Page 466 - of-human-bondage-

help himself at all. He might have been dead. He felt just that
same weakness now. He loved the woman so that he knew
he had never loved before. He did not mind her faults of
person or of character, he thought he loved them too: at all
events they meant nothing to him. It did not seem himself
that was concerned; he felt that he had been seized by some
strange force that moved him against his will, contrary to
his interests; and because he had a passion for freedom he
hated the chains which bound him. He laughed at himself
when he thought how often he had longed to experience the
overwhelming passion. He cursed himself because he had
given way to it. He thought of the beginnings; nothing of all
this would have happened if he had not gone into the shop
with Dunsford. The whole thing was his own fault. Except
for his ridiculous vanity he would never have troubled him-
self with the ill-mannered slut.
At all events the occurrences of that evening had finished
the whole affair. Unless he was lost to all sense of shame he
could not go back. He wanted passionately to get rid of the
love that obsessed him; it was degrading and hateful. He
must prevent himself from thinking of her. In a little while
the anguish he suffered must grow less. His mind went back
to the past. He wondered whether Emily Wilkinson and
Fanny Price had endured on his account anything like the
torment that he suffered now. He felt a pang of remorse.
‘I didn’t know then what it was like,’ he said to himself.
He slept very badly. The next day was Sunday, and he
worked at his biology. He sat with the book in front of him,
forming the words with his lips in order to fix his attention,