Читать книгу The End of the House of Alard онлайн

53 страница из 99

It was strange that he should be so hurt by what was after all not his tragedy—he was not really in love with Stella, only felt that, given freedom for her and a few more years for him, he could have been and would have been. And he was not so much hurt as frightened. He was afraid because life seemed to him at once so trivial and so gross. The things over which people agonised were, after all, small shoddy things—earth and halfpence; to see them have such power to crush hopes and deform lives was like seeing a noble tree eaten up by insects. In time he too would be eaten up . . . No, no! He must save himself, somehow. He must find happiness somewhere. But how?

When he tried to think, he was afraid. He remembered what he used to do in the old days when he was so dreadfully afraid in this room. He used to draw up his knees to his chin and pray—pray frantically in his fear. That was before he had heard about the Ninety-nine Just Sheep being left for the one that was lost; directly he had heard that story he had given up saying his prayers, for fear he should be a Just Sheep, when he would so much rather be the lost one, because the shepherd loved it and had carried it in his arms. . . . He must have been a queer sort of kid. Now all that was gone—religion . . . the school chapel, confirmation classes, manly Christians, the Bishop's sleeves . . . he could scarcely realise those dim delicate raptures he had had as a child—his passionate interest in that dear Friend and God walking the earth . . . all the wonderful things he had pondered in his heart. Religion was so different after you were grown up. It became an affair of earth and halfpence like everything else.