He was a man well acquainted
with the hypnotism of dubious schemes. He knew all the symptoms.
He fought against the magic influence, and then, as always, yielded
himself deliberately and voluptuously to it. He would go away. He
would not wait; he would go at once, in a moment. She deserved as
much, if not more. He knew not where he should go; a thousand reasons
against going assailed him; but he would go. He must go. He could no
longer stand, even for a single hour, her harshness, her air of moral
superiority, her adamantine obstinacy. He missed terribly her candid
worship of him, to which he had grown accustomed and which had become
nearly a necessity of his existence. He could not live with an eternal
critic; the prospect was totally inconceivable. He wanted love, and he
wanted admiring love, and without it marriage was meaningless to him,
a mere imprisonment.
So he would go. He could not and would not pack; to pack would
distress him and bore him; he would go as he was. He could buy what
he needed. The shops--his kind of shops--were closed, and would remain
closed until Tuesday. Nevertheless, he would go. He could buy the
indispensable at Faulkner's establishment on the platform at Knype
railway-station, conveniently opposite the Five Towns Hotel.
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