Chapter: THE MATERNITY RECEIVING HOME BRENT HOUSE, HACKNEY

This Home serves a somewhat similar purpose as that at Lorne House,
but the young women taken in here while awaiting their confinement are
not, as a rule, of so high a class.

In the garden at the back of the house about forty girls were seated
in a kind of shelter which protected them from the rain, some of them
working and some talking together, while others remained apart
depressed and silent. Most of these young women were shortly expecting
to become mothers. Certain of them, however, already had their
infants, as there were seventeen babies in the Home who had been
crowded out of the Central Maternity Hospital. Among these were some
very sad cases, several of them being girls of gentle birth, taken in
here because they could pay nothing. One, I remember, was a foreign
young lady, whose sad history I will not relate. She was found running
about the streets of a seaport town in a half-crazed condition and
brought to this place by the Officers of the Salvation Army.

In this house there is a room where ex-patients who are in service can
bring their infants upon their holidays. Two or three of these women
were here upon the occasion of my visit, and it was a pathetic sight
to see them dandling the babies from whom they had been separated and
giving them their food.

It is the custom in this and other Salvation Army Maternity Homes to
set apart a night in every month for what is called a Social Evening.
On these occasions fifty or more of the former inmates will arrive
with their children, whom they have brought from the various places
where they are at nurse, and for a few hours enjoy their society,
after which they take them back to the nurses and return to their
work, whatever it may be. By means of this kindly arrangement these
poor mothers are enabled from time to time to see something of their
offspring, which, needless to say, is a boon they greatly prize.

 Rivers returns to Craiglockhart and tells Bryce of his decision to take the job in London. He sits down to work, but for once he does not feel burdened by it. Although he looks forward to spending time with other anthropologists in London, he realizes the work he has done in Craiglockhart has been important to him; it is a part of him. Sassoon comes to Rivers's office for his appointment. Sassoon asks for a room change; he cannot bear his new roommate, who believes that everything is done by the grace of God. Sassoon is annoyed by what he perceives to be his roommate's complete disassociation with reality. Sassoon tells Rivers of some of the hallucinations he has had. They have not been frightening, but Sassoon considers them irrational. He sees his dead friends coming to knock on his door. They are puzzled by Sassoon's presence in the hospital when there appears to be nothing wrong with him. Sassoon is troubled by these hallucinations, and he gives Rivers a poem that he wrote about them. Sassoon feels guilty for abandoning his men. Finally, he tells Rivers of his decision to go back to the front. Rivers admits that he is pleased by Sassoon's decision.

