IV

Just turning towards that something, in a desire to be different, begins to change you! At Praed Street the carriage began to fill with seated forms. This was the beginning of new life.⁠ ⁠… Keeping perfectly still and looking at no one she realised the presence of her fellow-travellers, all just like herself, living from within by the contact with the edge of Christ⁠ ⁠… all knowing the thing that to her was only a little flicker just dawning in a long life of evil. It made them kindly in the world and able to understand each other. Perhaps it was the explanation of all the fussing. Everyone in the world was bathed in the light of love except herself.⁠ ⁠… It was not certain that a whole lifetime of prayer and gentleness and self-control would destroy enough of the thick roots of evil in her to bring her through into the Paradiso.⁠ ⁠… But if prayer, just the turning away from all one knew begging to be destroyed and made loving brought such an immediate sense of the evil in oneself and the good in everyone else, there was no end to what it might do. Prayer was the work to do in life, nothing else. But the turning to the unseen God of love and giving up one’s self-will meant being changed in a way one could not control or foresee; dropping everything one had and cherished secretly and having things only in common with other people. It would mean going forward with nothing into an unknown world; always being agreeable, and agreeing. I love all these people she murmured in her mind and felt a glow that seemed to radiate out to all the corners of the compartment. It’s true . This is life. This is the only way in. It may be that I am so bad that I can only sit with all my evil visible silent amongst humanity for the rest of my life, learning to love them, and then die out completely because I am too bad to be quite newborn⁠ ⁠… her eyes were drawn towards the face of the woman sitting opposite to her; a shapeless body, a thin ravaged face strained and sheeny with fatigue and wearing an expression of undaunted sweetness and patience. Children and housework and a selfish husband and nothing in life of her own. She was at the disposal of everyone for kind actions. She would be really sympathetic and shocked about an earthquake in China. Was that it?