Crushed With A
Sense Of Uttermost Fatigue, I Could Get No Rest.
From time to time a
sort of doze crept upon me, and I said to myself, "Now I shall
sleep"; but on the very edge of slumber, at the moment when I was
falling into oblivion, a hand seemed to pluck me back into
consciousness.
In the same instant there gleamed before my eyes a
little circle of fire, which blazed and expanded into immensity,
until its many-coloured glare beat upon my brain and thrilled me
with torture. No sooner was the intolerable light extinguished than
I burst into a cold sweat; an icy river poured about me; I shook,
and my teeth chattered, and so for some minutes I lay in anguish,
until the heat of fever re-asserted itself, and I began once more to
toss and roll. A score of times was this torment repeated. The sense
of personal agency forbidding me to sleep grew so strong that I
waited in angry dread for that shock which aroused me; I felt myself
haunted by a malevolent power, and rebelled against its cruelty.
Through the night no one visited me. At eight in the morning a knock
sounded at the door, and there entered the waiter, carrying a tray
with my ordinary breakfast. "The Signore is not well?" he remarked,
standing to gaze at me. I replied that I was not quite well; would
he give me the milk, and remove from my sight as quickly as possible
all the other things on the tray.
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