Page:Thunder on the Left (1925).djvu/125

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

happy. She never thought of trains as hurrying toward something but rather fleeing wildly from. Those great eloquent machines (she hated to have to board a train without seeing the engine first) crouched ready for flight like huge beasts breathing panic. They were symbols of the universal terror; she trembled with excitement to feel the thrill of escape—escape from anything. Escape, for the moment, from Time and Space. She wondered how any one could ever sleep or be bored in a train. You'd think their faces would be transfigured when they got out. She hummed to herself as she stood alone in the vestibule. Life seemed to be beginning all over again: her mind was freshly sensitized to the oddity of human faces, to the colour and vitality of the country, the strong swelling curves of the hills. I am flying, flying, she chanted; I am flying from a dream. I am a little mad. My mind is fuller than it'll hold: all sorts of thoughts are slopping over the brim, getting lost because there isn't room for them. I must let them flow faster so I can be aware of them all. What happens to the thoughts that get spilt before you can quite seize them? I must ask George. . . . I wonder which George it will be?

Once she had startled him by giving him a book