and the
Indian seas, while space rushes blue and stars glint--truth? or now,
content with closeness?

Lazy and indifferent the heron returns; the sky veils her stars; then
bares them.

AN UNWRITTEN NOVEL

Such an expression of unhappiness was enough by itself to make one's
eyes slide above the paper's edge to the poor woman's
face--insignificant without that look, almost a symbol of human destiny
with it. Life's what you see in people's eyes; life's what they learn,
and, having learnt it, never, though 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. Strange,
though, how people want to conceal it! Marks of reticence are on all
those faces: lips shut, eyes shaded, each one 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,
conceal 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, glancing 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 passenger train 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 back and shook her head.
Again I dipped into my great reservoir of life. "Take what you like," I
continued, "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 in the
_Times_!" 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 protection against such sorrow as hers. But other
human beings forbade intercourse. The best thing to do against life was
to fold the paper so th