And it was in the nature of my fever, which was indeed only half
fatigue and illness, and the rest the disorder of passionate youth,
that Nettie, a strangely distorted Nettie, should come through the
brief dreams that marked the exhaustions of that vigil, to dominate
my misery. I was sensible, with an exaggerated distinctness, of
the intensity of her physical charm for me, of her every grace and
beauty; she took to herself the whole gamut of desire in me and
the whole gamut of pride. She, bodily, was my lost honor. It was
not only loss but disgrace to lose her. She stood for life and all
that was denied; she mocked me as a creature of failure and defeat.
My spirit raised itself towards her, and then the bruise upon my
jaw glowed with a dull heat, and I rolled in the mud again before
my rivals.

There were times when something near madness took me, and I gnashed
my teeth and dug my nails into my hands and ceased to curse and cry
out only by reason of the insufficiency of words. And once towards
dawn I got out of bed, and sat by my looking-glass with my revolver
loaded in my hand. I stood up at last and put it carefully in my
drawer and locked it--out of reach of any gusty impulse. After
that I slept for a little while.

Such nights were nothing rare and strange in that old order of the
world. Never a city, never a night the whole year round, but amidst
those who slept were those who waked, plumbing the deeps of wrath
and misery. Countless thousands there were so ill, so troubled,
they agonize near to the very border-line of madness, each
one the center of a universe darkened and lost. . .