It had been the weakest, the puniest of noises. It had been no more
than is a fledgling's first attempt at a twitter. But I was not
judging it by its volume. Deafening peals from steeples had meant less
to me than that one single note breaking the silence--in there. In
there, in the dark, the bell that had answered me was still quivering,
I supposed, on its wire. But there was no one to answer it, no
footstep to come hither from those recesses, making prints in the
dust. Well, I could answer it; and again my hand closed on the knob,
unhesitatingly this time, pulling further. That was my answer; and the
rejoinder to it was more than I had thought to hear--a whole quick
sequence of notes, faint but clear, playful, yet poignantly sad, like
a trill of laughter echoing out of the past, or even merely out of
this neighbouring darkness. It was so like something I had known, so
recognisable and, oh, recognising, that I was lost in wonder. And long
must I have remained standing at that door, for I heard the sound
often, often. I must have rung again and again, tenaciously,
vehemently, in my folly.
ON SPEAKING FRENCH
1919.
Wherever two Englishmen are speaking French to a Frenchman you may
safely diagnose in the breast of one of the two humiliation, envy,
ill-will, impotent rage, and a dull yearning for vengeance; and you
can take it that the degree of these emotions is in exact ratio to the
superiority of the other man's performance.
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