The Painted Veil

help for it. The nuns, learning of Walter’s death as they learned everything that happened in the city, sent by a messenger a cross of dahlias, stiff and formal, but made as though by the accustomed hands of a florist; and the cross, alone on the Chinese coffin, looked grotesque and out of place. When all was ready they had to wait for Colonel Yü who had sent to Waddington to say that he desired to attend the funeral. He came accompanied by an A.D.C. They walked up the hill, the coffin borne by half a dozen coolies, to a little plot of land where lay buried the missionary whose place Walter had taken. Waddington had found among the missionary’s effects an English prayerbook and in a low voice, with an embarrassment that was unusual to him, read the burial service. Perhaps, reciting those solemn but terrible words, the thought hovered in his mind that if he in his turn fell a victim to the pestilence there would be no one now to say them over him. The coffin was lowered into the grave and the gravediggers began to throw in the earth.

Colonel Yü, who had stood with bared head by the grave-side, put on his hat, saluted Kitty gravely, said a word or two to Waddington and followed by his A.D.C. walked away. The coolies, curious to watch a Christian burial, had lingered and now in a straggling group, their yokes trailing in their hands, sauntered off. Kitty and Waddington waited till the grave was filled and then placed on the mound, smelling of fresh earth, the nuns’ prim dahlias. She had not wept, but when the first shovelful of earth rattled on the coffin she felt a dreadful pang at her heart.

She saw that Waddington was waiting for her to come away.

“Are you in a hurry?” she asked. “I don’t want to go back to the bungalow just yet.”

“I have nothing to do. I am entirely in your hands.”

LXVI

They sauntered along the causeway till they came to the top of the hill on which stood that archway, the memorial to a virtuous widow, which had occupied so large a part of Kitty’s impression of the place. It was a symbol, but of what she scarcely knew; she could not tell why it bore a note of so sardonic irony.

“Shall we sit down a little? We haven’t sat here for ages.” The plain was spread before her widely; it was tranquil and serene in the morning light. “It’s only a few weeks that I’ve been here and it seems a lifetime.”

He did not answer and for a while she allowed her thoughts to wander. She gave a sigh.

“Do you think that the soul is immortal?” she asked.

He did not seem surprised at the question.

“How should I know?”

“Just now, when they’d washed Walter, before they put him into the coffin I looked at him. He looked very young. Too young to die. Do you remember that beggar that we saw the first time you took me for a walk? I was frightened not because he was dead, but because he looked as though he’d never been a human being. He was just a dead animal. And now again, with Walter, it looked so like a machine that has run down. That’s what is so frightening. And if it is only a machine how futile is all this suffering and the heart pains and the misery.”

He did not answer, but his eyes travelled over the landscape at their feet. The wide expanse on that gay and sunny morning filled the heart with exultation. The trim little rice fields stretched as far as the eye could see and in many of them the blue-clad peasants with their buffaloes were working industriously. It was a peaceful and a happy scene. Kitty broke the silence.

“I can’t tell you how deeply moved I’ve been by all I’ve seen at the convent. They’re wonderful, those nuns, they make me feel utterly worthless. They give up everything, their home, their country, love, children, freedom; and all the little things which I sometimes think must be harder still to give up, flowers and green fields, going for a walk on an autumn day, books and music, comfort, everything they give up, everything. And they do it so that they may devote themselves to a life of sacrifice and poverty, obedience, killing work and prayer. To all of them this world is really and truly a place of exile. Life is a cross which they willingly bear, but in their hearts all the time is the desire⁠—oh, it’s so much stronger than desire, it’s a longing, an eager, passionate longing for the death which shall lead them to life everlasting.”

Kitty clasped her hands and looked at him with anguish.

“Well?”

“Supposing there is no life everlasting? Think what it means if death is really the end of all things. They’ve given up all for nothing. They’ve been cheated. They’re dupes.”

Waddington reflected for a little while.

“I wonder. I wonder if it matters that what they have aimed at is illusion. Their lives are in themselves beautiful. I have an idea that the only thing which makes it possible to regard this world we live in without disgust is the beauty which now and then men create out of the chaos. The pictures they paint, the music they compose, the books they write, and the lives they lead. Of all these the richest in beauty is the beautiful life. That is the perfect work of art.”

Kitty sighed. What he said seemed hard. She wanted more.

“Have you ever been to a symphony concert?” he continued.

“Yes,” she smiled. “I know nothing of music, but I’m rather fond of it.”

“Each member of the orchestra plays his own little instrument, and what do you think he knows of the complicated harmonies which unroll themselves on the indifferent air? He is concerned only with his own small share. But he knows