opposite, and every slow black fly that crawled across the patch of
warmth might have been crawling over his raw nerves. He almost expected
the surface of the wall to contract like a skin and twitch them off, as
he felt his own skin doing out of sympathy.

In the night, when the wall was filmed with shadow save for the faint
flickering of a rushlight that made great rounds of light upon the
dimness, then he saw all his life at Cloom passing in a shadow show
across the wall, crawling like the flies.... He was never delirious;
physically his fine and sane constitution was recovering well from a
nasty blow--it was merely as though all his mind had been set a little
faster, like a newly-regulated clock, a clock set to work backwards; and
he could hear its ticking through all the sounds of everyday life that,
hushed as much as might be, came into his room.

He felt sick of it all, sick of the striving at Cloom, of the quarrels
with Archelaus, of Tom's cat-like attacks, of his mother's plaints, of
the cruelties he felt spoiling the whole countryside like a leprosy. He
cared for no one near him except Killigrew, because he alone stood for
the things of an alien world. He hated the sound of John-James' boots
that never failed to go a tip-toe over the cobbles below his window. He
wanted nothing, not even to get away from it all. He was too absorbed
watching it upon the wall, hearing his own mind ticking out its comments
like that horrible instrument Vassie had upon the piano to time her
exercises.

It was the first time since the fit in his childhood, which he did not
remember, that he had ever lain helpless or suffered in his body, and he
was aware of humiliation. All he could remember of the scene in the wood
showed him his own futility. Everything was wasted--nothing he had done