I remembered from far back—from four or five years back, actually, that seemed a long time to me—how sex had seemed apocalyptic (we read Lawrence, many of us were virgins at twenty). Now it had shrunk to this brisk, unvarying, satisfactory, localized exchange, contained appropriately enough in these domestic quarters. I felt nothing so definite as dissatisfaction. I simply registered the change, as I would still register the diminished glamour of Christmas.
