Page:Following darkness (IA followingdarknes00reid).pdf/59



home in a state of profound depression. I had made a hopeless fool of myself; probably they were talking about it now. These thoughts were rendered no brighter by being mingled with anticipations of what I was returning to. Above all else in the world, perhaps, I hated, and almost feared, that atmosphere of dullness and joylessness, which hung like a mist over our house. It exasperated me, it seemed to sap my vitality, and with all the strength of my nature I tried to resist it. It was as if the narrowness and dinginess, the gray, colourless, melancholy monotony of my father's existence, had a hateful power of penetrating into my brain, like the fumes of a drug, clouding my mind, subduing it to a kind of cold lethargy: there were times when I had a feeling that I was struggling for life.

My father was in the parlour when I came in. He glanced up at the clock, which meant that he was surprised at my returning so much earlier than usual, but he made no remark. I sat down to take off my boots; then I took up the book I was reading. My father all this time had not spoken a word, and I had returned him silence for silence. Sometimes, after a whole evening of this kind of thing, my feeling of constraint would become so acute that the effort required to say even good night would appear almost insurmountable, and I would invent all sorts of excuses for slipping out of the room without