but she knew what it was like. It was savagely persistent, it was at once miraculous and the soul of the natural, it went on and on to some aim … She could have burst out crying because she was not taking part in the process, and never could do so, since she did not understand what it was, nor how she could force herself into it. She was so stupid! There swept over her a tide of that emotion which Essington most loathed in her, but which she recognised shamefacedly as the most fundamental emotion she ever knew: a desire to be passive which was as acute as thirst. Indignantly she felt that she ought not to be calling on her own will and thought to find a way into this process. Someone ought to have done it for her. She felt cheated because they had not.
Because of that final sagging conviction of betrayal, she had remembered as rarely as she could that queer moment beside the grave: which was a pity, because it was something real, and almost the only thing she had ever found out for herself. But now this old woman made her think of it; and added to her thought the news that if you did this—this thing, without rebelling because it was so hard and feeling love for everybody from the idiot boy who betrayed you up to the God who made you, you got something that was like religion. But better. Religion was like everything that men made. It was all very fine but it didn’t work. It was like Essington’s ideas which were all wonderful but which didn’t get carried into effect and didn’t make him happy. It did not work. Religion vanishes out of a building without a spire, as scent vanishes out of a bottle without a stopper. It has to be tethered to people’s attention by pretty services with incense and vestments and music; by creeds that men can argue about without coming to any conclusion that has to be acted on; by priests and vicars and district visitors and all. What men do is thin as paper, dry as dust. But this other thing … Without being reinforced by being talked about, since it could not be put into words, it had survived for seventy years within this body that had never been beautiful, that had been starved and chilled, vexed with rough clothing, hurt by blows, deformed and torn by baby and baby, laid waste altogether by age. And it had worked. How it had worked!
Mr Justice Sandbury was saying, ‘Well, you mustn’t do that sort of thing, you know …’
If she were punished it could not be borne.
But he went on: ‘Still, you’ve had a very hard life, and you’ve been through a great deal of trouble just lately, and I see that you may not have known what you were doing at the time. So I am going to bind you over on your own recognisances to come up for judgment when you are called.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ said Alice Hester. Yet she would rather have had the answer that proved herself and not life at fault. She took trouble to look grateful, for not to do so would have been unkind to the old gentleman, who had done his best for her; but as she turned aside, leaning on the wardress’s arm, the interest flowed out of her old face, as if she felt that now she had dealt with this situation she could continue to drift quietly towards death. As she went out of the dock and into the well of the court the wardress and the policeman kept on laying their hands upon her and guiding her, as if she were weightless as a dead leaf and might be whirled by any current of air away from the place to which she ought to go. They brought her to the big book at the table, but there was a hitch in the proceedings. Her bonneted head bobbed up, her tilted face offered some mild objection to the giants above her; their bullet heads bobbed down and offered some reassurance, passing broad explanatory fingers along the page. It seemed that she could not sign her name, but had to make her mark. So she also was stupid.
She straightened herself and curtseyed to the judge. The giants turned her about and patted her, as one pats a ball
Because of that final sagging conviction of betrayal, she had remembered as rarely as she could that queer moment beside the grave: which was a pity, because it was something real, and almost the only thing she had ever found out for herself. But now this old woman made her think of it; and added to her thought the news that if you did this—this thing, without rebelling because it was so hard and feeling love for everybody from the idiot boy who betrayed you up to the God who made you, you got something that was like religion. But better. Religion was like everything that men made. It was all very fine but it didn’t work. It was like Essington’s ideas which were all wonderful but which didn’t get carried into effect and didn’t make him happy. It did not work. Religion vanishes out of a building without a spire, as scent vanishes out of a bottle without a stopper. It has to be tethered to people’s attention by pretty services with incense and vestments and music; by creeds that men can argue about without coming to any conclusion that has to be acted on; by priests and vicars and district visitors and all. What men do is thin as paper, dry as dust. But this other thing … Without being reinforced by being talked about, since it could not be put into words, it had survived for seventy years within this body that had never been beautiful, that had been starved and chilled, vexed with rough clothing, hurt by blows, deformed and torn by baby and baby, laid waste altogether by age. And it had worked. How it had worked!
Mr Justice Sandbury was saying, ‘Well, you mustn’t do that sort of thing, you know …’
If she were punished it could not be borne.
But he went on: ‘Still, you’ve had a very hard life, and you’ve been through a great deal of trouble just lately, and I see that you may not have known what you were doing at the time. So I am going to bind you over on your own recognisances to come up for judgment when you are called.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ said Alice Hester. Yet she would rather have had the answer that proved herself and not life at fault. She took trouble to look grateful, for not to do so would have been unkind to the old gentleman, who had done his best for her; but as she turned aside, leaning on the wardress’s arm, the interest flowed out of her old face, as if she felt that now she had dealt with this situation she could continue to drift quietly towards death. As she went out of the dock and into the well of the court the wardress and the policeman kept on laying their hands upon her and guiding her, as if she were weightless as a dead leaf and might be whirled by any current of air away from the place to which she ought to go. They brought her to the big book at the table, but there was a hitch in the proceedings. Her bonneted head bobbed up, her tilted face offered some mild objection to the giants above her; their bullet heads bobbed down and offered some reassurance, passing broad explanatory fingers along the page. It seemed that she could not sign her name, but had to make her mark. So she also was stupid.
She straightened herself and curtseyed to the judge. The giants turned her about and patted her, as one pats a ball
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