REVOLVING LIGHTS
THE WORK OF
DOROTHY M. RICHARDSON
“In the ordinary novel, the noveliststands on the banks of the river of lifechronicling how and when people arise,and how it is that things happen to them.But Miriam (the central figure of DorothyRichardson’s work) pulls us with her intothe yielding water.”—Nation.
“The style grows upon one with familiarity;it is continually illumined bypassages of brilliant insight, and its half-subconsciousrevelation of personality iswonderfully attractive.”—Daily Telegraph.
POINTED ROOFS
BACKWATER
HONEYCOMB
THE TUNNEL
INTERIM
DEADLOCK
REVOLVING LIGHTS
DUCKWORTH & CO.
3 HENRIETTA STREET, LONDON, W.C.
REVOLVING LIGHTS
BY
DOROTHY M. RICHARDSON
LONDON: DUCKWORTH & CO.
3 HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN
First published in 1923.
All rights reserved.
Printed in Great Britain by Butler & Tanner, Frome and London
To
F. E. W.
The building of the large hall had beenbrought about by people who gave nothought to the wonder of moving from one spaceto another and up and down stairs. Yet thiswonder was more to them than all the things onwhich their thoughts were fixed. If they wouldtake time to realise it. No one takes time.No one knows it.... But I know it....These seconds of knowing, of being told, afresh,by things speaking silently, make up for thepain of failing to find out what I ought to bedoing....
Away behind, in the flatly echoing hall, wasthe busy planning world of socialism, intent onthe poor. Far away in to-morrow, stood theestablished, unchanging world of Wimpole Street,linked helpfully to the lives of the prosperousclasses. Just ahead, at the end of the walkhome, the small isolated Tansley Street world,full of secretive people drifting about on the edgeof catastrophe, that would leave, when it engulfedthem, no ripple on the surface of the tideof London life. In the space between thesesurrounding worlds was the everlasting solitude;ringing as she moved to cross the landing, withvoices demanding an explanation of her presencein any one of them.
“Now that,” she quoted, to counter the foremostattack, “is a man who can be trusted tosay what he thinks.”
That cloaked her before the clamorous silence.She was an observant intelligent woman; approved.He would never imagine that thehurriedly borrowed words meant, to her, nothingbut a shadow of doubt cast across the earnest littlesocialist. But they carried her across the landing.And here, at the hea