George woke up in the middle of the night. Lois slept calmly; he could just hear her soft breathing. He thought of all the occupied bedrooms, of the health of children, the incalculable quality in wives, the touchy¹ stupidity of nurses and servants. The mere² human weight of the household oppressed him terribly. And he thought of the adamant³ of landlords, the shifty rapacity⁴ of tradesmen, the incompetence⁵ of clerks, the mere pompous⁶ foolishness of Government departments, the arrogance⁷ of Jew patrons, and the terrifying complexity⁸ of problems of architecture on a large scale. He was the Atlas⁹ supporting a vast world a thousand times more complex than any problem of architecture. He wondered how he did it. But he did do it, alone; and he kept on doing it. Let him shirk the burden, and not a world but an entire universe would crumble¹⁰. If he told Lois that he was going to leave her, she would collapse¹¹; she would do dreadful things. He was indispensable not only at home but professionally. All was upon his shoulders and upon nobody else's. He was bound, he was a prisoner, he had no choice, he was performing his highest duty, he was fulfilling the widest usefulness of which he was capable ... Besides, supposing he did go insane and shirk the burden, they would all say that he had been influenced by Lucas's  uniform—the mere sight of the uniform!—like a girl! He could not stand that, because it would be true. Not that he would ever admit its truth! He recalled Lucas's

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