Page:The Garden Party (Mansfield).djvu/60

At the Bay will—kicking, even—once the door was locked, or at any rate in five years or so, I might have accepted the fact and begun to take an interest in the flight of flies or counting the warder’s steps along the passage with particular attention to variations of tread and so on. But as it is, I’m like an insect that’s flown into a room of its own accord. I dash against the walls, dash against the windows, flop against the ceiling, do everything on God’s earth, in fact, except fly out again. And all the while I’m thinking, like that moth, or that butterfly, or whatever it is,‘The shortness of life! The shortness of life!’ I’ve only one night or one day, and there’s this vast dangerous garden, waiting out there, undiscovered, unexplored.”

“But, if you feel like that, why—” began Linda quickly.

“Ah!” cried Jonathan. And that “Ah!” was somehow almost exultant. “There you have me. Why? Why indeed? There’s the maddening, mysterious question. Why don’t I fly out again? There’s the window or the door or whatever it was I came in by. It’s not hopelessly shut—is it? Why don’t I find it and be off? Answer me that, little sister.” But he gave her no time to answer.

“I’m exactly like that insect again. For some reason”—Jonathan paused between the words—“it’s not allowed, it’s forbidden, it’s against the insect law, to stop banging and 56