Word: dunnock
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Dates: during 1927-1927
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...resolution, keeps her procrastinating over escape until her father's mania for feeding birds is quite pronounced, until she has a friend and perhaps lover in the grocer's son, until one more village Easter passes and the first nightingale has sung. Then go she does, Anne Dunnock of Dry Coulter, to equivocal Paris where the grocer's son, an artist, turns out to be no lover at all but her means of meeting one, whom she marries and by whom all her perplexed misgivings about being lost in life are removed. There is nothing probable...
Part of the overtone is homeliness: there is a prose poem on turning mattresses and tucking fresh sheets in an old house. Part is swiftness and grace: Mr. Dunnock, before his birds become his angels, skates on the fens like a big bird himself. Part is earthiness: angry yokels plow a furrow across the vicarage lawn, plow up the doorstep, with three chestnut horses steaming and gleaming on a snowy morning. Part is uneasy: a weathercock whines; people tell their dreams; once Mr. Dunnock stuffs his beard quickly into his mouth...