II

sat down, had shrunk to himself. He sat there warm and rich, with easy movements and easily moving thoughts, his mind far away, his features animated under his raised carelessly singing eyebrows, by his irascible comments on Mr. Rodkin’s rapped-out statements. The room grew cold, every object stiff with lifeless memory, as they sat talking Mr. Rodkin’s business. Everyone sitting round the table was clean-cut, eaten into by the raw edge of the winter night, gathered for a moment in the passing gaslit warmth, to separate presently and face an everlastingly renewed nothingness.⁠ ⁠… The charm of the Russian words, the fascination of grasping the gist of the theme broke in vain against the prevailing chill. If the two should turn away from each other and bend their glowing faces, their strangely secure foreign independence towards the general bleakness, its dreadful qualities would swell to a more active torment, all meanings lost in empty voices uttering words that no one would watch or explain. There was a lull. Their conversation was changing. Mr. Shatov had sat back in his chair with a Russian word that hung in the air and spread music. His brows had come down and he was glancing thoughtfully about the table. She met Mr. Rodkin’s eyes and smiled and turned again to Sissie with her remark about the weather. Sissie’s face came round surprised. She disagreed, making a perfect comment on the change that left Miriam marvelling at her steady ease of mind. She agreed in an enthusiastic paraphrase, her mind busy on the hidden source of her random emphasis. It could rest, everything could rest for awhile, for a little time to come, for some weeks perhaps.⁠ ⁠… But he would bring all those books; with special meanings in them that everyone seemed to understand and agree about; real at the beginning and then going off into things and never coming back. Why could she not understand them? Finding things without following the story was like being interested in a lesson without mastering what you were supposed to master and not knowing anything about it afterwards that you could pass on or explain. Yet there was something, or why did school which had left no knowledge and no facts seem so alive? Why did