Ceaseless perplexity and dread gave a wandering, sometimes a
wild, expression to his eyes.
He seldom slept, in the proper sense of the word; as a rule he
was conscious all through the night of 'a kind of fighting'
between physical weariness and wakeful toil of the mind. It often
happened that some wholly imaginary obstacle in the story he was
writing kept him under a sense of effort throughout the dark
hours; now and again he woke, reasoned with himself, and
remembered clearly that the torment was without cause, but the
short relief thus afforded soon passed in the recollection of
real distress. In his unsoothing slumber he talked aloud,
frequently wakening Amy; generally he seemed to be holding a
dialogue with someone who had imposed an intolerable task upon
him; he protested passionately, appealed, argued in the strangest
way about the injustice of what was demanded. Once Amy heard him
begging for money--positively begging, like some poor wretch in
the street; it was horrible, and made her shed tears; when he
asked what he had been saying, she could not bring herself to
tell him.
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