Lerne makes a long incision from the right temple to the left, round the occiput—an incomplete scalping, and he brings down all the strips of flesh in front of my face, making my forehead like a shambles. From in front, one must see me with the bleeding and jumbled head which I remembered on the monkey.
“Help, I am not sleeping!”
But I cannot hear my cries for the jangling of the silver bells. To begin with, they are too far down under the sea, and now the sound of the bells is deafening, like great church bells chiming with a formidable din, and it is now I who plunge into the ocean of ether.
Am I living, or am I not? I am a dead man who is conscious of being dead....
Even more so....
Nothingness!——
CHAPTER X
THE CIRCEEAN OPERATION
I opened my eyes on thick darkness in a place where there was neither noise nor smell.