1 Empty, empty, empty; silent, silent, silent.
2 At this early hour of a June morning the library was empty.
3 The stage was empty; the actors were still dressing up among the bushes.
4 "They come every year," said Mrs. Swithin, ignoring the fact that she spoke to the empty air.
5 The cows annihilated the gap; bridged the distance; filled the emptiness and continued the emotion.
6 She flushed, as if she had spoken in an empty room and someone had stepped out from behind a curtain.
7 Yet the stage was empty; only the cows moved in the meadows; only the tick of the gramophone needle was heard.
8 There they sat, facing the empty stage, the cows, the meadows and the view, while the machine ticked in the bushes.
9 For the stage was empty; the emotion must be continued; the only thing to continue the emotion was the song; and the words were inaudible.
10 The room was a shell, singing of what was before time was; a vase stood in the heart of the house, alabaster, smooth, cold, holding the still, distilled essence of emptiness, silence.
11 The Barn, the Noble Barn, the barn that had been built over seven hundred years ago and reminded some people of a Greek temple, others of the middle ages, most people of an age before their own, scarcely anybody of the present moment, was empty.