Then suddenly some young man with
gaunt violence in his face would pass, pushing his barrow desperately,
striding fiercely by. And every now and then, from a fried-fish or
hardware shop, would come out a man in a dirty apron to take the sun and
contemplate the scene, not finding in it, seemingly, anything that in
any way depressed his spirit. Amongst the constant, crawling, shifting
stream of passengers were seen women carrying food wrapped up in
newspaper, or with bundles beneath their shawls. The faces of these
women were generally either very red and coarse or of a sort of
bluish-white; they wore the expression of such as know themselves to be
existing in the way that Providence has arranged they should exist. No
surprise, revolt, dismay, or shame was ever to be seen on those faces;
in place of these emotions a drab and brutish acquiescence or mechanical
coarse jocularity. To pass like this about their business was their
occupation each morning of the year; it was needful to accept it. Not
having any hope of ever, being different, not being able to imagine any
other life, they were not so wasteful of their strength as to attempt
either to hope or to imagine. Here and there, too, very slowly passed
old men and women, crawling along, like winter bees who, in some strange
and evil moment, had forgotten to die in the sunlight of their toil,
and, too old to be of use, had been chivied forth from their hive to
perish slowly in the cold twilight of their days.
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