He raced down
the passage, flinging himself on his father, beating him with his
fists, shrieking:
"You devil--you devil!"
After that ho did not know what happened. He seemed to be enveloped in
a cloud of struggling figures. He heard the bailiff's voice booming,
"Come now, sir, this won't do; I am surprised at a gentleman like you!"
and his father's answer, incoherent, shaken with rage and shame. Then
he must have found his way upstairs. He never remembered how he got
there, but he was lying in his bed, in all his clothes, his head hidden
beneath the blankets, twitching from head to foot as though his body
had gone mad.
Downstairs the lock of the front door clicked. There was something
steadfast and reassuring in the sound, as though it were trying to send
a message. "Don't worry, I shall come back." But Robert could not
feel or care any more. He was struggling with his body as a helpless
rider struggles with a frantic runaway horse. He found out for the
first time that his body wasn't himself at all. It was something else.
It did what it wanted to. He could only cling on to it for dear life.
But gradually it seemed to weaken, to yield to his exhausted efforts at
control, and at last lay stretched out, relaxed, drenched with an icy
sweat. The real himself sank into seas of darkness from which
convulsive, tearing shudders, less and less frequent, dragged him, with
throbbing heart and starting eyes, back to the surface.
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