all except for the beauty of the words

He shouted out a line of poetry, but the words escaped him, and hestumbled among lines and fragments of lines which had no meaningat all except for the beauty of the words. He shut the gate,and ran swinging from side to side down the hill, shouting anynonsense that came into his head. "Here am I," he cried rhythmically,as his feet pounded to the left and to the right, "plunging along,like an elephant in the jungle, stripping the branches as I go(he snatched at the twigs of a bush at the roadside), roaringinnumerable words, lovely words about innumerable things, runningdownhill and talking nonsense aloud to myself about roads and leavesand lights and women coming out into the darkness--about women--about Rachel, about Rachel." He stopped and drew a deep breath. 　　The night seemed immense and hospitable, and although so dark thereseemed to be things moving down there in the harbour and movement outat sea. He gazed until the darkness numbed him, and then he walkedon quickly, still murmuring to himself. "And I ought to be in bed,snoring and dreaming, dreaming, dreaming. Dreams and realities,dreams and realities, dreams and realities," he repeated all the wayup the avenue, scarcely knowing what he said, until he reachedthe front door. Here he paused for a second, and collected himselfbefore he opened the door. 　　His eyes were dazed, his hands very cold, and his brain excitedand yet half asleep. Inside the door everything was as he had leftit except that the hall was now empty. There were the chairs turningin towards each other where people had sat talking, and the emptyglasses on little tables, and the newspapers scattered on the floor. 　　As he shut the door he felt as if he were enclosed in a square box,and instantly shrivelled up. It was all very bright and very small. 　　He stopped for a minute by the long table to find a paper which hehad meant to read, but he was still too much under the influenceof the dark and the fresh air to consider carefully which paper itwas or where he had seen it. 　　As he fumbled vaguely among the papers he saw a figure cross the tailof his eye, coming downstairs. He heard the swishing sound of skirts,and to his great surprise, Evelyn M. came up to him, laid her handon the table as if to prevent him from taking up a paper, and said: 　　"You're just the person I wanted to talk to." Her voice wasa little unpleasant and metallic, her eyes were very bright,and she kept them fixed upon him.