Who is that going away? Sit down again. You make the whole room shake with your tread.
No, I dare not stay; I dare not sit down again.
Nor I. When I sit down I feel the horrors coming over me.
Over me too. Let me pass, I say!
[A number of the drunkards rise, and go surging towards the entrance-ladder—overturning some of the tables during their staggering progress.]
See what that monster is doing! For two hours past it has been trying to climb on to my lap, only it cannot succeed. I keep driving it away, yet it always returns. At what sort of a game is it playing?
I feel as though a swarm of cockroaches were buzzing about, and nesting in my skull.
And I as though my skull were splitting in two—as though the very brains were coming out of it. They must have turned all maggoty, those brains, for they smell like mouldy cheese.
Or, rather, like carrion.
O my God, my God!