TIME PASSESdarkened the pool in which light reflected itself;or birds, flying, made a soft spot flutter slowlyacross the bedroom floor.

So loveliness reigned and stillness, and togethermade the shape of loveliness itself, a form fromwhich life had parted; solitary like a pool atevening, far distant, seen from a train window,vanishing so quickly that the pool, pale in theevening, is scarcely robbed of its solitude, thoughonce seen. Loveliness and stillness clasped handsin the bedroom, and among the shrouded jugsand sheeted chairs even the prying of the wind,and the soft nose of the clammy sea airs, rubbing,snuffling, iterating, and reiterating their questions—"Will you fade? Will you perish?"—scarcelydisturbed the peace, the indifference, the air ofpure integrity, as if the question they askedscarcely needed that they should answer: weremain.

Nothing it seemed could break that image,corrupt that innocence, or disturb the swayingmantle of silence which, week after week, in theempty room, wove into itself the falling cries ofbirds, ships hooting, the drone and hum of thefields, a dog’s bark, a man’s shout, and foldedthem round the house in silence. Once only aboard sprang on the landing; once in the middleof the night with a roar, with a rupture, as after201
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