IV.

Passion Week. It gave you an awful feeling of something going to happen.

In the long narrow dining-room the sunlight through the three windows
made a strange and solemn blue colour in the dark curtains. Mamma sat up
at the mahogany table, looking sad and serious, with the Prayer Book open
before her at the Litany. When you went in you knew that you would have
to read about the Crucifixion. Nothing could save you.

Still you did find out things about God. In the Epistle it said:
"'Wherefore art thou red in thine apparel and thy garments like him that
treadeth the wine-fat? I have trodden the wine-press alone, and of the
people there was none with me: for I will tread them in my anger, and
trample them in my fury, and their blood shall be sprinkled upon my
garments, and I will stain all my raiment.'"

The Passion meant that God had flown into another temper and that Jesus
was crucified to make him good again. Mark said you mustn't say that to
Mamma; but he owned that it looked like it. Anyhow it was easier to think
of it that way than to think that God sent Jesus down to be crucified
because you were naughty.

There were no verses in the Prayer-Book Bible, only long grey slabs like
tombstones. You kept on looking for the last tombstone. When you came to
the one with the big black letters, THE KING OF THE JEWS, you knew that
it would soon be over.