Page 696 - women-in-love

Then he looked up and realised that he was going to bed.
He was cold. Soon he was lying down in the dark.
But what he could not bear was the darkness. The sol-
id darkness confronting him drove him mad. So he rose,
and made a light. He remained seated for a while, staring
in front. He did not think of Gudrun, he did not think of
anything.
Then suddenly he went downstairs for a book. He had all
his life been in terror of the nights that should come, when
he could not sleep. He knew that this would be too much for
him, to have to face nights of sleeplessness and of horrified
watching the hours.
So he sat for hours in bed, like a statue, reading. His mind,
hard and acute, read on rapidly, his body understood noth-
ing. In a state of rigid unconsciousness, he read on through
the night, till morning, when, weary and disgusted in spirit,
disgusted most of all with himself, he slept for two hours.
Then he got up, hard and full of energy. Gudrun scarcely
spoke to him, except at coffee when she said:
‘I shall be leaving tomorrow.’
‘We will go together as far as Innsbruck, for appearance’s
sake?’ he asked.
‘Perhaps,’ she said.
She said ‘Perhaps’ between the sips of her coffee. And the
sound of her taking her breath in the word, was nauseous to
him. He rose quickly to be away from her.
He went and made arrangements for the departure on
the morrow. Then, taking some food, he set out for the day
on the skis. Perhaps, he said to the Wirt, he would go up to

696 Women in Love