At Mrs. Bagot’s back the laburnum tree was in perfect bloom. You would think, to look at it, that yellow was the only true color. Something — an overweight bee or an interfering insect — caused one of the yellow blossoms to fall, and it floated uncertainly down to the carpet, where it rested on the worn green stem of one of the central roses. Mrs. Bagot put her hand out to save the little victim from the dust and from her own violence. But then, instead, she stood up to rest her back. Oh, it was very gratifying to feel the pull on her back as she straightened up. She was tired. She knew it by the way her back felt. She was not imagining things. She might imagine things, but her back would tell the truth, and what her back said was that she was tired. It was very gratifying to feel her muscles sorting themselves out and trying to find their own shapes again, and she paid attention to their complaints and pitied them vaguely. What she needed was a good stretch. She would like to stretch herself, stretch her arms up, stretch all the weariness out of her body, but she could hardly start stretching herself here in the garden. Mrs. Finn next door would think there was something the matter with her, and she would come to the wall that separated their gardens and start talking in a loud voice about illnesses and bad symptoms.

Mrs. Bagot knew that the thing to do was to go into the kitchen and sit down for a minute and then come straight back out and quickly finish with the carpet. But still she remained standing in the mild sunlight, with the laburnum making a dusky yellow shadow behind her head. The thought of stretching and resting had cleared her mind of all but the one word, sleep. Sleep — her mind was full of it, it was evaporating inside her head, clouding her thoughts, and she wondered how the one word, sleep, could be so distinct and at the same time so indistinct, like writing in the sky.