Restlessness. It ached. It gnawed, stopping a minute, beginning again,
only to be appeased by reverie, by the running tap.
Restlessness. That was desire. It must be.
Desire: imeros. Eros. There was the chorus in the Antigone:
"Eros anikate machan,
Eros os en ktaemasi pipteis."
There was Swinburne:
"...swift and subtle and blind as a flame of fire,
Before thee the laughter, behind thee the tears of desire."
There was the song Minna Acroyd sang at the Sutcliffes' party. "Sigh-ing
and sad for des-ire of the bee." How could anybody sing such a silly
song?
Through the wide open window she could smell the frost; she could hear it
tingle. She put up her mouth above the bedclothes and drank down the
clear, cold air. She thought with pleasure of the ice in her bath in the
morning. It would break under her feet, splintering and tinkling like
glass. If you kept on thinking about it you would sleep.