as she cried again. ‘Now confess and tell me what you’ve been doing all day and that it’s been lonely without me.’

The Spring Song
    All day the June sky had stretched out in perfect serenity, like an immense blue pond without a ripple or shadow. Beneath it the earth seemed to tremble like a thirsty animal chained just beyond reach of water, while between the trees sat in a sort of solemn imposing lethargy, like judges presiding over some interminable suit between earth and heaven. I took off my coat as I descended the hill. The sweat ran down my nose in a warm trickle. Thick, snowy dust rose up and clouded the brightness of my shoes just as a faint ominous haze had begun to cloud the horizon beyond the reposeful roofs of the town below. One or two people eyed me curiously as they shot past in their traps to market. Sometimes when they had gone I grinned after them with the faintly cynical assurance of a young man having made an impression, and was happy.
    As I came to the streets of the town, however, I struggled into my coat again. I had the sensitive pride of a young man, too, and already, besides, the dark haze on the horizon seemed to have shot forward as if under some mysterious urge from beyondthe edge of the earth. I didn’t like the look of it, and I began to do my trivial pieces of shopping with an alacrity which brought the sweat running down my nose faster than ever.
    Finally, at a bookseller’s in the market-place, I paused abruptly in the act of turning over a page. The proprietor put his face outside the door as if suspicious of something not quite right in the sky. Instinctively I followed his glance. I uttered a cry of stupid amazement which he silenced abruptly with the laconic pronouncement: ‘Thunder.’ We nodded sagaciously at each other like men resolving to share a secret. The next moment he left the shop and began to gather in his trays of books with the air of a conscientious shepherd.
    I, too, hastened outside. The grey awnings of the market-stalls were already flapping ominously in the breeze that had sprung up. The sky was three-quarters dark under an oppressive advance of iron-coloured cloud. Beneath the awnings little pools of fruit and confectionery, flowers and cloth began to gleam in that sinister light as if afire.
    From the doorway of the book-shop, to which I had hastily retreated again, I watched the market soak rapidly under an incredibly fierce onslaught of thunderous rain. The grey polish of the cobbles gave up the gloom of the sky again. One or two people flitted like dark spirits across the square, hunching their shoulders; little crowds of others clung to the doorways in