f a word seemed to that
man like the conclusion of an event--it was a surprising, isolated,
individual thing, having no reference to anything else in the world,
and on starting a new word he seemed bound, in order to preserve its
individuality, to write it in a different handwriting. He would sit with
his shoulders hunched up and his pen resting on the paper, staring at a
letter until he was nearly mesmerized, and then come to himself with a
sense of fear, which started him working like a madman, so that he might
not be behind with his business. The day seemed to be so long. It rolled
on rusty hinges that could scarcely move. Each hour was like a great
circle swollen with heavy air, and it droned and buzzed into an
eternity. It seemed to the man that his hand in particular wanted to
rest. It was luxury not to work with it. It was good to lay it down on
a sheet of paper with the pen sloping against his finger, and then watch
his hand going to sleep--it seemed to the man that it was his hand
and not himself wanted to sleep, but it always awakened when the pen
slipped. There was an instinct in him somewhere not to let the pen
slip, and every time the pen moved his hand awakened, and began to work
languidly. When he went home at night he lay down at once and stared
for hours at a fly on the wall or a crack on the ceiling. When his wife
spoke to him he heard her speaking as from a great distance, and he
answered her dully as though he was replying through a cloud. He only
wanted to be let alone, to be allowed to stare at the fly on the wall,
or the crack on the ceiling.

"One morning he found that he couldn't get up, or rather, that he didn't
want to get up. When his wife called him he made no reply, and she
seemed to call him every ten seconds--the words, 'get up, get up,' were
crackling all round him; they were bursting like bombs on the right hand
and on the left of him: they were scattering from above and all around
him, bursting upwards from the floor, swirling, swaying, and jostling
each other. Then the sounds ceased, and one voice only said to him
'You are late!' He saw these words like a blur hanging in the air, just
beyond his eyelids, and he stared at the blur until he fell asleep."

The voice in the cell ceased speaking for a few minutes, and then it
went on again.

"For three weeks the man did not leave his bed--he lived faintly in a
kind of trance, wherein great forms moved about slowly and immense
words were