When the order and calm of night had descended upon the turbulence of Jalna, the old house seemed to settle under its roof with an air of snuggling, as an old man under his nightcap. It seemed to hunch itself against the darkness and draw inward. It appeared to tie the strings of its nightcap under its chin, the jutting porch, and mutter: "Now for dreams." Like nightclothes it wrapped the outside darkness around it, and pressed its bulk against the earth. And, as one more dream added to its weighty store, the thoughts and movements of those inside its walls flitted shadowlike in room after room.
Finch's room was under the sloping roof of the attic. Its one window was closed against the dripping leaves of the Virginia creeper which clung to that side of the house. Up here there was always a faint smell of damp plaster, and the dreamy mustiness of old books. The roof needed mending, and the old books—which were mostly discarded farm journals, dog-eared manuals on horse breeding and showing, and thick catalogues of equine events—needed throwing away, but there was no haste at Jalna, no too urgent attempt to arrest natural decay. When the roof should leak sufficiently to form a puddle on the floor, when the cupboards should no longer be capable of containing more trash, then, and then only, repair and clearing out would begin.
Finch, seated under an oil lamp, shaded by a green paper shade on which were pictured the heavily smiling faces of two German girls, was writing in his diary. He wrote:
"All but missed train. Rotten day at school. Must swat for math exam. Had interesting talk with Leigh in spare hour. Horse show. Renny simply great. Best in
