nd in some I laid
heaps of oil-saturated coal with an explosive in suitable spots on the
ground-floor near wood-work, and in some an explosive alone: and all I
timed for ignition at midnight of the twelfth day. Hot now, and black as
ink, I proceeded through the town, stopping with perfect system at every
hundredth door: and I laid the faggots of a great burning: and timed
them all for ignition at midnight of the twelfth day.

* * * * *

Whatever door I found closed against me I drove at it with a maniac
malice.

* * * * *

Shall I commit the whole dark fact to paper?--that deep, deep secret of
the human organism?

As I wrought, I waxed wicked as a demon! And with lowered neck, and
forward curve of the lower spine, and the blasphemous strut of tragic
play-actors, I went. For here was no harmless burning which I did--but
the crime of arson; and a most fiendish, though vague, malevolence, and
the rage to burn and raven and riot, was upon me like a dog-madness, and
all the mood of Nero, and Nebuchadnezzar: and from my mouth proceeded
all the obscenities of the slum and of the gutter, and I sent up such
hisses and giggles of challenge to Heaven that day as never yet has man
let out. But this way lies a spinning frenzy....

* * * * *

I have taken a dead girl with wild huggings to my bosom; and I have
touched the corrupted lip, and spat upon her face, and tossed her down,
and crushed her teeth with my heel, and jumped and jumped upon her
breast, like the snake-stamping zebra, mad, mad...!

* * * * *

I was desolated, however, that first day of the faggot-laying, even in
the midst of my sense of omnipotence, by one thing, which made me give
some kicks to the motor: for it was only crawling, so that a good part
of the way I was stalking by its side; and when I came to that hill near
the Old Dover Road, the whole thing stopped, and refused to move, the
weight of the train being too great for my horse-power traction. I did
not know what to do, and stood there in angry impotence a full
half-hour, for the notion of setting up an electric station, with or
without automatic stoking-gear, presented so hideous a picture of labour
to me, that I would not entertain it. After a time, however, I thought
that I remembered that there was a comparatively new power station in
St. Paneras driven by turbines: and