CHAPTER VIII Another spring vanished.... A sheet of crocuses singing along the grass alley. White, under trees still bare. Crocuses dotting the open grass with June gold.... Suddenly a mist of green on the trees, as quiet as thought.... Small leaves in broad daylight, magic reality, silent at midday amidst the noise of traffic.... Then full spring for three days. Holding life still, when the dawn mists drew off the sea and garden and revealed their colour. Everyone had loved it, independent of other loves. Become for a while single. Wanting and trying and failing to utter its beauty. Everyone had had those moments of reality in forgetfulness. Quickly passing. Growing afterwards longer than other moments, spreading out over the whole season; representing it in memory.... CHAPTER IX 1 The room is still in midnight darkness and full of the feeling of midnight. There must have been a sudden sound—perhaps a wild squealing of cats, too soon after I fell asleep. In a minute it will begin again; a low yowling, just beneath the window, growing louder. Then a scuffle and piercing shrieks. Silence; and more shrieks, at a comfortable distance. Savage night-life of cats. Welcome, heard far off making shrill streaks of light in the darkness and suggesting daytime; all the friendly little cats of London. There is no sound. Not a breath. In spite of the wide open window the air is stifling. And though there is no breeze, the reek of cats comes up and in. All the summer it has come in. It is part of the air of the room. Yet the nights in here have been paradise. Cool sleep. Escape from the night-sounds of the court. Escape from Miss Holland’s obliviousness of the sounds of the court. She is dull not to hear. Or strong? Dull strength in not hearing. Noisy home-comings in the spring. Strident, hideous voices in a reeling procession along the court and dying away in the distance. Drunken monologues. Every sound echoing near and clear in the narrow court. And she heard _nothing_. The cobbler, noisily taking down his shutters in the early light had called her from sleep, not from feverish dreams. And when the summer came and sounds filled the court till dawn, still she heard nothing. Why is all this saying itself over so freshly? At some moment every night before I go down into sleep, it says itself. And now I have come back from half-way to sleep it is all there is in my mind. Because I am always trying to ignore it. Never thinking of it by day. And here it is, belonging to me. Closer than anything that happened yesterday. Hoarse-voiced lovers lingering on after the roystering has died down. Men and women coming in quarrelling from the main street. Voices that had been gentle for each other madly seeking lost gentleness in curses. Curses and blows dying down to a panting stillness; out there, in the dismal court.