It is a change of status that quite legitimately interests
the whole neighbourhood. But in London there are no neighbours, nobody
knows, nobody cares. An absolute stranger in an office took my notice,
and our banns were proclaimed to ears that had never previously heard
our names. The clergyman, even, who married us had never seen us before,
and didn't in any degree intimate that he wanted to see us again.
Neighbours in London! The Ramboats did not know the names of the people
on either side of them. As I waited for Marion before we started off
upon our honeymoon flight, Mr. Ramboat, I remember, came and stood
beside me and stared out of the window.
"There was a funeral over there yesterday," he said, by way of making
conversation, and moved his head at the house opposite. "Quite a smart
affair it was with a glass 'earse...."
And our little procession of three carriages with white-favour-adorned
horses and drivers, went through all the huge, noisy, indifferent
traffic like a lost china image in the coal-chute of an ironclad. Nobody
made way for us, nobody cared for us; the driver of an omnibus jeered;
for a long time we crawled behind an unamiable dust-cart.
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