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313 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1947
No human being is ever quite so simple as that. There is always something else as well...
'A man,' she thought suddenly, 'would consider this a business outing. But, then, a man would not have to cook meals for the day overnight, nor consign his child to a friend, nor leave half-done the ironing, nor forget the grocery order as I now discover I have forgotten it. The artfulness of men,' she thought. 'They implant in us, foster in us, instincts which it is to their advantage for us to have, and which, in the end, we feel shame at not possessing.'
Nothing clouded Edward's happiness. Life entranced him. When the sun shone it touched his very bones. Time was undivided now by bells clanging; so he could drift, beguiled, unchevied [1] wandering in that maze of alley-ways where the roofs went tipping down so steeply towards the harbour that he could spit down the chimneys from where he stood, he thought. With the sun shining on them, these roofs were colours of pigeons - the slates of rose and grey and lavender and blue. It was all familiar yet wonderful to him.
"'Interesting,' he observed, 'what two people can make of the same view. We all see places a bit different to what the next man does."
"There's no summing-up, but a sense of incompleteness. After years of building up each unique personality, in the end there is no moment of putting lines beneath the sum and adding up to see what it all amounts too."