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Back Adventures in the Skin Trade
Chapters (25)
  1. Title Page
  2. INTRODUCTION
  3. ADVENTURES IN THE SKIN TRADE
  4. AFTER THE FAIR
  5. THE ENEMIES
  6. THE TREE
  7. THE VISITOR
  8. THE LEMON
  9. THE BURNING BABY
  10. THE ORCHARDS
  11. THE MOUSE AND THE WOMAN
  12. THE HORSE’S HA
  13. A PROSPECT OF THE SEA
  14. THE HOLY SIX
  15. PROLOGUE TO AN ADVENTURE
  16. THE MAP OF LOVE
  17. IN THE DIRECTION OF THE BEGINNING
  18. AN ADVENTURE FROM A WORK IN PROGRESS
  19. THE SCHOOL FOR WITCHES
  20. THE DRESS
  21. THE VEST
  22. THE TRUE STORY
  23. THE FOLLOWERS
  24. Other Titles
  25. Copyright

He walked down the hill, his steps slow as in procession, and his lips smiling at the dark sea. He climbed onto the shore, and, feeling his heart knock at his side, turned to where the greater rocks climbed perilously to the grass. There at the foot, her face towards him, she lay and smiled. Sea-water ran unheeded over her nakedness. He crossed to her, and touched her cold cheek with his nails.

22

Acquainted with the last grief, he stood at the open window of his room. And the night was an island in a sea of mystery and meaning. And the voice out of the night was a voice of acceptance. And the face of the moon was the face of humility.

He knew the last wonder before the grave and the mystery that bewilders and incorporates the heavens and the earth. He knew that he had failed before the eye of God and the eye of Sirius to hold his miracle. The woman had shown him that it was wonderful to live. And now, when at last he knew how wonderful, and how pleasant the blood in the trees, and how deep the well of the clouds, he must close his eyes and die. He opened his eyes, and looked up at the stars. There were a million stars spelling the same word. And the word of the stars was written clearly upon the sky.

23

Alone in the kitchen, among the broken chairs and china, stood the mouse that had come out of the hole. Its paws rested lightly upon the floor painted all over with the grotesque figures of birds and girls. Stealthily, it crept back into the hole. Stealthily, it worked its way between the walls. There was no sound in the kitchen but the sound of the mouse’s nails scraping upon wood.

24

In the eaves of the lunatic asylum the birds still whistled, and the madman, pressed close to the bars of the window near their nests, bayed up at the sun.

Upon the bench some distance from the main path, the girl was beckoning to the birds, while on a square of lawn danced three old women, hand in hand, simpering in the wind, to the music of an Italian organ from the world outside.

Spring is come, said the warders.

THE HORSE’S HA