Page 341 - women-in-love

And once or twice lately, when he was alone in the evening
and had nothing to do, he had suddenly stood up in ter-
ror, not knowing what he was. And he went to the mirror
and looked long and closely at his own face, at his own eyes,
seeking for something. He was afraid, in mortal dry fear,
but he knew not what of. He looked at his own face. There
it was, shapely and healthy and the same as ever, yet some-
how, it was not real, it was a mask. He dared not touch it,
for fear it should prove to be only a composition mask. His
eyes were blue and keen as ever, and as firm in their sock-
ets. Yet he was not sure that they were not blue false bubbles
that would burst in a moment and leave clear annihilation.
He could see the darkness in them, as if they were only bub-
bles of darkness. He was afraid that one day he would break
down and be a purely meaningless babble lapping round a
darkness.
But his will yet held good, he was able to go away and
read, and think about things. He liked to read books about
the primitive man, books of anthropology, and also works
of speculative philosophy. His mind was very active. But it
was like a bubble floating in the darkness. At any moment
it might burst and leave him in chaos. He would not die. He
knew that. He would go on living, but the meaning would
have collapsed out of him, his divine reason would be gone.
In a strangely indifferent, sterile way, he was frightened. But
he could not react even to the fear. It was as if his centres of
feeling were drying up. He remained calm, calculative and
healthy, and quite freely deliberate, even whilst he felt, with
faint, small but final sterile horror, that his mystic reason

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