I liked the way she
smiled, and I liked her obedient, mannerly bearing. There was something
else I liked, which I did not recognise then, something surrounding all
her movements, a graciousness, a spaciousness: I did not analyse it;
but I know now that it was her youth. I remember that when we were out
together she walked slowly, but in the house she would leap up and down
the stairs--she moved furiously, but I didn't.

"One evening she dressed to go out as usual, and she called at my door
to know had I everything I wanted. I said I had something to tell her
when she came home, something important. She promised to come in early
to hear it, and I laughed at her and she laughed back and went sliding
down the bannisters. I don't think I have had any reason to laugh since
that night. A letter came for me after she had gone, and I knew by the
shape and the handwriting that it was from the office. It puzzled me to
think why I should be written to. I didn't like opening it somehow....
It was my dismissal on account of advancing age, and it hoped for my
future welfare politely enough. It was signed by the Senior. I didn't
grip it at first, and then I thought it was a hoax. For a long time I
sat in my room with an empty mind. I was watching my mind: there were
immense distances in it that drowsed and buzzed; large, soft movements
seemed to be made in my mind, and although I was looking at the letter
in my hand I was really trying to focus those great, swinging spaces in
my brain, and my ears were listening for a movement of some kind. I
can see back to that time plainly. I went walking up and down the room.
There was a dull, subterranean anger in me. I remember muttering once or
twice, 'Shameful!' and again I said, 'Ridiculous!' At the idea of age
I looked at my face in the glass, but I was looking at my mind, and
it seemed to go grey, there was a heaviness there also. I seemed to be
peering from beneath a weight at something strange. I had a feeling that
I had let go a grip which I had held tightly for a long time, and I had
a feeling that the letting go was a grave disaster... that strange face
in the glass! how wrinkled it was! there were only a few hairs on the
head and they were grey ones. There was a constant twitching of the lips
and the eyes were deep-set, little and dull. I left the glass and sat
down by the window, looking out. I saw nothing in the street: I just
looked into a blackness. My mind was as blank as the nigh