Page:Adams - A Child of the Age.djvu/88

76 door. I saw it, but did not move. Then I leant against the nearer hard, cemented gate-post in that dreary rain of half-darkness, and my body seemed all bloodless. A girl, with her dress huddled up all round her, showing dainty white petticoats and dark-coloured stockings, and with a nice umbrella spread over her, came hurrying up to me. I looked at her slowly. She gave me a quick glance, and hurried more. A devil rose in me. I made a short half-step after her. I would seize her: tear that thing from her hand: rip and rend her laced clothes: rip and rend them off her, till she stood tattered, naked, there in the rain of the half-darkness with me! And all I would desire more, would be to take mud and bespatter and befoul her, and then turn and go on my way with wild laughter. The thoughts were lightning swift. I gave a cry of fierce-suppressed delight: stepped: and halted. Was I mad?—I turned, and went back, and on.

When I got home I set upon a poem by the light of a new dip. If I had had to die for it, alone and in the early grey morning, I could not have kept out my mysticism now I must speak to some one now! it could not always be silence! I had need to speak to some one. I thought my heart was breaking. And I could not fall asleep till I had told my death-tale.

But I was too weary to finish it. I gave it up at last. I was in an evil plight, I knew: burning and shivering and with an empty stomach. I undressed slowly, as usual, in the dark, save for the light that came from the gas-lamp in the street through the far-window. As I got into bed I determined that the next day I would seek some work, even manual; for I did not, after all, care to die till I had heard about my poems (it was ridiculous! I smiled, but in a strange, sad way), and I should have to pay four shillings at the end of the week, rent, and I had only three left for food. 'Wherefore, work must be done if money is to be earned: work, even manual, and why not?' At last I fell asleep.

But in the morning I lay in a half-dreamy, half-exhausted state of heat, from which I had not will enough for long to rouse myself. This grew into a