A diary without dates.

  • Bagnold, Enid.
Date:
[1918]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A diary without dates. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by University of California Libraries where the originals may be consulted.

    131/168 (page 115)
    i have said before that the long corridor is wonderful. In the winter afternoons and evenings, when the mist rolled up and down over the tiles like the smoke in a tunnel, when one walked almost in darkness and peered into the then forbidden wards, when dwarfs coming from the G block grew larger and larger till the A block turned them into beings of one's own size, the corridor always made a special impression on me. But in the summer mornings it is remark- able too. Then regiments of charwomen occupy it, working in close mass formation. Seven will work abreast upon their knees, flanked by their pails, their hands moving backwards and forwards in so complicated a system that there appears to be no system at all. Patches of the corridor are thick with soapsuds; patches are dry. The art of walking the corridor in the morning can be learnt, and for a year and five months I have done it with no more than a slip and a slide. But yesterday I stepped on a charwoman's hand. It was worse than stepping on a puppy : one knows that sickening lift of the heart, as though the will could undo the weight of the foot. . . .