ork like
clock-work, in perpetual repetition. Let them be this, let them be
taken up entirely in their work, let them be perfect parts of a great
machine, having a slumber of constant repetition. Let Gerald manage his
firm. There he would be satisfied, as satisfied as a wheelbarrow that
goes backwards and forwards along a plank all day--she had seen it.

The wheel-barrow--the one humble wheel--the unit of the firm. Then the
cart, with two wheels; then the truck, with four; then the
donkey-engine, with eight, then the winding-engine, with sixteen, and
so on, till it came to the miner, with a thousand wheels, and then the
electrician, with three thousand, and the underground manager, with
twenty thousand, and the general manager with a hundred thousand little
wheels working away to complete his make-up, and then Gerald, with a
million wheels and cogs and axles.

Poor Gerald, such a lot of little wheels to his make-up! He was more
intricate than a chronometer-watch. But oh heavens, what weariness!
What weariness, God above! A chronometer-watch--a beetle--her soul
fainted with utter ennui, from the thought. So many wheels to count and
consider and calculate! Enough, enough--there was an end to man's
capacity for complications, even. Or perhaps there was no end.

Meanwhile Gerald sat in his room, reading. When Gudrun was gone, he was
left stupefied with arrested desire. He sat on the side of the bed for
an hour, stupefied, little strands of consciousness appearing and
reappearing. But he did not move, for a long time he remained inert,
his head dropped on his breast.

Then he looked up and realised that he was going to bed. He was cold.
Soon he was lying down in the dark.

But what he could not bear was the darkness. The solid darkness
confronting him drove him mad. So he rose, and made a light. He
remained seated for a while, staring in front. He did not think of
Gudrun, he did not think of anything.

Then suddenly he went downstairs for a book. He had all his life been
in terror of the nights that should come, when he could not sleep. He
knew that this would be too much for him, to have to face nights of
sleeplessness and of horrified watching the hours.

So he sat for hours in bed, like a statue, reading. His mind, hard and
acute, read on rapidly, his body understood nothing. In a state of
rigid unconsciousness, he read on through the night, till morning,
when, weary and disgusted in spirit, disgusted most of all