long wounds coming in rows, hundreds of wounds, wet and shining."

"What makes you think of wounds?"

"I don't know. I see it like that. Cutting through."

"I don't see it like that one bit. The earth's so kind, so beautiful. And
the hills--look at them, the clean, quiet backs, smoothed with light. You
could stroke them. And the fields, those lovely coloured fans opening and
shutting."

"They're lovely because of what's been done to them. If those hills had
been left to themselves there'd have been nothing on them but trees.
Think of the big fight with the trees, the hacking through, the cutting.
The trunks staggering and falling. You'd begin with a little hole in the
forest like that gap in the belt on the sky-line, and you'd go on hacking
and cutting. You'd go on.... If you didn't those damned trees would come
up round you and jam you between their trunks and crush you to red
pulp.... Supposing this belt of beeches drew in and got tighter and
tighter--No. There's nothing really kind and beautiful on this earth.
Except your face. And even your face--"

"My face?--"

"_Could_ be cruel. But it never will be. Something's happened to it. Some
cruelty. Some damnable cruelty."

"What makes you think so?"

"Every kind and beautiful thing on earth, Jeanne, has been made so by