o be so gloriously above life; to make the smallest
discovery was like hearing the authentic voice of God who is no man but
a Spirit.

But now none of these things mattered. He was caught in the net of life
and nothing that was above it was of any use to him; as well expect a
man who lies through the night with his foot in a man-trap to be
comforted by the beauty of the stars. The only God he could have any use
for would be the kind the Salvationists talk about, who goes about
giving drunken men an arm past the public-house and coming between the
pickpocket and Black Maria with a well-timed text. There was nothing in
Science that would lift him out of this hell of loneliness, this
conviction of impotence, this shame of achievementless maturity. He
perceived that he had really known this for a long time, and that it was
the meaning of the growing irritability which had of late changed his
day in the laboratory from the rapt, swift office of the mind it used to
be, to an interminable stretch of drudgery checkered with fits of rage
at faulty apparatus, neurotic moods when he felt unable to perform fine
movements, and desolating spaces when he stood at the window and stared
at the high grassy embankment which ran round the hut, designed to break
the outward force of any explosion that might occur, and thought grimly
over the commercial uses that were to be made of his work. What was the
use of sweating his brains so that one set of fools could blow another
set of fools to glory? Oh, this was hell!...

The detestable blonde was now holding the platform in attitudes such as
are ascribed to goddesses by British sculptors, and speaking with a
slow, pure gusto of the horrors of immorality. For a moment her
allusions to the wrongs of unmarried mothers made him think of the proud
but defeated poise of his mother's head, and then the peculiar calm,
gross qualities of her phrases came home to him. He wondered how long
she had been going on like this, and he stared round to see how these
people, who looked so very decent, whom it was impossible to imagine
other than fully dressed, were taking it. Without anticipation his eyes
fell on Ellen and found her looking very Scotch and clapping sturdily.
Of course it must be all right, since everything about her was all
right, but he searched this surprising gesture as though he were trying
to read a signal, till with a quick delight he realised that this was
just the final proof of how very