A Life by Italo Svevo

to bed really tired and felt he would only have to close his eyes to fall asleep. But on flinging himself on the bed, sleep deserted him, and when hours later he managed to lie quiet on some part of the bed, he had to be content with a sleep lacking depth in which his brain went on working dumbly and instinctively, and none the less tiringly for that.
    “You’re unwell, it seems to me,” said Cellani, seeing him pale, with eyes staring. “Take a couple of weeks off if you need ’em.”
    Alfonso did not accept at once and had to go and ask Cellani that evening for what he had refused that morning.
    Sanneo, rather brusquely, also granted him the required permission . For some time now he had put an assistant with Alfonso, one Carlo Alchieri, an artillery lieutenant on half-pay because of a weak chest. As the small pension granted him was not enough, he had joined Maller’s. He was young with an old man’s face and a full drab beard: outwardly he looked strong enough. He was the only one to curse on hearing of Alfonso’s holiday, because he knew he would have to bear all that burden of work alone. Sanneo was not one to take other clerks away from their usual jobs to help out someone temporarily overwhelmed by work. Sanneo would say a clerk who found himself in that position was officially a substitute for the one away.
    All Alfonso needed to combat his inertia was to be out in the open air, knowing he could stay there some time for the sake of his health. He longed to feel well again. Till then he had not felt any regret for his weakness, thinking of it as do holy men in India who find an increase of intelligence by annihilating the material. But his state of boredom, of greyness and monotony, was not that of an intelligent person.
    The sun was just up when Alfonso jumped out of bed with a violent effort of will. He did not know where to go or where chance would take him; there were plenty of hills around the town.
    First he thought of following a company of soldiers going out on manoeuvres. But the sound of their heavy measured tread onthe cobble-stones irritated him. He went up Via Stadion almost at a run to get away from them, as they were taking the same road. He wanted to reach the cliff-side. The effort would have been enough for that first day. But before he was past the last houses of the city, low and rustic, some thatched and painted in bright earthy colours, he had already changed his mind. Now he wanted a green hillside lying on his right, not a grim cliff. He crossed a wooden bridge over the wide but nearly dry bed of a stream; a thread of water ran amid white stones. He crossed a wide avenue on the other side and at last felt bare earth beneath his feet, living grass soft beneath his weight. Already tired and panting, he flung himself on the ground. He was in a copse of young trees with slim trunks, with tufty tops wavering in the morning breeze. This sound joined with the murmer of water trickling into a pool near a low white house only a few steps away.
    Again he was seized with a desire to run, a yearning to get far away. As he climbed, the trees became thicker and stronger. Here and there bushes held him up, and he forced himself ahead with febrile impatience, without the strong man’s calm step. He crossed another road and strode through another copse, still climbing aimlessly. The blood was churning in his head and his breath failing, but this only stopped him for very short stops. Exhaustion only overwhelmed him when he came up against a high wall blocking his way. He had climbed for less than an hour before flinging himself on the ground completely exhausted; it seemed to him a well-deserved rest.
    For a minute or two he was terrified by a violent beating in his heart and temples. He took off his jacket, put it under his head and lay down on dry ground by an oak. Shortly after, though his blood was still agitated, his lungs opened, and he took a deep breath, deeper than he had taken for a long time.