The Island by Richard Whiteing — Read

I was produced on Sunday before the whole settlement; more strictly speaking, they produced themselves before me. The villagers were in the village, for the first time, at my hour of rising. There was an absolute cessation from labour, but there was hardly rest. They were in a flutter of joyous excitement, and ran from cottage to cottage, as though they were spreading good news. Yet there was no news, for who could need telling that it was Sunday, and that the sky was blue? For that matter, they needed no excuse to make free of each other's houses. Property in their own roofs seemed the merest accident among them. One man's arm-chair was another man's arm-chair. They walked in and out, by the open doors -- often into unguarded dwellings, when the owners were on a visit elsewhere -- read the books, smelt the flowers, touched the harmonium, if they could, or cared, and came away. When you sought a man, you went into the nearest cottage; you never thought of going first to his own, unless it lay in your path. There was more of this curious house to house visiting to-day, because there was more time for it, and because there was a greater intensity of childlike happiness in movement and communion -- that was all.

There seemed to be much borrowing and lending of the Sabbath finery of cleanliness. If you had no better coat for the day, why, your neighbour might have one to spare, and you asked him for it. Victoria lent two loose gowns, a kind of _robe de chambre_ worn on state occasions over the scanty costume of the women. At the same time, she went into a neighbour's garden, and helped herself freely to flowers for her hair, our own stock having suffered from the movements of some four-footed intruder during the night. If Proudhon had lived here, he would have written ‘property is vanity,' the innermost truth. Victoria was very smart -- a new ribbon for the navy button, beside the blossoms inwoven with her shining locks.