staring at the ceiling, while Arnold sat in the drawing-room drinking whisky and listening to The Firebird? Perhaps Rachel had drawn the sheet over her face again in that appalling way. Or was it all quite different? Arnold was kneeling outside the door begging her to let him in, weeping and accusing himself. Or else, Rachel, who had been listening for my departure, had come quietly down the stairs and into her husband’s arms. Perhaps now they were in the kitchen together, cooking the supper and opening a special bottle of wine to celebrate. What a mystery a marriage was. What a strange and violent world, the world of matrimony. I was glad to be outside it. The idea of it filled me with a sort of queasy pity. I felt at that moment so ‘curious’, in just Arnold’s sense of the word, that I almost turned back to snoop around the house and find out what had happened. But of course such an action was not in my character.
By this time I was not far from the underground station, and I had decided to commit no follies. There was no question of rushing out of London that night. I would make my way quietly homeward, eat a sandwich in my local pub, and go early to bed. I had had a hard evening, and this was one of the moments at which I felt myself no longer young. Tomorrow I would decide whatever by then seemed still to need decision, such as whether I should postpone my departure until after Sunday. I felt with some relief that at any rate today’s little dramas were now over. There was however one still to come.
I had crossed the main road and entered the little shopping street that led to the station. The evening had darkened though the pale lurid sun was still shining. Some of the shops had switched their lights on. There was a shadowy light, not exactly twilight, but an uncertain vivid yet hazy illumination, wherein people walked like spirits, bathed in light and not revealed. The rather dream-like atmosphere was intensified, I suppose, by my own tiredness, by having drunk alcohol, by having eaten nothing. In this mood of rather doom-ridden spiritual lassitude I noticed with only a little surprise and interest the figure upon the other side of the road of a young man who was behaving rather oddly. He was standing upon the kerb and strewing flowers upon the roadway, as if casting them into a river. My first thought was that he was the adherent of some Hindu sect, not then uncommon in London, and that he was performing some religious rite. A few people paused to look at him, but Londoners were by now so accustomed to ‘weirdies’ of all kinds that his ritual aroused little interest.
The young fellow appeared to be chanting some sort of repetitive litany. I now saw that what he was strewing was not so much flowers as white petals. Where had I seen just such petals lately? The fragments of white paint which the violence of Arnold’s chisel had dislodged from the bedroom door. And the white petals were being cast, not at random, but in relation to the regular and constant passage of motor cars. As a car approached the young chap would take a handful of petals out of a bag and cast them into the path of the car, uttering the while his rhythmic chant. Then the frail whitenesses would race about, caught in the car’s motion, dash madly under the wheels, follow the whirlwind of the car’s wake, and dissipate themselves further along the road: so that the casting away of the petals seemed like a sacrifice or act of destruction, since that which was offered was being so instantly consumed and made to vanish.
The young man was slim, dressed in dark narrow trousers, a sort of dark velvet or corduroy jacket and a white shirt. He had a thickish mane of slightly wavy brown hair which grew well down on to his neck. I had paused and had been watching him for some moments and was about to set off again towards the station when, with one of those switches of gestalt which can be so unnerving, I realized that the light had deceived me
By this time I was not far from the underground station, and I had decided to commit no follies. There was no question of rushing out of London that night. I would make my way quietly homeward, eat a sandwich in my local pub, and go early to bed. I had had a hard evening, and this was one of the moments at which I felt myself no longer young. Tomorrow I would decide whatever by then seemed still to need decision, such as whether I should postpone my departure until after Sunday. I felt with some relief that at any rate today’s little dramas were now over. There was however one still to come.
I had crossed the main road and entered the little shopping street that led to the station. The evening had darkened though the pale lurid sun was still shining. Some of the shops had switched their lights on. There was a shadowy light, not exactly twilight, but an uncertain vivid yet hazy illumination, wherein people walked like spirits, bathed in light and not revealed. The rather dream-like atmosphere was intensified, I suppose, by my own tiredness, by having drunk alcohol, by having eaten nothing. In this mood of rather doom-ridden spiritual lassitude I noticed with only a little surprise and interest the figure upon the other side of the road of a young man who was behaving rather oddly. He was standing upon the kerb and strewing flowers upon the roadway, as if casting them into a river. My first thought was that he was the adherent of some Hindu sect, not then uncommon in London, and that he was performing some religious rite. A few people paused to look at him, but Londoners were by now so accustomed to ‘weirdies’ of all kinds that his ritual aroused little interest.
The young fellow appeared to be chanting some sort of repetitive litany. I now saw that what he was strewing was not so much flowers as white petals. Where had I seen just such petals lately? The fragments of white paint which the violence of Arnold’s chisel had dislodged from the bedroom door. And the white petals were being cast, not at random, but in relation to the regular and constant passage of motor cars. As a car approached the young chap would take a handful of petals out of a bag and cast them into the path of the car, uttering the while his rhythmic chant. Then the frail whitenesses would race about, caught in the car’s motion, dash madly under the wheels, follow the whirlwind of the car’s wake, and dissipate themselves further along the road: so that the casting away of the petals seemed like a sacrifice or act of destruction, since that which was offered was being so instantly consumed and made to vanish.
The young man was slim, dressed in dark narrow trousers, a sort of dark velvet or corduroy jacket and a white shirt. He had a thickish mane of slightly wavy brown hair which grew well down on to his neck. I had paused and had been watching him for some moments and was about to set off again towards the station when, with one of those switches of gestalt which can be so unnerving, I realized that the light had deceived me
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