Then she asked herself, which view is the true one? She could see the bucket and the house half lit up, half unlit.
She asked this question of that somebody whom, in her humble way, she had composed out of the wisdom and power of other people. The answer came often by accident-she had known her old spaniel answer by wagging his tail.
Now the tree, denuded of its gilt and majesty, seemed to supply her with an answer; became a field tree-the only one in a marsh. She had often seen it; seen the red-flushed clouds between its branches, or the moon split up, darting irregular flashes of silver. But what answer? Well that the soul-for she was conscious of a movement in her of some creature beating its way about her and trying to escape which momentarily she called the soul-is by nature unmated, a widow bird; a bird perched aloof on that tree.
But then Bertram, putting his arm through hers in his familiar way, for he had known her all her life, remarked that they were not doing their duty and must go in.
At that moment, in some back street or public house, the usual terrible sexless, inarticulate voice rang out; a shriek, a cry. And the widow bird, startled, flew away, describing wider and wider circles until it became (what she called her soul) remote as a crow which has been startled up into the air by a stone thrown at it.
1944