How I hate the
Geralds, that they can offer one nothing else.
'Shortlands!--Heavens! Think of living there, one week, then the next,
and THEN THE THIRD--
'No, I won't think of it--it is too much.'
And she broke off, really terrified, really unable to bear any more.
The thought of the mechanical succession of day following day, day
following day, AD INFINITUM, was one of the things that made her heart
palpitate with a real approach of madness. The terrible bondage of this
tick-tack of time, this twitching of the hands of the clock, this
eternal repetition of hours and days--oh God, it was too awful to
contemplate. And there was no escape from it, no escape.
She almost wished Gerald were with her to save her from the terror of
her own thoughts. Oh, how she suffered, lying there alone, confronted
by the terrible clock, with its eternal tick-tack. All life, all life
resolved itself into this: tick-tack, tick-tack, tick-tack; then the
striking of the hour; then the tick-tack, tick-tack, and the twitching
of the clock-fingers.
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