The sun was rising. Very slowly it came up over the horizon shaking out light. But the sky was so vast, so cloudless, that to fill it with light took time. Very gradually the clouds turned blue; leaves on forest trees sparkled; down below a flower shone; eyes of beasts — tigers, monkeys, birds — sparkled. Slowly the world emerged from darkness. The sea became like the skin of an innumerable scaled fish, glittering gold. Here in the South of France the furrowed² vineyards caught the light; the little vines turned purple and yellow; and the sun coming through the slats of the blinds striped the white walls. Maggie, standing³ at the window, looked down on the courtyard, and saw her husband’s book cracked across with shadow from the vine above; and the glass that stood beside him glowed yellow. Cries of peasants working came through the open window.

The sun, crossing the Channel, beat vainly on the blanket of thick sea mist. Light slowly permeated⁶ the haze⁷ over London; struck on the statues in Parliament Square, and on the Palace where the flag flew though the King, borne under a white and blue union Jack⁸, lay in the caverns⁹ at Frogmore. It was hotter than ever. Horses’ noses hissed¹⁰ as they drank from the troughs; their hoofs¹¹ made ridges¹² hard and brittle¹³ as plaster on the country roads. Fires tearing over the moors¹⁴ left

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