But he stays all the same. He listens, and something in him responds, urging him to approach them, willing him to remain among them.

In spite of all the threats and danger these thousands are being reared close beside the darkness, and possess a quality that will triumph. Henry thinks: I can take part here, I see that now.

Here he will find acceptance.

A shaft of happiness stabs him. He had seen so much that was ugly and enervating that he finally stood, a broken man, before his tougher companions. Now a different current is running through him: the promise of the future, where there will be need of people like himself.

He looks at the army and sees that it is endless. Mature young women; young mothers. He stares at them, thinking he has never before seen anything so lovely.

I’ll stay here.

They take no notice of him. He is flattened against the wall. Even if a door opens near him the sound becomes no louder. It must be far away. But that is where they are, those who will awake and possess their faith unharmed.

Henry suddenly has a fierce desire to see them. After all that he has experienced he wants to see this. It would help him so that he could return to Peter and John.

But he does not attempt to go in. He is too abject. He just goes on listening to this blessed sound from far away. That is where he should go! There he will find acceptance. But he is too shy to turn to these women and ask if he may go in. He is hollow from the pressure, and humble before these persons who have forgotten themselves so completely. He looks at their beautiful faces until they dissolve into one single face. Let me come with you! cries his desire, but they go their own ways without seeing him. All around them is the sound of the tiny, tremendous promise they are protecting.

And suddenly he is not permitted to stay any longer. It comes like a blow: Be off! This is not for you, or for anyone else yet.

He tears himself free and stumbles away. But the chorus is sounding in his ears. He feels linked with it, and it gives him courage. He will be of use again! They will be asking for him. Tomorrow.

21

This Is Where They Are

The pointer is quivering on the wall.

In the centre they report on it frequently.

In the deepest cellars they are listening, on constant watch at all the channels that lead in to them. Nothing to be heard. Nothing to be seen. But when they go to look at the pointer it is quivering incessantly. That means something is happening underground all the same, something beyond interference.

The bewitched arrows stream in here, in to the burning, floodlit brain. He is sitting there, bound fast by them as before, with empty eyes and numbed hands, directing the bewitchment. A report has just come in. Yet again.