hich is really neither comfortable nor
convenient; everlastingly choosing colors for dresses, and putting them
on, and washing; making a business of sitting together at fixed hours
to absorb our nourishment; taking little poisons with it to make us
delirious enough to imagine we are enjoying ourselves; and then having
to pass the nights in shelters lying in cots and losing half our lives
in a state of unconsciousness. Sleep is a shameful thing: I have not
slept at all for weeks past. I have stolen out at night when you were
all lying insensible--quite disgusting, I call it--and wandered about
the woods, thinking, thinking, thinking; grasping the world; taking it
to pieces; building it up again; devising methods; planning experiments
to test the methods; and having a glorious time. Every morning I have
come back here with greater and greater reluctance; and I know that the
time will soon come--perhaps it has come already--when I shall not come
back at all.

STREPHON. How horribly cold and uncomfortable!

THE MAIDEN. Oh, don't talk to me of comfort! Life is not worth living if
you have to bother about comfort. Comfort makes winter a torture,
spring an illness, summer an oppression, and autumn only a respite. The
ancients could make life one long frowsty comfort if they chose. But
they never lift a finger to make themselves comfortable. They will not
sleep under a roof. They will not clothe themselves: a girdle with a few
pockets hanging to it to carry things about in is all they wear: they
will sit down on the wet moss or in a gorse bush when there is dry
heather within two yards of them. Two years ago, when you were born, I
did not understand this. Now I feel that I would not put myself to the
trouble of walking two paces for all the comfort in the world.

STREPHON. But you don't know what this means to me. It means that you
are dying to me: yes, just dying. Listen to me [_he puts his arm around
her_].

THE MAIDEN [_extricating herself_] Dont. We can talk quite as well
without touching one another.

STREPHON [_horrified_] Chloe! Oh, this is the worst symptom of all! The
ancients never touch one another.

THE MAIDEN. Why should they?

STREPHON. Oh, I don't know. But don't you want to touch me? You used to.

THE MAIDEN. Yes: that is true: I used to. We used to think it would be
nice to sleep in one another's arms; but we never could go to sleep
because our weight stopped our circulations just above the elbows. The