“sought to imprison within his brain some curious dream from which he feared he might awake.”

“But he suddenly started up, and closing his eyes, placed his fingers upon the lids, as though he sought to imprison within his brain some curious dream from which he feared he might awake.”

“He was the only person awake, but he might as well have been alone and dreaming.”

“What he could bear in the waking world he could not by night and he sat awake for fear the dream would return.”

“He recognised that all the period of Odette's life which had elapsed before she first met him, a period of which he had never sought to form any picture in his mind, was not the featureless abstraction which he could vaguely see, but had consisted of so many definite, dated years, each crowded with concrete incidents. But were he to learn more of them, he feared lest her past, now colourless, fluid and supportable, might assume a tangible, an obscene form, with individual and diabolical features. And he continued to refrain from seeking a conception of it, not any longer now from laziness of mind, but from fear of suffering.”

“He merely sought a framework, like a coat hanger on which he could hang his life. At least then it might look like a life which was ready to be inhabited rather than a crumpled garment on the floor.”