It can go on for many hours consecutively, and not only remain a sufficient and pleasurable employment, but render every other business repulsive, all but impossible.
At evening there came a change.

He was now unable to keep still; he went into the town, and exhausted himself with walking up and down the hilly streets.

Society would have helped him, but he could find none.
He would not go to the villa; still less could he visit the boarding-house.
What a night! At times he moved about his room like one in frantic pain, finally flinging himself upon the bed and lying there till the impulse of his fevered mind broke the beginnings of sleep.

Or he walked the length of the floor, with measured step, fifty times, counting each time he turned--a sort of conscious insanity.

Or he took his pocket-knife, and drove the point into the flesh of his arm, satisfied when the pang became intolerable.