home. Show this gentleman up to the reserved section!" . . .
All at once out goes the gas with a strange suddenness, without diminishing or flickering.
I sit in the deepest darkness; I cannot see my hand, nor the white walls—nothing. There was nothing for it but to go to bed, and I undressed.
But I was not tired from want of sleep, and it would not come to me. I lay a while gazing into the darkness, this dense mass of gloom that had no bottom—my thoughts could not fathom it.
It seemed beyond all measure dense to me, and I felt its presence oppress me. I closed my eyes, commenced to sing half under my breath, and tossed to and fro, in order to distract myself, but to no purpose. The darkness had taken possession of my thoughts and left me not a moment in peace. Supposing I were myself to be absorbed in darkness; made one with it?
I raise myself up in bed and fling out my arms. My nervous condition has got the upper hand of me, and nothing availed, no matter how much I tried to work against it. There I sat, a prey to the most singular fantasies,
