Swann's Way

a streak of daylight shewing under his bedroom door. Oh, joy of joys!
it is morning. The servants will be about in a minute: he can ring,
and some one will come to look after him. The thought of being made
comfortable gives him strength to endure his pain. He is certain he
heard footsteps: they come nearer, and then die away. The ray of light
beneath his door is extinguished. It is midnight; some one has turned
out the gas; the last servant has gone to bed, and he must lie all night
in agony with no one to bring him any help.

I would fall asleep, and often I would be awake again for short snatches
only, just long enough to hear the regular creaking of the wainscot, or
to open my eyes to settle the shifting kaleidoscope of the darkness,
to savour, in an instantaneous flash of perception, the sleep which lay
heavy upon the furniture, the room, the whole surroundings of which I
formed but an insignificant part and whose unconsciousness I should very
soon return to share. Or, perhaps, while I was asleep I had returned
without the least effort to an earlier stage in my life, now for ever
outgrown; and had come under the thrall of one of my childish terrors,
such as that old terror of my great-uncle's pulling my curls, which was