III
I do not suppose that the feeling which came over me is capable of being
described in human language. It can only be hinted at, not truly
conveyed. If I say that I was utterly overcome by the sensation of being
_cut off from everything_, I shall perhaps not impress you very much
with a notion of my terror. But I do not see how I can better express
myself. No one who has not been through what I have been through--it is
a pretty awful thought that all who die do probably go through it--can
possibly understand the feeling of acute and frightful loneliness that
possessed me as I stood near the windows, that wrapped me up and
enveloped me, as it were, in an icy sheet. A few people in England are
possibly in my case--they have _been_, and they have returned, like me.
They will understand, and only they. I was solitary in the universe. I
was invisible, and I was forgotten. There was my poor wife lavishing her
immense sorrow on that body on the bed, which had ceased to have any
connection with me, which was emphatically not me, and to which I felt
the strongest repugnance. I was even jealous of that lifeless,
unresponsive, decaying mass.
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