ET DONA FERENTES
1005
firm. For a little while still it would be nice to continue to be ad–
mired, also he would like to have the present of the ring, also he
would like to make that bitch unhappy. Not that he liked to be
naughty but it was not pleasant when one was not admired. What
strange little white shells there were on the ground, like little Lili's ears,
or
his
own curls when they fell from the nape of his neck at the
barber's shop.
The same little crustacea lay all around Edwin, pressed into the
soft ground by the tightly winding mesh of mossgrass. Little balls of
rabbit droppings were scattered here and there. The hillside was car–
pet-smooth but for an occasional red and yellow vetch that rose above
the even level. Edwin peered closely at the turf, but he noticed noth–
ing for his thoughts were far away.
If
only I could collect my ideas, thought Edwin, but the blood
pounds so at my temples.
If
only I could piece together how it had
all led up to this. I think I have been feeling shut in by them all for
a long time now, at any rate all this year. Richard with his books
and Elizabeth with this priggish religious talk, and lately even Monica
has seemed to be so sure of her values, so determinedly living in a
world of beauty. All the best that's written, only the actions God ap–
proves, only the most beautiful in nature and art- it almost sickens
me at times. It all seems to come out in their lack of charity to Sven.
I wanted so to be kind to him, to show him that he was wanted, to
make up for their priggish lack of courtesy. I understood what they
meant when they said he was materialistic, animal, superficial, vain–
but in some degree I felt that I was too and I wanted them to realize
that. The children will always be afraid of physical pleasure in sex,
afraid of their own bodies' lusts, afraid of the lusts of others for them.
It's worse, somehow, when Mrs. Rackham's here because I can see
the stunted, shy, self-satisfied life they're heading for. But Monica is
different, all the years she has understood my feelings about it, and
at times has shared in them gloriously, but recently she's changed, "try–
ing to put sex in its perspective" she would call it, but that's only an–
other name for avoiding it because it's distasteful. It's true she's
given me this physical reason but she said it so eagerly that it seemed
like an excuse for doing what she's wanted to do for years. And now
this has happened. What I thought to be kindness and sympathy for
a rebel has re-awakened the old feeling of twenty years ago, the old
