n which is harder to bear than
hunger. He was thankful not to have to believe in God, for then such a
condition of things would be intolerable; one could reconcile oneself to
existence only because it was meaningless.

It seemed to Philip that the people who spent their time in helping the
poorer classes erred because they sought to remedy things which would
harass them if themselves had to endure them without thinking that they
did not in the least disturb those who were used to them. The poor did not
want large airy rooms; they suffered from cold, for their food was not
nourishing and their circulation bad; space gave them a feeling of
chilliness, and they wanted to burn as little coal as need be; there was
no hardship for several to sleep in one room, they preferred it; they were
never alone for a moment, from the time they were born to the time they
died, and loneliness oppressed them; they enjoyed the promiscuity in which
they dwelt, and the constant noise of their surroundings pressed upon
their ears unnoticed. They did not feel the need of taking a bath
constantly, and Philip often heard them speak with indignation of the
necessity to do so with which they were faced on entering the hospital: it
was both an affront and a discomfort. They wanted chiefly to be left
alone; then if the man was in regular work life went easily and was not
without its pleasures: there was plenty of time for gossip, after the
day's work a glass of beer was very good to drink, the streets were a
constant source of entertainment, if you wanted to read there was
Reynolds' or The News of the World; 'but there, you couldn't make out
'ow the time did fly, the truth was and that's a fact, you was a rare one
for reading when you was a girl, but what with one thing and another you
didn't get no time now not even to read the paper.'

The usual practice was to pay three visits after a confinement, and one
Sunday Philip went to see a patient at the dinner hour. She was up for the
first time.

"I couldn't stay in bed no longer, I really couldn't. I'm not one for
idling, and it gives me the fidgets to be there and do nothing all day
long, so I said to 'Erb, I'm just going to get up and cook your dinner for
you."

'Erb was sitting at table with his knife and fork already in his hands. He
was a young man, with an open face and blue eyes. He was earning good
money, and as things went the couple were in easy circumstances. They had
only been married