Page:The White Peacock, Lawrence, 1911.djvu/447

Rh Then you feel so rottenly lonely, Cyril. You feel awful, like a vacuum, with a pressure on you, a sort of pressure of darkness, and you yourself—just nothing, a vacuum—that’s what it’s like a little vacuum that’s not dark, all loose in the middle of a space of darkness, that’s pressing on you.”

“Good gracious!” I exclaimed, rousing myself in bed. “That sounds bad!”

He laughed slightly.

“It’s all right,” he said, “it’s only the excitement of London, and that little man in the park, and that woman on the seat—I wonder where she is to-night, poor devil—and then Lettie. I seem thrown off my balance.—I think, really, I ought to have made something of myself——”

“What?” I asked, as he hesitated.

“I don’t know,” he replied slowly, “—a poet or something, like Burns—I don’t know. I shall laugh at myself for thinking so, to-morrow. But I am born a generation too soon—I wasn’t ripe enough when I came. I wanted something I hadn’t got. I’m something short. I’m like corn in a wet harvest—full, but pappy, no good. Is’ll rot. I came too soon; or I wanted something that would ha’ made me grow fierce. That’s why I wanted Lettie—I think. But am I talking damn rot? What am I saying? What are you making me talk for? What are you listening for?”

I rose and went across to him, saying:

“I don’t want you to talk! If you sleep till morning things will look different.”

I sat on his bed and took his hand. He lay quite still.