Yet when in daylight the House suddenly adjourns, the effect
is even more morose. The atmosphere of a theatre after a matinee (with all those coffee-cups around) is sadder even than the picture of charwomen enclosing stalls in dust- sheets after an evening performance. The lighting with which Sir Philip Sassoon has so skilfully enlivened the in- tricate austerities of Barry and of Pugin, is suddenly dim- med. " Un jour blafard," as the French say, flings its sad light across the darkened corridor. The only other illumina- tion is the glow-worm lamp which shines above the tape machine. This gallant little instrument was thrumming and ticking in busy solitude as I passed. I glanced at it and observed the words " add Hitler." So the speech was coming through. I groped my way towards the dim lobby, conscious that some forgotten verses were circling in my memory, I disentangled them. They emerged as certain lines from "/n Memoriam ": " And in the dusk of thee the clock Beats out the little lives of men."
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