  Sep. 20, 1900. I woke at last, swimming upwards, like a diver out of a deep sea, from some dark abyss of weakness. I opened my eyes—I saw that I was in a downstairs room, where it seemed that a bed must have been improvised; but at first I was too weak even to inquire with myself what had happened. My mother sate by me, with a look on her face that I had never seen; but I could not care. I seemed to have passed a ford, and to see life from the other side; to have shut a door upon it, and to be looking at it from the dark window. I neither cared nor hoped nor felt. I only wished to lie undisturbed—not to be spoken to or noticed, only to lie. I revived a little, and the faint flow of life brought back with it, as upon a creeping tide, a regret that I had opened my eyes upon the world again—that was my first thought. I had been so near the dark passage—the one terrible thing that lies in front of all living |
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