He did not pray, but merely sought rest from
sensation. Across his half-hypnotized consciousness little threads
of burning fancy kept shooting. Then he could feel nothing but utter
physical sickness, and against this his will revolted. He resolved that
he would not be ill, a ridiculous log for women to hang over. But the
moments of sickness grew longer and more frequent; and to drive them
away he rose from his knees, and for some time again walked up and down;
then, seized with vertigo, he was obliged to sit on the bed to save
himself from falling. From being burning hot he had become deadly cold,
glad to cover himself with the bedclothes. The heat soon flamed up
in him again; but with a sick man's instinct he did not throw off the
clothes, and stayed quite still. The room seemed to have turned to a
thick white substance like a cloud, in which he lay enwrapped, unable to
move hand or foot. His sense of smell and hearing had become unnaturally
acute; he smelled the distant streets, flowers, dust, and the leather of
his books, even the scent left by Barbara's clothes, and a curious odour
of river mud. A clock struck six, he counted each stroke; and instantly
the whole world seemed full of striking clocks, the sound of horses'
hoofs, bicycle bells, people's footfalls. His sense of vision, on the
contrary, was absorbed in consciousness of this white blanket of cloud
wherein he was lifted above the earth, in the midst of a dull incessant
hammering.
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