THE WINDOWthe bananas, made her think of a trophy fetchedfrom the bottom of the sea, of Neptune’sbanquet, of the bunch that hangs with vine leavesover the shoulder of Bacchus (in some picture),among the leopard skins and the torches lollopingred and gold. . . . Thus brought up suddenlyinto the light it seemed possessed of great sizeand depth, was like a world in which one couldtake one’s staff and climb up hills, she thought,and go down into valleys, and to her pleasure (forit brought them into sympathy momentarily) shesaw that Augustus too feasted his eyes on thesame plate of fruit, plunged in, broke off a bloomthere, a tassel here, and returned, after feasting,to his hive. That was his way of looking, differentfrom hers. But looking together united them.

Now all the candles were lit, and the faceson both sides of the table were brought nearer bythe candle light, and composed, as they had notbeen in the twilight, into a party round a table,for the night was now shut off by panes of glass,which, far from giving any accurate view of theoutside world, rippled it so strangely that here,inside the room, seemed to be order and dry land;there, outside, a reflection in which things waveredand vanished, waterily.

Some change at once went through them all,as if this had really happened, and they were all151
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