[p. 145r]
[2505] things changed and died each one according to its solitude.
[2506] Beyond the gate, on the road, shapes passed that Mavcmann could not understand, bcause because of the bars, because of all the trembling and raging behind him and beside him, because of the cries, the sky, the earth enjoining him to fall and his long blind life.
[2507] A keeper came out of one of the lodges, in obedience to a telephone-call probably, all in white, a long black object in his hand, a key, [2508] and the children lined up along the drive.
[2509] Suddenly there were wome women.
[2510] All fell silent.
[2511] The heavy gates swung open, driving the keeper before them. He backed away, then suddenly turned and fled to his doorstep.
[2512] The road appeared, white with dust, bordered with dark masses, stretched a little way and ran up dead, against a narrow grey sky.
[2513] Macmann let go the tree tghat hid him and turned back up the hill, not running, for he could hardly walk, but as fas fast as he could, bowed and stumbling, helping himself forward with with the boles and boughs that offered.
[2514] Little by little the haze formed again, and the sense of absence, and the captive things began to murmur again, each one to itself, and it was as if nothing had ever happened or would ever happen again.
[2515] Others besides Macmann strayed from morning to night, stooped under the heavy cloak, in the rare glades, among the trees that hid the sky and in the high ferns where they looked like swimmers. [2516] They seldom came near to one another, because they were few and the park was vast. [2517] But when chance brought one or more together, near enough for them to realize it had done so, then they hastened to turn back or, without going to such extremes, simply aside, as if ashamed to be seen by their fellows. [2518] But sometimes they
[p. 146r][2518] brushed against one another without seeming to notice it, their heads buried in the ample hood.
[2519] Macmann carried with him and contemplated from time to time the photograph that Moll had given him, it was perhaps rather a daguerreotype. [2520] She was standing beside a chair and squeezing in her hands her long plaits. [2521] Traces were visible, behind her, of a kind of trellis with clambering flowers, roses probably, they sometimes like to clamber. [2522] When giving this keep-sake to Macmann she had said, I was fourteen, I well remember the day, a summer day, it was my birthday, afterwards they took me to see Punch and Judy. [2523] Macmann remembered those words. [2524] What he liked best in this picture was the chair, the seat of which seemed to be made of straw. [2525] Diligently Moll pressed her lips together, in order to hide her great buck-teeth. [2526] The roses must have been pretty, they must have scented the air. [2527] In the end Macmann tore up this photograph and threw the bits in the air, one windy day. [2528] Then they scattered, though all subjected to the same conditions, as though with alacrity.
[2529] When it rained, when it snowed
[2530] On.
[2531] One morning Lemuel, putting in the regulation appearance in the great hall before seetting ou 
on his rounds, found pinned on the board a notice concerning him.
[2532] Group Lemuel, excursion to the islands, weather permitting, with Lady Pedal, leaving one p.m.
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[2533] His colleagues observed him, sniggering and poking one another in the ribs.
[2534] But they did not dare say anything.
[2535] One woman however did pass a witty remark, to good effect.
[2536] Lemuel was not liked, that was clear.
[2537] But would he have wished to be, [2538] that is less clear.
[2539] He initialed the notice and went away.
[2540] The sun was dragging itself up, dispatching on its way what perhaps would be, thanks to it, a glorious May or April day, April more likely, it is doubtless the Easter week-end, spent by Jesus in hell.
[2541] And it may well have been in honour of this latter that Lady Pedal had organized, for the benefit of Lemuel's group, this outing to the islands which was going to cost her dear, but she was well off and lived for doing good and bring[⁁]ing a little happiness
into the lives of those less fortunate than herself, who was all right in her head and to whom life had always smiled or, as she had it herself, returned her smile, enlarged as in a convex mirror, or a concave, I forget.
[2542] Taking advantage of the terrestrial atmosphere that dimmed its brightness Lemuel glared with loathing at the sun.
[2543] He had reached his room, on the fourth or fifth floor, whence on countless occasions he could have thrown himself in perfect safety out of the window if he had been less weak-minded.
[2544] The long silver carpet was in position, ending in a point, trembling across the calm repoussé sea.
[2545] The room was small and absolutely empty, for Lemuel slept on the bare boards and even off them ate his lesser meals, now at one place, now at another.
[2546] But what matter about Lemuel and his room.?
[2547] Lady
[p. 148r]
[2547] Pedal was not the only one to take an interest in the inmates of Saint John of God's, known pleasantly locally as the Johnny Goddams, or the Goddam Johnnies, not the only one to treat them on an average once in every two years to excursions by land and sea through scenery
renowned for its beauty or grandeur and even to entertainments on the premises such as whole evenings of prestidigitation and ventriloquism in the moonlight on the terrace, no, but she was seconded by other ladies sharing her way of thinking and similarly blessed in means and leisure.
[2548] But what matter about Mrs P Lady Pedal.?
[2549] On; On.
[2550] Carrying in his one hand two buckets wedged the one within the other Lemuel proceeded to the vast kitchen, [2551] full of stir and bustle at that hour.
[2552] Six excursion soups, he growled.
[2553] What? said the cook.
[2554] Six excursion soups! roared Lemuel, dashing his buckets against the oven, without however relinquishing the handles, for he still had retained enough presence of mind to hate dread the thought of having to stoop and pick them up again.
[2557] The difference between an excursion soup and a common or house soup was simply this, that the latter was was uniformly liquid whereas the former contained a piece of fat bacon intended to keep up the strength of the excursionists[₰] until their his return.
[2558] When his bucket had been filled Lemuel withdreaw to a secluded place, rolled up his sleeve to the elbow, fished up from the bottom of the bucket one after another the six pieces of bacon, his own and the five others, ate all the fat off them, sucked the ri rinds and threw them back in the soup.
[2559] Strange when you come to think of it, but after all not so strange really, that they should have issued six extra or excursionsoups at his mere demand, without requiring a written order.
[2560] The cells of the five were far
[p. 149r]
[2560] apart and so astutely disposed that Lemuel had never been able to determine how best, that is to say with the minimum of fatigue and annoyance, to visit them in turn.
[2561] In the first a young man, dead young, seated in an old rocking-chair, his shirt rolled up and his hands on his thighs, would have seemed asleep had not his eyes been wide open.
[2562] He never went out, unless commanded to do so, and then someone had to accompany him, in order to make him move forward.
[2563] His chamber-pot was empty, whereas in his bowl the soup of the previous day had congealed.
[2564] The reverse would have been less surprising.
[2565] But Lemuel was used to this, so used that he had longed since ceased to wonder on what this creatur creature fed.
[2566] He emptied the bowl into his empty bucket and from his full bucket filled it with fresh soup.
[2567] Then he went, a bucket in each hand, whereas up to now a single hand had been enough to carry the two buckets.
[2568] Because of the excursion he locked the door behind him, an unnecessary precaution.
[2569] The second cell, four or five hundred paces distant from the first, contained one whose only really striking features were his stature, his stiffness and his air of perpetually looking for something while at the same time wondering what that something could possibly be.
[2570] Nothing in his person gave any indication of his age, whether he was marvellously well-preserved or on the contrary prematurely decayed.
[2571] He He was called the Saxon, though he was far from being any such thing.
[2572] Without troubling to take off his shirt he had swathed himself in his two blankets as in swaddlings and over and above