The Green Knight Read Online Free PDF

imagine being married or – or sex – we’re all right now, we haven’t fallen into all those traps, I want to stay as I am now, not be in all that mess , you know what I mean.’
    They knew. Aleph said, ‘Innocence can’t go on and on.’
    â€˜Yes it can, if you just don’t do things .’
    Sefton said, ‘Being human, we are already sinners, we aren’t innocent, no one is because of the Fall, because of Original Sin.’
    â€˜The Fall is ahead,’ said Moy, ‘and I am afraid of it. How can evil and badness begin in a life, how can it happen ?’
    â€˜Sefton is right,’ said Aleph. ‘We are all sinners. Surely you yourself have occasionally done what you ought not to have done and left undone what you ought to have done?’
    â€˜Well, yes,’ said Moy. The others laughed. Moy went on, ‘But our lives are not in a muddle,’ we don’t tell lies, we all love each other, we don’t harm each other, we don’t harm anyone.’
    â€˜We can’t abstain from doing things!’ said Sefton. ‘Besides, how do we know whom we harm?’
    â€˜Don’t you want to fall in love?’ said Aleph.
    â€˜I don’t want men and sex and all that roughness and disorder.’
    â€˜Life is roughness and disorder,’ said Sefton.
    â€˜I can’t see how anything can ever happen to us – I mean, I feel as if, if we leave this place, we shall crumble to pieces.’
    â€˜I sometimes feel that too,’ said Aleph, ‘but it’s nonsense!’
    Sefton said, ‘You know, I can understand why people of our age commit suicide.’
    â€˜Sefton! Well, why?’
    â€˜Like what we’ve been saying, it’s the future, it’s so near and so secret and so different and so awful and so unavoidable and so crammed .’
    â€˜The calm before the storm,’ said Aleph. ‘It is true that there is a barrier between us and the world like a wall of rays.’
    â€˜You are romantic,’ said Sefton. ‘You like to think about what Moy’s so afraid of.’
    â€˜No, I’m afraid of it too,’ said Aleph. ‘But perhaps I am romantic, I want romance!’
    â€˜Aleph, you are joking!’ said Sefton.
    â€˜As for this stuff about being innocent and harmless and pure in heart, we are really just lucky and sheltered and naive. We are awfully nice to people, but we don’t go out into the violence and the chaos and help people, like – ’
    â€˜Like Tessa does!’
    â€˜Well, I wasn’t thinking of her, she does of course. I wonder if it’s harder to be good in this age?’
    â€˜I want us to stay together forever,’ said Moy.
    â€˜As old maids?’ said Aleph.
    â€˜Perhaps we could make our beastly husbands live near each other,’ said Sefton.
    â€˜We won’t have beastly husbands,’ said Moy, ‘anyway I won’t. I’d rather become a nun.’
    â€˜Like Bellamy.’
    â€˜It’s said unlucky love should last, when answered passions thin to air.’
    â€˜Who said that, Aleph?’ said Sefton.
    â€˜A poet. I suppose there’s a moral there. Shall we sing again? What about the “Silver Swan”?’
    â€˜I’m retiring,’ said Sefton, jumping up. Aleph had gone to the window and was peering through the curtain. ‘I think the rain has stopped. Oh – ’
    â€˜What?’
    â€˜That man is there again.’
    The other two joined her. A man was standing on the other side of the road under a tree.
    â€˜What’s he doing?’ said Moy. ‘He seems to be looking at our house.’
    â€˜He may be waiting for somebody,’ said Aleph. ‘He’s nothing to do with us.’
    â€˜Close the curtain!’ said Moy. ‘He’ll see us!’
    Sefton had already disappeared down the stairs and into her room.
    In her bedroom above, Louise, moving the