When the front door of the Orgreaves interposed itself that night
between Edwin and a little group of gas-lit faces, he turned away
towards the warm gloom of the garden in a state of happy excitement. He
had left fairly early, despite protests, because he wished to give his
father no excuse for a spectacular display of wrath; Edwin's desire for
a tranquil existence was growing steadily. But now that he was in the
open air, he did not want to go home. He wanted to be in full
possession of himself, at leisure and in freedom, and to examine the
treasure of his sensations. "It's been rather quiet," the Orgreaves had
said. "We generally have people dropping in." Quiet! It was the least
quiet evening he had ever spent.
He was intoxicated; not with wine, though he had drunk wine. A group of
well-intentioned philanthropists, organised into a powerful society for
combating the fearful evils of alcoholism, had seized Edwin at the age
of twelve and made him bind himself with solemn childish signature and
ceremonies never to taste alcohol save by doctor's orders. He thought
of this pledge in the garden of the Orgreaves. "Damned rot!" he
murmured, and dismissed the pledge from his mind as utterly unimportant,
if not indeed fatuous. No remorse! The whole philosophy of asceticism
inspired him, at that moment, with impatient scorn. It was the hope of
pleasure that intoxicated him, the vision which he had had of the
possibilities of being really interested in life. He saw new avenues
toward joy, and the sight thereof made him tingle, less with the desire
to be immediately at them than with the present ecstasy of contemplating
them. He was conscious of actual physical tremors and agreeable
smartings in his head; electric disturbances. But he did not reason; he
felt. He was passive, not active. He would not even, just then,
attempt to make new plans. He was in a beatitude, his mouth unaware
that it was smiling.
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