'I
really don't think I did anything else that was very bad all day,'
he said to himself. But at the same time he could not honestly
feel that he was worth standing up for. All at once a light seemed
to break in upon his mind, and he woke up and there was the
withered little atomy of the old lady on the other side of the
moonlight, and there was the spinning wheel singing on and on in
the middle of it!
'I know now, ma'am; I understand now,' he said. 'Thank you, ma'am,
for spinning it into me with your wheel. I see now that I have
been doing wrong the whole day, and such a many days besides!
Indeed, I don't know when I ever did right, and yet it seems as if
I had done right some time and had forgotten how. When I killed
your bird I did not know I was doing wrong, just because I was
always doing wrong, and the wrong had soaked all through me.'
'What wrong were you doing all day, Curdie? It is better to come
to the point, you know,' said the old lady, and her voice was
gentler even than before.
'I was doing the wrong of never wanting or trying to be better.
And now I see that I have been letting things go as they would for
a long time. Whatever came into my head I did, and whatever didn't
come into my head I didn't do. I never sent anything away, and
never looked out for anything to come. I haven't been attending to
my mother - or my father either.
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