woman again. Did I not give orders to have her soundly beaten?"
Nobody answered him. But they all stared at him, puzzled, wondering what to do. He stared at them in return.
Then, very gradually, a peculiar dislocation of ideas came over his mind. For a few moments he seemed to be taking part in a whirling gambol in which his own Ego, that of the people around him and twenty centuries of human history and civilization were madly mixed up together. Then a small fragment of his consciousness seemed to separate itself. It seemed to be watching, within his brain, the other fragments of his consciousness which were behaving in a perfectly incredible and perfectly in sane manner. He saw and studied those fragments like detached and separate projections of his Ego.
Very slowly, he recognized his body. He recognized the body and the personality of his wife, of the captain of police, of the sergeant. His eyes traveled, and he recognized the body and the personality of Ivan Sborr who was sleeping out his drunk in the next cell.
And, suddenly, he understood. He put his hand to his head.
