Read "The Malcontents" by C.P. Snow online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
After taking a bus into the town centre, Stephen called at a pub. He did not want to drink, he was allowing himself no anodyne, but he was all of a sudden hungry, rapaciously so. The bread was dry on the sandwiches; he got through them and went to the bar for more. His mind wasn't clearing, he was looking at the faces round him as though through smoked glass.
Then he walked through the market place towards his home. In sight of the cathedral, all was dead quiet. There were no stars, the spire lifted away vague, assimilated into the dark. As he entered the familiar hall, so familiar that for years he hadn't noticed the little Varley, chaste reminder of Thomas Freer's predilection, he saw a note on the letter table. It had been written by their housekeeper, and said: ‘Mr Robinson rang, 9.20. Will Mr Stephen ring him back at 10.15? ' There followed a telephone number which wasn't Mark's and which meant nothing to Stephen.