I moved my jaws, my tongue and lips feeling like lead.
“Wait, I am not sleeping yet. What is this virus?”
“Morphia,” said the Professor simply.
The anesthetic was gaining on me. Another prick, on the shoulder—this time very sharp.
“I am not sleeping! Good heavens, wait! I am not sleeping.”
“That is what I wanted to know,” growled my executioner.
For some moments a consolation had been assuaging my torture. Did not the cranial preparations seem to show that they were going to slaughter me without delay? And yet Macbeth had survived his trepanning.
I seemed to get far away inside myself. Silvery bells gayly rang a celestial chime, which I have never been able to remember, though it seemed to me unforgettable.
Another prick on the shoulder, which I hardly felt. I wished to say again that I was not sleeping. Vain effort! My words sounded dully submerged in the depths of an invading sea. They were held lifeless, and I alone could make them out.
The rings glide along the curtain rod, and without suffering, on the threshold of this artificial Nirvana, this is what I seemed to perceive.