There was nobody. Her words faded. So a rocket fades. Its sparks,
having grazed their way into the night, surrender to it, dark descends,
pours over the outlines of houses and towers; bleak hillsides soften
and fall in. But though they are gone, the night is full of them;
robbed of colour, blank of windows, they exist more ponderously, give
out what the frank daylight fails to transmit-the trouble and
suspense of things conglomerated there in the darkness; huddled
together in the darkness; reft of the relief which dawn brings when,
washing the walls white and grey, spotting each windowpane, lifting
the mist from the fields, showing the red-brown cows peacefully
grazing, all is once more decked out to the eye; exists again. I am
alone; I am alone! she cried, by the fountain in Regent’s Park
(staring at the Indian and his cross), as perhaps at midnight, when
all boundaries are lost, the country reverts to its ancient shape, as
the Romans saw it, lying cloudy, when they landed, and the hills had
no names and rivers wound they knew not where-such was her darkness;
when suddenly, as if a shelf were shot forth and she stood on it, she
said how she was his wife, married years ago in Milan, his wife, and
would never, never tell that he was mad! Turning, the shelf fell;
down, down she dropped. For he was gone, she thought-gone, as he
threatened, to kill himself-to throw himself under a cart! But no;
there he was; still sitting alone on the seat, in his shabby
overcoat, his legs crossed, staring, talking
aloud.
"What are you saying?" said Rezia suddenly, sitting down by him.