Amid the crowd, stamping and tapping his way monotonously along with the
assured obstinacy of a mendicant experienced and hardened, came a shabby
man bearing on his breast a large label with these words: "Blind through
boy throwing mortar. Discharged from four hospitals. Incurable."
Edwin's heart seemed to be constricted. He thought of the ragged
snarling touts who had fawned to him at the station, and of the
creatures locked in the cellars whence came beautiful odours of
confectionery and soup through the pavement gratings, and of the
slatternly women who kept thrusting flowers under his nose, and the
half-clad infants who skimmed before the wind yelling the names of
newspapers. All was not triumph! Where triumph was, there also must be
the conquered.
_She_ was there, she too! Somewhere, close to him. He recalled the exact
tone of Janet's voice as she had said: "The poor thing's had a great
deal of trouble." A widow, trying to run a boarding-house and not
succeeding! Why, there were hundreds upon hundreds of boarding-houses,
all large, all imposing, all busy at the end of October! Where was hers
hidden away, her pathetic little boarding-house? Preston Street! He
knew not where Preston Street was, and he had purposely refrained from
inquiring. But he might encounter it at any moment. He was afraid to
look too closely at the street-signs as he passed them; afraid!
"What am I doing here?" he asked himself curiously, and sometimes
pettishly. "What's my object? Where's the sense of it? I'm nothing
but a damned fool. I've got no plan. I don't know what I'm going to
do." It was true. He had no plan, and he did not know what he was
going to do. What he did most intimately know was that the idea of her
nearness made him tremble.
"I'd much better go back at once," he said.
He walked miles, until he came to immense and silent squares of huge
palatial houses, and wide transversal avenues running far up into the
land and into the dusk. In these vast avenues and across these vast
squares infrequent carriages sped like mechanical toys guided by
mannikins. The sound of the sea waxed. And then he saw the twinkle of
lights, and then fire ran slowly along the promenade: until the whole
map of it was drawn out in flame; and he perceived that though he had
walked a very long way, the high rampart of houses continued still
interminably beyond him. He turned. He was tired. His face caught the
full strength of the rising wind. Foam gleamed on the rising tide. In
the profound violet sky to the east stars shone and were wiped out, in
fields; but to the west, silver tarried. He had not seen Preston
Street, and it was too dark now to decipher the signs. He was glad. He
went on and on, with rapidly increasing fatigue, disgust, impatience.
The thronging multitudes had almost disappeared; but many illuminated
vehicles were flitting to and fro, and the shops were brilliant. He was
so exhausted by the pavements that he could scarcely walk. And Brighton
became for him the most sorrowful city on earth.
"What am I doing here?" he asked himself savagely. However, by dint of
sticking doggedly to it he did in the end reach the hotel.
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