KATHERINE MANSFIELD

Dawn broke, long in coming. She lay in the bed on her back, one arm behind her head, one hand on the counterpane—the window became blue, then suffused with gold light, but when she looked at her watch she was horrified to find that it was only half past five o’clock. Hours had to [be] got through somehow—hours and hours—and you must remember that time was not the sort of thing you could count on at the last to be faithful or to be just. No, it behaved as it liked—it had infinite capacities for lengthening out, for hanging on like a while ribbon of road under your too tired feet. Oh, to have done with it. To run like a little child over the long white places, to be there and in his arms!