Page 47 - of-human-bondage-

the drawing-room. He loosened his collar, arranged the
cushions, and settled himself comfortably on the sofa.
But thinking the drawing-room a little chilly, Mrs. Carey
brought him a rug from the hall; she put it over his legs and
tucked it round his feet. She drew the blinds so that the light
should not offend his eyes, and since he had closed them
already went out of the room on tiptoe. The Vicar was at
peace with himself today, and in ten minutes he was asleep.
He snored softly.
It was the Sixth Sunday after Epiphany, and the collect
began with the words: O God, whose blessed Son was man-
ifested that he might destroy the works of the devil, and
make us the sons of God, and heirs of Eternal life. Philip
read it through. He could make no sense of it. He began
saying the words aloud to himself, but many of them were
unknown to him, and the construction of the sentence was
strange. He could not get more than two lines in his head.
And his attention was constantly wandering: there were
fruit trees trained on the walls of the vicarage, and a long
twig beat now and then against the windowpane; sheep
grazed stolidly in the field beyond the garden. It seemed as
though there were knots inside his brain. Then panic seized
him that he would not know the words by tea-time, and he
kept on whispering them to himself quickly; he did not try
to understand, but merely to get them parrot-like into his
memory.
Mrs. Carey could not sleep that afternoon, and by four
o’clock she was so wide awake that she came downstairs. She
thought she would hear Philip his collect so that he should

Of Human Bondage