Page 153 - women-in-love

He climbed out of the valley, wondering if he were mad.
But if so, he preferred his own madness, to the regular san-
ity. He rejoiced in his own madness, he was free. He did not
want that old sanity of the world, which was become so re-
pulsive. He rejoiced in the new-found world of his madness.
It was so fresh and delicate and so satisfying.
As for the certain grief he felt at the same time, in his
soul, that was only the remains of an old ethic, that bade a
human being adhere to humanity. But he was weary of the
old ethic, of the human being, and of humanity. He loved
now the soft, delicate vegetation, that was so cool and per-
fect. He would overlook the old grief, he would put away the
old ethic, he would be free in his new state.
He was aware of the pain in his head becoming more and
more difficult every minute. He was walking now along the
road to the nearest station. It was raining and he had no hat.
But then plenty of cranks went out nowadays without hats,
in the rain.
He wondered again how much of his heaviness of heart, a
certain depression, was due to fear, fear lest anybody should
have seen him naked lying against the vegetation. What
a dread he had of mankind, of other people! It amounted
almost to horror, to a sort of dream terror—his horror of
being observed by some other people. If he were on an is-
land, like Alexander Selkirk, with only the creatures and
the trees, he would be free and glad, there would be none of
this heaviness, this misgiving. He could love the vegetation
and be quite happy and unquestioned, by himself.
He had better send a note to Hermione: she might trou-

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