when they were alone. Her own judgments, sharply poised in memory upon the end of some small incident, reversed themselves, dropped meaningless, returned reinforced, went forward, towards some clearer understanding. Her friends drifted forward, coming too near, as if in competition for some central place. To every claim, she offered her evening sky as a full answer. The many forms remained, grouped, like an audience, confronted by the evening.
The gold was fading, a soft mistiness spreading through the deepening rose, making the leafage darker and more opaque. Presently the sky would be mother-of-pearl above a soft dark mass and then pure evening grey outlining the dark feathery tree tops of a London square turning to green below in the lamplight, sinking to sleep, deeply breathing out its freshness to meet the freshness pouring through the streets from the neighbouring squares. Freshness would steal over the outside walls of the houses already cool within. Only in the garrets would the sultry day remain under the slowly cooling roofs.
There was still a pale light flowing into the dusk of the garret. It must be only about nine o’clock … the gas flared out making a winter brilliance … Four sermons on Dante. … Kuenen’s Life of Dante … Gemma Donati, Gemma , busily making puddings in the world lit by the light of the Mystic Rose; swept away by the rush of words … a stout Italian woman … Gem ma; Bayatrichay … they were bound to reach music … a silent Italian woman in a hot kitchen scolding, left out of the mystic rose … Lourdes … Le Nabab … atroce comédie de bonheur conjugale sans relâche … the Frenchman expressing what the Englishman only thinks … “the wife” … I met my wife ! … red nose and check trousers, smoky self-indulgent married man, all the self-indulgent married men in the audience guffawing … “You must be ready to face being taken for granted, you must hide your troubles, learn to say nothing of your unnoticed exhausting toil, wear a smile above the heart that you believe is breaking; stand steady in face of the shipwreck of all your dreams.