On the way home they talked of the old man. “He is right; but it is too late” said Mrs. Henderson with clear quiet bitterness, “God has deserted me.” They walked on, tiny figures in a world of huge grey-stone houses. “He will not let me sleep. He does not want me to sleep. … He does not care.”
A thought touched Miriam, touched and flashed. She grasped at it to hold and speak it, but it passed off into the world of grey houses. Her cheeks felt hollow, her feet heavy. She summoned her strength, but her body seemed outside her, empty, pacing forward in a world full of perfect unanswering silence.
The bony old woman held Miriam clasped closely in her arms. “You must never, as long as you live, blame yourself my gurl.” She went away. Miriam had not heard her come in. The pressure of her arms and her huge body came from far away. Miriam clasped her hands together. She could not feel them. Perhaps she had dreamed that the old woman had come in and said that. Everything was dream; the world. I shall not have any life. I can never have any life; all my days. There were cold tears running into her mouth. They had no salt. Cold water. They stopped. Moving her body with slow difficulty against the unsupporting air she looked slowly about. It was so difficult to move. Everything was airy and transparent. Her heavy hot light impalpable body was the only solid thing in the world, weighing tons; and like a lifeless feather. There was a tray of plates of fish and fruit on the table. She looked at it, heaving with sickness and looking at it. I am hungry. Sitting down near it she tried to pull the tray. It would not move. I must eat the food. Go on eating food, till the end of my life. Plates of food like these plates of food. … I am in eternity … where their worm dieth not and their fire is not quenched.
Colophon
Honeycomb
was published in 1917 by
Dorothy M. Richardson.
This ebook was produced for
Standard Ebooks
by
Christopher Hapka,
and is based on a transcription produced in 2018 by
Jens Sadowski, Mary Glen Krause, and The Online Distributed Proofreading Team for
Project Gutenberg
and on digital scans from the
Internet Archive.
The cover page is adapted from
Interior in Strandgade, Sunlight on the Floor,
a painting completed in 1901 by
Vilhelm Hammershøi.
The cover and title pages feature the
League Spartan and Sorts Mill Goudy
typefaces created in 2014 and 2009 by
The League of Moveable Type.
The first edition of this ebook was released on
April 11, 2024, 12:11 a.m.
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