Part 4 (2/2)

To the mortuary

Yesbut where else?

Perhaps there is nothing better than the ecstasy and unappeasement of life?

II

INSIDE THE GLass DOORS

My feet ache, ache, ache!

End of the first day

Life in a ward is all scurry and rush I don't reflect; I's

I shall never get to understand Sisters; they are so strange, so tricky, uncertain as collies Deep down they have an ineradicable axioh-boned collar, in a spotted veil tied up at the sides, any one hom one shakes hands or takes tea, ispatient (except, of course, a warded MO)

For this reason the ”mouths” of the pillow-cases are all turned to face up the ward, away from the door

I think plants in a ward are a barbarised on the table by the door, it is again obvious that they are intended only to minister to the eye of the visitor, that race of Gods

In our ward there are eighteen fern-pots, some in copper, so basket of ferns All of these have to be taken out on the landing at night and in again in the , and they have to be soaked under the tap

The Sisters' minds are as yet too difficult for me, but in the minds of the VAD's I see certain salient features I see alreadyto be alike I know and reh all -school; but there it was naturally corrected by the changes of growth and the inexpertness of youth Here I see for the first ti with all the concentration of their fuller years to be as like one another as it is possible to be

There is a certain dreadful innocence about theh each would protest, ”In spite of our tasks, our often immodest tasks, our minds are white as snow”

And, as far as I can see, their conception of a white female mind is the silliest,kind of an ideal that a human creature could set before it

At present I am so humble that I am content to do all the labour and take none of the temperatures, but I can see very well that it is when I reach a higher plane that all the trouble will begin

The ranklings, the heart-burnings, the gross injustices Who is to make the only poultice? Who is to paint the very septic throat of Mr

Mullins, Aro round with the MO should the Sister be off for a half-day?

These and other questions will foruish of o up to London and dine and stay the night with Madeleine after the hospital