the candlestick with all his powers. So
the heavy woman came to a standstill opposite the oval-shaped flower
bed, and ceased even to pretend to listen to what the other woman was
saying. She stood there letting the words fall over her, swaying the top
part of her body slowly backwards and forwards, looking at the flowers.
Then she suggested that they should find a seat and have their tea.

The snail had now considered every possible method of reaching his goal
without going round the dead leaf or climbing over it. Let alone the
effort needed for climbing a leaf, he was doubtful whether the thin
texture which vibrated with such an alarming crackle when touched even
by the tip of his horns would bear his weight; and this determined him
finally to creep beneath it, for there was a point where the leaf curved
high enough from the ground to admit him. He had just inserted his head
in the opening and was taking stock of the high brown roof and was
getting used to the cool brown light when two other people came past
outside on the turf. This time they were both young, a young man and a
young woman. They were both in the prime of youth, or even in that
season which precedes the prime of youth, the season before the smooth
pink folds of the flower have burst their gummy case, when the wings of
the butterfly, though fully grown, are motionless in the sun.

"Lucky it isn't Friday," he observed.

"Why? D'you believe in luck?"

"They make you pay sixpence on Friday."

"What's sixpence anyway? Isn't it worth sixpence?"

"What's 'it'--what do you mean by 'it'?"

"O, anything--I mean--you know what I mean."

Long pauses came between each of these remarks; they were uttered in
toneless and monotonous voices. The couple stood still on the edge of
the flower bed, and together pressed the end of her parasol deep down
into the soft earth. The action and the fact that his hand rested on the
top of hers expressed their feelings in a strange way, as these short
insignificant words also expressed something, words with short wings for
their heavy body of meaning, inadequate to carry them far and thus
alighting awkwardly upon the very common objects that surrounded them,
and were to their inexperienced touch so massive; but who knows (so they
thought as they pressed the parasol into the earth) what precipices
aren't concealed in them, or what slopes of ice don't shine in the sun
on the other side? Who knows? Who has ever seen this before?