You see..."

Mary renewed her attack. "Which of the contemporary poets do you
like best?" she asked. Denis was filled with fury. Why couldn't
this pest of a girl leave him alone? He wanted to listen to the
horrible music, to watch them dancing--oh, with what grace, as
though they had been made for one another!--to savour his misery
in peace. And she came and put him through this absurd
catechism! She was like "Mangold's Questions": "What are the
three diseases of wheat?"--"Which of the contemporary poets do
you like best?"

"Blight, Mildew, and Smut," he replied, with the laconism of one
who is absolutely certain of his own mind.

It was several hours before Denis managed to go to sleep that
night. Vague but agonising miseries possessed his mind. It was
not only Anne who made him miserable; he was wretched about
himself, the future, life in general, the universe. "This
adolescence business," he repeated to himself every now and then,
"is horribly boring. But the fact that he knew his disease did
not help him to cure it.

After kicking all the clothes off the bed, he got up and sought
relief in composition. He wanted to imprison his nameless misery
in words. At the end of an hour, nine more or less complete
lines emerged from among the blots and scratchings.

"I do not know what I desire
When summer nights are dark and still,