pivot of a solar system.

He turned from the window to look at the dark little room, groped his
way to the chest of drawers, and lighted a candle. Its flame
sputtered, then settled and burned unwaveringly. Here in London the
nights seemed as stuffy as the days; there was no life or freshness,
no movement of the air; it was as if the warm breath of the crowd rose
upward and nothing less than a balloon would allow one to escape from
its taint. But he noticed that even at this slight elevation he had
got free from the noise of the traffic. It would continue--a crashing
roar--for hours, and yet it was now scarcely perceptible. Listening
attentively he heard it--just a crackling murmur, a curious muffled
rhythm, as of drums beaten by an army of drummers marching far away.

When he got into bed and blew out his candle, the rectangle of the
window became brighter. After a little while he fancied that he could
distinguish two or three stars shining very faintly in the patch of
sky above the sashes; and again thinking of remoteness, immensity,
infinity, he experienced a curious physical sensation of contracting
bulk, as though all his body had grown and was steadily growing
smaller. Very strong this sensation, and, unless one wrestled with it
firmly, translating itself in the mental sphere as a vaguely
distressful notion that one was nothing but a tiny insect at war with
the entire universe.

Day after day he spent his time in the same manner at the
G.P.O.--asking questions of clerks, lounging in stone corridors,
sitting on wooden benches, thinking that the hour was coming and
finding that it did not come. He was one of a weary regiment of people
waiting for interviews. Clerks behind counters of inquiry offices
hunted him up in pigeon-holes, looked for him in files and on skewers.
"Oh, yes, let's see. You say you're the man from Rodchurch! That's
north or midlands, isn't it? You must ask in Room 45.... What say?
Down south, is it? Then you're quite right to ask here. No, we haven't
heard any more about it since yesterday."

At the end of each fruitless day he emerged from the vast place of
postponement feeling exhausted, dazed, stupefied. The sunlight made
him blink. He stood holding his hat so as to shade his eyes.

Then after a few minutes, as he plodded along Queen Victoria Street,
his confusion passed away, and he observed things with a clear
understanding. It was a lovely evening really and truly, and these
ponderous