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Books at bedtime by calming anxiety, the escape by Katherine Mansfield.

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It was his fault, wholly and solely his fault, but they had missed the train.

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What if the idiotic hotel people had refused to produce the bill?

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Wasn't that simply because he hadn't impressed upon the way to at lunch that they must

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have it by 2 o'clock?

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Any other man would have sat there and refused to move until they handed it over.

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But no, his exquisite belief in human nature had allowed him to get up and expect one

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of those idiots to bring it to their room.

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And then, when the Vwatra did arrive, while they were still "oh heavens, waiting for change,

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why hadn't he seen to the arrangement of the boxes so that they could at last have started

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the moment the money had come?"

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Had he expected her to go outside to stand under the awning in the heat and point with

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her parasol?

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Very amusing picture of an English domestic life.

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Even when the driver had been told how fast he had to drive, he had paid no attention

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whatsoever.

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He smiled, "oh, she groaned."

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If she had been a driver, she couldn't have stopped smiling herself at the absurd, ridiculous

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way he has urged to hurry.

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As she sat back and imitated his voice, "LA, VV," and begged the driver pardon for troubling

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him.

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And then the station, unforgettable, with the sight of the jaunty little train shuffling

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away and those hideous children waving from the windows.

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"oh, why am I made to bear these things?"

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Why am I exposed to them?

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The glare of flies, while they waited, and he and the station master put their heads

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together over the timetable.

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Trying to find this other train, which, of course, they wouldn't catch.

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The people who gathered around and the women who'd held up that baby with that awful, awful

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head.

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"oh, to care as I care, to feel as I feel, and never to be saved anything, never to know for

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one moment what it was to do."

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Her voice had changed.

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She was shaking now, crying now.

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She fumbled with her bag and produced from its little more ascended handkerchief.

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She put up her veil and, as though she were doing it for somebody else, pitifully, as though

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she was saying to somebody else, "I know, my darling."

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She pressed the handkerchief to her eyes.

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A little bag with its shiny, silvery jaws open, lay on her lap.

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He could see her powered upuff, her rouge stick, a bundle of letters, a file of tiny black

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pills like seeds, a broken cigarette, a mirror, white ivory tablets, with lists on them

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that had been heavily scored through.

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He thought, "in Egypt she would be buried with these things."

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They had left the last of the houses.

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Those small, straggling houses, with bits of broken pot, flung amongst the flowerbeds,

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and half-naked-hands scratching round the doorsteps.

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Now, they were mounting a long, steep road that wound round the hill and over into the next

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bay.

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The horse is stumbled, pulling hard.

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Every five minutes, every two minutes, the driver trailed the whip across them.

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His stout back was solid as wood.

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There were boils on his reddish neck, and he wore a new, a shining new straw hat.

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There was a little wind.

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Just enough wind to blow, to sat in the new leaves of the fruit trees, to stoke the fine grass,

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to turn to silver the smoky olives.

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Just enough wind to start in front of the carriage, a whirling, twirling snap of dust that settled

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on their clothes like the finest ash.

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When she took out her powder puff, the powder came flying over them both.

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"Oh, the dust," she breathed, the disgusting, revolting dust, and she put down her veil,

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and lay back as if overcome.

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Why don't you put up the parasol?" he suggested.

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It was on the front seat, and he leaned forward to hand it to her.

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At that, she suddenly sat up raised, and blazed again.

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"Please, leave my parasol alone.

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I don't want my parasol."

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And anyone who was not utterly insensitive would know that I am far, far too exhausted to hold

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up a parasol.

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So with a wind like this tugging at it, put it down at once, she flashed, and then snatched

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the parasol from him, tossed it into the crumpled hood behind, and subsided, panting.

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Another bend to the road, and down the hill there came a troop of little children, shrieking

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and giggling, little girls with sun-bleached hair, little boys in faded soldiers' caps.

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In their hands they carried flowers, any kind of flowers, grabbed by the head, and these

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they offered, running beside the carriage, lilac faded lilac, greeny white snobles, one

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arom-lilling, a handful of hyacinths.

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They thrust the flowers, and their impish faces into the carriage, one even threw into her

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lap a bunch of marigolds, poor little mouth.

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He had his hand in his trouser pocket before her, for heaven's sake don't give them anything,

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or how typical of you, horrid little monkeys.

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Now they'll follow us all the way, don't encourage them.

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You would encourage beggars, and she hurled a bunch out of the carriage with, "Well, do

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it when I'm not here, please."

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He saw the queer shock on the children's faces.

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They stopped running, lagged behind, and then they began to shout something, and went on

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shouting until the carriage had rounded yet another bend.

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"Oh, how many more are there before the top of the hill is reached?

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The horses haven't trotted once.

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Surely it isn't necessary for them to walk the whole way.

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We shall be there in a minute now," he said, and took out his cigarette case.

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But that she turned round towards him.

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She clasped her hands and held them against her breasts.

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Her dark eyes looked immense, imploring behind her veil.

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Her nostrils quivered, she bit her lip, and her head shook with a little nervous spasm.

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But when she spoke, her voice was quite me, and very, very calm.

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I want to ask you something. I want to beg something of you," she said.

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I asked you hundreds and hundreds of times before, but you've forgotten.

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"It's such a little thing, but if you know what it means to me," she pressed her hands together.

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"But you can't know.

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No human creature could know and be so cruel."

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And then slowly, deliberately gazing at him with those huge somber eyes.

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I beg and implore for you for the last time that when we are driving together, you won't

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smoke.

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"If you could imagine," she said, "the anguish I suffer when that smoke comes flossing

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across my face."

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"Very well," he said.

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"I won't.

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I forgot."

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And he put the case back.

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"Oh no," she said, and almost began to laugh and put the back of her hand across her

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eyes.

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"You couldn't have forgotten, not that."

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The wind came, blowing stronger.

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They were at the top of the hill.

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"Yep, yep, yep, cried the driver."

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They swung down the road that fell into a small valley, skirted the sea coast at the bottom

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of it, and then coiled over a gentle ridge on the other side.

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"Now, they were houses again.

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The blue shutted against the heat, with bright burning gardens, with uranium carpets

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flung over the pinkish walls.

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The coastline was dark, on the edge of the sea, a white silky fringe gestured.

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The carriage swung down the hill, bumped, shook, "Yep," shouted the driver.

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She clutched the sides of the seat.

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She closed her eyes, and he knew she felt this was happening on purpose.

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This swinging and bumping.

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This was all done, and he was responsible for it, somehow, to spider, because she had asked

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if they couldn't go a little faster.

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But just as they reached the bottom of the valley, there was one tremendous urge.

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The carriage nearly overturned, and he saw her eyes blaze at him, and she positively hissed.

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I suppose you're enjoying this.

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They went on.

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They reached the bottom of the valley.

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Suddenly she stood up.

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She turned round and looked into the crumpled herd behind it.

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"I knew it," she explained.

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"I knew it.

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I heard it fall and so did you."

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At that last bump.

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"What?"

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"Where?"

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"My parasol."

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"It's gone."

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"The parasol that belonged to my mother."

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"The parasol that I prized more than, more than," she was simply beside herself.

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The driver turned round.

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His gay, broad face smiling.

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"I, too, heard something, city, simply and gay.

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But I thought his monsoir and madame said nothing."

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"There, you hear it.

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Then you must have heard it, too."

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So that accounts for the extraordinary smile on your face.

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"Look here," he said.

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"It can't be gone.

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If it fell out, it will still be there.

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Stay where you are.

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I'll fetch it."

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But she saw through that.

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"Oh, how she saw through it."

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"No, thank you."

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And she bent her spiteful, smiling eyes upon him.

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"Regardless of the driver, I'll go myself.

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I'll walk back and find it and trust you not to follow.

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For, knowing the driver did not understand, she spoke softly, gently.

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If I don't escape for you for a minute, I shall go mad."

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He stepped out of the carriage.

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My bag, he handed it to her.

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Madame prefers, but the driver had already swung down from his seat and was seated on the

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parapet, reading a small newspaper.

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The horse stood with hanging heads.

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It was still.

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The man in the carriage stretched himself out, folded his arms.

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He felt the sun beat on his knees.

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His head was sunk on his breast.

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Hish, shh, shh, sounded from the scene.

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The wind sighed in the valley was quiet.

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He felt himself lying there, a hollow man, a parched, withered man, as is it the were of

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ashes and the sea sounded.

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It was then that he saw the tree, that he was curious of its presence just outside a garden

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gate.

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It was an immense tree with a round, thick silver stem, and a great arc of copper leaves

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that gave back the light and yet were somber.

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There was something beyond the tree, a whiteness, a softness, an opaque mass, half hidden

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with delicate pillars.

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As he looked at the tree, he felt his breathing die away, and he became part of the silence.

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It seemed to grow.

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It seemed to expand in the quivering heat until the great carved leaves hid the sky.

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And yet it was motionless.

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Then from within its depths, or from beyond there came the sound of a woman's voice, a woman

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was singing.

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The warm and troubled voice floated upon the air, and it was all part of the silence as

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he was part of it.

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Suddenly, as the voice rose, soft, dreaming gentle, he knew that it would come floating

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to him from the hidden leaves, and his peace was shattered.

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What was happening to him?

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Something stirred in his breath, something dark, something unbearable and dreadful, pushed

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into his bosom, and like a great weed it floated, rocked.

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It was warm, stifling.

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He tried to struggle to tear at it, and at the same moment, all was over.

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Deep.

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Deep.

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Deep sank into the silence, staring at the tree, and waiting for the voice that came floating,

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falling, until he felt himself enfolded.

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In the shaking corridor of the train, it was night.

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The train rushed and roared through the dark.

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He held on with both hands to the brass rail.

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The door of their carriage was open, do not disturb yourself once, he will come in and

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sit down when he wants to.

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He likes.

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He likes.

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It is his habit.

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Wee madame.

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Oh, but my husband is never so happy as when he is travelling.

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He likes roughing it.

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My husband.

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My husband.

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The voice is murmured.

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They were never still.

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But so great was his heavenly happiness as he stood there.

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He wished he might live forever.

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