4. An Unwritten Novel
Su expression of unhappiness was enough by itself to make one』s eyes slide above the paper』s edge to the poor woman』s fasignifit without that look, almost a symbol of humainy with it. Life』s what you see in people』s eyes; life』s what they learn, and, havi it, hough they seek to hide it, cease to be aware of—what? That life』s like that, it seems. Five faces opposite—five mature faces—and the knowledge in each face. Strahough, how people want to ceal it! Marks of retice are on all those faces: lips shut, eyes shaded, eae of the five doing something to hide or stultify his knowledge. One smokes; another reads; a third checks entries in a pocket book; a fourth stares at the map of the line framed opposite; and the fifth—the terrible thing about the fifth is that she does nothing at all. She looks at life. Ah, but my poor, unfortunate woman, do play the game—do, for all our sakes, ceal it!
As if she heard me, she looked up, shifted slightly in her seat and sighed. She seemed to apologise and at the same time to say to me, 「If only you knew!」 Then she looked at life again. 「But I do know,」 I answered silently, glang at the Times for manners』 sake. 「I know the whole business. 『Peace between Germany and the Allied Powers was yesterday officially ushered in at Paris—Signor Nitti, the Italian Prime Minister—a passerain at Doncaster was in collision with a goods train. . .』 We all know—the Times knows—but we pretend we don』t.」 My eyes had once more crept over the paper』s rim She shuddered, twitched her arm queerly to the middle of her bad shook her head. Again I dipped into my great reservoir of life. 「Take what you like,」 I tinued, 「births, deaths, marriages, Court Circular, the habits of birds, Leonardo da Vinci, the Sandhills murder, high wages and the cost of living—oh, take what you like,」 I repeated, 「it』s all iimes!」 Again with infinite weariness she moved her head from side to side until, like a top exhausted with spinning, it settled on her neck.
The Times was no prote against such sorrow as hers. But other human beings forbade intercourse. The best thing to do against life was to fold the paper so that it made a perfect square, crisp, thick, impervious even to life. This done, I glanced up quickly, armed with a shield of my own. She pierced through my shield; she gazed into my eyes as if searg any sediment of ce at the depths of them and damping it to clay. Her twitch alone denied all hope, disted all illusion.
So we rattled through Surrey and across the border into Sussex. But with my eyes upon life I did not see that the other travellers had left, one by oill, save for the man who read, we were aloogether. Here was Three Bridges station. We drew slowly down the platform and stopped. Was he going to leave us? I prayed both ways—I prayed last that he might stay. At that instant he roused himself, crumpled his paper ptuously, like a thing doh, burst open the door, a us alone.
The unhappy woman, leaning a little forward, palely and colourlessly addressed me—talked of stations and holidays, of brothers at Eastbourne, and the time of year, which was, I fet now, early or late. But at last looking from the window and seeing, I knew, only life, she breathed, 「Staying away—that』s the drawback of it—」 Ah, now roached the catastrophe, 「My sister–in–law」—the bitterness of her tone was like lemon on cold steel, and speaking, not to me, but to herself, she muttered, 「nonsense, she would say—that