It made him feel unreal and as if he did not even belong to himself any more.
The children had his mother and Winnie's parents, and required no sacrifice of him. He tried to stir himself to rebel against the children. He might go abroad and leave them and do some of the things which had been impossible before.
He could not do it. He did not want to enough. His disgust with himself gave him a sort of peace. He flowed out of himself in his despair, like a thing too full that has been relieved. His spirit was sodden. There was nothing he wanted. Nothing he wanted to do.
And yet he played with the idea of departing from his present life. He talked vaguely about himself in a way that disturbed Mrs. Farley's secretly growing peace of mind. She gave him side glances but she did not dare to show openly that there was anything to fear.
Laurence deliberately allowed his dress to become more and more untidy. When he met a woman in a bus or a car he was consciously impolite. Then all at once he saw himself inwardly and knew that women were troubling him, that he had not actually eliminated them in his desires.
So he went one day and found a prostitute and, as if it were to slay something in himself, let her take him to her room.
The experience did nothing for him. He came away feeling sore and beaten. He resented women. He was restless. Some unadmitted thing wanted its own in his life.
To his father and mother he began to talk more than ever about going to Europe.
Mrs. Farley never rebuked him when he talked of leaving her, but her mouth drew into a pucker and he could see that she cried.
He never gave her any comfort when she did this, but after he left her it was as though he had been through an illness which had taken his strength. Her tears had drained his determination. He did not care. He was dull. He wondered what was the matter with him.