Page 501 - women-in-love

fred hated everything, and hid in the studio, and cried her
heart out, and wished Gudrun would come.
Luckily everybody was going away. The Criches never
stayed long at home. By dinner-time, Gerald was left quite
alone. Even Winifred was carried off to London, for a few
days with her sister Laura.
But when Gerald was really left alone, he could not bear
it. One day passed by, and another. And all the time he
was like a man hung in chains over the edge of an abyss.
Struggle as he might, he could not turn himself to the solid
earth, he could not get footing. He was suspended on the
edge of a void, writhing. Whatever he thought of, was the
abyss—whether it were friends or strangers, or work or play,
it all showed him only the same bottomless void, in which
his heart swung perishing. There was no escape, there was
nothing to grasp hold of. He must writhe on the edge of the
chasm, suspended in chains of invisible physical life.
At first he was quiet, he kept still, expecting the extrem-
ity to pass away, expecting to find himself released into the
world of the living, after this extremity of penance. But it
did not pass, and a crisis gained upon him.
As the evening of the third day came on, his heart rang
with fear. He could not bear another night. Another night
was coming on, for another night he was to be suspended
in chain of physical life, over the bottomless pit of nothing-
ness. And he could not bear it. He could not bear it. He was
frightened deeply, and coldly, frightened in his soul. He did
not believe in his own strength any more. He could not fall
into this infinite void, and rise again. If he fell, he would be

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