nie gone--what had she? She had nothing.
He was all she'd got from life, and now he was took too. Why must it
all have happened to me? she wondered. "What have I done?" said old Ma
Parker. "What have I done?"

As she said those words she suddenly let fall her brush. She found
herself in the kitchen. Her misery was so terrible that she pinned on
her hat, put on her jacket and walked out of the flat like a person in
a dream. She did not know what she was doing. She was like a person so
dazed by the horror of what has happened that he walks away--anywhere,
as though by walking away he could escape...

It was cold in the street. There was a wind like ice. People went
flitting by, very fast; the men walked like scissors; the women trod
like cats. And nobody knew--nobody cared. Even if she broke down, if at
last, after all these years, she were to cry, she'd find herself in the
lock-up as like as not.

But at the thought of crying it was as though little Lennie leapt in
his gran's arms. Ah, that's what she wants to do, my dove. Gran wants
to cry. If she could only cry now, cry for a long time, over everything,
beginning with her first place and the cruel cook, going on to the
doctor's, and then the seven little ones, death of her husband, the
children's leaving her, and all the years of misery that led up to
Lennie. But to have a proper cry over all these things would take a
long time. All the same, the time for it had come. She must do it. She
couldn't put it off any longer; she couldn't wait any more... Where could
she go?

"She's had a hard life, has Ma Parker." Yes, a hard life, indeed! Her
chin began to tremble; there was no time to lose. But where? Where?

She couldn't go home; Ethel was there. It would frighten Ethel out
of her life. She couldn't sit on a bench anywhere; people would come
arsking her questions. She couldn't possibly go back to the gentleman's
flat; she had no right to cry in strangers' houses. If she sat on some
steps a policeman would speak to her.

Oh, wasn't there anywhere where she could hide and keep herself to
herself and stay as long as she liked, not disturbing anybody, and
nobody worrying her? Wasn't there anywhere in the world where she could
have her cry out--at last?

Ma Parker stood, looking up and down. The icy wind blew out her apron
into a balloon. And now it began to rain. There was nowhere.

7. MARRIAGE A LA MODE.

On his way to the station William remembered with a f