On reaching the dome at 2 a.m., he had taken four tabloids, each
containing 0.324 gramme of trional, and had drunk the glass of hot milk
which Simon always left him in case he should want it. And he had
written on a sheet of paper the words: 'I am not to be disturbed before
10 a.m., no matter what happens; but call me at ten.--H.'; and had put
the sheet of paper on Simon's door-mat. And then he had stumbled into
bed, and abandoned himself to sleep--not without reluctance, for he did
not care to lose, even for a few hours, the fine consciousness of that
sheer joy. He desired to rush off instantly into the universe at large
and discover Camilla, wherever she might be.
Of course, he had dreamed of Camilla, but the telephone-bell had drowned
the remembered accents of her voice. The telephone-bell had silenced
everything. The telephone-bell had grown from a dream into a nightmare;
and at last he had said to himself in the nightmare: 'I might just as
well be up and working as lying throttled here by this confounded
nightmare.' And by an effort of will he had wakened. And even after he
was roused, and had switched on the light, which showed the hands of the
clock at a quarter to ten, he could still hear the telephone-bell of his
nightmare.
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