it said. The Church
talked about her soul, about the welfare of mankind, as if the
saving of her soul lay in her performing certain acts conducive
to the welfare of mankind. Well and good-it was so, then.

Nevertheless, as she sat in church her face had a pathos and
poignancy. Was this what she had come to hear: how by doing this
thing and by not doing that, she could save her soul? She did
not contradict it. But the pathos of her face gave the lie.
There was something else she wanted to hear, it was something
else she asked for from the Church.

But who was she to affirm it? And what was she doing
with unsatisfied desires? She was ashamed. She ignored them and
left them out of count as much as possible, her underneath
yearnings. They angered her. She wanted to be like other people,
decently satisfied.

He angered her more than ever. Church had an irresistible
attraction for him. And he paid no more attention to that part
of the service which was Church to her, than if he had been an
angel or a fabulous beast sitting there. He simply paid no heed
to the sermon or to the meaning of the service. There was
something thick, dark, dense, powerful about him that irritated
her too deeply for her to speak of it. The Church teaching in
itself meant nothing to him. "And forgive us our trespasses as
we forgive them that trespass against us"--it simply did
not touch him. It might have been more sounds, and it would have
acted upon him in the same way. He did not want things to be
intelligible. And he did not care about his trespasses, neither
about the trespasses of his neighbour, when he was in church.
Leave that care for weekdays. When he was in church, he took no
more notice of his daily life. It was weekday stuff. As for the
welfare of mankind--he merely did not realize that there
was any such thing: except on weekdays, when he was good-natured
enough. In church, he wanted a dark, nameless emotion, the
emotion of all the great mysteries of passion.

He was not interested in the thought of himself or of
her: oh, and how that irritated her! He ignored the sermon, he
ignored the greatness of mankind, he did not admit the immediate
importance of mankind. He did not care about himself as a human
being. He did not attach any vital importance to his life in the
drafting office, or his life among men. That was just merely the
margin to the text. The verity was his connection with Anna and
his connection with the Church, his re