MS-HRC-SB-4-3

[1579] so it was very probably the afternoon, very. [1580] The still air,
though not cold as in winter, seemed without promise or memory
of warmth. [1581] Incommoded by the rain pouring into his hat through
the crack Macmann took it off and laid it on his temple, that
is to say turned his head and pressed his cheek to the ground.

[1582] His hands at the ends of the long outstretched arms clutched
the grass, each hand a tuft, with as much energy as if he had
been spreadeagled against the face of cliff. [1583] Let us by all means
continue this description.

[1584] The rain pelted down on his back with
the sound first of a drum, but of in a short time of washing,
as when washing is soused gurgling and squelching in a tub, and
he distinguished clearly and with interest the difference in noise
of the rain falling on him and falling on the earth.

[1584] For his ear,
which is on the same plane as the cheek or nearly, was glued to
the earth in a way it seldom is in wet weather, and he could hear
the kind of distant roar of the earth drinking and the sighing
of the soaked bowed grasses.

[1585] The idea of punishment came to hs
his mind, addicted it is true to that chimera and probably im-
pressed by the posture of the body and the fingers clenched as
though in torment. [1586] And without knowing exactly what his sin was
he felt full well that living was not a sufficient atonement for
it or that this atonement was in itself a sin, calling for other
atonements more atonement, and so on, as if there could be
anything but life, for the living.

[1587] And no doubt he would have
wondered if it was really necessary to be guilty in order to be
punished but for the more memory, more and more galling, i^of his
having consented to live in his mother, then to leave her. [1588] And