“It was—it is—a little village.”
The woman laughed.
“I daresay. But how long ago?”
“There were fields,” she said under her breath. “There were
flowers——”
“Here’s the Town Hall. Didn’t you want the Town Hall?”
Unsteadily she rose and got out. The tram clanged forward.
She stood on an island where four roads met and looked about
her. The sun stared down at her, a brazen city sun. The asphalt
was hot and soft under her feet. Road-menders were at work in
the fair-way. They struck alternately at the chisel between them
and it was as if the rain of blows fell upon her. She felt
stupid and dizzy. She did not know where to turn. There was
nothing left of her village, and yet the place was familiar.
There were drab houses and rows of shops and a stream of
traffic, and the figures of women and men—menacing, impersonal
figures of men—that hurried towards her down the endless
streets.
“Well?” said the Baxter girl.
“But that’s not the _end_?” I said.
The Baxter girl looked at me oddly.
“Why not?” And then—“How else could it end? How would you make it end?”
“Oh, I don’t mean——” I began. I hesitated. “I don’t think I quite
understand,” I said.
That was the truth. At the time I couldn’t follow it. It moved me. It
swept me along. But whether it was good or bad I didn’t know. I hadn’t
the faintest idea of what it was driving at. I felt in a vague way that
the people at home wouldn’t have liked it.
“What does it mean?” I said to the Baxter girl.
“That you can’t eat your cake and have it, I suppose. You can get out of
Eden, but you can’t get back.”