Months went by, but the future remained an abyss.
In the end, Ulysses came back to the shores of his native Ithaca for a prosaic but sufficient reason. It was merely that he was in need of money. After eleven months of wandering on the face of the waters, the liberal store he carried had almost disappeared. Quite suddenly one night, in the Mediterranean, he took the decision to return to London.
XX
The Sailor knew as soon as he stepped on the platform at Charing Cross that he had no wish to see again that city which had treated him with such unkindness. He left his gear in the station cloak room, and then by the time he had gone a few yards he regretted bitterly that he had ever come back at all. The mere sight of the omnibuses, of the names on the hoardings, of the grotesquely miscellaneous throngs in the Strand, told him that eleven months of ceaseless wandering had done nothing, or at the best very little, to heal the wound he bore.
These streets brought an ache that, steel his will as he might, he could hardly bear. There to the right was the National Gallery. It was on just such a morning as this that she had led him to the Turners. Farther along were Pall Mall and Edward Ambrose.
Five minutes he stood on the curb at the top of Northumberland Avenue, trying to decide whether he should cross Trafalgar Square. Once more the old sense of disintegration was upon him. Once more he was asking himself what he ought to do.
Eleven months had passed, but things were as they were. In that time not a line had been added to the work he was trying to do. Yet he felt that his first duty was to go to see Edward Ambrose. Let him go now. It was no use shirking it. But a curious instinct was holding him back. It was illogical, he knew, but every moment that he stood there seemed to make the task more difficult.
In a state of irresolution he crossed the road as far as an island in the middle. The sense of familiarity was growing at every step. Within a very few yards was Spring Gardens. He could see two doors up the street the brass plate of Messrs. Mortimer mocking him through a weird substitute for the light of day.
In spite of all the months that had passed, the sight of that brass plate was like a knife in his body. He turned from the island to dash across a very dangerous road, and came within an ace of the death that would have been so welcome. A taxi avoided him by an almost miraculous swerve, for which, when he realized it, he did not thank the driver.