Maquetas stooped down, felt the road with his numb hands, and began to creep along on all fours, warily, like a fox. He kept edging away from the abyss.
He went forward like this for a long, long time. And he said to himself:
“Ah, that lass deceived me! Why did I heed her?”
The cold became horrible. It penetrated everywhere, like a thousand-edged sword. Maquetas no longer felt the touch of the ground, he no longer felt his own hands; he was benumbed. He stopped still. Or rather he scarcely knew whether he was stopping or crawling.
Maquetas felt himself suspended in the midst of the darkness, black night all around him. He heard nothing but the ceaseless murmur of the waters of the abyss.
“I will call out,” Maquetas said to himself, and he made an effort to shout. But no sound was heard; his voice did not come forth out of his chest. It was as if it were frozen within him.
Then Maquetas thought:
“Can I be dead?”
And as this thought took hold of him, it seemed as if the darkness and the cold fused together and eternalized themselves round about him.
“Can this be death?” Maquetas went on thinking. “Shall I have to live henceforward like this, in pure thought, in memory? And the castle? And the abyss? What do the waters say? What a dream, what an appalling dream! And not to be able to sleep!... To die like this, dreaming, dying little by little, and not to be able to sleep!... And now what am I going to do? What shall I do to-morrow?