Thereafter ... I know not what ... I knew nothing more....
Morning ... morning, and raining still. Through the grated window of my
bedroom-prison, a sticky viscous light was making its way. I was lying
on the bed. When I awakened, I tried to rise on my elbow to look around
me. I could not: I had not the strength.
But suddenly I could see ... I could see, in another place....
Rushing water ... tall green reeds ... moss ... a lofty, vertical wall
of rock ... white cobblestones washed by a tumbling stream ... and, on
the jagged point of a boulder, a corpse, my corpse, me....
I could see that my clothing was soaked, the water covering my breast
and shoulders, and filling my wide opened eyes.... But I did not feel
the cold liquid contact of the stream, nor the chilling north wind,
laden with rain, that was beating upon my back and legs which were out
of water on the narrow bank of the torrent there. I could feel nothing.
I was dead. I mean to say that the Man was dead, that Man who was, and
still is, I. I could see a large red hole in the back of his head--the
wound made by the rock He struck, the wound through which his life had
spurted away.... The back of my head ... of me who was lying there on
that bed in that chamber ... pained me terribly.
* * * * * * * * *
So I lay there, inert. Several times I tried to move. Move I could not;
nor was there anything I could do. Through the half-opened window the
resinous fragrance of rain-soaked fir-trees came. For a moment, they
entered the room--the Count François and the Vicomte Antoine, I mean.
They examined me, felt my pulse, my legs and arms, the back of my head.
But soon they went out again. I was left alone.
* * * * * * * * *
All that I have just been telling even then belonged to the distant
past, a past fabulously remote.
I was lying on the bed, inert, watching my dead body awash in the
stream. I tried to remember what had happened....
Yes ... I fell.... I was bending over the edge to peer into the depths
of the chasm ... and a heavy blow struck me between the shoulders
... one of those blows such as I had several times received between
the shoulders ... and on the back of my head ... blows from the
overwhelming gaze of those old men ... of the old marquis ... which had
pounded me to pulp.
So then, I was watching the dead body ... my dead body.... Carrion
already old! Flies swarming on and over it. The torrent foaming around
and against it--and running water erodes, dissolves, disintegrates!...
Yes, carrion indeed!... The coffin maker must come soon, or little will
be left for him!...
* * * * * * * * *
Carrion already old!
But not so old as my living body--that too was old, limitlessly aged!
Was I as old as this, a little while before? Or had the sun merely
stopped in the heavens? And if so, how long? For many many years? I
could not say....
* * * * * * * * *
I remember, yes ... I fainted.... I lost consciousness completely.
When I fell over the cliff ... my head and my hands struck hard on the
tiled floor ... the Ever-living Men probably brought me to the room
and put me on that bed.... Perhaps the rushing water of the stream, or
the rain, or the winter wind turned me so old.... One cannot help but
change ... lying out in the weather!...
Old! old, old! And older, older, every minute, every second!
My hand went to my chin.... A beard was beginning to appear there....
It was growing rapidly ... a gray beard.... As I passed a hand over my
temples, I could feel deep wrinkles there.
Three times the door of my chamber opened partly, and I could see the
faces of the Ever-living Men peering in at me attentively. On each
occasion I feigned sleep, closing my eyes.... But not entirely.... My
eyelids were far enough apart for me to spy on what they did.... They
did nothing.... But this I saw ... I saw that they were astounded ...
plainly, evidently astounded at the age, the sudden age that had come
over me....
* * * * * * * * *