THE GOSPEL OF INFINITE PAINS
land paper that he was accustomed to use. When he returned about midnight, instead of retiring at once, he had to give himself the pleasure of rereading that page. But he became greatly disturbed, discovering that he had repeated himself within a space of two lines. Although there was no fire in his study and it was very cold, he obstinately set to work to get rid of that repetition. Then, finding other words which displeased him, he gave up the attempt to change them all and went to bed in despair. But once in bed, it was impossible to sleep; he turned and turned again, thinking always of those devils of words. All at once he hit upon a happy correction, sprang to the floor, relighted his candle and returned in his night-shirt to his study to write out the new phrase. After that he crawled back, shivering beneath the coverlets. Three times, he sprang up and re-lighted his candle, in order to change the position of a word or to alter a comma. At last, in desperation, dominated by the demon of perfection, he took his page with him, bundled his muffler around his ears, tucked himself in on all sides in his bed and until daybreak cut and
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