uries, the formation of the beginning, that men have sweated and
grubbed for ... that is the waste."

What carelessness of worldly success they should bring back with them!

Orderlies come and go up and down the corridor. Often they carry
stretchers--now and then a stretcher with the empty folds of a flag
flung across it.

Then I pause from laying my trays, and with a bunch of forks in my hand
I stand still.

They take the stretcher into a ward, and while I wait I know what they
are doing behind the screens which stand around a bed against the wall.
I hear the shuffle of feet as the men stand to attention, and the
orderlies come out again, and the folds of the flag have ballooned up to
receive and embrace a man's body.

Where is he going?

To the mortuary.

Yes ... but where else...?

Perhaps there is nothing better than the ecstasy and unappeasement of
life?

II

INSIDE THE GLASS DOORS

My feet ache, ache, ache...!

End of the first day.

Life in a ward is all scurry and rush. I don't reflect; I'm putting on
my cap anyhow, and my hands are going to the dogs.

I shall never get to understand Sisters; they are so strange, so tricky,
uncertain as collies. Deep down they have an ineradicable axiom: that
any visitor, any one in an old musquash coat, in a high-boned collar, in
a spotted veil tied up at the sides, any one with whom one shakes hands
or takes tea, is more important than the most charming patient (except,
of course, a warded M.O.).

For this reason the "mouths" of the pillow-cases are all turned to face
up the ward, away from the door.

I think plants in a ward are a barbarism, for as they are always
arranged on the table by the door, it is again obvious that they are
intended only to minister to the eye of the visitor, that race of gods.

In our ward there are eighteen fern-pots, some in copper, some in pink
china, three in mauve paper, and one hanging basket of ferns. All of
these have to be taken out on the landing at night and in again in the
morning, and they have to be soaked under the tap.

The Sisters' minds are as yet too difficult for me, but in the minds of
the V.A.D.'s I see certain salient features. I see already manifested in
them the ardent longing to be alike. I know and remember this longing;
it was present through all my early years in a large boarding-school;
but there it was naturally corrected by the changes of growth and the
inexpertness of youth. Here