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 loathsome voice, and more stricken with the bitter, reactionary pain which has no surcease until, at last, I struck bottom. I discovered that my mistress, my affianced bride, was unfaithful to me, unfaithful in a manner with which, through a curious chain of circumstances, I became fully cognizant. At first, I planned to kill her. For days, indeed, I was mad, completely, totally insane. Quite suddenly, my brain, or my body—can one ever be sure which it is?—experienced an unexpected but salutary revulsion. I would, I determined, kill this thing in me, instead, and be free again. At that instant my drooping spirits began to revive.

There were, however, other dangers to guard against. There was the possibility that I might fall into step with the automatic puppets, become one of the squirrels in the treadmill, or one of the restless panthers behind the bars. In whichever direction I turned life seemed to be hopelessly dominated by these conditions: stupid, ovine existence, complicated, and often rendered ridiculous, by the arduous rigours of sex. The married were not free from it, less free from it, indeed, than the unmarried. With married couples I noted a constant suggestion of straining on the leash, a desire to break away into forbidden fields. Some, of course, did break away to console themselves with libidinous debauchery, which they tried to construe as comfort or happiness. In any event, the strain