Philip Van Doren Stern (ed) (194 page)

I
was
standing
yet,
long
after
they
had
gone,
beside
the
door;
fearing
to
move
from
it;
afraid
to
stir;
and
looking
about
me,
as
it
were, with
my
ears.

I
had
no
anger
against
them.
I
was
too
occupied
for
any
emotion but
those,
or
that,
which
was
present.
I
ceased
even
to
think
about them;
or
such
seconds
of
thought
as
chanced
through
my
agony
were humble.
They
were
not
forgiving
or
regretful;
they
were
merely
humble,
as
the
thoughts
of
an
overdriven
sheep
might
be
towards
its driver.

They
were
gone;
and
with
them
everything
had
gone.
I
was
surrounded
by
nothingness.
I
was
drowned
in
it.
I
was
lost
and
solitary as
some
grey
rock
far
out
in
sea.
Nay,
for
the
sun
shines
on
it,
the wind
blows,
and
a
gannet
halts
there
and
flaps
his
wing.
There
was loneliness
nowhere
but
where
I
was.
There
was
not
such
a
silence
even in
the
tomb
as
the
silence
in
which
I
was
centred;
for,
while
the
terror of
darkness
did
not
diminish,
the
horror
of
silence
began
to
grow.
And it
grew
as
some
monstrous
thing
may
that
reproduces
itself
on
itself, tirelessly,
timelessly,
endlessly.

Nature
abhors
a
vacuum,
and
so
does
the
mind,
for
the
mind
is nature.
It
will
contrive
sound
when
silence
oppresses
it,
and
will people
any
desolation
with
its
own
creatures.
Alas
for
man!
With what
pain
he
can
create
how
meagre
a
joy!
With
what
readiness
he can
make
real
a
misery!

And
my
ears
had
two
duties
to
perform!
They
must
look
for
me
as well
as
listen,
and
when
the
mind
is
occupied
in
two
endeavours something
of
craziness
comes,
even
in
trivial
things.

I
began
to
hear,
and
at
no
time
could
I
tell
what
I
heard.
I
began
to see,
and
no
words
will
impart
what
I
saw.
I
closed
both
eyes
and
ears with
my
fingers,
and
was
aware
in
a
while
that
my
under-jaw
was hanging;
that
my
mouth
was
open;
and
that
I
was
listening
and
looking
through
that.

At
the
knowledge
my
will
awakened,
and
I
placed
calmness
forcibly on
myself
as
tho'
I
were
casing
my
soul
in
mail.
I
strode
firmly
to
my right
hand,
and
after
a
few
steps
I
came
against
a
wall.
I
strode
in
the opposite
direction,
and
in
double
the
paces
I
came
against
a
wall.
I walked
backwards,
and
in
twenty
steps
I
came
against
a
wall;
and following
this
my
groping
fingers
tapped
suddenly
in
space.

There
was
an
aperture.
.
.
.

My
hair
rose
on
my
head
stiff
and
prickling.
I
did
not
dare
to
enter that
void
in
the
void.
I
should
more
willingly
have
leaped
into
a furnace.
I
went
from
it
on
tip-toe,
striving
to
make
no
sound
lest
that hole
should
hear
me,
and
tread
behind.
.
.
.