I wanted to say once more, “Do not begin, I am still awake,” but no word sounded.
The delirium of the night was being prolonged. It seemed to me that the bellowing had got nearer, so much so, indeed, that I seemed to hear it in myself. I could not manage to master my ridiculous senses. I kept quiet.
Then there grew in me the assurance that the mysterious business was at an end.
Gradually the darkness lightened. Unconsciousness was coming to an end.
As my blindness got better, smells and sounds, ever in greater number, were like a welcomed crowd coming towards me.
“Oh, happiness, to remain thus—thus for ever!”
But this inverse death struggle came ever on in spite of me, and life seized me once more.
However, objects, though now distinct, remained shapeless, without perspective, and curiously colored.
My vision embraced a wide space—a field vaster than before. I remembered that the influence of certain anesthetics on the dilatation of the pupil, a phenomenon which no doubt brought on these disturbances of sight.
I noted, however, without very much difficulty, that they had lifted me from the table, and laid me on the ground, on the other side of the room, and in spite of my eye, which functioned like a distorting lens, I succeeded in recognizing the situation.